Demonic Skeleton God-Chapter 142: Endless Torture

In Flain’s mind, 1,000,000 quadrillion years had passed—yes, you heard that right, 1,000,000 quadrillion. Flain was mentally 1,000,000 quadrillion years old.

Flain had spent those 1,000,000 quadrillion years drowning in thoughts, contemplating essentially everything. Any normal person would have gone insane after just a few years, but that wasn’t the case for Flain.

At first, he cursed everything—Darkness, his own mind, his inability to break free—but gradually, his heart grew completely cold.

Even revenge became secondary to him. What would he do after revenge?

He discovered what truly fills life—it was power, strength, and dominion over others.

Once, he believed that revenge was stylized justice, the only flame that fueled his steps. But the more years he spent alone, the clearer he saw that revenge was nothing more than a reflection of his weakness. And when he shattered those chains, wings sprouted, carrying him high into the heavens.

Originally, Flain only loved the power for helping him get his revenge. Now he loves the power itself.

Flain’s mind flickered to the bandit camp, covered in corpses. His body was hunched over, staring at the ground.

Itai stood beside him, and when he saw that Flain was conscious, he helped him to his feet.

"What happened? You were unconscious for 10 seconds," Itai asked.

"Nothing special," Flain said.

"When I stepped onto the path of power, I stopped fearing even my own breath. If a hundred souls hate me, I will break them all; if a thousand, I will crush them for a thousand years. The world is a battlefield, and I am at its center. Whoever dares to stand in my way will end as ash. There is no greater weakness than crying over defeat; a true victor turns the impossible into certainty. When fate throws me to my knees, I will rise triumphantly in a pit of blood and define my own heaven. For only he who knows no remorse rules over all that stood, all that fell, and all that is yet to come," Flain added with a slight smile.

While Itai was still processing Flain’s words, he walked past him and stood before Steward, who was currently eating a bandit’s arm.

"Report the losses," Flain said.

"We lost sixteen Stage 1 and one Stage 2," Steward replied.

"Good. We stay here until Itaivy’s mana replenishes and he resurrects all the bandits," Flain said.

"Sir, there’s a chance the Chief will come," Steward said.

"There’s a chance for everything. There’s even a chance a portal will open in front of you, a snail will come out, and run you over. I’ve already accounted for your assumption," Flain said.

"Use the waiting time to train the commanders. Deliver my message to Itai—he is to summon all the commanders, and you will train them in strategy. I estimate that resurrecting all the bandits will take him two days; until then, you have time. Also, do not allow anyone to disturb me unless there’s an urgent situation," he added.

Then he approached a tree, leaned against it, and closed his eyes. He opened his stats, clicked on Spell Master, and began leveling it up.

[Spell Master lvl: 4 -> level 5]

[Spell Master lvl: 5 -> level 6]

[Spell Master lvl: 6 -> level 7]

[Spell Master lvl: 7 -> level 8]

[Spell Master lvl: 8 -> level 9]

[Spell Master lvl: 9 -> level 10]

[Your sub-class Spell Master has reached level 10, you have unlocked the creation of Stage 2 Spells.]

Flain closed his eyes, and everything around him darkened. He appeared in the air, and below him lit up an infinity of glowing dots—he was in Dimension X.

Flain assumed that with the current state of his mind, he should be able to create a spell in at most 2 months, with 12 hours of creation per day. When creating spells, three main qualities are crucial: patience, concentration, and intelligence.

Patience, because of the length of the creation process and the slow progress. Concentration, because spell crafting puts immense pressure on the mind, and a moment of distraction can destroy the spell or damage the mind. And intelligence, because of the complexity—connecting thousands of dots where each does something different, and a single mistake can cause the entire collapse of the spell, is not easy.

Flain had survived 1,000,000 trillion years in darkness where he could literally do nothing, and he did not go insane. For years, he pondered a single thing—why him? Yes, he had killed many humans and beings, but their suffering combined didn’t even reach the tip of what Flain endured. He constantly invented different strategies, solved mathematical problems, and created countless situations in his mind to resolve. He explored the absolute limits of self-knowledge.

His patience, concentration, and intelligence increased at a rocket-like pace.

-----

In the meantime, Itai summoned skeletons and called for the zombie commanders. All five stood before Steward.

Steward had spent 70 years in the army, primarily as a soldier, and later as a commander because he was quite skilled in strategy. However, he had never led large armies because he was Stage 2 and never managed to advance further.

In the end, at the age of 85, he became a steward, because Stage 2 people usually die around 100 years old—but it depends on how much of their magic energy comes from the body and how much from the brain. Due to his merits, it was decided that he could peacefully live out his days as the steward of a village in a safe area. No one expected that Flain and Itai would appear, massacre the entire village, and turn it into an undeath army.

"Today I will teach you the basics of strategy and army command," Steward said.

Steward settled on a raised mound in the middle of the camp. In front of him stood the five commanders—Zheren, Harur, two zombies named Brakus and Meldor, and the skeleton Alnor. The evening light refracted in their empty eye sockets, casting thorn-like shadows over the scarred earthworks.

Itai had named all the other commanders as well, since he wanted everyone of significance to have a name.

"I will show you what separates a mindless mass from a true army," Steward began quietly, his voice sharply contrasting with the clatter of zombies devouring the bandits.

The strategy lesson could begin...