Chapter 9: The Black Cage Unleashed

The night was thick and suffocating, the city lights flickering like dying embers. Somewhere deep inside, Aria felt the insatiable hunger clawing at her again—the gnawing demand for pain, a hunger that never rested, never softened.

She stood alone on the rooftop overlooking Tokyo, the sprawling metropolis pulsing beneath her feet. The familiar buzz of life, the distant sirens, the hum of cars—none of it mattered. To her, this world was a canvas of suffering waiting to be painted in fresh agony.

In her hands, mana churned like a storm. The last weeks had been a steady build, the small tortures and inflicted pain collecting like droplets in a vast reservoir. Today, she planned to release it all at once.

"Divide."

The word slipped from her lips, heavy and deliberate.

The air shattered like glass.

Beneath the neon glow of the city, a gaping maw tore open—a rift to the Black Cage. From the streets, the terrified mass was drawn: about one hundred thousand souls, their lives ripped from the surface world without warning. Panic exploded as screams and cries vanished in an instant.

Inside the Black Cage, an endless cavern of shadow and stone, the mass collapsed like a tide of writhing bodies. The walls pulsed crimson veins, throbbing with the raw mana that fed Aria’s curse. Chains clattered from the ceiling, long and heavy, snaking through the air like living serpents.

Aria’s eyes gleamed, sharp and cold.

She did not hesitate.

From her hands, instruments of exquisite torment bloomed—barbs sharper than any blade, hooks that twisted cruelly, whips of serrated light. They descended upon the captive crowd, piercing flesh, rattling nerves, severing hope.

The screams rose—an ocean of unbearable sound, rolling and crashing through the cavernous prison.

Aria moved with unyielding precision, a conductor orchestrating a symphony of pain. Each lash, each prick, each snap was a note in her dark masterpiece. She fed from the agony, the rawness of it surging through her veins like wildfire.

Her skin glowed faintly with mana, the backlash from withholding pain a distant memory. The flood of suffering sufficed—at least for now.

In the shadowed corner, Ren stood silent, a pale witness to the horror.

His eyes flickered with conflicted emotions. Horror. Fascination. A deep, aching empathy. He watched as the once human faces contorted in agony, yet he could not turn away. He was bound to her in ways he barely understood.

“Why?” he wanted to ask, but no words came.

Aria did not answer. She never did.

Outside, Tokyo trembled.

News outlets scrambled to report the unthinkable—tens of thousands missing without a trace. Streets filled with frantic searches, government officials paralyzed by disbelief, the public gripped by fear and rumor. Panic spiraled, infecting the city like a virus.

Terrorists? Mass kidnapping? Some whispered of darker forces, but none dared speak it aloud.

Aria watched the chaos unfold through stolen glimpses on her phone. Detached. Calculating.

Power flowed within her like a tempest, but with it came an unending hunger, a promise of more pain needed to come.

Ren’s gaze lingered on her—on the cold resolve etched into her face.

Inside, his heart twisted.

How could one so young wield such merciless cruelty? How could she carry this endless burden, this curse?

And yet, beneath the hard shell, he glimpsed the flicker of something fragile—a faint pulse of loneliness, a crack in the endless night.

He stepped closer, voice barely above a whisper.

“Aria… is there no end to this?”

She didn’t look at him.

“There can’t be.”

When the last cry faded into stillness, Aria closed her fingers. The Black Cage folded in on itself like crushed paper, collapsing back into the fold of non-existence. One hundred thousand souls, now part of her bloodstream. No mess. No bodies. Just silence in the world they left behind.