Implementing the Promised Revenge
Kim Jae-hyun’s vow to his subordinates before descending into the Intermediate World had been clear.
And to the traitors who had betrayed him, he would force them to watch as their most precious people were torn alive from limb to limb, devoured raw before their eyes, and made to scream in agony.
That promise had yet to be fulfilled.
Ferdinand and Griffith were still receiving only the most basic of punishments, while the Holy Maiden Lucrezia had no one precious to her at all.
Especially not the Holy Maiden Lucrezia.
Her most precious person had been Kim Jae-hyun himself.
She had betrayed and tried to kill him, driven by the thought that since she could not possess him, she would destroy him instead.
Yet ten years later, even now, even after enduring every form of torment imaginable, that love had not cooled in the slightest.
In a certain sense, she was truly a monstrous woman.
“William,” Jae-hyun said in a voice so calm it was almost soothing, “I am not going to kill you. I will make you suffer every single day for the rest of your life. To do that, I will destroy everything you hold dearest.”
The sight of him, this exquisite, handsome young man, uttering such words with perfect serenity was terrifying beyond words.
“Gurgh! Please forgive me! N-no, I beg you to spare me!”
William had already switched to honorific speech when pleading with Jae-hyun.
Yet no matter how the beautiful Holy Maiden Lucrezia begged, or how even this towering 191-centimeter man did the same, it was useless.
“Jae-hyun oppa.”
At that moment, Irene, who had been standing back and watching, stepped forward beside Jae-hyun and spoke.
William felt a sudden surge of hope.
He knew Jae-hyun had become a demon and that his personality had changed completely.
He did not know that Irene herself had become a Great Archdemon.
Of course, from earlier words he had assumed Irene too had gone mad.
Still, he clung to the belief that human nature could not be utterly lost.
Especially the way Irene addressed Jae-hyun had not changed in the least.
She still obeyed his commands flawlessly, and her lively personality remained the same.
She still clung to him with familiar affection.
And the sight of her smiling bashfully while pressed against Jae-hyun’s body was unbearably endearing.
She waited, lips parted, for him to say the words that would save him.
She did not expect forgiveness or a plea for her life.
She only wished for a clean death.
Death would be merciful compared to eternal torment.
William desperately wished for his own death right then.
Currently Irene wore a pink top and red hanbok.
Her exquisite, voluptuous curves were not fully displayed, but the abundant, pure, and elegant simplicity of the hanbok only enhanced her beauty, lending her an aura of refined nobility.
The outfit suited her perfectly.
If she were any other woman, it would be impossible.
But for Jae-hyun’s strong, powerful existence, it was possible.
Thus Irene had hoped he would be saved.
Smiling sweetly at William, who stared at her with desperate longing, she turned to Jae-hyun and laughed brightly.
“Jae-hyun oppa, William is so noisy and talkative. How about we pull out every single one of his teeth?”
Those beautiful lips had spoken of completely extracting William’s fangs.
“What?! What did you just—?!”
William was so stunned he could barely form words.
He remembered Irene as someone who always laughed cheerfully yet was secretly weak to affection.
She had also been kind, always smiling gently when feeding starving children and helping those in need.
Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined she would say something like that.
Even if her hatred was immense, she had not been the one who killed his father or sullied her.
He had assumed she would be killed in the end.
When the torture began to issue from her mouth, his composure shattered.
“Well then… let’s begin with a demonstration.
Pick one.”
“Yes!”
Irene answered Jae-hyun’s permission with vigor and opened her spatial storage to retrieve a pair of pliers.
It seemed she had prepared in advance, planning to extract all of William’s teeth from the very beginning.
The moment Jae-hyun took the pliers from her hand, William screamed.
“Guaaaaaah! Just kill me! No! Please, kill me!”
“Cluck cluck, William. You fought so fiercely on the battlefield… and now all this fuss over a single tooth?”
Jae-hyun mocked him, but William could not speak it aloud.
He screamed inwardly.
*He said he’d extract only one… but he’s going to pull them all out!*
If asked to choose between having a tooth pulled or being stabbed with a blade, William would have chosen the blade without hesitation.
Extraction torture had been popular among the demons.
The victims of the torture the Dark Army inflicted during the war still suffered nightmares whenever they remembered that time.
Especially among the nobility.
Even after magic potions had successfully regrown their lost teeth, they still woke up screaming from the memory.
William himself had asked the nobility of the Gallia Kingdom who had endured it.
Some had been hit by arrows and stabbed in battle, pierced by guided magic missiles.
They had said the pain of having their teeth ripped out raw was far worse.
To William, that pain was a trauma he could never forget.
“It is the duty of warriors and mages to conquer the unknown.
So you must also strive to explore the unknown.”
*No need to conquer that unknown!*
William screamed inside.
But he could not speak it.
Jae-hyun forced William’s jaw open and clamped the pliers onto one of his teeth.
“Relax.
After I pull them all out, I’ll let them regrow.
The new ones will be stronger than before.
Who knows? Maybe I can even frost an Aura Blade onto your teeth.
Then the sword with the Aura Blade embedded inside could cut anything to pieces.
Hehe.”
While taunting William, Jae-hyun made it clear he intended to extract every single tooth.
“Still, I will pull them out gently, one by one, and let them grow back.
If I had not done that, I would have left you toothless for the rest of your life.”
William understood that protesting would only bring greater revenge.
He quickly clamped his mouth shut.
But he should have asked himself why Jae-hyun was letting his teeth regrow at all.
“First one.”
Jae-hyun spoke and yanked the first tooth out with the pliers.
Blood gushed from William’s mouth as he screamed in agony.
“Guaaah—!!”
The pain of having a healthy tooth forcibly ripped from his jaw sent tears of agony streaming down his face.
“First tooth extracted.
Next.”
Jae-hyun deliberately spoke so William would hear as he cruelly pulled out the second tooth.
William screamed again, the pain unbearable.
It was far better to be stabbed with a blade.
Having one’s teeth ripped out raw was torture beyond measure.
Pulling a tooth from the gum with no anesthesia, forcing it from a jaw that had been properly gripping it, was unimaginable pain.
The anesthesia process itself caused pain, but enduring it was at least bearable.
“Nooooooo!”
William wailed as Jae-hyun reached for the next tooth.
“Jae-hyun oppa.”
At that moment Irene grabbed Jae-hyun’s arm and stopped him.
“What is it?”
“Let’s stop now.”
Irene’s surprising words of protest against Jae-hyun left William moved.
She had gone mad with revenge, yet her original kind nature remained untouched.
Her beautiful form now looked like a noble angel.
“Jae-hyun oppa already pulled one out.
It’s mean to keep going.
Now it’s my turn to pull some out.”
…Correction.
She was just another demon.
Perhaps, in her enjoyment of hope and despair, Irene was perfectly matched with the deceiver who was Jae-hyun.
“Well then… I was too mean, wasn’t I?
Very well.
I yield.”
Jae-hyun apologized for having claimed such a fine revenge on his own.
He handed the pliers to Irene.
She took them with a happy smile and spoke while cradling them in her hands.
“When Jae-hyun oppa stabbed me with his sword in betrayal, I was truly shocked and furious.
I never imagined revenge would be done like this~”
Smiling at William, not with the honorific but casually, Irene looked like a goddess of beauty.
To William, however, it was the beginning of terror.
“Uwaaah! No!”
The moment Irene’s pliers clamped onto his front teeth and yanked with brute force, William could no longer even make a sound.
“Gwaaaah—!!”
He would have preferred to go mad with pain or pass out.
But Jae-hyun had arranged for him to feel neither.
Even if he had been unconscious, the torture of having teeth pulled one by one, stopping right before he was about to faint, was far more excruciating.
Moreover, William’s mental fortitude had always been strong.
Fainting or going mad was not something he could control.
If only his mind had been weak, it would have been easier.
He regretted that now, but he did not realize the pain would have been the same regardless.
Even having built his cultivation to its current height brought regret.
If he escaped this pain, he would willingly accept the extinction of his soul.
But it was already too late.
“Next.”
Jae-hyun took the pliers from Irene and moved forward again.
Five minutes later.
“Gwaaaaaah…”
William, a man of 191 centimeters, had collapsed into a foaming, unconscious heap.
His teeth were all gone, yet new ones had already begun to regrow.
All thanks to Jae-hyun’s magic.
“Now that the teeth are sturdy again, we can begin.”
“Exactly.
With teeth like that, even a bear might be able to tear them apart raw.”
Irene nodded in agreement.
Jae-hyun chuckled and stroked her hips.
She naturally nestled into his arms.
The Demon King and the Great Archdemon, embracing each other, savored the pleasure of revenge before moving on to the next stage of their plan.