Chapter 186: I Want to Conquer You, Senior Sister, You Proud Eagle (5k2)
A hundred meters deep in the sea, not even sunlight can penetrate, leaving only a pure pitch black.
And that iron coffin, crafted from steel and mithril, like a cage, sank into the deep sea.
Cold seawater rushed into the iron coffin, bringing a salty sensation.
The oxygen left inside the iron coffin was consumed in an extremely short time, followed closely by an endless sense of suffocation caused by lack of oxygen, leaving Ingrid in great pain inside the coffin.
Along with her descent came the high-pressure environment brought about by over a hundred meters of seawater, enough to make an ordinary person’s eardrums burst and organs be damaged, as well as nitrogen narcosis produced by the high-pressure environment.
If an ordinary person were in such an environment, it would only take a few seconds to d*e from their organs bursting.
And even Ingrid, under such conditions, would absolutely be unable to maintain her state for long… She wanted to struggle for self-rescue, but the mithril shackles penetrated every joint in her skeleton, completely sealing off all of Ingrid’s extraordinary abilities, preventing her from being able to exert them.
After struggling in the pain of suffocation and high pressure for over ten minutes, Ingrid’s heart slowly stopped beating due to lack of oxygen.
Though the body of an extraordinary being was indeed different from that of ordinary people, she had yet to break through to the legendary realm, had not completed the leap in the essence of life, and was still within the “human sphere”—her body still followed the basic rules of human flesh and would suffocate and d*e when oxygen was completely cut off.
However—
At the very moment Ingrid’s heart stopped and she lost consciousness.
Her body trembled as if electrified, and that lifeless heart began to beat again.
Ingrid’s bodily state was reset to just before drowning, and what followed was the dark depths of the sea, the pressure, and the suffocating pain.
…
Even among numerous execution methods, water torture, which involves covering a prisoner’s mouth and nose with a towel and drowning them due to suffocation, is one of the most notorious tortures.
However, so-called water torture is merely one that requires undergoing the pain once.
But for Ingrid at this moment, d*ath was not a release.
Once drowned, she would be reset to a time node before d*ath, then experience suffocation and high pressure in the deep sea again, d*e again, and be revived… an infinite loop.
She wanted to struggle yet could not escape, and to simply d*e was a pure wish.
What was left was only the repeated near-d*ath experiences, forming a vortex of despair.
…
Time passed as she didn’t know how long.
Until at a certain moment, the metal chains scattered around the iron coffin suddenly tightened again.
Driven by gears and mechanisms, the heavy chains pulled the iron coffin slowly from the seabed back to the shore.
“Senior Sister, seeking life in the deep sea is impossible, and seeking d*ath is not an option…”
“Repeatedly experiencing the painful experience of suffocating to d*ath, hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of times… such experiences must be quite unbearable.”
The sunlight that did not exist in the dark deep sea shone through the gaps in the iron coffin, illuminating Ingrid’s eyes once again.
Soon after, she heard the familiar voice of the boy.
Only that clear voice, which ordinarily sounded gentle and refreshing, made Ingrid feel unfamiliar and cruel at this moment, as if plunged into an icy cave.
This boy named Rast was like a mechanical being cloaked in human skin…
Because that fabricated human exterior was too exquisitely lifelike, no one truly knew what kind of void and numbness was concealed within that shell.
It was a darkness deeper than night, as if devouring everything, even light could not escape.
“So, how did you consider my previous suggestion, Senior Sister?”
Listening to Rast’s question, Ingrid only hoarsely spoke.
“How long have I been in the sea…?”
“I knew you would ask that question.” Rast smiled as he raised his wrist, glancing at the mechanical pocket watch on his wrist, then showed the dial to Ingrid: “It has been exactly a full day, twenty-four hours.”
“However.”
He paused slightly.
Rast’s gaze lingered through the gaps of the iron coffin on Ingrid’s face, which looked exceptionally pale, somewhat tired, and haggard due to being soaked in seawater: “I think in your subjective experience, it must be far more than just twenty-four hours.”
Ingrid fell silent.
She had already guessed this.
In an interrogation room without windows, not seeing sunlight, prolonged and high-frequency torture and questioning… could easily distort a prisoner’s sense of time, making it hard to distinguish days and the passage of time.
Perhaps in the subjective experience of the prisoner, a whole day had passed, but in reality only two or three hours had gone by, or it could even be completely reversed.
In the military’s torture and interrogation manuals, many methods were developed based on prisoners’ distorted sense of time, and as a former Director of the Supervisory Bureau, Ingrid was nothing if not familiar with this.
But even so—
When Ingrid clearly felt that she had endured several weeks or even months of torment in the deep sea…
At this moment, when Rast informed her that only a full day had actually passed, the enormous disparity still made Ingrid momentarily unable to accept it, shaking her mentally.
But after a long silence, she simply closed her eyes again.
“I know what you plan to do next…”
Ingrid said softly: “If you don’t make me completely submit and become a weapon loyal only to you, to achieve your goals, you certainly won’t give up, right?”
Clearly, she was the most excellent interrogator in the military and had received the most rigorous anti-interrogation training, but now, facing Rast in person, Ingrid still felt an indescribable sense of powerlessness.
This boy named Rast was fundamentally different from any opponent she had faced in her past in the military interrogation bureau—
Fanatical cult believers, seasoned elite soldiers, assassins fostered by foreign royal families… these are all incredibly tough and merciless, but they all differ fundamentally from Rast.
It’s hard to imagine what past Rast has experienced to forge such a monster that is unlike any human.
But Ingrid still shook her head towards Rast.
Her answer remained a refusal.
She was unwilling to return to the dark shadow of the past, living as a weapon of slaughter, as a despised black glove.
Ingrid deeply detested her past self, the one who had become bloody in revenge for her mother by any means necessary.
She would not regret what she had done in the past, as the Ingrid of that time had no choice, but correspondingly—
After avenging her mother, there was nothing in this world that could bind her, not even Ingrid’s own life.
“Alas, Senior Sister, you are truly stubborn.”
“Should I say it’s not surprising that you are the most elite soldier in the military… if it were someone with weaker willpower, they would probably crumble mentally after just one or two times, kneeling on the ground crying to me to let them go.”
Rast sighed: “But from the very beginning, I was prepared for a long-term battle.”
He snapped his fingers again: “Excuse me, Senior Sister.”
“If you change your mind, you only need to knock three times on the front of the iron coffin, and I will pull you and the iron coffin up together, saving you from the sea of suffering.”
The sound of chains being dragged over the rocky shore rang out again.
Before Ingrid could catch her breath, she was once again pulled by those steel chains.
With the heavy iron coffin, she sank into the deep sea once more.
…
Splash—
Splash—
After a long time of chaos, pain from drowning, and struggle.
Ingrid was pulled out of the vortex of near-d*ath and despair once more, through the iron coffin, she saw a ray of bright sunshine.
“Thirteen days, or to be more precise—three hundred and fifteen hours.”
This time, before Rast could speak, Ingrid initiated with her hoarse voice.
Her face was extremely pale, without a trace of bl**d, her brow was filled with obvious fatigue and weariness, and her originally delicate features now appeared numb and gaunt.
But the light still flickered in Ingrid’s eyes: “I counted by my heartbeat, estimating that my survival cycle every time I suffocated to d*ath was about twenty-five minutes…”
“And I drowned and died from suffocation seven hundred fifty-six times.”
“Thus, I have also estimated the time span of this time submerged in the sea.”
She said softly: “Rast, it seems this time you have lost again.”
To still clearly calculate the duration of the time she endured punishment while experiencing such suffocating and near-d*ath pain and still retain a clear mind…
This naturally indicated that Ingrid had never fully submitted.
“And—”
She paused slightly: “Every time you reset my body from the moment of drowning back to the state before d*ath—”
“This directly involves the ability to reverse time, and when using it, you certainly pay a price, right?”
“Equivalent exchange,” this is the hidden rule in the extraordinary world.
No matter how powerful and strange a special ability involves, it would not be without cost and side effects, able to activate without limits.
Resetting oneself from a near-d*ath state back to normal bodily condition—this is akin to allowing one to not d*e in a certain concept, becoming a true immortal.
And for Rast to use such a nearly unscrupulous super model skill, he would inevitably have to pay a price.
This was a variable that Rast had never actively mentioned but was real, and it was Ingrid’s only chance of winning in this gamble and game—
Such a desperate cycle between drowning and rebirth in the deep sea could not endlessly persist.
While she endured the pain of suffocation and drowning, Rast must also be paying an equivalent price.
And when Rast could no longer pay that price, it would also mean she had won.
Ingrid could face d*ath calmly without bowing to the other’s ambition.
“Should I say Senior Sister is indeed worthy of being a senior? Beneath the legendary realm, you have already established yourself at the pinnacle of the extraordinary world, fully aware of these hidden power rules.”
“Even in such a despairing deep sea and pain, even when encountering such previously unheard-of time-space skills, you can still quickly calm down and guess the approximate clues.”
As if to affirm Ingrid’s inference, Rast’s pleasant voice followed swiftly.
“As you said, my ‘Time Reversal’ does indeed have limitations and is not a skill that can be used indefinitely.”
“The consumption of magical power and mental strength is just a minor part—after all, Senior Sister, you only drowned due to suffocation in seawater; your bodily organs were unharmed, compared to those who were seriously injured or missing limbs, it is undoubtedly much simpler to reverse.”
“What I truly have to pay in price is that each time I use the reversal on you, I must personally experience, feel, and undergo everything you went through during that reversal cycle.”
Rast’s tone was indifferent.
“To compress your suffocation experience and the gradual approach to d*ath within twenty-five minutes—squeezing all that into an extremely short moment, and then for me to relive it once again in the same setting.”
“This is the cost of initiating ‘Time Reversal’ on others.”
To experience all the pains of my near-d*ath in a single instant again?
In response, Ingrid in the iron coffin couldn’t help but freeze slightly.
Even if those painful suffocating experiences, the feelings of near-d*ath were spread out over about half an hour, that was enough to torment a seasoned iron-blooded soldier to the point of begging for mercy while kneeling.
Under that kind of agonizing torture, “d*ath” itself became a form of relief.
Ingrid herself barely held on through the countless times she had used “Shadow Iron” during her near-d*ath experiences in battle, along with the extraordinary character forged from her impoverished background, so she endured and did not submit.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t afraid of pain, but because she had endured more suffering, she could bear torment and pain more effectively.
In this regard, Ingrid considered to herself that even other high-ranking officials in the military could not compare to her.
But—Rast said that every time he reverses, he feels his complete near-d*ath experience in a split second?
Compressing half an hour’s worth of dying experience down to one two-thousandth of a second would mean that the degree of pain is enhanced dozens or even hundreds of times…
How is this possible?
“To be frank, I actually long ago guessed that the task of subjugating you, Senior Sister… would not be so smooth.”
Rast gazed through the gaps of the iron coffin, meeting Ingrid’s eyes within.
The boy’s expression remained calm, his dark eyes clear and bright, looking nothing like someone who had just gone through a similar, yet compressed and intensively amplified drowning pain… making Ingrid doubt whether Rast was deceiving her.
But her instincts told her that Rast was not lying.
“Time Reversal”, such a cunning ability… only this price, as described by Rast, corresponds with such a powerful ability and the gift from fate.
“I know that although you come from a humble background and started from nothing—”
“But Senior Sister, you are like a lonely and proud eagle.”
“Clearly lacking various resources and connections, clearly starting from an unfair point compared to other peers… but you have never resented fate’s injustices.”
“You have also never actively sought out any noble faction or asked those wealthy professors and deans for extra help and support… even though you know many are waiting for you to approach them.”
“Countless big figures have sought the opportunity to invest in you and draw you into their factions.”
“But in your very bones, you are thus a proud eagle, unwilling to bow to anyone—”
“Otherwise, how could you step by step reach the position of Director of the Supervisory Bureau with such a marginal background, relying on no one’s support?”
Rast paused slightly: “You were willing to be the black glove of the Gravekeeper to take vengeance for your mother.”
“But in reality, in your heart, no one in this world is qualified to be your master, and no one has the right to judge you.”
“So you did not leave the empire with the Gravekeeper, nor did you wish to heed Hiltina’s words and go back to accept the empire’s legal judgment.”
“The Gravekeeper is unqualified, the Granwill Empire, Starry University, all unqualified…”
“And I—”
He smiled: “Am equally unqualified.”
“But paradoxically, what I desire is precisely this pride of yours, Senior Sister.”
“Like an eagle that looks down at all living beings from the vast snow-capped mountains.”
Rast’s gaze shifted slightly, looking towards a distant direction: “Senior Sister, do you know?”
“In my homeland, there is a people living between the snowy plains and mountains, surviving by hunting.”
“The hunters in that people train a hunting eagle as their companion for better hunting in the vast snow plains.”
“But the eagle’s nature is fierce and proud—if one wants to tame the eagle’s wildness, to recognize the hunter as its master, one must use a special training method; they call it ‘Eagle Steeping’.”
Rast’s gaze was distant: “The so-called Eagle Steeping gradually wears away the eagle’s proud wildness by not allowing it to sleep, ultimately making it able to follow the master’s commands as if an extension of themselves.”
“This process requires great skill and patience, often lasting a week or even half a month.”
“During this time, both the hunter and the eagle need to be sleepless; it is a contest of wills between man and eagle, without distinction of night or day, until the eagle’s will collapses and it becomes docile, submitting to the hunter… and if the hunter falls asleep before the eagle in the process of ‘Eagle Steeping’, then all previous efforts will come to naught.”
His voice remained calm: “What I want to do is to use the method of ‘Eagle Steeping’…”
“To conquer you, Senior Sister, this proud eagle.”
Rast snapped his fingers again: “Since you have already mastered your method of measuring time, I will no longer hide it.”
“This time…”
He chuckled lightly.
“It is three months.”
The chains rolled, dragging the iron coffin that imprisoned Ingrid once more toward the deep sea.
(End of this chapter)
