By The Blood

Karl remained in solitary confinement, listening to the ominous throb of the darkness around him. At times, he distracted himself by straining to catch the faint breath of the boy or diving deep into his mind to plan his next moves—what to attempt or avoid. One resolve stood out: limit his questions, for each one drained a significant amount of energy. Only essential questions would be asked, ones that might reveal something about the master of the castle or offer a hint toward escape.

Time trickled by in silence until, once again, the light brightened, accompanied by approaching footsteps. The figure who entered was the injured sanguine, his once-fresh blood now dried and crusted. Karl noted the dazed look in his eyes, stifling a sigh.

Even this one had become nothing more than a puppet.

The puppet entered, carrying a tray of food—or something resembling it. On the tray was a large bowl filled with murky, oddly-colored liquid, with bones poking through. A sense of familiarity washed over Karl, a feeling he had hoped to never revisit. The food was bone soup, the same meal he had been fed daily at the flesh farms.

It’s as if I’m reverting to a slave, Karl thought, struggling to suppress the anger that would only sap more of his energy if indulged.

The puppet withdrew a complex key, inserted it into the iron bars, and, with a metallic creak, opened the door and walked in, tray in hand. It approached Karl, holding the bowl close to his face.

Is he planning to feed me?

Just as the thought crossed his mind, the puppet clenched something in his right hand and threw a punch toward Karl’s face. Weakened as he was, Karl couldn’t react or block the attack, and it struck him—not directly in the face, but more like a forced entry into his mouth.

The puppet’s hand was practically inside his mouth.

What the hell?

A surge of panic spiked through Karl’s mind, racing with possibilities. Was this how puppets were made? Was this his end? A flood of "what-ifs" clouded his thoughts.

Realizing he was powerless, Karl suppressed his rage as his jaw and tongue ached under the puppet’s grip. Then, he felt something else—a foreign object lodged in his throat. The puppet withdrew his hand, leaving Karl coughing up saliva and blood. Whatever was clenched in the puppet’s fist had now lodged itself within Karl.

No! He couldn’t let it remain inside him.

Karl began to cough violently, shaking his head in a desperate attempt to induce nausea and vomit whatever was trapped in his throat. The fear of losing control of his own body urged him to keep trying. Yet as he struggled, the puppet remained unnervingly calm—until, suddenly, it wasn’t. In the next moment, it tossed a strange shard into the bowl, a shard reflecting light like the smooth surface of a mirror. Karl, too focused on purging, failed to notice.

Then he felt it—a strange sensation in his throat as though a valve had opened, sending liquid down with a bony aftertaste. It wasn’t coming up; it was being forced down.

His eyes widened in horror. He understood now. The puppet had made him swallow a mirror shard, directly teleporting the soup into his body. He was being forcibly fed.

Forcibly. That was the only word that resonated in his mind.

A seething rage boiled within him, one he struggled to quell. Rage would only drain him further now; calmness was his only option if he wanted to conserve his energy.

So, they feed us to keep us alive—sustaining us to harvest energy for the castle. Karl used the thought to distract himself, but it was getting harder. The anger teetered dangerously close to eruption. Every time he tried to suppress it, the memory of being so utterly powerless crept back, replaying the moment he was manhandled by a puppet.

A mere puppet.

The puppet turned to the boy beside Karl. Like before, it produced a shard of glass from its garments, clenched it, and plunged a fist into the boy’s mouth.

A frenzy of gagging sounds erupted as the boy, who had been asleep, jolted awake.

I called you earlier, and you didn’t wake. If I’d known a fist to the mouth would do it, I might have considered that. Karl thought sarcastically, hoping humor might purge him of the assault’s lingering memory. But the joke offered no solace. The anger still simmered beneath the surface.

Hold it in. Control yourself. He repeated the words like a mantra.

The boy’s frantic, gagging sounds continued until the puppet withdrew its fist. The boy spat out blood, hacking violently. Perhaps the puppet’s hand was too large for his throat, leaving him injured.

Karl’s gaze shifted as he noticed a shard slip from the boy’s bloodied lips.

Bad luck. He already sensed what would happen next.

The puppet stared at the shard that had fallen—or had it risen? And why wasn’t the blood floating upward like the chains? Was there a different distortion affecting the chains versus everything else?

He abandoned the thought as the puppet picked up the shard from the blood. It clenched its fist and forced it again into the boy’s mouth, causing another fit of gagging. The boy’s separated legs shook and seized.

Bad luck.

This cycle continued for several minutes, convincing Karl that the puppet intended to force as much of its hand into the boy’s throat as possible, since right now, the entirety of the fist was lunged deep into the boy. The boy’s movements slowed, his eyes rolling back. If the puppet didn’t stop soon, the boy would die. And Karl needed the boy alive, if not for anything, at least to provide information about this place, if nothing else.

According to Frederick, Anette was searching for a particularly unique person, not the ones that was stolen or kidnapped, but one likely more special, seeing that Anette was given a special task to find him. If that were true, then this special person might be within the castle walls. And if he was as valuable as they claimed, perhaps he could be a ticket out... though not before Karl made sure to kill the shaman; Olmer.

Deep within, the rage simmered—boiling, nearly spilling over. Only Olmer’s blood could quench it, streaming down his blade or whatever weapon he’d plunge into the man’s heart. So for now, the thought of that future was what barely kept him steady.

Finally, the torture ceased, and the puppet withdrew its hand from the boy’s mouth. And from what Karl could see, blood coated the puppet’s arm all the way up to the wrist.

Please, let the boy still be able to talk. He observed the boy, whose eyes were still glazed, blood streaking down his lips, tears from his eyes, and snot from his nose.

The puppet then tossed a shard into the bowl, and in an instant, the previously collapsed boy jolted back to life, coughing violently. Bits of strange soup spewed from his mouth and nose.

He probably feels like he’s drowning or something, Karl thought, recalling the similar sensation he’d felt when the soup was forced down his throat.

Soon after, Karl endured another wave of soup being poured down his throat. This continued until the bowl was completely empty. Did they not even get to chew the bones?

With that, the puppet exited the cage, taking the now-empty bowl and the torch but not before securely locking the door.

Now shrouded in darkness, Karl waited a few moments, mostly to allow the boy to catch his breath. Then after a short while, he cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, attempting a concerned tone.

Silence. Not even the sound of breathing. Did he die? Or...could he also be a puppet, unable to respond?

If the latter was true, then speaking to the boy could be dangerous, as it might reveal something he preferred to keep hidden from Olmer. Karl had long suspected that Olmer might be able to see and hear through his puppets, thus he needed to be extra cautious.

“Come on, say something. Silence can drive anyone mad, and I don’t want to go insane here,” Karl continued with a light-hearted tone, hoping to prompt a response.

Still, nothing but silence, which only frustrated Karl further. He couldn’t tell if the boy was truly a puppet or simply unconscious. However, since no puppet had come to retrieve a body, chances were the boy had only passed out.

As he pondered these things, he suddenly heard a faint whisper.

“Hm?” Karl muttered, hoping to encourage the boy to speak louder. If only he still had his enhanced senses.

The boy whispered again, louder this time, though still too quiet for Karl to understand.

Karl urged him again, saying, “Huh? and adding more with an "I can’t hear you.”

Perhaps that did the trick, as the boy, with a pained, hoarse voice, managed to speak a bit louder.

“Why?” he rasped, his voice strained. It made sense, considering he’d just had a man’s hand shoved down his throat. But why is he asking that?

“Why what?” Karl asked.

The boy didn’t answer at first, but then he continued, “Why wouldn’t you want to go mad?”

What? Karl was taken aback. Has he lost his mind already? It wasn’t a joke; it was a crucial thought, one that might help him survive if madness was something that occurred as an effect of the castle.

“Why should I want madness?” Karl asked in return.

“Because at least with madness, you can trick yourself into feeling safe. You could pretend that one day, you’ll escape this place—that one day, you’ll see the sun again.”

Karl frowned. The boy’s words sounded far too mature for his age, as if he were an adult. Isn’t he supposed to be eleven or twelve? Why is he speaking like this? Is it something about this castle?

“Why do you think there’s no chance of rescue? The Invigilators exist, the guardsmen are out there—surely, they’d come for us,” Karl argued.

“How long have you been here?” the boy asked.

“I just got here,” Karl admitted.

“That’s why you still talk that way,” the boy replied. “Time moves differently in the Infinite Castle—or at least, that’s the only explanation I’ve come up with. I’m certain I’ve been here 3 years, and still, no guardsmen or Invigilators have come to save me.”

Time works differently here? Because it’s connected to the Astra? “There’s still hope. You must be incredibly strong to have survived that long,” Karl praised him, but also felt odd about the time dilation. If the boy was three years older, then why did his body not show the signs? Was the distortion here even more serious than he originally imagined?

Regardless, one thing was clear, Olmer was almost certainly at the special class.

“Yeah, I survived on the rats and filth of this place. But everything changed when some outsiders entered the castle. One of them got caught, which made the master actively search for those he hadn’t yet controlled. That’s how he found me.”

So it’s basically my fault. Karl did not particularly feel pity or regret about that. How could he? When he was grossly mal-informed about the threat this posed.

Olmer was not in the advanced class or anything of that level. He was surely in the special class, if not above that. This conclusion came as a result of the very nature of the castle; it was way too meticulous and intricate, with layers upon layers of uses, that far outweighed anything someone of the advanced class could be capable of doing. Even if the astra was used for it, one still required tremendous amounts of souls to pull it off.

Of course, the conclusion could be that he was using them to power the castle, but Karl felt that for him to even build it in the first place, he had to have something else.

For one, he was hiding from the ministry in their own city, kidnapping and doing something extremely heretical here. For a normal person, the level of risk would be too much to bear, but olmer was still going on. Either that whatever he was doing was too important, thus outside the advanced class, or he, himself was the danger that transcended the special class.

Would still kill him though. Karl thought with a grin rasing on his face.