Chương 63: Chapter : 63

Ken tilted his head, listening to the weird sound. Internally, his sharp mind immediately recognized the disgusting magical signature attached to the noise, but he kept his face completely blank.

"Does anyone else hear that?" Ken whispered, putting on a highly exaggerated, spooked voice.

"It sounds like a giant drum. Please tell me Vane is just hosting a really bad music concert in here. I do not like creepy noises."

"Stay focused," Sayma whispered back, leading them down the dark hallway.

"The sound is coming from the main lobby. Stay close to the walls and keep your hoods up. We need to see what is happening before we make our move." They crept forward, moving as silently as possible. The dark corridor finally opened up into a wide viewing balcony that overlooked the massive, cavernous ground floor of the Doom Tower. The team crouched down behind a concrete railing and peeked over the edge. What they saw in the lobby below completely froze the blood in their veins. The jokes stopped immediately.

Even Ken dropped his goofy smile, pretending to be absolutely horrified by the sight. The real horror of the Curse Organization was finally right in front of them.

The ground floor lobby of the abandoned skyscraper was absolutely massive, but it was not empty. It was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with more than a hundred people. They were desperate commoners, homeless beggars, and sick addicts from the deepest parts of the city slums. They were all wearing dirty, torn clothes. But the most terrifying part was the absolute silence. Over a hundred people were standing in the room, but nobody was talking. Nobody was shouting.

They were standing in long, slow-moving lines, staring straight ahead with blank, empty, hollow eyes. It looked exactly like a scene from a terrifying zombie movie.

"What is wrong with them?" Naomi whispered, her voice barely louder than a breath. She gripped the edge of the concrete railing tightly.

"Why aren't they moving?"

"Look at the center of the room," Sayma replied, her voice shaking just a tiny bit. The team shifted their gaze to the very middle of the cavernous lobby. Sitting there was the source of the rhythmic thump, thump, thump sound. It was a grotesque, towering magical device. It looked like a terrible mixture of cold, jagged metal machinery and thick, dark, fleshy roots. The core of the machine was a massive, pulsating glass tank that glowed with a sickly, glowing green liquid.

The thick, fleshy roots spread out from the bottom of the machine, crawling across the dirty tile floor like giant, dark snakes.

"Gross," Ken muttered, sticking his tongue out in disgust.

"Who designed that thing? It looks like a giant, rotten turnip mixed with a broken grandfather clock. Somebody needs to call the health inspector immediately." If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Despite Ken's weird joke, the reality of the machine was truly terrifying to watch. The long lines of zombified commoners were slowly stepping up to the machine one by one.

When a person reached the front of the line, they would reach out and place their bare hand against one of the thick, fleshy roots. The root would suddenly sprout a sharp, needle-like thorn that pierced right into the person's palm. The person wouldn't scream. They wouldn't even flinch. They would just stand there for five seconds while a bright flash of energy traveled from their hand, up the root, and directly into the glowing green tank.

Once the energy was taken, a thug wearing Vane's gang colors would toss a tiny, dirty cloth bag into the victim's hands. The victim would clutch the bag—the highly potent magical drug they were desperate for—and stumble mindlessly out of the building. Luna rubbed her sleepy eyes, looking totally wide awake now.

"What are they doing? Are they trading their ambient mana for that drug? That is crazy. Giving up spare mana makes you exhausted for days." Sayma narrowed her eyes. She reached up and tapped the side of her thick glasses.

"Let me take a closer look. Something about this magical array feels completely wrong." Sayma activated a specialized vision spell. Her thick lenses suddenly glowed with a bright, analytical blue light. The spell allowed her to see the invisible flow of magical energy moving through the room, tracking exactly how the machine processed the power it was taking. Sayma stared at the machine for exactly five seconds. Then, she gasped. It was a loud, sharp gasp of pure, unfiltered horror.

Sayma stumbled backward, falling away from the concrete railing. She landed hard on the dusty floor, her hands flying up to cover her mouth. Her face had gone completely pale, turning as white as a sheet of paper. She looked like she had just watched someone get murdered.

"Sayma!" Zinia whispered fiercely, quickly kneeling beside her Vice-Captain.

"What is it? What did you see?!" Princess Iris immediately turned around, her violet eyes full of deep concern.

"Sayma, report. What is that machine doing to them?" Sayma was shaking. For the usually calm, polite, and completely composed genius of the team, this level of panic was incredibly alarming. She swallowed hard, trying to force the terrifying words out of her throat.

"It... it is not taking their ambient mana," Sayma stammered, pointing a trembling finger toward the lobby.

"Ambient mana is just energy. If you drain it, you get tired, but your body naturally regenerates it after a few days of eating and sleeping. It is like sweating. That machine... that machine is not taking sweat." Naomi frowned, her hands dropping to her daggers.

"Then what is it taking?"

"It is a parasitic array," Sayma explained, her voice dropping to a horrified whisper.

"I could see the core of the magic. When those roots prick their hands, it bypasses their mana channels completely. It is violently sucking out their actual, core life force. It is ripping the remaining years of life right out of their souls!" The entire 13th Unit froze. The air in the dark corridor suddenly felt ten times colder. Ken stopped his goofy slouching. He kept his face blank, but he understood perfectly.

"So," Ira said quietly, her calm voice cracking slightly.

"You are saying that every time they touch that machine, they are losing years of their actual life span?"

"Yes," Sayma confirmed, tears of pure horror forming behind her glasses.

"Every drop of that glowing green liquid in the tank is stolen time. It is stolen life. The 'drug' those thugs are handing out in those little bags... it isn't a magical high. It is just a highly potent numbing agent. A powerful painkiller designed to keep the victims docile and quiet while they are literally farmed to death." Laxmi's hands immediately burst into bright orange flames. She didn't even try to hide the light.

"Those sick, twisted monsters," Laxmi hissed, her teeth bared in absolute fury.

"They are murdering these people in slow motion, and the victims don't even realize they are dying!" Princess Iris slowly turned back to the concrete railing. She looked down at the massive lobby again.