Frostfire Legacy

Aster opened his eyes, but to his surprise, only darkness welcomed him.

"This place is..." he muttered, looking around in confusion.

The first thing he noticed was that he could see his own body—albeit naked—even though the space seemed to lack light sources. Other than that, there was nothing but darkness spreading in all directions, as if he had been left in the middle of nowhere, with nothing around him.

Curious, Aster began walking onward. Mysteriously, he found that there was ground below his feet. The texture wasn't something he had felt before—neither concrete nor dirt—adding to the mystery of his current situation.

"...?"

As he kept walking forward, he noticed faint sounds reaching his ears. They sounded like low whispers, coming from various sources. What confused him the most, however, was that all the voices sounded feminine.

"This is... rous... Save... now...!"

"... Can't... Rules... remember?"

"But... rate... die!"

"Then... wait... another... proxy."

"In... thousand... years?!"

They sounded like they were in a panic, but Aster wasn't able to fully grasp their topic. Only bits and pieces of their discussion.

What confused him further, however, was that the language they were speaking didn't seem familiar to him. It sounded like a foreign language, but the meaning of the words he intercepted was clear in his mind, as if it were his mother tongue.

"What the hell is going on? Where is this place? And who are those people?" The questions in his head just continued to increase.

"Wait... stop... presence...?"

"This... Oh no!"

"...?"

The next instant, Aster felt gazes on him. It was an inexplicable feeling, as no eyes were staring at him physically. Everything was still dark around him, with not a single soul in sight, making it even more unbelievable.

"... send... back..."

"Too early... meet..."

After listening until this point, an idea entered Aster's mind. "Wait, are these voices perhaps talking about—!"

But the next step he took became his last. The "ground" broke beneath his step, making him "fall" into nothingness. He tried flailing his body, trying to find anything to grab onto while the primal fear of death gripped his heart.

And then...

*THUD!*

"...!"

Aster opened his eyes once more, his breath labored and slightly hindered.

He quickly began looking around, but this time, he was no longer in a dark space. Rather, it was the complete opposite—every corner of the place was filled with white light, making it hard to even open his eyes for long.

When he tried to move, he finally noticed an anomaly. He was tightly bound against what seemed like an operating table. His body was covered in white clothes—rather than a loose laboratory gown, it was closer to a straitjacket. Even his mouth was gagged, making it hard to breathe, much less speak.

His eyes flickered with confusion and worry as his mind tried to piece together how he had arrived there.

'Right, I was...!' He gasped, recalling his last moments before passing out. 'So this place must be...'

Just as he was getting curious about where he was, a bunch of people wearing overalls entered the brightly-lit white room. There were over a dozen of them, pushing a couple of carts along.

Aster stared at them, but the covers of the overalls made it hard to even see their faces. All of them moved with mechanical precision, surrounding Aster as if it wasn't their first time doing this.

"MMMHH!"

Seeing the large needles in their hands, Aster began to flail around in panic. However, the next moment, an invisible force descended upon him, holding him in place. It was as if a gigantic, invisible hand was pressing him flat against the operating table! Experience more tales on My Virtual Library Empire

None of the people in overalls found the situation unusual, and they continued working as if it were routine. They inserted the thick, long needles into Aster's arm, drawing blood that filled the large syringes in their hands.

"...!"

Aster felt pain and helplessness as he watched his blood being drawn haphazardly. His consciousness flickered for a moment, but he bit down on his gag, enduring it.

However, that was just the beginning—he hadn't even knocked on hell's door yet.

"GGGGGHHHH!!!"

A sharp pain surged through his senses, making his brain flare up. A scalpel was used to open his arm—without any anesthesia—before they began collecting samples from his body: skin, muscles, bone marrow, nerves, everything.

After collecting about 10 syringes' worth of blood samples—roughly 1.5 liters—and adding the blood that dripped from the open wound, which wasn't wasted either and was caught in a sterilized bowl for whatever purpose, Aster's consciousness began to fade, and his vision was nearly blacking out.

He had lost nearly 2 liters of blood in just moments, a fatal amount under normal circumstances. It was a miracle he was still conscious, let alone alive. His breathing was shallow, his head covered in large beads of cold sweat, and his vision blurred, unsure of what he was looking at anymore.

Once the collection was over, the people wearing overalls began to disperse. As they did, the mysterious force holding Aster down disappeared too—followed by a wave of healing that miraculously closed his wounds in moments, though not perfectly.

For one, his blood hadn't been fully restored, leaving him still feeling faint. Yet, the release from the torturous pain was something he welcomed wholeheartedly.

'What is happening to me...' Aster mused, his eyes still blurry from lack of blood. 'I don't know who's behind this, but I need to get out of here.' He decided the next moment.

He instinctively felt that the longer he stayed here, the closer he would come to losing his life.

*CLACK!*

"...!"

But not even an hour later, another batch of men in overalls entered. This time, they weren't carrying syringes—rather, they carried something else that made Aster grimace.

With a wave of a hand, the operating table he was on began to rotate, making Aster hang beneath it, facing the white floor and his own shadows. He couldn't see anything besides the trolley's wheels, the boots of the men around him, and their menacing shadows.

Then, a moment later, a cold object began to enter his back, swiping downward for a bit. It was followed by searing heat before turning into full-blown, excruciating pain.

He wanted to flail, but the effect of his blood loss was still present, making it impossible to even wriggle free. The pain was unbearable, especially when they started sawing his spine and collecting bone marrow samples—in search of neural stem cells.

Aster wasn't allowed to close his eyes. The entire time, he remained awake, feeling the pain of torture in its full force. The operation, which lasted a few minutes, felt like centuries to his senses!

Once the second batch of collection was over, his "bed" was flipped back to its usual position, and another healing wave covered him, closing his wounds and preventing him from dying by mistake.

"..."

Aster's mind was in shambles. He couldn't believe someone would make him suffer through such merciless torture... But his nightmare had just begun.

Collection wasn't just done twice, but at least a dozen times a day. He couldn't even find solace in his sleep, as the pain would wake him up without exception.

Even his desire to escape faded soon after, replaced by a single wish.

'Please... end this suffering.'

He wholeheartedly prayed.