When the world breaks (5)

The gorilla's world shifted the moment Alypos activated his Hell Viewing.

One moment, it was locked in battle, its mind focused entirely on defeating this strange, small opponent who had been evading its every move. The next moment, it found itself falling into darkness, the ground beneath its massive feet disappearing. The gorilla's heart hammered in its chest, panic rising as it lost all sense of direction. Its Earth Sense failed—everything, even the primal instincts it had honed for years, disappeared into the void.

It was trapped.

It could no longer feel its surroundings, nor could it sense Alypos's movements. Instead, the gorilla found itself trapped inside Alypos's body—the oppressive weight of the boy's thoughts and emotions pressing in from every side. It was as if it had become one with him, bound to experience his pain, his suffering, his memories. Hell Viewing wasn't just a skill. It was a portal to torment, to reliving agony, to sharing suffering.

A wave of heat flooded the gorilla's mind, burning it from the inside. Alypos's torment.

The first pain hit like a sudden jolt, ripping through the gorilla's senses. It wasn't the body it knew—the large, powerful form that was capable of inflicting its own kind of destruction. No. This body, Alypos's, was fragile, vulnerable. This body had been broken.

The gorilla screamed as it felt the first torture.

The nails. They were torn from the soft human fingers, one by one, in agonizing detail. It wasn't a simple severing. It was a slow, agonizing process, each nail coming free with a horrific, drawn-out screech, the sound reverberating in the gorilla's skull. The sense of violence was intense, and it felt as if it had been brought into the very center of this pain.

The pain was not just in the nails themselves, but the agony in Alypos's mind, too. The moment the nails came out, Alypos had been reduced to tears. Hot, bitter tears streamed down his face, each drop a reflection of the brutal assault. But the gorilla wasn't just feeling the nails tearing away—it felt the mental strain of what had happened. The sense of helplessness.

The gorilla could hear the voices—cold, clinical voices—surrounding the human boy. He wasn't alone. People in white coats, standing over him, measuring his suffering as though it were some experiment. The scientists moved around him, watching intently as the nails were removed, taking note of each tear, of every second of the boy's suffering.

The gorilla felt this terror as if it was its own. It felt Alypos's heart, beating faster, more erratically, as the boy struggled to breathe through the pain. The heat of the room filled the gorilla's chest, suffocating it. It felt Alypos's desperation, a desperate plea for it all to stop. It felt his emotions—the deep, gnawing, empty hopelessness.

Tears.

Tears collected in vials.

This horrific cycle repeated for days. The gorilla's mind spun wildly as it was subjected to the same tortures over and over again. The tender fingers of Alypos would grow new nails, only to have them ripped out again. The cycle of regeneration, only to be destroyed.

The gorilla's own body began to burn in response to the torture it witnessed. As the boy's nails grew back, each time they were torn, they broke with a resounding crack. Each cycle felt like an eternity, a blur of pain, where it seemed as if the entire world was consumed by the endless pull of suffering.

Then came the second torture.

The heat surged again, this time even more unbearable. The boiling sensation in Alypos's body was akin to being trapped in an oven, suffocating and alive with a cruel, relentless warmth. The gorilla could feel its own body boiling alive, a steady, searing burn that built up in waves. It wasn't just the physical pain that tortured the gorilla—it was the unbearable emotion attached to it. The emotional exhaustion of experiencing this heat, of feeling like every inch of skin was burning, made the gorilla doubt its sanity.

The gorilla could feel Alypos's thoughts spiraling—the overwhelming sense of desperation that coursed through him. The boy was forced to endure the slow boiling of his own flesh, his body not dead, not healed, but eternally damaged, as his skin bubbled and tore, only to heal and begin the process again.

Ling Chi, the third torture.

The gorilla felt the slow, deliberate cutting of Alypos's body, each cut deeper than the last. The gorilla could feel the blade, sharp and unforgiving, tearing through Alypos's skin. With each slash, the boy's body regenerated, only to be sliced open again. For three days, it happened. The boy's flesh was cut, torn, and healed again and again. Each cycle of regeneration was a brutal reminder of the never-ending pain, a never-ending cycle of destruction and rebirth.

Alypos's emotions bled through the gorilla's mind, as it felt everything.

The emotions, the pain, the numbness.

The helplessness, the exhaustion, the absolute weariness of the ordeal.

But there was something that terrified the gorilla more than anything.

As the days stretched on, it began to feel something shift within Alypos's mind.

The boy's numbness.

Where once there was fury, there was now a chilling calm. Where once there had been desperate tears, there was now only an eerie silence. Alypos had stopped feeling.

His cries, his tears—he had no more.

It was then that the gorilla realized—Alypos had adapted to the pain. The boy had learned to endure it, or did he shed so many tears that he could not feel them?

And the gorilla could feel it all.

It had been subjected to its own primal fear, now understanding why Alypos had sought to survive. The boy's body and mind had been broken, but not crushed. He had been made numb to the pain—and this numbness terrified the gorilla.

Suddenly, the gorilla was expelled from Alypos's body, gasping for air as it returned to the battlefield.

It blinked, disoriented, feeling the overwhelming loss of control that came with experiencing another's suffering. The earth rumbled beneath it as the fight resumed, but the gorilla was no longer the same. It had witnessed a glimpse into the true darkness within Alypos—the torment that had forged him.

Alypos stood before it, his body covered in bruises, blood staining his skin. His eyes were distant, hollow. The terror, the fear, the pain—it was all gone. The gorilla realized then that the boy had become something else. He had become a menace, that needed to be uprooted. It saw him concentrating, with eyes closed. 

But it wasn't over yet.

The gorilla roared, summoning all its strength, slamming its fists into the ground once more. The earth trembled, and Alypos barely managed to stay on his feet.

***

Nibbles.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the squirrel perched on a nearby branch. It was watching, waiting, its tiny body trembling with energy. In that instant, I understood what had to be done.

Solar Flare.

Nibbles jumped into the air, its tiny paws glowing with brilliant light. A burst of energy—pure light—exploded from it in a flash, a blinding wave that surged toward the gorilla. The flare struck the beast directly in the eyes, and the gorilla stumbled back, howling in pain, blinded by the sheer brilliance of the attack.

It was my opening.

Nibbles, small and fast, leaped onto Alypos's shoulder, its tiny paws glowing with light.

With a sudden, decisive motion, Alypos raised his hand. The water gathered, swirling around him as he summoned his ultimate attack, Glacier rain

Seventy-eight water spears—each one crackling with power—emerged from the ground, shuddering with raw energy.

The spears slammed into it with devastating force, shattering its armor and tearing through its body. The explosion from the impact was cataclysmic, a blast that reverberated through the land. The air seemed to bend and twist as a massive mushroom cloud of dust and debris exploded outward, engulfing everything in its path.

Alypos didn't wait for the dust to settle. He froze the air around him, his body encased in a protective shell of ice, the shockwaves blasted him hundred of meters back into a chasam below the ground. his body battered but alive, his mind numb to the pain. The battle was over—but the war for survival had only just begun.