Chapter 588: 588. We Don’t Want Telekinesis To Be Some Kind of Torture Thing... Right...?
Rex stepped over the shattered remains of Lyra and Kaelen, his boots crunching on bone fragments. He didn’t even glance down at them; his eyes were on Gale.
"You’re still trying to figure out how I did it, aren’t you?" Rex asked, his voice echoing through the ruined plaza. "You’re thinking about the physics... the torque... and the angular momentum."
Gale snarled, his fear momentarily replaced by a surge of desperate defiance. He swung his arms wide, summoning a massive vortex of air that rushed toward Rex like a wall of concrete.
"I don’t care how you did it, but fuck you!"
"I’m going to carve you apart!" Gale screamed, his voice cracking under the strain.
He launched himself into the air, his wind-type abilities propelling him upward in a spiraling blur of speed.
Rex didn’t move. He didn’t even raise his hands.
As Gale soared above, descending like a hawk with his claws extended, a ripple of distortion shimmered around Rex. The wind type’s attack didn’t just stop; it inverted.
Gale felt an invisible grip seize him mid-flight, a telekinetic vice that clamped onto his torso and neck with the strength of a thousand tons. His momentum was instantly halted, and he hung in the air, kicking and thrashing, his legs searching for ground that was no longer there.
"You have a certain... tenacity," Rex said, his voice drifting up to Gale’s ears, despite the distance. "I admire that."
"Most people would have run the moment they saw their friends’ heads pop like overripe melons."
Gale’s face turned a deep, bruised purple. He tried to summon a gust of wind to push himself away, but the telekinetic grip only tightened.
"Ggggh... fff..." he choked, his fingers clawing futilely at the air.
"Let’s see how long you can hold your breath while I show you the view from up here," Rex murmured.
With a flick of his wrist, Rex launched himself into the sky, ascending with a violent burst of telekinetic force. He didn’t fly; he propelled himself, a human missile.
Within seconds, he had caught up to Gale, hovering mere inches from his face, both of them suspended in the open sky.
"You think you’re fast?" Rex asked, his eyes dancing with a cruel spark. "You think the wind makes you elusive?"
Rex suddenly tightened the pressure. A sickening crack echoed as Gale’s collarbone snapped.
"Aaaaaargh!" Gale screamed, his body jerking in agony. "S-stop! Let me... go!"
"Stop?" Rex laughed, the sound cold and hollow. "We’re just getting started."
"I want to see exactly when your will breaks."
"Is it when the pain becomes constant? Or when you realize you can’t escape?"
Rex shifted the telekinetic grip, slowly twisting Gale’s body. It wasn’t a fast movement; it was a gradual, agonizing torque.
Gale’s spine groaned, his vertebrae clicking like a Geiger counter in a radioactive zone.
"Please!" Gale gasped, his voice thin and strained. "I can’t... I can’t breathe!"
"That’s the beauty of telekinesis," Rex whispered, leaning in close, his breath warm against Gale’s ear. "I don’t have to touch you to destroy you."
"I can reach inside you... I can feel your heart racing, your blood pumping faster and faster... the fear is fueling you, isn’t it?"
"Adrenaline... The last remnant of your survival instinct."
Rex suddenly released the pressure on Gale’s neck and instead focused on his arm. The telekinetic force began to compress the muscle and bone of Gale’s forearm, slowly crushing it into a pulp.
"Hhhhg... stop it!" Gale wailed, his eyes bulging as he watched his own limb deform under the invisible weight.
"I’ll stop," Rex said, his smile widening, "when you tell me something I don’t already know."
"Tell me how it feels to be a fly in the web of a spider you can’t even see."
Gale’s arm gave a final, wet pop as the bone shattered completely, the flesh twisting and flattening.
"F—fucker..." Gale managed to wheeze, his voice a broken rasp.
"Language," Rex chided mockingly. "You’re in the presence of a new ruler of the Underlayer, Gale."
"Show some respect." He increased the pressure, lifting Gale higher and higher, dangling him like a broken doll against the backdrop of the setting sun. "Now... tell me something interesting."
"Or I’ll start on the other arm."
"GRAAAGGGGHHHHHH!!!" Gale kept screaming and couldn’t even say anything.
Rex didn’t wait for an answer. He didn’t need one.
He had already decided the curriculum for Gale’s final lesson.
"You’re too loud," Rex murmured, his eyes narrowing. "Let’s see if we can find a more... visceral way to express that pain."
The telekinetic pressure shifted from a vice to a series of surgical, tearing motions. Rex didn’t just crush; he pulled.
A sickening, wet sound, the sound of tendons being stretched to their absolute limit, echoed through the sky.
"AAAAAAAGGGGHHH!" Gale’s scream was a jagged, high-pitched thing that tore at the air.
Rex had focused the telekinetic force on Gale’s left shoulder, slowly, millimeter by millimeter, peeling the deltoid muscle away from the bone.
"Look at that," Rex taunted, his voice dripping with sadistic fascination. "The way the fibers snap... It’s like a harp being played by a butcher."
"Mercy! PLEASE! MERCY!" Gale sobbed, his composure completely shattered.
The fierce wind-type warrior was gone, replaced by a weeping, terrified child. Tears and snot streaked his face, mixing with the blood erupting from his wounds.
"PLEASE! JUST KILL ME! KILL ME!"
"Kill you? And end the experiment so soon?" Rex laughed, a dark, melodic sound.
He shifted his focus to Gale’s leg. With a sudden, violent jerk of his mind, he didn’t just break the femur; he began to peel the skin back from the thigh, exposing the quivering, red muscle beneath.
"GYAAAAAAH!" Gale’s scream turned into a guttural, broken wail.
He was crying now, a frantic, hysterical sobbing that punctuated every agonizing second.
Below, Verakis could take no more. The sight of his comrade being dismantled in midair, a living anatomical display of agony, broke his restraint.
"ENOUGH!" Verakis roared, his aura flaring as he prepared to launch himself into the sky. "REX! LEAVE HIM ALONE!"
But Rex didn’t even look down. As Verakis leaped, a massive, invisible wall of telekinetic force slammed into him like a runaway freight train.
BOOM!
Verakis was sent skidding across the plaza, his breath knocked out of him. Beside him, Taiga, who had been calculating a desperate retreat, was caught by the same expanding ripple of force.
The invisible barrier didn’t just stop them; it pinned them, forcing them to stay in their designated viewing seats.
"Don’t be rude, Verakis," Rex called down, his voice booming with effortless authority. "The show isn’t over."
"Stay in your seats... You wouldn’t want to miss the grand finale, would you?"
Taiga struggled against the force, his muscles straining, but the telekinetic wall was absolute. It was a cage of pure will, forcing them to watch the horror unfold.
Rex turned his attention back to the broken man in the sky. He decided to end the "lecture." He wrapped his telekinetic tendrils around Gale’s entire torso, his limbs, and his head.
He began to pull in every direction at once, an anatomical tug of war.
"Final exam, Gale," Rex whispered, his eyes glowing with a terrifying, murderous joy. "Try not to fail."
"RRRRRIIIIIIIPPPPP!"
The sound was unlike anything the survivors had ever heard. It was the sound of a man being unmade. In a singular, violent burst of telekinetic expansion, Gale’s body was literally torn asunder.
His torso split down the middle, his limbs were wrenched from their sockets, and his head was pulled away from his neck with such force that the spinal column snapped like a whip. A massive, crimson cloud of gore, organs, and shattered bone erupted into the sky, raining down on the plaza in a heavy, steaming deluge.
As the red mist began to settle, Rex descended. He landed softly in the center of the carnage, stepping through the puddles of Gale’s remains.
He reached down and picked up Gale’s shattered, blood-soaked mask, holding it up like a trophy. A loud, villainous laugh erupted from his chest, a sound of pure, unadulterated triumph that chilled the very souls of those watching.
He turned his head, the mask clutched in one hand, and his gaze locked onto Taiga. The predator had found his next meal.
"Next," Rex said, his voice a low, terrifying promise as he pointed the bloody mask directly at Taiga. "Don’t blink, Taiga."
"You’re up."
