EVIL SYSTEM

The voice on the phone fell silent for a good few seconds.

"Who are you?"

Ben took the phone away from his ear and looked at the number on the screen.

999.

"What, are you stupid? Why would I tell you who I am when I'm calling the emergency number?" Ben mocked with a small smile.

"Where is Cecil?" the voice asked.

"Oh, her?" Ben glanced at Cecil's half-melted face. "She's passed on to a better place, but I think you already knew that. You know, from the screams and all that."

"Do you think this is a joke?" The voice on the phone raised its tone, clearly annoyed. "Do you think people's lives are a game?"

"I don't think that," Ben replied very seriously. "Every life is precious."

"It's incredible how you can say that with such a straight face, even after taking the life of a poor woman," the voice sounded agitated. "You're just a damn murderer, a scumbag of society."

Ben stayed silent for a few moments.

"Maybe I am scum, but not of society," he responded. "Because it was this rotten society that shaped me."

"Don't blame your actions on society," the voice on the phone shot back quickly. "You're not the only one who's suffered hardships. I've been through situations that brought me to my knees, and I'm not out here killing innocent people!!"

Ben clenched his teeth.

"What do you know?" Ben was trying to contain his fury. "What do you know about my suffering and pain? Don't impose your high ideals on others' lives. You call me scum, a murderer, and you're right. I killed all those people, and even though it's hard for me to admit it... it felt incredibly good."

"I enjoyed cutting off their heads and pulling out their intestines," Ben began to smile. "But I'll sleep peacefully knowing I didn't kill any innocents."

"Scum!!" the voice shouted angrily. "No matter where you go, I'll catch you. You can run to any corner of the world, but you won't escape justice."

"Justice? Hahahahahahahaha," Ben couldn't help but burst into a loud laugh that echoed through the mansion. "Don't talk to me about justice. Because justice was never on my side. There's no justice for the weak. No justice for those who cry in silence."

"Justice is just a pretty word used by those who've never felt the cold grip of despair in their bones," Ben grew agitated and began shouting into the phone. "I waited for it, called for it, screamed for it, begged for it, but it never came."

"So I learned. I learned that the world doesn't reward the righteous. It rewards those who take what they want, those who are willing to get their hands so dirty they can never clean them again," Ben calmed down a little. "And that's fine. I'd rather be the villain in someone else's story than a victim in my own."

Ben raised his head and looked at a family photo hanging on the wall.

"Do you think these people are innocent?" Ben laughed. "You're so naive. How many parents? How many children? Have they hurt, killed, murdered, destroyed. Innocent and guilty alike will go straight to hell, just like I will."

"And now you come here to judge me. They made me into this," Ben looked at the phone, still silent. "But I've chosen to stay this way. Because when you realize the rules only exist to keep you weak, you understand that breaking them is the only way."

Ben dropped the phone and let his final words be heard.

"There's no redemption for me, nor do I seek it."

Ben walked slowly toward the basement.

As he descended the stairs, he came across a large iron door.

"I need to hurry," Ben charged his axe with a large amount of lightning magic. "I don't want to end up in another prison after escaping one."

Bammmmm!!!

The axe struck the door, leaving a large dent through which Ben could peek and see Grigor, paralyzed with fear.

"Hello, friend," a wide smile spread across his face. "You just have to wait a few more seconds. A few more seconds, and I promise we'll have a lot of fun." Ben looked at him as if he were the love of his life he'd been longing to reunite with.

A look that sent shivers and intense tremors through the terrified Grigor.

Bammmmm.

Bammmmm.

Bammmmm.

Each strike caused the underground structure and Grigor himself to shake violently.

By the time Ben had practically destroyed the iron door, Grigor was waiting for him with a whip of fire formed in his hands.

Tsk tsk tsk.

Ben made a mocking sound with his tongue and wagged his index finger from side to side with a smile.

"I know you're happy to see me, but don't ruin the moment," Ben muttered under his breath.

[Cursed Space]

The whip in Grigor's hands deformed in a strange way before disappearing.

Arrggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

The pain and black blood pouring from Grigor were exponentially worse than his other family members.

Ben shook his head.

"You've been a very bad person," Ben grabbed Grigor, who was writhing on the floor in pain. He carried him in his arms and laid him on the same torture table that had been used to torment him.

As he tied Grigor's hands, he kept talking.

"The amount of pain and backlash you experience from my magic gives me an idea of the sins you've committed in the past," Ben finished tying him down. "My magic isn't as complicated or incredible as nullifying the magic of those with great sins, as you might be thinking."

Ben walked over to a table filled with torture tools and picked up an awl.

He held it up so Grigor could see it clearly.

Shackled to the table, Grigor twisted and turned, trying to escape, but his struggles were futile.

Ben aimed the awl at one of Grigor's fingers, still talking.

"My magic is just a simple mental attack," Ben drove the awl into Grigor's finger without blinking.

Arrrrhhbbhhhhh!!

Grigor writhed and screamed in pain, but all he achieved was Ben twisting the awl, causing even more suffering.

"People who've committed great crimes and murders are more easily affected because the grievances and resentment of their victims give more power to the curse that attacks the mind," Ben picked up another awl from the table and returned to Grigor's side. "The part about dispersing magic actually has more to do with you. After all, who can perform magic without logical thought and with pain coursing through their body?"

Ben drove the second awl into the next finger.

Arrggggkjjhgggggg!!!

"Now you might be wondering why I'm telling you all this," Ben picked up awl after awl and repeated the process. "The answer is simple: it's because I don't plan on letting you go. So you can't tell anyone about my abilities. Besides, this is my way of thanking you. If you hadn't broken me into a thousand pieces, I wouldn't be who I am now. And when I'm done, I want you to remember one thing: your torment shaped me... I owe who I am today to you."

Ben picked up a large, bloodstained iron screw and showed it to Grigor. "I'm not going to lie to you like you did to me... No matter how much you beg and plead for me to stop, I won't."

Outside the basement, on the floor, the phone was still connected, perfectly capturing Grigor's screams of pain.

"Damn it!!" In an emergency call center, a man no older than 20 shouted angrily as he began throwing his things around.

He smashed the monitor in front of him, and the desk was half-destroyed.

The man clenched his teeth in anger, the screams of pain still audible through his headphones.

"I swear I'll find you and make you pay for your sins!!"

His colleagues at the emergency service watched him and shook their heads.

"That kid's too emotional."

"In this job, you can encounter all kinds of horrors. I'm not sure this is the right job for him."

"He's just a kid," an elderly man glanced at him for a moment before returning to his work. "He hasn't yet grasped the depravity of our world."

...

An intense red light illuminated Ben's stoic expression, also lighting up the darkness of the night and the quiet, silent forest.

After torturing and killing Grigor in the worst ways Ben could think of, he calmly considered his next steps.

He didn't want to leave any evidence that could lead to his arrest and imprisonment in Hellshaven.

So, despite his pain, he didn't steal a single coin from the mansion.

He started a fire, burning the mansion, its occupants, and the evidence.

But he didn't stop there. He also burned all the cars and started a forest fire in the surrounding area.

The only thing he took was a change of clothes, as his current ones were practically destroyed.

A lot of his blood had been left in that place, and he didn't want to take any risks.

He didn't like the idea of harming nature and risking a larger-scale fire.

But his life came first.

Ben stared intently at the mountaintop, which now looked like a giant torch, and sighed.

That place had torn him apart and put him back together.

He turned around and didn't look back.