We arrived at the villa around 4pm. At this moment, more than four hours have passed.

It was already dark outside the window, and the night sky was drizzling again, with the occasional car passing by with lights on. Fortunately, although the other places in this villa are ordinary and the furnishings are not very tasteful, only the sound insulation function is quite perfect. I closed the curtains back and looked back at the bedroom.

I saw that the cronie in his 40s was firmly trapped in the wooden chair by me with a plastic cable tie, and he was gasping for breath to recover. But he hasn't uttered a word until now. As for the other cronie, it is in the next room, and Naoto Inoue is in charge of handling it.

The residual effects of the blood sacrifice ritual I arranged in the villa last time have long since dissipated, so Naoto Inoue will be fine even if he enters here. But unfortunately, his psychic medium skills are not useful now. As I expected now, both cronies had prepared to guard against the medium. If a psychic tries to dig up information from their minds, they automatically lose the memories associated with that information. Unless the medium is quite advanced, there is no way to overcome this.

At this time, I was in charge of torturing the cronies here, and I had all the nails of his fingers and toes removed, and a few of his teeth had been pulled out.

Of course, whether it is lifting nails or pulling teeth, these are quite superficial torture techniques. Of all the pain I've inflicted on him before, it also belongs to a rather inconspicuous category.

As a martial artist living in modern society, I have been immersed in this way for many years, and I naturally have a grasp of the human body beyond ordinary people. I know all about where the attack is easy to hurt, and where the nerve plexus is easy to cause severe pain. Previously, I also brought him a long and severe pain that was definitely worse than death without leaving external injuries. But if you really want to be a professional, he didn't say a word, just looked at me with sarcastic eyes, as if to say: these are useless works.

I also thought about whether to simply cut off his arms and legs so that he could know the consequences of disobeying the torture. But this is not the idea of torture, just torture. During the torture, it is necessary to avoid means that will leave a disability, otherwise it is easy for the victim to feel that he is unable to return to his or her original life, and then give up on himself and become more difficult to cope.

The torture of professionals is a long-term battle, and I have long been mentally prepared. But if I could, I would like to do it quickly. A lot of information is time-sensitive, and over time, some information will become invalid. I began to wonder if I wanted to use another means. If I could, I wouldn't want to use it in front of Naoto Inoue. Although it is possible to get Naoto Inoue to avoid it first when he uses it, he is a psychic medium, and it is hard to guarantee that he will not go back to using psychic technology to see what I did during the torture.

"What's wrong? Lost in recruitment? The cronies sarcastically said.

I stepped forward and kicked over the chair he was sitting in, then turned back and fetched a towel and water from the bathroom. Throw the towel over his face and slowly pour the water down to moisten it.

Not only does the wet towel not breathe, but it also allows water to seep into his mouth and nose. Even if he wants to breathe or spit the water out, the towel will stop him. Soon, he will have the feeling of drowning, and the suffocation will quickly push his body and mind to the limit. This is called waterboarding. The principle is simple, easy to operate, and at the same time the destructive power is huge. In my previous life, this torture technique was forbidden by contract because it was so inhumane. There is no such treaty here, but that does not affect its validity.

When he reached his limit, I took the towel away and repeated it. After several times, I asked him if he would like to provide information. He looked at me palely for a moment, then nodded.

I went next door and called Naoto Inoue and looked at the person he was in charge of interrogating by the way. Obviously, Naoto Inoue is not suitable for torture work. Although the person he tortured was covered in bruises and had traces of pinching on his throat, that was all. Although he did not hesitate to kill the wicked, he had too much hesitation about torture. The professionalism was almost non-existent, and I even saw the phone he put aside with a search page that read "How to torture more efficiently".

He walked up to my cronie in charge of interrogation and grabbed his shoulder with one hand. And I stood in front of my cronies and asked, "Where is the Lord of the Ants?" What deal did he have with the Silence Order? What was his rationale for buying the population from underground merchants? Say it all. ”

The cronies were about to speak, but Naoto Inoue suddenly said, "He didn't mean to tell the truth at all." ”

I'm not surprised. Most of the professionalism of the so-called professionals has nothing to do with enduring torture. You must know that torture has developed into modern times, and it is no longer something that can be overcome by human willpower. Even if I don't have high-end torture tools at hand, it's enough to perform a lot of torture methods that are not the same, let alone other more professional people. The focus of the training of the torturers has long since shifted from "tolerating torture" to "delaying time" and "making it impossible for the torturers to judge the truth or falsity of the information", which has become a psychological game.

"Medium?" The cronies looked over, "Through physical contact, detected my emotional fluctuations?" ”

He looked at me again, "That's how you found our headquarters using psychic technology?" ”

I sent Naoto Inoue back and said to him, "Your job is to answer." Every time you ask a question, I'll make you suffer. ”

He sneered, not at all afraid of what I was talking about.

"It seems that you are really not afraid." I say.

"Yes." He nodded, "All of us cronies have had surgery and are no longer in pain. They are also trained in drug resistance, and ordinary torture drugs will not be useful. Unless you're an Alliance Inquisitor who can heal us before bringing us back for interrogation, torture is pointless. ”

I see. I'm still wondering what a heart of steel, even so much torture and waterboarding before it couldn't shake it in the slightest. In this case, there is no hope for other means of torture. As I pondered, I said, "But you're still going to be afraid." ”

"I don't have any fear." He said.

"Because of the surgery."

"Yes."

"Less deception. Fear is an important basis for the Ant Lord to control worker ants, and he will not be assured that his cronies around him are all fearless people. I said.

"That's why we not only love him, but we also fear him." He happily admitted, "Whoever betrays him will go to hell when he dies." And depending on the severity of the sin, the soul will be punished for up to 10,000 years, 100,000 years, or even millions, tens of millions of years. In this way, we can atone for our sins. But even if you atone for your sins, you will not be able to ascend to heaven, but your soul will be scattered. ”

"That's your doctrine?" I sarcastically asked in a rhetorical tone, "If you betray just an ordinary person, you will go to hell?" ”

"The Lord of Ants is not an ordinary person, but a messenger of the heavens." He said solemnly.

"I've heard that in a superstitious group like yours, the more high-level people are, the less firm their beliefs are. As his cronies, you are also a status under one person, and you usually look at so many brainwashed worker ants, and you really don't have any doubts in your heart? I asked.

He was silent.

"Then, if a cronie like you betrays the Lord of the Ants, how long will you have to serve in hell?" ”

"At least 500 million years." He said.

"That's a long time." As soon as I finished speaking, Naoto Inoue suddenly pushed the door in.

He was about to say something, but when he saw his cronies staring at me, he came to my side and whispered in my ear.

*

The thing that Inoue has to say is very simple, that is, another cronie has taken poison.

It is not known where he hid the poison. All in all, when Naoto Inoue came to my side just now, he secretly took poison. Now he is dying, and he has no power to return to heaven. But for me, it's an opportunity to come to my door. After this episode, I cut off his head, put it in a suitcase, and went back to the room I had been in.

Then I revisited the problem I had to overcome: How could we make a superstitious group that had no physical knowledge of pain and believed that if it could not survive it, the soul would fall into hell after death for at least 500 million years, turn against us?

"He committed suicide by poisoning, didn't he?" The cronies spoke first.

"Let's go back to the topic first." I didn't answer him, "500 million years is a long time. If it were me, I would definitely not give in here. You must know that a person may not live for even a hundred years. What is this mere hundred years of life compared to 500 million years of suffering? ”

"Exactly." He was both sure and confused, and didn't seem to understand why I agreed with him.

I grabbed a projector from the corner of the room, and I pulled a cassette of videotapes out of my body, "Want to know what's stored in here?" ”

"You can't kidnap my wife and children and then make a video of it, and threaten me with this, right?" He said unwaveringly, "If that's the case, then I advise you to save it." They are also people with strong ideas, and they must have been mentally prepared to sacrifice, and I will accept their sacrifice. ”

"Don't worry, it's not a tasteless video." I say.

"So what?" He asked coldly, "You faked the video of my partner's confession, and you want to use this to break down my psychological defenses?" ”

"So there's still this trick." I said, "But unfortunately, it's not that." ”

"So what exactly?" He frowned.

"Don't worry." I said as I put the projector on the floor and hooked it up with the VCR under the TV stand, "I'll show you." ”

Then, I put the tape in the VCR, turned off the lights, and played the video on the projector.

The projector creates a picture on the wall, and the picture shows a blue planet – the Earth we live in.

It was such a big thing, he looked at it for a moment, and then looked at me suspiciously.

I looked at the video and said, "Our planet, in the last 2.5 billion years, has experienced four great ice ages; In the next 2.5 billion years, the Earth will continue to enter the Great Ice Age repeatedly. The surface of the earth will be covered with snow and ice, countless species will become extinct, and countless species will rise. ”

"What are you telling me about this?" He asked, confused.

"However, this cold cycle is destined to end." Ignoring his words, I continued, "Because in five billion years, the Sun will turn into a red giant, and the Earth will be swallowed up by it and then evaporated." ”

As I spoke, the video kept changing, showing the surface of the Earth, first covered in snow and ice, then swallowed by a red giant.

"However, the sun also dies one day, and in a few billion years, this red giant star will become a white dwarf and gradually cool in space as a wreck." "Not only will the sun die, but of course the other stars will die." After a trillion years, the stars in the universe will gradually die, and there may not be new stars; In a hundred trillion years, all stars will be extinct, with only countless white dwarfs lingering. ”

"So what?" He asked, "Are you going to tell me that my personal beliefs are insignificant compared to the universe?" You're going to use this thing to attack my psyche? ”

"After the year of Zi, even the white dwarf will continue to die and evolve into a black dwarf. Black dwarfs have been formed for so long that not a single black dwarf has formed in the universe today. I said, "And after a thousand years, the matter located in the river system will eventually be sucked into the super black hole in the center of the river system, and only the matter outside the river system will be able to escape." ”

Under his completely incomprehensible gaze, I deliberately continued like a low-EQ person who only knew what he cared about: And, after the stream year, the proton recession will occur, and all the matter escaping the black hole will begin to collapse spontaneously, even the black dwarf.

Thousands of years later, there is no longer a single atom left, and the universe has officially entered an era with only black holes.

After that, whether it is a polar year or a other year, the main event in the universe is nothing more than the merger between black holes and black holes. And only after the immeasurable years, and then a few more years, can we usher in the moment when all the black holes evaporate.

At this time, the universe is empty, but even if there is nothing, the universe will not really end.

On the contrary, for the universe, this is just the birth.

Dark, cold, empty, this is the way the universe should be. No one knows how this super-giant undead universe will develop in the future, and when it will come to an end.

The only thing that can be assured is that the so-called life, the so-called civilization, is nothing more than an extremely accidental, extremely short, and extremely fragile bubble in this endless and lonely universe.

Death is the eternal theme of the universe.

By the time I got to that, the video was finally over.

After listening to what I said, the cronies still didn't pay attention to it, and asked rhetorically, "So, what do you want to express?" What does the future of the universe have to do with us? ”

"It has nothing to do with us." I said, "It's just about you." ”

"What?" He was even more confused.

I opened the suitcase next to me and emptied the head of another cronie.

The head was still moving. Of course it moves. Because he was turned into the living dead by me before he died.

The cronies looked at the head, frowning at first, then confused, and finally their faces changed drastically.

I replayed the video and changed the playback mode to an auto-loop, then walked to the door, turned around, and said, "I don't know if your Ant Lord really has the power to throw you into Hell." But if you still can't say what I want to hear after I return, then I'm going to send you to hell tonight. ”

"I ......," he muttered in fear.

"There's no need to rush. It's going to be quite uncomfortable to betray someone you believe in, and I'll be considerate of you. I said, "Unlike your stingy Ant Lord, I'll give you a lot of time." Whether it's the time to think about it, or the time to go to hell. ”

With that, I closed the door and left the heads of him and his companions, as well as the video that looped over and over again, in the room.