Bound To The Dead: The Deceptive Class-E Farmer-Chapter 54: Difference Between Pain and Punishment

The lightning shield wrapped around Geoffrey shattered on contact.

"You..." he rasped, coughing smoke. "What are you?"

Isaac didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

The sky dimmed, not from clouds, but from silence. A heavy, unnatural quiet that settled over the battlefield like a grave. No birds. No wind. Even the swarm froze mid-air, like they were holding their breath.

Then came the voice.

"Geoffrey, panicked, hurled a bolt of lightning.

A blinding spear of light.

Isaac didn’t dodge.

He caught it.

Barehanded.

The bolt hissed in his palm, crackling with fury, then fizzled out like wet firewood.

Geoffrey’s eyes widened.

Isaac stepped in, fast. Too fast.

He slammed his knee into Geoffrey’s gut, lifting him

off the ground, then drove a sickle into his shoulder.

Not to kill.

Just to hear the wet crunch of nerves and bone.

"Too slow," the voice said through Isaac’s mouth.

Geoffrey curled on the ground, shaking, coughing sparks.

He clawed at his chest where the sickle struck. Lightning tried to stitch it shut, but it wasn’t working fast enough. And the pain didn’t stop.

He screamed. Not in rage. In fear.

He didn’t understand what he was feeling.

"What did you... what did you do to me?"

Isaac didn’t answer.

He stepped forward, dragging a sickle behind him. The blade sparked across the stone.

Above, the swarm began returning. Not all of it. Maybe a third. But enough.

They circled overhead in silence.

Not waiting for orders. Just watching.

Geoffrey crawled back, face twisted. "Stay away... stay the hell away!"

Isaac paused.

Then looked past him.

Across the ruined square, Mira pulled Ben out from the crashed stone pillar. Her hands were bloodied. Her magic glowed soft, flickering.

Beside her, Elder Peter ran towards putol, removing debris of stones over him.

"Nai!" Aiah shouted.

He was still down. Blood pooled under his side.

Isaac’s jaw tightened.

He turned back to Geoffrey.

"You’re not the only one who can suffer," Isaac said coldly.

He lifted his sickle, and swung.

Geoffrey blocked it with his conjured gauntlet. Bone cracked.

He screamed again.

Lightning surged from his skin, trying to blast Isaac back.

Didn’t work.

Isaac took the blast full-on and kept walking. Smoke rose off his chest.

Didn’t matter.

The being talked to Isaac using his mouth.

"You see it now, don’t you? The difference between pain... and punishment."

He lunged and slashed again.

This time the sickle tore across Geoffrey’s shoulder, dragging open the flesh.

The noble shrieked.

He rolled away, but Isaac chased.

Slash. Crack. Kick.

Each hit landed. Each hit healed. But the pain stayed.

Geoffrey was crying now. Hands sparking, teeth clenched. "Make it stop... MAKE IT STOP!"

Isaac’s foot slammed into his stomach.

Geoffrey vomited blood and lightning.

From the rubble, Putol looked up. Barely breathing, he saw the monster who once ruled the city... begging.

"Mercy..." Geoffrey choked.

Isaac leaned down, face blank.

"You don’t know what mercy is."

He raised both sickles.

Lightning surged.

Not sparks, a storm.

Geoffrey roared as his body flared white-hot, arcs snapping in every direction. The stone around him exploded. Air cracked. Clouds split.

The sky darkened as if afraid.

"I’LL BURY YOU IN LIGHT!"

He slammed both fists into the ground.

A dome of lightning erupted outward, shredding the swarm midair, frying soldiers, melting rubble. The blast wave reached the outer walls, cracking them like eggshells.

Even Mira screamed as she took cover with Nai and Elder Peter with putol.

Isaac was gone.

Swallowed in light.

The capital burned.

Then...

Silence.

Dust fell like snow.

Mira opened her eyes.

A crater smoldered where Geoffrey stood, chest heaving, eyes wild. His arms trembled. His skin steamed, skin peeled from overused power.

But he was alive.

"He’s... he’s gone..." Geoffrey whispered, almost sobbing. "I killed him. I finally..."

A voice.

Behind him.

"You’re still slow."

Geoffrey spun.

Isaac stood untouched.

Burned, yes. Bleeding, yes. But standing. Both sickles in hand. Eyes pitch-black.

"How... how did you survive that?!"

Isaac didn’t answer.

He stepped forward.

One step. Two.

Geoffrey screamed again, but this time in defiance. "I’m not DONE!"

He thrust out a hand. Lightning bolt. Point-blank.

Isaac sliced it in half.

Another bolt. Stronger.

Isaac knocked it away with the back of his hand.

Geoffrey charged, insane with fear and rage, fists glowing.

He punched.

Isaac caught it bare-handed.

Bones broke. Geoffrey howled.

Then Isaac kneed him in the gut.

Lightning blasted around them, but no one moved. No one could.

Even the sky paused.

Isaac twisted his grip and slammed Geoffrey to the ground.

Sickles raised.

Inside, buried in the dark of his own mind, Isaac stirred, but couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.

He was a passenger now.

"Watch closely."

The voice echoed inside him. Not loud. Just inevitable.

"This is what cruelty looks like."

And then his body moved.

Precise. Surgical. Joyless.

The being began to carve.

Blood soaked the stones.

Geoffrey screamed, not in fear, not yet. In fury.

He blasted lightning into Isaac’s face at point-blank range.

"DIE!"

Isaac’s head snapped back. Smoke rose from his skin. But he laughed.

A low, cracking laugh that didn’t sound like Isaac.

More like something wearing his skin.

Geoffrey didn’t care. He summoned every drop of mana left. Circles formed beneath his feet, ten, no, twenty layers thick. Forbidden magic. Ancient tier.

"HEAVEN’S EXECUTION!"

The spell cracked the sky.

Pillars of lightning rained from above like divine spears. They annihilated the battlefield, drilling into the earth, vaporizing air.

Even the ground screamed.

Everything vanished in white.

Silence followed.

Then...

Crunch.

A step.

Isaac walked out of the destruction, skin scorched, hair wild, one eye blind with blood.

Still smiling.

"I like this," he said.

He appeared in front of Geoffrey before the next bolt could form.

Crack.

A sickle through Geoffrey’s palm.

Geoffrey wailed and unleashed a dome of lightning, hurling Isaac back, barely.

He stood, panting, broken, but still alive.

"You think... this is over?" he spat blood. "I am the king! I burned cities! I..."

Another slice. Across the chest.

Geoffrey collapsed to a knee.

Isaac walked. Calm. Cold.

"You’re still talking."

He stabbed again, this time in the thigh.

Geoffrey roared. And still, still, lightning bloomed from his skin, lashing Isaac across the cheek.

A burn formed. Isaac blinked.

"Not bad."

Isaac asked the question.

No, the words came from his mouth, but it wasn’t him.

It was the being. Speaking aloud, to him, to Isaac, drifting in the dark.

"Shall we show him the nerves?"

Isaac’s sickles twisted, not to kill, but to stay inside.

Geoffrey howled as the metal curved through muscle, catching tendons.

Isaac’s grin widened. He tugged. The nerves sang.

Geoffrey screamed.

"Still alive?" Isaac asked.

"Good." he said, smiling slow, like a knife unsheathing.