The Immortal King stared at her. What was up with her all of a sudden? Had she been so nervous that she’d gone crazy? No matter...he still needed her to release him.
"Hey, no need to be so scared," he said, softening his tone. "Just remove these chains and..."
Their eyes met.
He felt an intense feeling of fear shoot through him.
"What an interesting specimen," Maya said, her voice pleasant and curious.
The Immortal King trembled. What was this thing? This feeling... it was just like... no, he needed to leave. He suddenly remembered something. Of course - how could he have been so stupid? The one who had been killing him every time he tried to escape was gone. That meant he could teleport.
He attempted to activate the spatial magic.
Nothing happened.
It... didn’t work?
Maya looked at him with a pleased expression. "Why would you want to leave so soon after we just met?"
"What are you?" he questioned.
She approached him slowly.
"Stay away from me!" he shouted.
She placed her soft hand on his skull, her touch gentle, almost tender.
"What a pitiful creature," she said.
"Get your hands off me! Do you know who I am? I am the Immortal King! I will..."
She wasn’t listening.
Her face flushed as she examined him more closely, her eyes studying every detail of his skeletal form.
"How do you manage to stay alive without organs?" she asked curiously. "How interesting."
"Are you even listening to me?!"
"And seeing as you don’t need a heart or blood..." she continued, tilting her head, "then it’s strange that you need bones. Strange indeed." Her flush deepened. "I have to get to the bottom of this."
She leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a whisper.
"Say, if I was to grind your bones to powder slowly... at what point would you cease being alive?" A smile spread across her face. "I’m so curious."
The Immortal King’s empty eye sockets somehow conveyed pure horror. "What? No...wait...you can’t..."
A knife materialized in her hand from nowhere.
"Let’s find out."
"STOP! JUST..."
The blade touched his bones and began to scrape.
...
An hour later.
Maya crouched on the ground, using a stick to poke at the pile of dust that had once been the Immortal King.
"I don’t get it," she said, her expression serious and contemplative.
She poked the dust again. Then again.
Suddenly, her face flushed and she held her cheeks in excitement.
"Maybe I’ll figure it out after doing it a few more times."
She looked to the side, her eyes piercing through multiple invisible layers until her vision landed on what she was looking for.
"There you are," she muttered.
...
The Immortal King had managed to revive a little distance away from that crazy woman.
He teleported again. And again. And again.
He should be safe now, he thought. He had put considerable distance between them. There was no way she could catch up to him now.
He stopped, his bones rattling with rage.
"How dare she? How dare she treat me like this?" He was the Immortal King! He had...
"Treat you like what?"
A soft voice came from behind him.
The world around him slowed to a halt. Colors bled away. Sound died. Even the air stopped moving.
Then he was back.
Tied up. Bound by mana chains. With Maya crouching before him, knife in hand, about to start scraping again.
"No no no wait!" he shouted desperately.
She paused, tilting her head.
"What do you want? There is no need to go through all this. Just tell me..." he asked frantically.
"What I want?" she repeated, seeming genuinely puzzled by the question.
He nodded vigorously. "Yes! What do you want? Just tell me!"
"Hmm..." She placed a finger on her chin, thinking intently.
The Immortal King watched her with desperate expectation. Surely there was something. Everyone wanted something.
"I don’t know," she finally responded.
"Then why are you doing this to me?!" he demanded.
"Because it’s interesting," she replied, her face flushing again.
She raised the knife.
"Wait wait wait!" he shouted.
She paused, annoyance flickering across her features. "What is it? Why do you keep interrupting?"
He was nervous, but he forced himself to speak. "You have to have something you want. Just tell me. If you let me go, there’s nothing I can’t do. Nothing!"
She fell into thought again.
"Well," she said slowly, "brother wanted to know where the captives were." She nodded to herself. "I suppose I could ask for his sake. He’ll be happy if I get the information for him." Her expression grew curious. "For some reason, even I can’t find them. It seems you have some methods."
The Immortal King stared at her. This was troublesome. He couldn’t just reveal that...it was his trump card. If he revealed this, the other guy would have no use for him anymore. And this psycho woman...
She looked at him.
He flinched.
"It seems you’re unwilling to tell," she spoke, her voice turning stern.
"Um, it’s not that I’m unwilling," he tried to explain. "It’s just..."
"Well, no matter," she said, ignoring him completely. "I’ll loosen up those lips of yours soon enough."
He stared at her in horror. "But I don’t even have lips."
She wasn’t listening again.
"The fear of death," she began, speaking as if delivering a lecture. "For someone like you, while you still feel pain and can also die, you’ve already been through it many times." She tapped the knife against her palm thoughtfully. "So it could be said that you’re used to it."
He wondered what she was getting at.
"But I don’t believe that," she continued, her eyes glowing. "If I recreate the same experience multiple times in quick succession - all while including the pain - I’m sure I can jump-start this primal fear within you."
What was she on about?
"The fear of death never truly fades," she said softly. "It just gets buried. And buried things..." She smiled. "...can always be dug up."
Suddenly, the clocks in her eyes stopped moving.
Everything around him seemed to do the same. The wind. The dust. The distant sounds. All of it - frozen.
She spoke up softly, "Time Domain."