Ascension Of The Villain-Chapter 340: How Naïve

Drowning.

That was the only word Vyan could grasp in the chaos of his mind.

Not metaphorically. No. This was as literal as it got.

Water surged into his nose, his throat, his lungs, scorching its way through him. He couldn't breathe. Every instinct screamed, panicked, and flailed, but his limbs were bound. The cloth over his face clung to his skin, soaked and suffocating. It was like being buried alive in water.

It was like reliving the days from his past.

The burn in his chest intensified, and his lungs spasmed. His heart slammed against his ribs. His body began to shut down.

Then suddenly, the cloth was ripped away.

Air.

Or whatever pitiful trace of it was left in that damp, stinking basement.

He gasped violently, coughing, choking, hacking up water that felt like it had fused with his lungs. His vision blurred, his ears rang. Everything ached, everything stung. Yet even in that disorienting moment, the first thought that surfaced in his mind wasn't fear. It was—

Well, that didn't go as planned.

He had a whole strategy. Go with the abductors quietly. Wait for a secluded place. Knock them out. Avoid drawing civilian attention—because gods forbid, he'd have to deal with the police and explain his existence without any ID. That wasn't exactly an option.

He was calmly waiting for the right moment. He had faith that these men weren't capable of actually hurting him. So, he was being very complacent.

They got out of the apartment building without arousing any suspicion and headed for the van parked outside on the other side of the street. This area wasn't the right place to retaliate against them, because too many high-profile people in the neighborhood, he analyzed.

He had just been thinking about when the right opportunity would arrive… when a chloroform-soaked cloth covered his face.

It hadn't even been two damn seconds since he stepped into the van that he was already inhaling a toxic chemical. Within half a minute, he was done. Forget retaliating. He had fainted.

And the next time he woke up, he was strapped to a chair, drowning and coughing up water.

While this wasn't his first time getting waterboarded, he truly did hate getting soaked. Especially when his wet hair stuck to his face and his drenched clothes clung to his skin in that sickeningly irritating way.

The men snickered in the shadows of the basement, arms crossed like they'd just accomplished something worthwhile.

"That should've taught you a lesson," one of them said, smug.

Vyan coughed up, water still lingering in his lungs.

Then, he laughed.

"Is that all you got?" he rasped, looking up with a grin that didn't belong on someone in his condition. "Seriously? Waterboarding? That's your big move?"

They looked thrown off. Good. They expected screams, maybe begging. What they got was mockery.

Angered, one of them instantly lifted his leg and kicked him in the stomach.

"You really thought this would make me suffer?" he laughed again, shaking his head. "Try harder."

Honestly? This was nothing.

Nothing compared to what he knew.

They could parade around with their tools and threats all they wanted. Vyan had seen worse. Lived worse. Survived worse.

Back home, torture wasn't done in flickering basements by amateurs. It was done in dungeons, designed to shatter not just bodies but minds. And Vyan? He'd been on both sides of that table.

But longer—much longer—on the receiving end.

He'd been the little lamb of Fred—his irrational outlet of violence. After escaping him, he'd been kicked around by the other kids like a stray dog in the orphanage, then treated even worse by the other knights at House Estelle.

Torture wasn't unfamiliar. Torture was routine.

And still… the worst of it had been that night. The night he was framed by Sienna for attacking Prince Izac. The night everything went to hell.

That night, which broke him completely.

And rebuilt him all over again.

He hadn't known then if it was for better or worse.

Now, he knew. It had been for the better.

Because after that, he had gotten to punish every single person who had ever made him suffer. The orphanage people were doomed on their own; he didn't need to do much. But everyone else at House Estelle? Haha, those knights were red-listed, Lyon served as his slave, and the rest of the family was dragged down to the streets.

So this? This little act? Water in his lungs, a few kicks to the gut?

He could take it.

Another punch landed in his ribs. Another sharp kick to the stomach followed. He felt something snap inside—probably a rib.

His lip was bleeding now, his mouth full of iron and spit.

But his expression didn't change.

No fear. No pain.

Just mocking.

He liked not giving them the pleasure of having control over him. He wasn't the previous Vyan who accepted kicks like a coward without a retort, hoping that'd spare him some extra pain.

Now, he had learned that getting on their nerves felt much better.

"He's bluffing," one of the men muttered, eyeing Vyan with narrowed eyes. "He's trying to provoke us."

Another scoffed. "Yeah, he's in so much pain he can't even sit straight."

Vyan raised his head slowly, a crimson line trailing from the corner of his lip. His breath was ragged, and his chest ached like hell. But his eyes were unshaken.

"You think so?" he said, voice hoarse but sharp. "Just because you're all crybabies who cry over scraped knees and bruised egos, you think I'm like that?"

He gave a small, breathless laugh. Not the kind you give when something's funny—but the kind that says you're wasting my time.

"Do whatever you want. Break every bone, drown me again, cut me open. You'll never get to me. You want a reaction?" His lip curled, and he spat blood on the floor. "You'd have to kill me first. But even then… I don't think I'd give you what you're looking for."

The air grew still. Their leader, now unmasked, was a burly man with a scar running down his brow, and he clenched his jaw so tightly it creaked.

"Then maybe I will kill you," he growled. "Maybe that'll finally teach you the lesson you clearly missed."

Vyan's smile was cold.

"Go ahead."

Because behind the chair, out of sight, his wrists were already free.

The ropes had been sloppy. Rookie mistake. They must be new to abductions and torture. They should've used cuffs. Or better yet, not captured someone like him in the first place.

Vyan had been trained for the worst situations. Magic or not, he still had skills.

As the leader stepped in, maybe to grab him by the collar, maybe to strike—

Vyan moved.

The chair screeched back and toppled as he sprang up, his foot slamming clean into the leader's jaw with a crack that echoed across the basement.

The man didn't even get to grunt before his body flew backward, slamming into a table, and crumpled to the floor like a dropped sack of meat.

Vyan cracked his neck once, rolling his shoulders.

"Told you," he muttered. "You'll never get to me."

For a breath, silence hung in the air like a held breath. Then chaos snapped back in.

The remaining three men surged at him.

Vyan didn't flinch. His breath was shallow, but his stance was steady. His smirk? Untouched.

"How naïve," he let out, tone half-laughing, half-scornful.

They lunged together. Vyan twisted his body, letting the momentum of the first man throw him off balance. On purpose.

He ducked low under a wild punch, his arm coiling around the attacker's midsection, and drove him backward. Hard into the wall behind them. The man yelped as his head and spine cracked against cement.

"Bluff however you want. If you really were all that, you wouldn't have let us capture you in the first place?" his next opponent spat out.

"Do you know why I let you do that?" Vyan growled, spinning to face him. "Because there were kids around. I simply didn't want them to see violence."

His opponent gritted his teeth. "Bullshit."

A fist flew toward Vyan's cheek. He caught the wrist mid-air and twisted—sharp and clean—until the joint popped.

A scream tore from the man's throat, but it was short-lived. Vyan delivered a brutal elbow to the temple, and he dropped like a fly.

Blood dripped from his own lip, his ribs ached, and every breath pulled fire through his lungs, but the pain just sharpened his focus.

The last attacker came at him swinging a metal rod. Vyan ducked again, grabbing a rusty bone saw from the wall, not to slice, but to deflect. Steel clanged against steel, sparks crackling in the dim basement light.

Vyan shoved forward, jamming the saw handle into the man's throat. He stumbled back, gasping. Vyan didn't give him a second chance. He delivered a hard side-kick to his knee, and the crack was unmistakable. The man went down, screaming.

Vyan's eyes swept around.

Bodies groaned on the floor, one unconscious, another writhing in pain, the third completely still.

As the leader tried getting up, Vyan grabbed a brick and was about to smash it into his head—

"Stop! That's gonna kill me!"

Vyan arched an eyebrow. "And I care because…?"

"That'd make you a criminal! Your wife is an FBI agent!"

"Oh, yeah, about that," Vyan grinned, "I'm not Adrian."

"What—"

With that, Vyan smashed the brick on his head. Not with enough force to kill him, but enough to knock him out. He wouldn't want to create a mess in an unknown world; who knew what anomaly might unlock then?

Either way, just like that, it was over.

Vyan threw the brick aside and exhaled. He was tired.

He glanced at his clothes, and his dark green oversized t-shirt was now ruined, thanks to his own blood and these thugs'. His black faded jeans were fine, though. Just dusty. He'd need to wash them. Perhaps, he could get the blood off the tee too. Because he really liked this fit. Modern fashion was growing on him.

First of all, he wanted to take a shower. He felt nasty and sweaty.

For that, he'd have to get hom—

Just then, the basement door creaked open.

A man stepped inside.

Vyan squinted.

The man was wearing a green cap. The dim bulb overhead caught the glint in his eyes. Green, reflecting orange in the low light. Eyes that Vyan had seen once before, just briefly, in a sea of flashing cameras.

The stranger's gaze narrowed.

"I see you've gotten out of your captivity... Adrian Evans. I didn't know you were equally good at fighting with your hands as much as you were with your brain."

Vyan stepped out of the dark under the ray of the dim bulb, and the man paused.

His expression twisted.

"No, wait, you're not Adrian Evans. Adrian is much older. You look… young. What the heck? That can't be right." He was confused at first, then as the realization hit him, he let out a frustrated groan. "Dammit… did they pick the wrong guy?"

Vyan tilted his head slightly, already sure that this man was behind everything. He was the one with a beef with Adrian.

A slow grin crawled across Vyan's face. "Yep. They sure did."

His wine-red eyes burned in the dimness.

"And now," he whispered, stepping toward him, "you are going to pay for it."