The Crown's Obsession

"W-what are you doing?!"

Laurence's eyes had widened, and he looked back and forth between the pot and the Devil. He knew it was too good to be true! The Devil had fixed his wounds and turned him back to the way he had entered Hell for the first time only to cook him!

"I-I don't know what I did! You have already punished me f-for what I did! We have cleared Constance's name. The p-public h-hates us!" Laurence tried to pull his arm away from Odin, but the demon servant, even though he looked scrawny, was stronger than he appeared. "I d-didn-"

"Shhh," Vladimir silenced the man, who was shouting in the room, and silence fell back in the room except for the bubbles that moved to the surface of the pot. "Do you think this is your place to scream and shout? Do it again and I will cut off your tongue," he glared.

Laurence whimpered, not wanting to go even a step near the boiling pot. "But I didn't-"

"I am not sure if I should be happy or continue to be upset by your actions, Lauri," stated Vladimir.

In one side of his mind, he was glad that a bastard like Laurence had not got to stay next to his daughter. But on the other side, the thought about this pitiful man, who had not only broken his daughter's trust but had defamed her in front of people, it nowhere sat well with him.

Vladimir leisurely walked around the room as if he was waiting for Laurence to step forward and sit inside the pot, but with the sound of liquid bubbling from the top and the smell of the metal that wafted in the room, the former King of Devon couldn't make himself walk towards the pot. There was a pure look of horror on his face.

"Go on now," Odin tried to push Laurence towards the pot as the sinner resisted it. "It isn't as bad as it looks," he encouraged Laurence.

This only made Laurence glare at the lowly servant who did the Devil's bidding. He couldn't glare at the Devil, but he could put his anger on the servant. And what did he mean it didn't look as bad it looked! It was f.u.c.k.i.n.g molten iron that was in its liquid form!

"P-please, I am willing to go back to the living world and accept my wrongdoings towards Constance," Laurence begged Vladimir in the hope to be let off.

At least before coming to this room, he was mostly bones, and his muscles and skin had melted that would let him feel little to no pain. But the Devil was cunning, and he had been given a 'gift' to live like a person in the living world. He didn't want it!

"Willing?" Vladimir's eyes snapped to look at Laurence. He then walked towards Laurence, who started to walk back to cower away from the Devil, whose eyes blazed like fire. He placed his hand around Laurence's neck and lifted him in the air. "I want to rip and shred you into many pieces, one at a time before putting you back together and doing it all again. You stole my daughter away from me."

His beautiful daughter, thought Vladimir to himself. She could have had a normal family, but maybe this was normal, to have just Calhoun by her side and not people like these, who were in front of him.

Within a second, Vladimir threw Laurence into the large steaming pot, who cried out in agony, his scream echoing in the nearby halls.

"NO! NO! PLEASE SAVE ME!" cried Laurence while he drowned in the pot. "HELP!"

On one side, Morganna, who was on her knees, looked at the scene in horror in her eyes, and on the other side, the Devil closed his eyes to enjoy the pain-filled screams, while at the side, Odin stood with a smile, watching Laurence enjoy his bath.

The torture Laurence had felt until before was nothing in comparison to how he felt in the pot right now, and it was because the Devil had mended him only to use him as an ingredient in Hell. He didn't stop screaming, and Vladimir didn't stop enjoying it before he turned to look at Morganna and walked slowly towards her.

Morganna quickly stumbled back, but she couldn't run or escape. The hell belonged to the Devil, and there was no way to hide.

"Spare me dark lord! I have been stupid to hurt someone! I will fix my ways! I am fixing it! I will do anything!" pleaded Morganna. Since the Devil had returned, Hell had turned far worse than before, and the torture never stopped.

Unlike the other inmates in Hell, both Laurence and Morganna were shown mercy by keeping them in different cells, but it only increased their fear on hearing the painful screams echo around the cells.

Vladimir's eyes turned dark, and asked, "Can you bring back my daughter's innocence?"

Morganna blinked at his question.

"Can you return the respect and dignity that you decided to snatch away from her? Can you bring her back to me without the horrific memories you and your daughter put her through?" Vladimir questioned her, his eyes drilling holes in her. "Can you bring her back so that she could wear the wedding gown...and I could walk her down the aisle?"

He bent down to level himself with her, seeing the fear in the woman's eyes.

"How can you think I will forgive you that easily?" he asked in a dead tone.

"W-we, I-I didn't know. Please," Morganna looked pitiful. Her entire body trembled in fear if the Devil was going to put her in the pot of boiling liquid too.

"You said, you would do anything right?" stated Vladimir. Getting up, he turned his back and snapped his fingers for Morganna's body to return the way it was before she died. A smile spread across his lips, and he said, "Remove your nails from your hands. All of them."