I Revived My Maid, Now She Hungers for My Blood

Chapter 244: The Sentence of the Void

They were standing in near-total darkness. The light from the door behind them had been whittled down to a faint, useless outline.

Even Pandora could barely make out the solid floor beneath her feet, taking it on faith that she wasn’t about to step off into a bottomless abyss.

Her Wizard’s mental force was being suppressed, too—warped and suppressed by some ambient force. It felt like wading through mental mud, blunting her awareness and leaving her blind to the layout of her surroundings.

In this state of sensory deprivation and muddled perception, something ahead—something in that pure, light-devouring blackness—opened its eyes.

A pair of eyes?

Try thousands.

Pinpricks of light. Dense. Packed tight. Eye-whites the color of midnight, pupils dull and dead. They carpeted the surface of the thing from the ceiling down, tracing the undulating, wall-like black mass all the way into the endless dark below.

A crawling, electric sensation detonated at the base of Pandora’s skull. Like a million invisible ants marching up her spine, right up to her scalp.

It wasn’t just fear. It was a deep, biological revulsion—an instinctual repulsion aimed squarely at something that simply shouldn’t exist.

Even as her hindbrain screamed at her to run, Pandora heard ragged breathing behind her. The two temp guards had obviously caught an eyeful as well. They were just as spooked by the sheer scale and wrongness of the creature.

Especially when they noticed what was stuck to it.

Just above their heads, plastered across the thing’s black hide, were countless blurry humanoid shapes.

Some had already sunk deep into the black mire of its skin, reduced to faint outlines in the process of being digested. Others were still mostly exposed, but trailed hundreds of black, vein-like tentacles that burrowed into their flesh, snaking through their limbs and bones.

But without exception, their heads were buried deep inside the creature’s sludge-like flesh.

Motionless.

Like flies pinned in a web, having the juice slowly sucked out of them.

Even Pandora felt a twinge of... something hard to name.

Fear? Horror? Nausea?

All of the above. But maybe because she’d already stared down something far worse in Faye, the impact was blunted. Not terrifying enough to break her.

Still, she wasn’t exactly as cool and detached as she’d hoped she’d be.

Actually laying eyes on the Sentence of the Void. Seeing the thing she was going to be stuck with for the next year...

Even she felt a tiny, quiet flicker of regret.

Maybe she’d bet a little too big this time.

But the moment that thought crossed her mind, the core rune of her Wizard Meditation Method flared to life on its own.

Abstract runes tangled and overlapped, dragging her invisible mental force along specific pathways. A cool, calming energy radiated from the center of her mind and washed over her entire body.

Pandora’s composure snapped back into place.

The primal terror was shoved into a box, replaced by a cold, almost detached scrutiny.

She didn’t need the guards to point out the next step.

On the side of the massive creature nearest to her, there was a black, bowl-like depression. It was slightly larger than an adult human head, sitting just below her chin.

All she had to do was bow her head, and it would be a perfect fit.

“Well.” Pandora let out a breath, a wry, self-deprecating smile tugging at her lips. “This is going to be a little weird... but...”

She turned around. Instead of looking at the two guards, she looked past them, into the featureless dark behind her.

As if someone were standing there.

“See you in a year,” she said softly.

Green-Hair blinked. He got the distinct feeling she wasn’t talking to him.

Before he could process that, Pandora stepped up to the creature.

Then, under the guard’s startled gaze, she dipped her head and shoved it right into the depression. Zero hesitation.

The Sentence of the Void was a unique form of punishment.

Because the creature itself had an iron grip on the inmates, the moment a head went in, the prisoner was completely cut off from the outside world, plunged into the “Void.” There was no need for shackles, locks, or dedicated wardens.

Which was why the guards assigned here were essentially temps—guys like Green-Hair, pulled from other departments for the day.

Green-Hair had pulled this duty a few times before. He knew the drill. Everyone got the same spiel: aside from the psychological torment, the Sentence of the Void posed zero physical danger.

In terms of raw power, it couldn’t even kill a freshly minted Rank-1 Apprentice. There had never been a single recorded case of it physically killing an inmate.

But still.

Watching someone willingly stick their head into an obvious nightmare monster was deeply counter to human instinct. Most of the time, the temp guards had to physically manhandle the prisoners at this step to “assist” them.

But not this girl.

‘Bold’ didn’t even begin to cover it. Green-Hair couldn’t find the right word for Pandora.

But she was, without a doubt, the most singular inmate he’d ever laid eyes on.

“What are you gawking at? Let’s move,” the other guard muttered, snapping Green-Hair out of his daze.

He blinked, realizing that in the few seconds he’d stood there spacing out, Pandora had already buried her head completely in the black depression.

The creature’s black, sludge-like flesh rippled the instant it made contact with the girl’s head. It welled up silently, rapidly sealing over her skull and swallowing it entirely.

All that remained was the body from the neck down, standing stiff as a board.

A second later, the body lost all its rigidity and went limp.

In the same instant, countless tiny, near-invisible black tentacles shot out from the creature’s massive bulk. Like agile snakes, they whipped around the falling girl’s limbs and torso.

Their grip was gentle, but shockingly fast. They wound around her, clothes and all, slowly hoisting and pinning her in place against the creature’s flank.

Through the entire process, Pandora didn’t make a sound.

Not even a token struggle.

Like the fading silhouettes around her, she had instantly, completely, flatlined into dead silence.