The air in the dungeon was thick with the smell of iron and sweat. Bilal hung from the wall, his arms shackled above his head by heavy, rusted iron cuffs. He was starved, beaten, and covered in burns. But his mouth remained firmly shut.
The Cardinal, desperate for the formula, brought in a new interrogator. It was a massive, scarred Norman mercenary—a Viking who had sold his sword to the Church. The Cardinal knew physical pain wasn't working. He told the mercenary to attack the Giant's mind.
The Norman walked up to Bilal. He held a hot iron, but he didn't use it. He smiled a filthy, rotting smile, speaking in Old Norse so Bilal would understand every word perfectly.
"You think your silence protects them, Giant?" the Norman taunted, pacing around the chained man. "We know about the refugees in England. We know about the swamp. And we know about your little wolf-bitch, Runa."
Bilal's body went completely rigid. The rhythmic reciting of the Quran in his mind stopped instantly.
"The Emperor of Germany is sending agents to England," the Norman whispered, getting inches from Bilal's face. "When they find her, they won't kill her right away. They say she is beautiful. The men of the Holy Roman Empire have been at war a long time. When they are done passing her around the camp, they will put a collar on her and sell her in this very market. I might buy her myself."
For twenty-six years, Bilal had operated with a "Safety Filter." Even in war, he tried to be a modern man. He spared women. He used anesthetics. He tried to teach them human rights. He held onto the morals of 2026 because it was the last piece of his humanity.
When the Norman spoke Runa's name, that filter didn't just turn off. It shattered into a million irreparable pieces.
The 2026 University Student died in that cell.
Bilal looked up. His dark, sunken eyes were completely void of human empathy. They were two black holes.
The Norman laughed, thinking he had finally found the Giant's weak spot. He stepped closer to spit in Bilal's face.
It happened in a fraction of a second.
Bilal's 105kg frame had withered, but his bone density and tendon strength were forged from decades of lifting stone. Driven by a surge of pure, hysterical, animalistic adrenaline, Bilal planted his feet against the stone wall behind him and pulled.
With a deafening CRACK, the rusted iron bolt holding his right chain ripped straight out of the masonry.
Before the Norman could even draw a breath to scream, Bilal's freed right hand shot forward like a striking viper. He didn't punch. He didn't use a martial arts strike. He used pure, unadulterated savagery.
Bilal's massive, calloused fingers dug directly into the Norman's eye sockets.
The mercenary shrieked—a high, bubbling sound of absolute agony. Bilal's grip was like a hydraulic vice. He drove his thumbs deep into the man's skull, crushing the ocular nerves, blinding him permanently in a spray of blood and vitreous fluid.
The Norman dropped his hot iron, clawing uselessly at Bilal's arm, his knees buckling.
The Cardinal and the other guards backed away, shrieking in horror, drawing their swords but too terrified to step closer.
Bilal let the blinded, screaming Norman fall to the stone floor, writhing in a pool of his own blood. The Giant stood there, his chest heaving, his right arm free, the heavy iron chain still dangling from his wrist. Blood dripped from his fingers.
He looked at the Cardinal. The Cardinal saw a man whose mind was completely, terrifyingly gone.
"I spent twenty years trying to teach you savages how to be human," Bilal's voice was a low, vibrating, demonic rumble. He didn't speak in Norse. He spoke in Arabic, then in English, his broken mind blending the languages of his past.
"I bound my own hands with laws. I gave you medicine. I gave you mercy. I thought you had souls."
Bilal took a heavy step forward. The guards raised their swords, shaking.
"You burned my city. You killed my children. And now you speak her name?" Bilal roared, the sheer volume of his voice shaking the dust from the dungeon ceiling.
"You wanted the Demon of the North?! You wanted the fire?! The man of peace died in the snow, Priest. I am the Giant of Axiomra, and I will tear your empire apart with my bare hands! I will drink the rivers dry! Give me the killers of my son, or the darkness of your lives begins today!"
The Cardinal fell backward onto the stone floor, scrambling away like a crab, making the sign of the cross frantically. He realized the horrific truth. They hadn't broken the Giant.
They had unleashed him.