My Talent's Name Is Generator

Chapter 169: Death’s Touch

My head throbbed from the last hit, a deep pulsing pain that blended with the lingering ache from earlier when I tried to push my perception too far. Every attempt to extend it ended the same way, an explosion of pain in my skull like someone was drilling behind my eyes.

Still, I wasn’t done trying.

I focused inward, gathering strength through my core. For a brief second, the energy stirred. I felt it rise through my limbs… and then it vanished again, scattered like dust in the wind.

I knew right away what was happening. Even through the pounding in my skull, I sensed it. The energy wasn’t just fading—it was being pulled, siphoned through the cuffs on my wrists and then dispersed harmlessly into the air around me. Like water leaking through cracks, it was simply gone.

So I shifted my attention. If the cuffs were draining my gathered energy, I needed to know what else they were doing. What could I still do, if anything?

Before I could think it through, one of the men stepped forward and grabbed me by the hair, yanking me upright. I clenched my teeth.

He raised a hand to my chest. I could feel it—that familiar tingling of wind element gathering in his palm. He was charging up an attack.

So I tried to hit back.

I activated [Havoc Sfera], pushing Essence into my palm to form a fireball. For a moment, it worked. The Essence surged out of my channels like it always did—hot, wild, ready. But before I could shape it, a white-hot pain exploded behind my eyes, and I lost all control.

The fireball fizzled into nothing.

And then his wind attack struck me square in the chest.

Boom.

My body flew across the cell, slammed into the stone wall with a sickening crunch, and flopped onto the floor like a sack of meat. A sharp, burning pain flared through my ribs and chest. I felt something wet pooling beneath me, blood.

I didn’t get up.

I just lay there, chest heaving in shallow gasps.

Then I heard King’s voice, calm and casual.