The Divine Wolf... or?

As the pain was approaching its absolute climax, the lich inserted a syringe into one of Ark's forelimbs. The syringe contained dark red blood that seemed to be thicker than mercury, as it slowly made its way into Ark's bloodstream. As the blood circulated in his body, the pain that Ark was experiencing almost instantly doubled, but at this point, he was basically out cold already.

The lich looked on from the side, and he could vaguely see a blood-red hue around Ark's body. Once again, he was absolutely delighted, who would've thought that his experiment would turn out to be such a success. Not only had the embryo of his divine soul started to form, but the embryo of his demonic soul was now starting to form as well.

"To think that experimenting on a shapeshifter would actually give me such a great effect, he's the first to survive for this long!"

The lich was rambling to no one but himself, and he seemed to be completely deranged. The words he was muttering to himself seemed to suggest that he had experimented on numerous people, all of whom had died. Whilst he was muttering to himself, Ark's body started violently convulsing on the ground.

The red hue around his body was going completely berserk, whilst a soft white light seemed to slightly repel it.

"Interesting, his two souls are starting to fight for dominance, all that remains to see is whether or not he can make it out alive."

The process the lich was talking about was not only extremely dangerous for Ark, but also incredibly time-consuming, so after observing Ark for a little longer, he left him to suffer by himself in the darkness.

...

Whilst Ark was in the middle of excruciating torture, Thufrat and the others were in the middle of their journey. Through a contact, they had managed to glean some information about the people who had taken Ark. Apparently they were a pretty famous assassin group that had both abducted and killed numerous different political targets.

They didn't often make their move, but when they did, it was usually pretty earth-shattering.

The biggest reason they didn't usually make any moves was that their price was just way too high, but this was also the sole reason they could be tracked if you had the right connections. The money had to come through somewhere, and it was usually through the universal bank.

The universal bank was a bank that spanned across the entire human continent, and if you wanted to pay someone for a mission, the transaction would usually go through them.

The Torment of the Fallen was pretty much an underground organisation that had roots all over the continent. Their power reached everywhere, and they had the ordinary peoples support. As a result of their power, they had supporters all over, even in some pretty authoritative positions. One of these people was a manager for the universal bank.

Even with the help of the Torment of the Fallen, getting this manager's help would've cost them a significant sum of money.

But after hearing that the person they were trying to find, and eventually save, was a member of the Torment of the Fallen, this was no longer an issue. In Torment of the Fallen, helping out your comrades was par for the course, and if you didn't even try, then they would probably not want you for much longer.

Through the help of the manager, they now at least knew who had taken Ark. The only thing remaining now was finding out where they had taken him, and also why.

...

The soul is a vulnerable thing. It is one of the few things that should absolutely never be tampered with, because the consequences are dire if you do so. This didn't stop the lich from his deranged experiments, but normally, the soul was just something you never touched. One of the reasons, besides the obvious danger, was that your soul determines your future.

Once you have reached a certain strength threshold, the best way to get stronger is by awakening one's soul.

Normally, a wolf would awaken their beast soul, but Ark was awakening both a demonic soul and a divine soul. This was something completely unprecedented in this world, and something that had never really happened before. To not only awaken two souls, but two souls that are the polar opposites of each other nonetheless.

Ark, who had been knocked out from the pain, had already awoken again. The pain wasn't as intense now, but it was still horrible. And even worse than that, was that it would suddenly spike every few minutes when the fight between the souls reached a turning point.

Not only was the pain unbearable, but there was also another side effect to the souls fighting for domination in his body, his personality was rapidly changing back and forth.

One second he felt pathetic, another second he just wanted the world to die, and another second he felt bad for Ephine, Atar and Thufrat, who were probably searching for him. A soul is the essence of who you are, the essence of your existence. To have that essence constantly switching back and forth was making Ark nauseous, and unsure of himself.

As time passed, he was beginning to doubt his own existence.

"How come everything bad always happens to me? Screw this shit!"

"I hope Ephine, Atar and Thufrat are okay, at least they don't have to suffer like me."

"Whenever I get the chance to, I'm gonna tear that fucking lich to pieces!"

"Hopefully I can get out of here soon, before I go crazy."

Ark felt like he was going nuts, his thoughts reflected which of the souls was currently in control, which was why his thoughts were so drastically different. The feeling of switching souls was absolutely disgusting, and Ark was starting to lose his patience. It was as if two different people were pulling on each of his arms, he was bound to get pissed off eventually.

The only real consolation was that the pain wasn't as bad anymore. To Ark's despair, there was still no way for him to get some sleep. He was already exhausted, but not being able to sleep was like a form of torture too.

Unfortunately for Ark, neither the pain nor the nausea went away for the next three days, and he had to spend them wide awake. As he stared into nothingness whilst experiencing endless torture, he felt like he was going insane. Any normal person definitely would, but since Ark had the skill [Mental Fortitude], he was practically immune to going insane or having his thoughts altered.

He could still feel all of the pain, but it wouldn't really mess with his head too much.

This skill was something that he had gotten at the beginning of his journey, and it was still with him to this day. Just the thought of it almost made Ark smile, despite all of the pain he was in. He had truly come a long way since then. He was not only way stronger, but he also had people that he could call family, something he'd never had before.

However, whilst he was in the midst of reminiscing about the past, his body started to rapidly heat up, and pain that was incomparable to anything he had ever felt before quickly came over him. His consciousness that had been on the verge of collapse these past few days instantly gave in, and he slipped into complete darkness.