"Is everything alright?" Thaas had seen that gaze and heard that voice countless tis in the past. Always in a soldier who had gotten close to his breaking point. "If this is too much for you and you're about to lose control, then it's you who should leave.
"There might be more rooms like this one and those people deserve a chance to-"
"Lose control?" Lith echoed, his snapping back into focus as they t Thaas'. "You know who I am, Captain. My enemies took my mother and girlfriend hostage. They made find the mutilated body of my father.
"They made kill my best friend with my own hands. Yet I've never played into their hands and let my emotions get the best of , or I wouldn't be here today. I don't lose control, Captain, I stop holding back.
"I stop caring about the sanity of those around and unleash every dirty trick and iota of power I possess. That's the reason this place is no longer safe for you and your soldiers. Not because of what the Emperor Beast might do but because of what I will do."
"You have no reason to worry about us." Thaas sighed in relief, feeling the calm and confidence exuding from Lith's body. "We are all veterans of hundreds of battles. We can-"
"Can you?" Lith took a single step closer yet Thaas felt like an avalanche was rumbling its way down toward him and his feet refused to move. "Can you even imagine how it feels for a man like you to witness what a man like can do?"
Lith wasn't releasing any aura and there was no killing intent in the room. There were no sparks of magic in his eyes or flas in his mouth. He was just one man wearing the uniform of the Knight Guard, identical to the dozens of others in the room.
Yet aside from Solus and Thaas, everyone instinctively took a step back. Solus because she knew Lith and Thaas because he couldn't. The captain was paralyzed on the spot, even his lungs refused to move.
"That's what I thought." Lith put Chyrsha's corpse in Thaas' arms like she was asleep and he was afraid to wake her up.
Lith's voice and posture softened and, for so reason, the Knight Guard's soldiers relaxed as well. The monster triggering their battle instinct was gone, replaced by a grieving son.
"Ragnarök." Lith called softly and the space beside him rippled open in a blaze of erald flas.
"Yes?" The angry blade quivered excitedly like a puppy whose master had taken out the leash for a walk in the park.
"Kill them all." Lith's voice took a cold, emotionless edge. "All the Emperor Beasts you find, you can kill them however you want. I want to hear them scream."
The straps and latches on the blade opened and the seals broke. What looked like copper turned out to be highly compressed blood and flesh that rearranged itself into a humanoid body with spindly limbs and gnarly fingers.
The creature had multiple black eyes flowing along its red skin with no apparent pattern. Countless mouths opened all over the flesh and bones masquerading themselves as a humanoid creature, all of them laughing.
The voice produced by the mouths wasn't human. There was no joy or recognizable emotion in those warbling sounds aside from the eagerness of a predator on the prowl. Of a monstrosity born from blood and thirsty for more blood.
Ragnarök had no care for the soldiers and the prisoners. It didn't care for the horrific events that had taken place in the room in which it had appeared. Too long had passed since the last ti the angry blade fed.
Since it had t an opponent worthy of its edge.
Ragnarök's proto-consciousness tried and failed to understand why its master was upset. The dead woman was no Elysia, no Kamila, no one the angry blade had been trained to protect.
Concepts like empathy were beyond Ragnarök's limited mind and irrelevant to its mission. Soone had hurt its master and he trusted Ragnarök to return the hurt a thousand-fold.
That was sothing Ragnarök understood and was confident it would deliver.
***
"What the fuck is going on?" Jika the Zouwu had barely ti to answer Kugoh's summon when the communication runes on his amulet started to disappear one after the other. "Who are those people and how did they find us?"
By following the disappearance of the runes, Jika could tell that while at first his colleagues and friends had died one by one or in small groups, now they were dropping like flies.
"That's a good question and one I hoped you could answer ." Kugoh replied coldly. "Everything was fine until you returned here after 'failing' the assassination. Was it really luck that only you survived or is there sothing more?"
"Like what?" Jika growled in outrage.
"Best case scenario, you are so incompetent that you've led our enemies to our base." Kugoh replied as his features shapeshifted into those of a Behemoth. "Worst case scenario, you've bargained for your life and have turned against us."
"If that were true, why would have I returned?" Jika scoffed. "I could have just told the soldiers the location of this place and bailed."
"Like the Constables would have let you." Kugoh scoffed back. "You are still a murderer and a mber of this organization. On top of that, if you hadn't returned here and your contact rune was still active, we would have known you had turned.
"None of us allows himself to be captured. The soldiers knew they had to send you back or we would have packed our bags and left. You opened the door for them."
"That's preposterous!" Jika opened his hands and when he clenched them again, he was holding twin curved blades. "I did no such thing."
"Then prove it." Kugoh flexed his muscles and tail, getting used to his real body again after being stuck in human form for so long. "Get out there and fight with our brother and sisters."
"Or what?" The Zouwu roared.
"Or you stay here and fight against us." Shasa burst out of the façade of the wizened old man and turned into a Hyppogriff, silver lightning arching all over his body.
"Fine." Jika slumped. "I'll be dead in a while either way. Just know this. I'm not a traitor."
"Then how did the soldiers find us?" Shasa asked. "How did they crack our protections so easily?"
"I wish I knew." The Zouwu turned around and left the room.
The answers were painfully simple. The Eyes of nadion had followed Jika from a great distance and the Mage Association had done the rest.
The Emperor Beasts had lived most of their lives in the wilderness and had greatly underestimated human mages. In its millennium-long history, the Association had dealt with countless rogue mages, no matter if true, fake, or even Awakened.
The Mage Association had collected and studied the blueprints of the magical formations of those it had defeated and added to its collection.
The Emperor Beasts' base of operations had state-of-the-art magical security, but only from a civilian's standpoint. Compared to the Royal Palace, the six great academies, or the ancient noble households, it was a little more than a padlock.
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