Kassian was about to respond when Ravenspire intervened impatiently.
"Ti, Kassian. We don’t have all day."
Another reminder of not so distant battles that could reshape kingdoms while they wasted precious monts on family drama.
Kassian sighed again and looked at his younger brother with what might have been pity.
"It’s for your own good," he declared. "So if you don’t want to suffer more than necessary, I recomnd you stop resisting."
He attempted to subdue Klein completely, forcing neural threads toward connections that would allow total control.
The violation was not just physical assault, but fundantal erasure of everything that made Klein himself, reducing him to extension of Kassian’s will.
But in the end, after Klein resisted with every fiber of his being, screaming until his voice broke, sothing unexpected happened.
Kassian’s threads inside his head failed to connect.
For so reason neither of them completely understood, Klein was immune... Kassian’s threads couldn’t activate.
Klein collapsed, exhausted but free, while Kassian looked at him with great confusion.
The contradiction was maddening, power that had worked on their father, that had subjugated one of the kingdom’s most powerful tars, failing against a Bronze-rank child.
"Interesting," Ravenspire murmured, observing the unexpected developnt with curiosity.
Kassian straightened, frustration evident while processing the failure.
"Well," he finally said with growing disinterest, "I suppose I don’t need you after all."
Klein had ceased being the prospect of a useful tool. Without capacity for direct control, he was simply the uncooperative disappointnt he had always been. Taking him no longer had value if he couldn’t control him.
But Ravenspire thought differently. His eyes glead while observing the child who had accomplished sothing that should have been impossible.
"Wait," he murmured, approaching Klein with renewed interest. "I want to try sothing else."
He prepared to take him to experint with illusions, wondering if Klein’s immunity extended to other forms of ntal manipulation.
It was then that Han stepped forward.
With deliberate movents, he raised both hands and closed his eyes, beginning to recite in low voice a code that only high-level operatives knew.
"Raven-Six-Alpha-Black-Deep-Root..."
The intervention was desperate... identification that might an survival or might an imdiate execution depending on Ravenspire’s mood.
Ravenspire narrowed his eyes dangerously, his claws beginning to extend, but Han released a small amount of abyssal energy. Trace amounts, barely perceptible, but sufficient to confirm real affiliation.
He continued in coded cipher, explaining he had been docunting Klein’s behavior for months. Claiming that maintaining the subject in natural state was crucial for understanding long-term affectations. Forced intervention would compromise valuable data.
The explanation was professional and plausible... intelligence gathering that prioritized long-term value.
Yet Ravenspire didn’t understand why this operative would risk himself for an apparently minor objective, but luckily he didn’t have ti to analyze the situation completely.
The world shook.
The bridge exploded.
The explosion sent shock waves that were felt even at this distance. The building trembled, windows vibrated, and for a mont the air itself seed to crystallize with residual energy.
Venmont’s dominant aura, which had been constantly pulsing on the horizon, abruptly vanished.
The sudden absence was more disturbing than the explosion.
Ravenspire felt an imdiate stab of alarm.
He was about to tell Kassian he would take Klein by force when an unexpected voice cut through the tension.
"HAHAHAHA! Oh, this is MAGNIFICENT!"
Everyone turned toward the sound. In the shelter’s corner, an accountant apparently avoided among staff refugees swayed dramatically in his chair on a lone table, gesticulating wildly while a small mouse jumped in the middle of the sa table.
The display was bizarre... like madness expressing itself through theatrical performance that sohow felt more honest than normal behavior.
"Do you see the cosmic irony!?" the accountant exclaid, his eyes shining with a mixture of terror and hysteria. "Here is our young hero, valiantly fighting for his FREEDOM!"
He jumped up with movent that shifted the table, almost knocking over the mouse, which squeaked indignantly.
"But what is freedom but the most expensive illusion we ever buy! A premium cage with golden bars we call ’choice’!"
He made an elaborate bow while trapping the mouse in a crystal basin, the mouse running in circles inside the "cage".
"At least in slavery, one knows exactly what the rules are! But in freedom... ah, in freedom, one becos slave to every decision, every possibility, every path not taken!"
His laughter beca sharper, more desperate.
"It’s the universe’s ultimate joke! We fight to escape a small cage only to discover we’ve run toward an INFINITELY larger cage!"
The mouse, apparently accustod to these dramatic monologues, lay down quietly and began moving its paws erratically.
"And most beautiful," the accountant continued, tears of laughter mixing with terror, "is that we pay ALL our money, ALL our ti, ALL our sanity for the privilege of this superior cage!"
Ravenspire watched the weird spectacle with genuine fascination... To the point of not thinking about killing the impertinent man. There was sothing artistic and refined that pleased him, that elaborate aura he himself sought to emit.
The joke, born from terror and apparent psychological breakdown, had touched sothing in Ravenspire’s mind that seed profoundly true. Freedom as commodity, independence as the most expensive form of dependence.
More importantly, it had given him a ’brilliant’ idea.
"You know what," Ravenspire murmured, a ravening smile spreading across his face, "you’re right. Let’s see if our foolish little boy can really maintain his precious freedom and newly found ’purity’ for long."
He withdrew a small potion from his tunic, purple liquid that pulsed with promises of easy power.
"Take this," he ordered Klein, who was still on the ground, exhausted.
"No," Klein responded weakly.
"It wasn’t a request."
Ravenspire forced the potion down Klein’s throat, holding him immobile while the corrupting liquid let gravity do its work.
Han remained standing with hands raised. Ravenspire struck him casually, sending him staggering. But he forgave him due to his proven usefulness so far.
Then he disappeared and addressed the accountant from behind, who was still laughing hysterically.
"And you, philosopher," he said, placing a claw on the man’s neck, "you’re also going to perform longer for ."
He put another potion on the table for the accountant, who looked at it with confused eyes until the claw cut his skin a bit.
"Of course!" the accountant exclaid, raising the potion like a toast. "The final corruption! The ultimate price of mbership in the crystallized freedom club!"
He drank the potion in one gulp, his mouse squeaking worriedly from the crystal enclosure.
"Now I am TRULY free... to be slave to your forces!"
Ravenspire observed the reactions for a mont, morizing every detail for future analysis. Then his shadow divided so small parts that entered the ’experints’ shadows.
"Perfect," he murmured. "We’ll see gradually if the immunity is real or simply... temporary."
He vanished again and materialized from shadows next to Kassian, who had been observing everything with distant expression.
"It’s ti to return. We’ll take the long route. Dragarion clearly has no rival here anymore, and if he decides to pursue us..."
He didn’t need to finish the sentence.
Both disappeared, leaving the refuge in disturbing silence.
Klein remained on the ground, feeling sothing strange beginning to circulate through his system, while Han painfully got up.
The accountant had broken the glass basin with his head, his mouse whispering in his ear as if calming him.
And Klein, unknowingly, was about to discover exactly how deep his newly found immunity ran.
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