Screaming at the horrid sight before him, Lutius was truly agitated before he calmed down. The only other person with the order element, the Magus Sage had arrived.
“Order,” he said calmly and then… silence.
Alexandra and Rose who were both screaming in pain stopped as they fell to the floor unconscious. A speck of golden light was emitted by the Sage’s hand and flew into the heads of both ladies. After which, it came back out and seemed to be holding something. Something the size and shape of a 3 cm black millipede, came out from Alexandra whilst a 1 cm one came out from Rose.
“What is that?” Lutius said as he asked the question on everyone’s mind.
Suddenly a voice was heard in the minds of all present.
“This is a remnant of past evil which plagued this land. Seeing this in our present age fills me with concern for the last time I saw this was in the war which took place at the time I was but a normal human.”
Hearing this, everyone’s face had the same expression, shock. This was because every Magus Sage presides over a kingdom for the duration of 5 Emperors on average. Of course, due to various reasons, the present Whitstar Kingdom was no longer an Empire. Taking into consideration the time it took to reach the level of Sage, plus the average ruling duration is 500 years due to a high life span thanks to SE, the time the Sage was speaking about was over 2100 years ago. That number was just unbelievable to most.
“Luther initiate protocol 651-17,” the sage said before disappearing.
Hearing these words, the King just nodded to ‘The Hidden’ before they disappeared together with the nightingales. At this moment, soldiers escorted the ministers out whilst doctors administered care for Alexandra and Rose. Rose’s family and Queen Alexis followed the doctors who carried away a comatose Rose and Alexandra while King Luther and Eobard worked together with the Dukes and others, as they drafted plans and seemed to be preparing for something huge.
“Let’s go brother, if we’re are needed, we will be called,” Lucian said to him whilst walking out the door with Lexus.
Following along, they couldn’t help but discuss what just happened.
“Brother what is Protocol 651-17?” the youngest of the three, Lexus asked Lutius.
“I don’t know exactly what it is, but what I do know is there exist certain protocols had been established to react to particular cases. I’m guessing in this case, it is when a foreign party with a ulterior motive against our kingdom appears,” Lutius replied.
“That’s correct but you are missing something brother, as you know I have been training with the nightingales in the path of Magic Knight, thus I was privy to some information. This protocol is known as the FEAR protocol. It basically means to put the kingdom on high alert by deploying covert agents. Unfortunately, this is all I learned, as the peculiarities are classified way above even my level,” Lucian explained. By this time, they arrived in an underground room behind the main building. In the room, a circular table with four thrones, was in the centre in which they sat.
“This really feels weird without Alex,” Lexus said.
“It cannot be helped. Though she was possessed we can only hope who ever was the culprit didn’t do any unfixable damage. Thankfully, many formations were placed in our minds which made it almost impossible to access classified information,” Lucian replied, “Anyways, Lutius, let us begin. Last time we had decided to create our own network of spies as father had told us he believed that his spies in some countries may have been compromised.”
Lutius, who by this time remembered from his memories what was discussed in the last meeting that took place here, proposed the plan that the original Lutius had created with a few tweaks.
“I suggest we create two different forces. Both will be in charge of covert ops, but they will have different tactics and stratagems. This thought came about because from what I learnt, the reason why the spies may have been found out is because they lacked some skills. It is better if I gave an example. If a spy was in the Ember kingdom and found out certain information which suggested a rebellion was on the verge of erupting, we would want to know this. However, if all our spies know is how to befriend people and gather information, they will not be able to actually infiltrate a group of people who are preparing for war, because they know nothing of war far and strategies which would be integral in gaining the trust of commanders etc. That is why I propose we have 2 groups, one will be called the Cerberus Group, which will handle the spy work that required those with fighting and war experience etc. and the Fenrir Group which will carry out the traditional spy craft. In this way we will be more flexible and be able to quickly adapt no matter what situation we find ourselves in.”
When he was finished talking, Lucian and Lexus were both looking at him with a smile on their face for different reasons. Lucian was in acceptance with the plan put forward by Lutius, and Lexus was just mimicking his elder brother as it was a bit too much information for his 14-year-old brain to handle.
“But bro, why can’t we just train 1 team but with the intention of them developing the 2 skillsets?” Lucian asked after thinking awhile.
“Specialisation my brother. Even if we trained them both, some will be better than some in certain areas. Thus, we will pick out those who show talent in an area and train them accordingly.”
Being enlightened, Lucian agreed, and they all retired to their personal quarters. As soon as Lutius entered his room though, a person in all black appeared and bowed to him.
“My lord, I have failed you. The one who tried to assassinate you in the forest escaped, but not before I chopped off his 2 arms,” the woman said with a beautiful voice which pulled Lutius out of his momentary surprise.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
“Arise, Alpha, failure cannot be blamed on you for the strength of the attacker was extremely high. I am almost certain it was an Exalted Advanced Mage. You, though being a Minor levelled Advanced Mage who can clash with those even above your strength, can’t do anything if an Exalted one wanted to escape. Let that be water under the bridge, we will be prepared the next time. How has recruitment been going?” Lutius asked, as the memories of this woman flashed through his mind. When Lutius was younger, around 6 years of age, he used to go out with Eobard and accompany him on travels in the Kingdom.
One time, some bandits had attacked them thinking they were wealthy merchants and Lutius was almost harmed. In his rage Eobard set off to eradicate the bandits base which was in a cave that led quite deep into the mountains that was the backdrop of the Whitstar Kingdom. In a pathway which Lutius stumbled upon, he was greeted with a sight that left him retching for days. In this cave were cells of women and female children, with some being dismembered and body parts strewn all over the place. Being as small as he was, he made hardly any sound, if any at all. In one of the cells, a bandit who didn’t notice what was going on in the upper level of the cave, was ploughing in and out of a girl about the age of himself. In horror a woman, who he later assumed to be the girl’s mother stared at what was going on with anger, disgust and despair. The little girl twisted and turned shouting and one of her fingers manged to scrape the eye of the bandit, after which he shouted with rage and summoned an icicle and stabbed the girl in the palms of her hands nailing them to the floor. Seeing this an extreme feeling of rage and anger somehow propelled Lutius forward and he pulled out the short sword he always had on him at the time on his waist and swung it at the man’s neck from behind. With a face which shone of confusion, the man’s head dropped to the floor. At the same time Eobard had arrived at the moment Lutius killed the man. Suddenly Lutius fainted and Eobard caught him before he hit the floor. At the tender age of 6, Lutius killed for the first time.
This lady in-front him now, was the mother of the child whom he had saved, and was an Exalted Intermediate Wizard at the time, who strived to break through to the advanced stage and serve Lutius for the rest of her life. The girl’s mind unfortunately, was broken and even till this day she was prone to moments of madness unlike any other Lutius had seen. However, with the increasing development in research on hybrid magic, a cure was not to far off, as the experimental potions and spells already had a huge impact on her psyche. This was why the woman was so depressed and angry with herself, as she had failed to prevent the thing, she had vowed to protect him from. If Lutius had really died and Mike didn’t transmigrate at that point in time, she would’ve probably killed herself for her failure.
“Recruitment is going great Master; so far we have amassed over 200 agents who are ready to serve. They were all from the bandit extermination missions that master embarked on. We are about to halt recruitment as we will hit the 250-limit mark set by master and focus solely on training. This last mission will let us hit that 250 mark; all we wait on is for you to join us,” Alpha replied.
“We will set of at midnight,” Lutius said and Alpha disappeared. He still had 6 hours till then, so he made his way to where Rose and Alexandra were recuperating. He was still pretty much confused about what exactly happened and what was that thing the Magus Sage pulled out of their heads, but because his father dismissed them at the time, he was unable to find out anything.
Finally reaching the soldiers barracks, he entered the medical building and a mage walked up to him and led him to where they were keeping Rose and Alexandra. In the room, Alex and Rose lay on two beds side by side, as a couple mages kept casting spells every so often to ensure they were able to wake up as soon as possible. Watching this scene, Lutius didn’t notice when Rose’s mother walked up behind him.
“They say it was a chaos element type possession which targeted them when they slept and made them do whatever the one controlling them wanted. They forced Alexandra to allow for the trafficking of people through her connections and was subjected to acts of rape and torture to break her mind down to the point they could access the classified information in her mind. Fortunately for us, Alexandra was able to hold on, but we don’t know why Rose had one in her as her memories have no indication of anything criminal,” Nesilia Crest said startling the Prince.
Hearing what she had said made a rage in him erupt to such an extent his SE ran rampant and started affecting the SE particles around him. Forcibly calming himself he just sat down by the two girls’ side together with Rose’s mother and watched over them.
“Leviathan Group, move out!”
At exactly midnight, a team of 15 people wearing all black with the image of a snake like creature circling a white star on their collars, were rushing through the great forest behind the Whitstar Kingdom. Upon reaching a small clearing, which in normal cases, wouldn’t be regarded as suspicious, a member of the group stepped forward and deployed a few trinkets in the area where each then connected to each other with a red light to form a pentagram. The centre of the pentagram shifted continuously till it stopped over a patch of grass towards the edge of the clearing. Nodding to each other, the group lined up and together they summoned spells of varying elements and smashed it on that patch of grass, after which they immediately jumped in the hole that appeared, and the sounds of fighting resounded. Lutius, one of the first to jump in immediately let loose all the frustration he had built up from what transpired earlier and also what little frustration had remain from being sent to a foreign world. Thinking about how he died and then almost died twice in one day, thinking about how his beloved sister was crying and screaming in pain, thinking about how his dear wife was bleeding from her orifices, Lutius simply let loose.
“Order- Penance of Hell!”
“Order- Eradication of the Sinful!”
“Order- Wrath of the World!”
Spell after spell, slice after slice, Lutius turned into a killing machine. After killing out all the bandits in this area they looked for the hidden passageways leading to the deeper level where the slaves were kept. When they found it however, finding women and children was what they expected, but they couldn’t believe what they saw in-front of them.
In the middle of the room where there were cages on each side stretching deep inside the cave, 10 men sat around a fire as they ate their meat. What had truly shocked Lutius and company was that one of the guy who had just finished raping a woman on the ground, proceeded to them chop the arm off the woman before sticking a rod through it and roasting it with the fire. It was at this point where they realised what they were seeing. These people weren’t humans, no, they were demons.
With a loud shout of madness, Lutius didn’t even bother casting a spell. the spiritual essence of the world just bended to his will and went mad. Everyone in the vicinity suddenly felt as if their hearts were going to burst out of their chest.
[ Host. Control yourself.]
At this moment Trixie’s voice rung out in Lutius mind allowing him to achieve a moment of clarity. The huge pressure vanished from everyone beside the bandits and Lutius did something which shocked all those who came with him.
“Chaos Magic- Order of Life and Death- As the one who reigns above all I Lutius Whitstar command you- DIE!”
A few seconds after Lutius spoke, all the bandits stood up and drew their weapons……. and then sliced off their own heads.