“Miért van az hogyha kémeket várunk, mi mindig erre az oldalra kerülünk?” Edward and William quickly leap in the air, their bodies rotate by themselves, landing on the ceiling like cats with their hands and feet glued to it. Two guards pass by while complaining about their placement in the western wing of the mansion.

The two nods at each other and release from the ceiling, the two guards fall over like a sack of potatoes while holding onto their throats as air moves out from their bodies, while also stops entering. Sharp blades phase through their uniforms, ignoring even their flesh and bone, piercing their hearts. “Good work!” Edward says while he swiftly removes his dagger from the shorter guard, cleaning the tip off on her suit.

“Did you got what they talked about?” William asks as he grabs the taller corpse and drags it into a nearby storage room. “Just the usual complaints of guards.” Edward answers without hesitation as he puts his share on the other.

“Clear.” The two leave silently, rushing towards the stairs on the far end, passing by upgraded portraits of the Corvinus family heads. Most of them depicted with a dark background, a crow sitting atop their right or left shoulders staring emptily. With the new technological upgrades, the eyes follow after the two as if they see through their illusion spells.

“This way.” Edward takes the lead at the stairs. On their way down they glue themselves to the walls as a pack of maids and butlers silently make their way up. William notes the emptiness in their eyes, saliva drooling from their mouths as they move with perfect rhythm. “Yeah, Corvinus prefers servants that, well only serve.” Edward’s voice sounds within his mind.

“They’re also serve as a hidden line of defence. Do not underestimate them.” Then he continues pointing out the Corvinus practice of replacing empathy and fear in their servants, turning them into killing machines protecting their corporate secrets, while also doing laundry and other menial tasks in their homes and mansions.

“From the looks of it, the process is still not perfect.” William notes from the clear signs. “Well, these were probably made with haste.” Edward adds after their footsteps disappear in the right turn near the stairs.

“Let’s not waste any more time. There are still quite a few levels below this.” With that the two continue their way down, turn after turn the enormous mansion seems rather empty, as if it has been abandoned for decades. Yet in their focus on their mission, revenge they don’t notice the darkness creeping in the corners, watching and waiting.

**

“Megbízható az embered?” The hot summer wind entering through the open window swiftly turns cold, while the Hollow One stares at the lights of Visegrád in the distance. The sky lit up for a mere moment in myriad colour as the fireworks launch from the city. The drunken cheers of the crowd barely reach the boundaries of the mansion as his cold empty eyes bask in the momentary lights.

“Természetesen Ó Mélységtelen Ürességed!” Dórián’s voice echoes through while his projection casts a blue glow on the bookshelves riddled with tomes. His eyes tired, barely visible between the heavy wrinkles and brow framing them, his lower face hidden under a well-trimmed thick beard while his hair completely fell out exposing the hundred wrinkles atop.

“Mond meg akkor neki hogy csak minimális kárt tegyen benne. Ritka a sárkányvérű még a Alfheimban is.” The Hollow One speaks in his deep voice accompanied by a dozen other, including a childish one.

“Kívánságod számomra parancs.” For a short moment, Dórián remains silent. His heart aches for a moment, then he sighs while bowing deeply. His projection dissipates after confirming the order. “Jobb lesz ha megválunk tőle is!” The Hollow One turns around, speaking into the air, while a darker shadow with hollow white eyes corresponds with silence.

**

A thud echoes through the large chamber as the last mindless servants’ body hits the metallic floor. „That’s the last one I think.” Edward pants while his muscles loosen, the arcane inscription granting supernatural strength and agility to him flowing out back into the air, re-joining the unseen mana surrounding them.

“Let’s hurry before he leaves.” William lifts up one of the corpses, belonging to an elderly man with dense trimmed hair parted to the back, shaved on the sides exposing his implants. William himself removes his black mask and balaclava under it. His face now possessing a smoother fair skin, a few scars still remaining from his old service days. His eyes now retaining the glow, making them look regal. Then as he plucks the eye out, and holds it close to his right, it changes colour, matching the deceased’s.

“Ladies first as you used to say.” Edward walks up to him after he faced the scanner on the left of the large metal gate separating them from the other side. As it opens up, his remark puts a mild smile on his face, a bit more visible thanks to the neatly trimmed beard of his as Edward elegantly bows while pointing his right arm at the revealed long and dimly lit corridor.

As they traverse through the simply, straight corridor their enhanced senses start picking up on faint presences. “Undead.” William murmurs with Edward agreeing with a silent nod as he follows behind, both agents on edge. The silence is finally broken by the distorted, echoing scream of a middle-aged woman with synthetic limbs. Her jaws open unnaturally wide exhuming a pitch blackness as she screams with half of her face completely decayed down to murky muscles and bone.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Her rotten teeth seemingly sharpened breaks upon the metallic forearm of William. Then in a spur of a moment, spikes burst out of her head with little to no hair remaining, followed by it exploding on impact to the wall behind her after still not willing to die a second time.

“Holy fucking mother of god.” As the putrid metallic corpse hits the ground, a few moments of tender silence follow, before it once more breaks as a cacophony of distorted screams reach the two. “Quick, help with the Consuming.” Edward hastily walks behind William and puts his hand on his back, a scorching warmness coursing through his arms into his body while golden flames wrap William’s arms.

The celestial inferno’s tendrils engulfed the expansive corridor, painting it in a vibrant tapestry of shimmering light. The luminous blaze consumed every inch of the space as the tendrils lost their form, consuming the weird undead rushing towards the two in a calm rage. Their warped shrieks fell to silence as the bright radiant flames destroyed every bit of theirs including the implants hanging onto the rotten flesh and bones. “That was… as impressive as I remembered.” Edward said while his body exhumed smoke, his knees giving in.

“Up for continuing on?” William turns to him while his face is drenched in sweat, looking down with his eyes showing the determination that keeps him from collapsing.

“I’ll follow after once I rested.” He says with his voice breaking, sounding dry as his barren throat gasped for a soothing drink. “Also, there is no way no one heard that.” He winks behind his mask with a smirk as he leans to the mildly boiling wall.

Without saying a word William disappears in the wall of smoke that accumulated. “I’m sorry.” Edward muttered when William got out of earshot while he lit a cigarette.

With most of the undead burnt to piles of ashes and puddles of molten metal, William reached the end of the path within minutes. “So close.” Standing in front of the door, his legs feel heavy, cold as if frost wrapped around them binding him to earth. “Not this time.” He breaks free as he presses the button.

He walks into a round room with a light brightening the centre of the room. Beyond the light, his target sits on a throne of metal, emitting sinister crimson neon, jade green and ivory light in a weird mockery of his nations flag. A hood casts dim shadows over his face, while a putrid smell assaults Williams’ nostrils.

“Finally, we can meet face to face William Christensen, the prized lizard of the IMB.” A dry, warped voice echoes through the room as Dórián Corvinus slowly raises from his throne. His face is slowly illuminated by the light. A pale skeletal visage grinned back at him, eyes deeply sunken held piercing orbs of a cold blue, burning with a hatred that he knows all too well. As he speaks, pieces of his desiccated flesh fall off blood ichor like blood flows down tainting his ragged clothes.

“The pleasure is mine.” William replies as his arms engulf in golden flames. “Ah yes, the flames that killed many of my predecessors.” Dórián speaks up anger piling up in his voice slowly. “And my son.”

William raises his right arm, a radiant swirling ray rip towards Dórián. A hexagonal shape of arcane energies form in front of him, shattering on impact. Small arcane flakes fall towards the ground, dissipating gradually before reaching it. William grunts as his gut dents in, his body soars several meters back towards the entrance.

He swiftly tilts his upper body back to the left as a crackling skull of necrotic energies flies towards him. It grazes his arm before disappearing in the corridor. He hisses as the hole created by corrosion show his mildly rotted flesh. He bites his tongue and disappears into thin air. Dórián turns around while his eerie chanting fills the room, then his screaming replaces it as he falls to the ground on his back, exposing his putrid body. Flames start consuming it as he screams until only a burnt mark of him remains on the floor.

“Rot in hell bastard.” He looks down with contempt even at his shadow burnt in the ground for eternity. Then his sobbing follows as he collapses on the spot, mumbling Giada’s name constantly while apologizing.

“I’m afraid I can’t allow that.” A deep distorted voice echoing with a dozen soft whispers jolts him back to reality, back onto his feet. For a moment he lets down his guard as he sees the malnourished boy appearing not older than 25 standing in front of him draped in dark robes, his black puddle of hollow eyes staring at him.

He snaps his twig of a fingers, an echoing scream of Dórián travels through the room, heading into the corridors where it disappears. “Don’t make a move or you end up like him.” Williams’ arms lit up in the radiant flames of his as he yells with his voice breaking. “You yearned for me for so long, yet now you halt when facing me. So typical of you.” He slowly glides towards him, his cold hands touching his face as he towers over him. The golden flames extinguishing as a tender coldness embraces him.

In a moment the surroundings fade into pitch blackness, he feels a pain indescribable as cold fingers push into the very nature of his, then as quickly as it started, he finds himself calmly floating in nothingness. Give in and see her. A tune breezes his ears, or maybe an ode with a beckoning message that fills him with promises, assaulting his mind of the good olden days. The first time he met with Esther as they were hiding from witch hunters. Her smile a bright star in his hollow life at the time. Then the day their daughter came to see the light of this world, the first time she spoke with bright golden eyes gleaming with wonder and joy. The last time when the three of them were together before he got enlisted in the Great War after the IMB learnt of the enemy secretly relying on mages to turn the tide.

How she clung to him even as a fully matured adult of their kind, begging him to not go. He remembers how he promised that whatever happens to him, they will meet again one day, because that was His promise to them. At the moment their pinkies wrap around each other, his resolve returns. He feels the coldness piercing him, his flesh, his soul. Each time he melts the feeling away with the flames that die out just as quickly.

“Not an illusion. Maybe a place.” He murmurs as he focuses, the darkness starts twisting around him. In that moment he feels millions of eyes glaring at him to stop. He continues to show his defiance, to the point his body starts contorting losing its shape. It turns into a swirling that slowly falls into itself while his radiant flames lit up at the edges.

The Hollow One screams as he flies back, the celestial inferno consuming everything in the room, before it dies out leaving only him on the floor. “Like daughter, like father.” He murmurs with empty anger in his voice as he stands up with half his vessel destroyed, like a porcelain doll whose left half has been shattered to pieces, exhuming darkness. “Maybe in another world.”