In the two weeks since Nulson was in Everfall, he tried to escape 43 times, half almost succeeding.

This was expected, and neither Fomoria nor D’if found an issue with this.

Nulson had only shared by hands on teaching, that is to say, when he tried to get away. And what he was teaching was useful.

Most importantly, nobody had yet died in any escape attempts purely due to Micheal’s presence.

When Xol entered Fomoria’s office, there was a hope that he could join the fight.

“Are you done with what I asked?”

“Yes, your Hydra and your worm are finished.”

“Good. Now explain the results of the tests.”

Xol put up his cubes to prevent spying. From the outside, Xol and Fomoria were having a conversation about if each of the creatures matched what Xol designed them for.

“Why am I being told I can’t fight?”

“When you gained the ability to sever the connection between things, whispers began, and some gods went from neutral to worried. You never, ever, want gods worried about you. Last time a god was worried about what you might do, Cecht was hiring counterseers to make sure that The Darkness couldn’t see threats headed your way. If you tried to eat the fingers right now, you would fail, because they are The Emperor. But, if you sever the connection then you would gain power without his influence.”

“Is that really such a problem? You are made entirely out of that Godtouched steel, but you aren’t a threat to the gods.”

“I was not born able to use magic. I cannot hear the mana sing to me. This steel brings me to a level of power far beyond what you are right now, it brings helps me to be the second strongest person on Aarde.

Yet you have shown a very strong connection to Mana- The overarching entity that is contained within all mana, The Dispersed God.”

“The Dispersed God?”

“I can’t get into details just yet, but trust that I will explain once you have the power of The Emperor.

The point is that you have a potential not seen since your great grandfather, who I would consider the finest mage ever born. I based you on him-”

Fomoria had an instant gut reaction of fury.

“What does that mean?”

“The Darkness set up many events in your life, but, regrettably, she based her plan on my words.

It was never my intent for you to be born, but when she tried to understand why Sepul was how he was, she asked me, and I spoke. Now that you know, I am sorry, I hope you can truly feel that, I am sorry.

I wrote your story.”

“That’s… that’s not your fault. You understood what made him what he was, and she did that without you directly influencing my life.”

“I hoped you would understand that. I don’t think what has happened to you was fair.

We plan to strike in six days. They aren’t going to tell you when it happens, but I want you to be ready. When we fight, you are at risk, and you should be ready for that, but please, do prepare in a way that won’t let them know I told you. I will bring the limbs right to you, and you must be ready to sever them. Things will be hectic, Marigold and the others will be ordered to kill you, but I will be ready to help. Keep that combat body ready, it will help you last long enough to control the power.”

Xol put his hand out. When Fomoria took it, Xol pulled him into a half hug.

“I would want nobody but you to have this power, you would make the world which the gods would never allow, one where people can live in peace. To Hell with their idea of needing constant conflict to sharpen the steel of man.”

Xol pulled away and took his cubes.

“Very good. These will be useful as a distraction if I commend them just right. And the worms?”

“Nobody likes them from the testing, but they do allow someone trained in soulspeak to transmit their thoughts to other worms.”

“You weren’t supposed to do that. Marigold was supposed to grant that ability.”

“I am an overachiever.”

Xol chuckled as he moved to gather the creatures.

The six days passed without any visible movements from the Castian military.

The only action that was seen was by the Others, who weren’t conquering cities, but rather killing the warlords who saw that the Castian Empire was dead.

They could return later to officially bring these places under the banner of Fomoria, but now it was more important to stop the chaos.

This was, in theory, a good thing, but the reality was that Fomoria was hoping to do something.

He had been the one fighting against the Castians, he had been the one taking their cities, killing their Fingers. But now at the end, he was being told to stand down.

He sent Yara and Amber away, and in the meanwhile he invited Velvet for a chat.

“I feel like you are going to kill me.”

“What? Why? We’re good friends.”

“I don’t think Amber is going to stay with me.”

“Oh. Is it your fault?”

“I don’t know what I can do. I want to be with her, but I try, then she becomes more distant afterwards and I have to try harder, but she becomes distant again. What do I do? What am I doing wrong?”

“I’m not sure you are doing anything wrong. Amber has had her issues in the past when trying to date men, and even your relationship started with… well, that.”

“But the sex has been great, she-”

“I don’t need to hear that.”

“That’s the one part of the relationship that has been getting better with time. But emotionally she’s pulling away.”

“I-”

Fomoria’s amulet lit up.

“Excuse me for a moment.”

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Under a veil, he answered.

“Hello?”

“Dantes is amassing his forces and has taken several towns at the border, claiming them for Elfique.”

“Thank goodness.”

“What?”

“Try not to kill too many of his troops. Give them a chance to surrender. I’m going to take his head.”

“We can-”

“No, I’ll do this alone.”

“Alright.”

Fomoria put on a worried face as he dropped his veil.

“I’m sorry, but Dantes has attacked us and is trying to become independent of my empire. I must handle this.”

“I understand.”

Fomoria wished to leave because he didn’t feel like there was anything good he could tell Velvet.

Amber had never held any relationship in the long term that he knew of.

Anything that happened at the academy was before he returned, before he could’ve helped.

He didn’t need to speak with Velvet, he needed to talk with Amber, to find out if his friend and his sister could even stay together or if it really was doomed despite his attempts.

The marshalls who were previously focusing on warlords returned to help crush Elfique’s rebelion.

It was almost sad to them. Since they were transformed into adamant, the superposition metal and flesh that was both hard enough to block nearly everything but also soft enough to still feel like flesh and never restrict their moment, they had never severed any severe injuries.

The soldiers of Elfique tried as they might, but the marshalls simply let most of the attacks through, only stopping the rare ones that had a chance to harm them and killing those soldiers.

It was crushing for the soldiers, to watch their enemy stare at them with a boredly disapproving glare.

One by one, they stopped trying, and man collapsed to their feet, the weight of hopelessness being too much to hold.

In one town, an Other floated down and gripped one of the men by the chin.

“Just kill me quickly.”

“There is no need for that. No harm, no foul. You took this town through fear, but I see no damage.

This little rebellion was always doomed to fail, and we did expect it. It would be unfair to punish you, who is just working under the orders to fools above, when we knew that this would happen. Stand up, take off your coat that bears his colors, and return to part of Fomoria. He asked that we kill as few as need be.”

The Other’s voice was soft and gentle, but held some scolding in it. And when he spread across the soldiers, they openly wept at the forgiveness of Fomoria.

Before Fomoria went to Dantes, he looked at his combat body.

Its lower half was like a mantis with four legs but lacking a thorax that stretched far out.

The upper half was humanoid, with two of the arms being bladed, and the other two having clawed fingers.

Overall it stood 100 feet, but if the legs stretched, it could reach 150 feet tall.

Xol did tell him to save it, and even though he wanted to send a message, it would be overkill to pilot it. So, he told the Others in charge of it to keep it ready, but that he didn’t need it just yet.

Fomoria opened a gate, bringing him onto the wall of Elfique’s capital city.

The soldiers quickly opened fire on him with both magic and guns, both given or taught by his people.

Yet as with the Others, these attacks did nothing against him.

“How disappointing.”

Fomoria took a deep breath and focused his aura on his legs.

One deeply angled overhead kick to the right, and one to the left.

The diagonally cutting kicks weakened the supports so that the weight from above would bring it down rather than through a brute force strike; Fomoria was conserving his strength.

As he stepped off of the wall, calmly floating towards the castle, the wall behind him collapsed a hundred feet in both directions.

He held his hands behind his back, the pitfall resistance of the supposed royal guard didn’t require any magic beyond chantless motionless spells.

As he neared the first of them, they pulled out blades of true mythril.

False mythril could cut him if it was a well made blade, but not his armor.

True mythril, even with his armor, even if it wasn’t a masterwork, could cut him with a solid strike.

So, he moved his hands to the front when he neared the royal guards.

They moved in slow motion to Fomoria, and he cut them down with clawed hands.

No matter how old and powerful their equipment was, if they lacked the skills to get near Fomoria, whose limbs bent and twisted at odd angles to hit weak spots and blind points, they were little better than children with sticks.

It was a terrible thing, such misplaced loyalty.

Fomoria cut through the halls of the castle and when he had to go down a floor, he spun in place while standing on his heels, cutting a perfect hole.

Dantes couldn’t hide, not for long.

Fomoria felt his mind shortly after he entered the castle, meaning that he was still inside, under the castle.

Mercedes didn’t know exactly how he got away, but that the real Mercedes did say before the capture that they needed to reach the wine cellar.

It didn’t take long to find the tunnel, since whoever made it was possibly stupid, or Fomoria’s senses were just that much better than almost everyone else.

He saw one of the walls had a seam, and the section was also more magically shielded than the rest of the cellar.

Fomoria would never make such a simple mistake.

Nor would he make the mistake of tying booby traps to that single wall and not preventing people from coming in through the side.

As he walked down the tunnel he kept track of the seven beings, but one was much slower, and the other six left them behind.

Though the other six were getting away, Fomoria stopped when he saw exactly who had been left behind.

It was the mother of Dantes’ new heir.

She sat against the wall of the tunnel, groaning with a puddle of amniotic fluid.

“You need a doctor.”

She groaned again, gritting her teeth as she worked up the strength to reply.

“Please don’t hurt my baby.”

“I would never hurt your baby, and I won’t hurt you either. Celine, I’m going to take you to a doctor. It isn’t right that he left you, and your baby shouldn’t be born in a dark tunnel.”

He opened a gate directly back to Kor, Elk’s practice, and left Celine there after explaining that she was in labor.

Elk was more than a little shocked by the sudden arrival, but that in and of itself, was normal.

Fomoria didn’t go slow anymore.

It took roughly ten seconds to reach the group.

The guards began to shout that Dantes should just keep running, but the sentence was cut off by Fomoria cutting through them, rapidly shifting into something more like a squid, a living bullet with bladed tentacles.

Fomoria spun the blood off of him and onto the walls while also twisting himself back into human form and sending a windblade with a final flick of a tentacle that cut Dantes’ left leg off at the knee.

“Dantes, we need to talk.”

Yet he just yelled.

Fomoria pulled him back with telekinesis and struck him with a spell that would remove the pain.

It wasn’t healing magic, it was torturers magic. The pain wasn’t gone, it would just build up until the spell was released.

It took some time before Dantes actually stopped screaming, his mind not yet processing that the pain wasn’t there anymore.

“I must start with a thank you. I wanted to kill you from the moment you came back. But I just couldn’t do that and avoid angering the Dague, who I consider my people. What I needed was for you to attack me first.”

“We can still-”

“Shh shh shh. I’m going to kill you. I just needed to know one thing first. Why? Why do this?

I’m far beyond you in strength in every way. My army is larger. It’s better equipped. It’s made up of various people, meaning that they each have their own weakness that can be offset by the strengths of others.

So why, why would you think that it could end any way but this? What have I done that is so terrible you couldn’t just stay a ruler of your people? What have I done that made you unable to accept living like that?”

Dantes laughed.

“I know what you are, who you are. This would’ve happened even if I had done everything you asked, been a model puppet.”

“I wouldn’t do something like that, because it sends the wrong message to my people, and to the people who I will conquer in the future.”

“Nothing is enough. Nothing will ever be enough. You will rule the world, and it is then that you are going to turn on your people. You can’t handle things outside of your control. Carmilla doesn’t care, so she isn’t a real threat. You are going to kill Romulus one day, that much is certain. All of the others lack the drive that we have, the will to be a king. They welcomed you as ruler, taking the weight off their shoulders.

Once you have everything you want, you’ll see that it isn’t perfect. So you’ll just-”

Fomoria used his hand like a sword and decapitated Dantes.

What he told himself was that Dantes was wrong, that he was just justifying himself and his greed, that there was no reason to keep listening to him.

Fomoria took the head around the city, and around the towns where the Others had pacified the military.

Thus Elfique was no longer a nation, and would remain as nothing but the name of a city within the Fomorian Empire.