Orpheus walked with a steady step into the King's Palace, servants showing him the way while he rolled his eyes around the place.

'The old fool wants me here to look at his gold-coated pillars?' he thought with a scoff.

He was wearing a toga with a purple sash for the occasion. It was rather over the top, but the women liked it. He greeted them back with a charming smile.

Finally, after Orpheus walked around the entire fucking complex, the king decided to show himself.

He was the same strong, jawed, wrinkled man with white hair as the year before and the year before that one, snorting so aggressively it made his bushy mustache and knit brows quiver. He wore a toga as well. Only his sash was obsidian like his crown.

"Orpheus," the old man warbled, "great to see you."

Sarcasm had the habit of leaving Orpheus quite unamused.

"Likewise," he replied, and after a delay, "my king."

"Yes, yes." They shook hands before getting into the room prepared for the meeting. "Let us make haste."

"Oh, time for your nap soon?" Orpheus mocked as he observed the servings on the table as he sat on a couch opposite the king's while their guards surrounded the room.

"I see age has done naught for you charm."

"Well, at least it hasn't decreased," Orpheus said with a meaningful glance before reaching for a delicacy laid on the top platter on the table. The king waited as he gave it a sniff before throwing it over his shoulder and carrying on. "Onto the matter at hand. The liv—"

"Kendrick has broken the treaty. The Zalfarian War has begun once more," the king said and Orpheus's face dropped. There was a moment of silence as the king observed Orpheus' reaction. If he was amused, he didn't show it. Instead, he kept his serious demeanor and continued. "The Conqueror of the West advances on the Great Empire of Zalfari. Once Alexander the 6th falls, we are next."

Orpheus cracked a smile. Then it faded and was replaced by a frown. "You're serious."

The king raised his brows at the question. "It was a matter of time."

Orpheus stayed blank-faced until he realized something and laughed. The king eyed him and he suppressed his laughter only to burst out again.

"What?" the king growled.

"The old man will probably die before that," Orpheus said and signaled for a servant to pour him a glass.

The kung clicked his tongue as he recoiled onto the couch, shaking his head. "You know nothing. Kendrick... that bastard... he'll never die. He rejuvenates on the blood of his enemies."

"Look who's bought into a legend. I didn't think you were the superstitious type."

"The Conqueror of the West is no legend. He's simply a man who makes other men who have never touched him kill and die for him even if it means leaving their loved ones behind. He's the Conqueror of the West only because Ares slowed him down. Otherwise, he'd have the entire world in his grasp by now."

"Then we just need another Ares. No, a better one. To kill him for good."

The king looked at him like a grown adult indulging in fairy tales. "Your ignorance never ceases to amaze. There will never be another Ares. Ares and Kendrick are the pinnacle of men that emerge from collisions of the highest order."

'Again with the collisions,' Orpheus thought with a scoff.

"Why tell me all this if that's the case."

"We will die, you and me. That is our fate. That is why I hope you stop bothering me with unnecessary nonsense," the king rambled.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Orpheus laughed at the man in scorn. "Who made you king?"

"Nobody. I was born one. As was my father and his father before him."

"Right." Orpheus rubbed his eyes. "You call me ignorant, but did you know the son of Ares is in Arkryk?"

The king leaned forward, his interest aroused. "Where did you hear this?"

"Uzbec." The king grimaced at the name, so Orpheus decided to explain. "I have him investigating the liveD, and he believes that the son of Ares is him."

"Tch. What a story. Is he unaware of the active manhunt in Mircrest?"

"And how is that going?"

The king fell silent before redirecting the conversation. "You want my help with your problem. The liveD being the son of Ares instead of a rebellion against your organization would make things international. Don't dream of it."

Orpheus leaned forward and steadied his gaze. "I dream of what I want. And when I bring you evidence, you will help me with this annoyance. It is bad for my business which is in turn bad for your business."

"Business," the king scoffed. "I am a king."

"Whose crown was bought," Orpheus continued. Then he interlocked his hands and prepared to make his final point. "We will talk about Kendrick another time. If this son of Ares has enough of his father in him, I wager he'll be a good resource."

"Let me guess, you want to use him against Numen."

Orpheus smiled quietly at that. Then he rose to his feet and walked away. "Try to enjoy your life old man. You never know how long it'll last." He chuckled before adding one final word, mimicking the king, "Amor fati."

The king's nose wrinkled in scorn at his usage and waved Orpheus out, a stream of guards with black masks following after him.

His servant briefed him on things while he walked back to his carriage. He didn't listen. He couldn't wait to be out of the old palace. It made him feel like a fossil.

He got into the carriage and headed off with his entourage, but right as he had sunk into some pleasant thoughts of later plans as horseshoes clacked in the background, his carriage came to an abrupt stop.

"Hey?" Orpheus banged on the side of the carriage. "What is this?"

"Master, there is a person in the way."

Orpheus's face wrinkled and he burst out of the carriage in frustration. They hadn't even made it out of the palace's premises and there were already issues. He looked around the boringly pristine hall that connected the palace entrance and the outside world. It stretched endlessly with large pillars and large windows on smooth walls.

Then he saw the cause of the problem. It was a fairly young man with a grim look in his eyes that did nothing to distract from his outrageous hair and crimson clothes under his black cloak.

Orpheus knit his brows but saw that his entourage's commander was going to handle it. Then he found himself wondering how the young man got inside unnoticed.

Suddenly the man raised a hand. Orpheus' commander stopped at that and got himself on guard. His commander said something in audible.

The man lowered his head before responding as he raised it back up. "I am here to see justice done." Then he locked eyes with Orpheus. "All of you will die."

Silence took the hall. Then there were a few laughs. Orpheus didn't laugh. He raised his voice and gave the command even as the eerie feeling in his stomach grew. "Kill him." His commander turned around seemingly without having heard. Orpheus growled, "Kill hi—"

There was a flash. Just an image. As if something from imagination just to fill the gap in Orpheus' senses about something so fast he could not comprehend it.

In the image, there was a shattered window and a man with golden hair flying through the air horizontally, feet pointed at his commander. In the next moment, there came the loudest sound Orpheus had ever heard. The impact shook his entire body and he fell off the side of the carriage.

He had no concern about whether someone had seen because all eyes were on the cloud of dust that slowly faded to the horror of everyone present. Orpheus got himself up just in time to see as the cloud lifted and reality was revealed in all its brutality.

His commander who had trained from birth and killed more men than Orpheus employed was made into a smear that painted the massive crater in the wall. All in a split second. From breaking through the window to driving his feet into the man before slamming into the wall. It was violence taken to the extreme. And calculated all too well from the positioning to the measures needed for such speed and force as well as getting the proper landing.

Then, out of the crater that dripped with blood and was decorated by the commander's insides and extremities, stepped out a barbarian angel with flowing golden hair, the bottom of his cloak and legs entirely splattered in blood.

His eyes were blue, but they could not be called that. The pupils had grown so unnaturally large he looked like his soul was a pit of black encircled by a ring of deep blue. And those eyes were directed straight at him.

The man was young beyond belief, but he had an incomprehensible age to him as if he had always been and would always be. His lips were sealed and seemed like if they were ever opened, they would devour everything.

Like that, the man directed his attention to Orpheus while everybody stood frozen. Everybody except Orpheus' whose legs had begun to shake. He told them to stop, but his body seemed to have a will of its own, and it wanted nothing more than to escape that man.

Then the man threw away his cloak and revealed a sharp-shouldered figure specialized for killing, from its unstainable darkness to its crimson gloves.

Then, within the seemingly endless moment, the man opened his mouth and fed upon the fear with a statement, echoing that of the other.

"Et ne karase aki."