1. Prologue 

Alix awoke to sunlight filtering through her curtains, streaming onto her face.

She rolled out of bed, and managed to stretch vertically upright a little, her elbows, back and knees clicking slightly. This wasn’t really necessary now that she had a bed to sleep on. She didn’t even need to worry about being bitten by rats in her sleep anymore!

She pulled her curtains to see it was a beautiful sunny with not a cloud in sight.

“It looks so peaceful, you can hardly believe a war is going on” she murmured to herself dejectedly.

She used to be a slave that fought in illegal pit fights against other people, for a master, who profited off of her misery and the misery of others.

Ironically it was a [demon], the enemy of mankind, who saved her from that life.

Who would’ve thought that being kidnapped by [primeval demon] and being forced to fight and kill humans for his sake would ultimately lead to her freedom. She never said expected Belzu, the [Lord Of Lies] to actually keep his word and let her go.

There were even stories of his death, but she knew they couldn’t be true as she was there for most of those events and the timelines just didn’t add up, for example she had seen him alive days after he was supposedly killed.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

She was technically under guard, allegedly to keep her safe, because she one of the few who knew the truth, that Belzu was still alive. Kaitlin suspected some suspicious circumstances led to the wrong information being spread. She would never suspect how much things had changed since then.

It was only yesterday she realised that Mori Gladius, the divine spear master, champion of the human lands - was actually Belzu, hiding in plain sight.

She didn’t know what to do, on one hand she knew she should tell Kaitlin Darkhelm, the Captain of the Vaun Qieur Empire’s Swordsguard Forces, but she also knew that doing so would cost her, her life, the very life she worked so hard to keep up until now.

Belzu revealed who he was to her willingly, for what purpose she couldn’t be sure. Perhaps she was being manipulated, to serve some greater part of Belzu’s plan? In which case telling Kaitlin would be a mistake that would play right into his hands, or claws or pincers or whatever he had.

She had to continue to be smart if she wanted to continue living, and as they say knowledge is power, she knew to little about Belzu and about why he was impersonating Mori. To make the best decisions going forward she would need to gather intelligence about his activities.

After she got dressed, she left her room with the excuse that she was going for a walk, she heard that Orgaf and Salvos were there at the time Belzu was “killed” but it would be difficult to sneak away from her guards, she knew they were there to protect her, but sometimes she felt like she was being treated like a suspect of a crime or prisoner. Whats more it’d be extremely difficult to get an audience with high levelled , high profile adventures like those two. 

At least that’s what was was on her mind while was in deep thought looking down and rubbing her chin while walking, when she bumped into something.

“Ooof”

“Sorry about that, I wasn’t looking where I was going” Alix began before opening her eyes in wide disbelief.

“Hi, I’m Salvos!”