After a few minutes, a large, heavyset man with a black swirling mustache was pushed down the flight of stairs, his irate voice barking threats at the two women dragging him. Both were clothed heavily in black uniforms, covering everything but their eyes. Less surprised than with the Pandorian, I was nonetheless still shocked when my Core thrummed with recognition at the Cores in each of the two Pandorians' hearts. Behind the Baron was a much slimmer man with a full head of silver hair and a very gaunt face. His cheekbones were so high I wondered if they weren’t part of his forehead.
Both men were unharmed, but their wrists were locked with the same gold chains that had been around Orpheus.
“Ah,” I said, “Baron Silverwater. I’m so happy we can meet once again.”
The man blanched as he looked at me, no doubt taking in the ragged clothing, matted hair covered in blood, and the general aura of death that no doubt radiated off me like a stench this night. Then, as if something struck him, his face contorted into a look of outraged recognition.
“Lilliana? Is that you? What in the God's names happened to you? Why do you look so much older?" He looked around. "Get me out of these blasted cuffs. How are you even here? I thought you were enslaved? What is going on?"
"Why is he chained?" I asked the Cardinal who shrugged, both of us opting to ignore the Baron's incessant whining.
One of the Pandorian women responded. "He attempted to flee."
Fair enough, I supposed. The Baron was their main chance of survival. Made sense to try and keep him from running. Either way, this was fairly convenient for me. The irony of the Baron in chains while I stood over him would not be lost on me.
I turned to look at the five who had followed me. “I’m fairly surprised he managed to recognize me.”
“He is your father, after all,” Nasq suggested.
“Baron,” I responded, ignoring his question since Nasq had all but answered it and went to stand a foot in front of him. “Tell me—who was it that sent me to my death in the Mist Veils?” He shook his head as if to say he didn’t know, but I lashed out, striking the man with the back of my hand. “Do not tell me you do not know. Even I am aware that it was partly Morgana’s handiwork. What I do not know is who aided her. I assume it was not you?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow.
“How the hells should I know?” The Baron’s eyes were darting around the room now, widening at the dead bodies and the guards still frozen in place. I could tell he was shocked at the slap but didn’t seem all that surprised. “What the hells is going on? We heard some conflict in the yard and then this bitch locked me in some room.” He glared hatefully at the Cardinal. “Which you will still pay for. My family are direct blood relatives of the Lysorian King. Even if you are a Cardinal of the Church, do you really believe simply staying in Cael lands will protect you from our wrath?”
I sighed, losing patience. With a movement so fast no one else in the room would have been able to see it, I cloaked my hand in lunar energies and lopped off the Baron’s right ear. He howled in pain, writhing against the golden chains that bound him, unable to escape from the grasp.
My knees bent silently as I squatted down above the bleeding baron and picked up his fallen ear. Then I tossed it at his face where it hit with a sick plop.
“I will only say this once, so I hope you listen to me carefully. I do not consider myself to be a warmonger or particularly sadistic. War is a tool. Sometimes it is necessary. Just like torture. Or death.” The words hung in the air for a moment until I chose to continue. “Tell me, Baron. Is torture a necessary tool for the answers I seek today?” I released my heart energy once again using the Authority skill, letting the Baron know I was not the girl he remembered or knew.
Lilliana’s father, the one who she so feared, glared up at me with contempt as trails of blood trickled across his face in varying directions. My expression remained calm and neutral, though the part of me closest to Lilliana raged with the desire to kill him. I kept it back, soothing it for the moment.
Then he shook his head and opened his mouth, the words coming out so fast it was as if they chased each other. “It was Morgana’s idea, but the Goldenhearts orchestrated it. They’d been eying the Misty Veil Sire for years, but hadn’t found anyone with royal blood they could use to lure it out.”
I raised an eyebrow at that. “I have royal blood?”
The Baron grimaced. “Sort of. My family is distantly related to the royal family. The Goldenhearts more so.” When he didn't look at me, that clued me into his words. He had specifically said "his" family. Not "our."
"What about me?"
He swallowed. "You... are also related."
"More than you?"
He swallowed again but nodded tersely.
"More than the Goldenhearts?" This time he didn't answer right away, his eyes darting around like a cornered rat.
Then he nodded and I shot him a wide smile. So that was why Lilliana was treated so poorly despite the potential I saw in her during the Mindscape event. Lilliana had some sort of direct relation to the Lysorian royal family.
"Explain."
"I-i.. I don't know. I swear I don't," he blurted, finally seeming to break. "I didn't know she was a royal! I thought she was a maid. They told me she was a maid! Then they took her away and I never saw her again."
"They who?"
"I don't know, I don't know. They never said. I swear to the Gods, they never said and I never asked. But they had the mark of the royal family," he blubbered and I figured it was time to change subjects to my more pressing issue.
”By her, you mean my mother?” I asked, to which the Baron nodded in desperate jerks. “I thought… hmm. Did my mother not pass away in illness?”
The Baron snorted and seemed to want to say something more, but he only remained silent despite the twitching of his left eye signaling he was in pain. When I reached out with my senses to examine the cruel man, I hit a powerful wall of energy curled around the Baron so deeply I doubted even a mind mage from Aedronir could have untangled the mess.
“Good. Good. Very good,” I said, imitating the way the Baron had dismissed me the first time I’d met him. I'd sort of figured that Lilliana had some small amount of royal blood in her veins, but I hadn't expected it to be through her mother. The level of energy dealing more information confirmed the presence of someone powerful, likely originating from the Lysoria royal family. Interesting. Switching issues, I asked, “I see. So the Goldenhearts wanted to capture a Sire?”
He nodded, his Adam’s apple bopping slightly as he swallowed and he seemed to regain some of his earlier composure, his face turning slightly red. “And they did. The Demon Sire. With a potion from them.” He sent an equally hateful look at the Cardinal who didn’t react.
I barked a curt laugh, shaking my head. “You think you’ve captured a Sire? With a little potion and the measly forces of a barony and a dukedom? I certainly do hope to one day return to your Barony and see what has become of it in your absence.”
Chances were the Demon Progenitor had burned most of it to the ground by now.
While the Baron considered my words with a growing look of apprehension and regret, I refocused my attention on Coldrun who was shivering with fear and smelled like piss. At first, I’d wanted to have the man turn over the rights to the slavery arena to me. That had seemed like a solid plan and, in a way, it still was. Though I no longer needed any papers to do so.
Instead, I buried my fingers into his eyes with the full force of my core, curled them to hook around his eye socket, and yanked his head off his shoulders with a sickening, disgusting snap as his skull dislodged from his spine.
I still fucking hated the guy. Not because he was a Slave Master. But because he’d pissed me the fuck off.
The Baron gawked while most of the room including the Cardinal turned away in horror or disgust. None moved to stop me. Whether from an understanding that I was much more powerful than they were, or because I had promised not to kill them, I didn’t know and it truly did not matter.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Finally, I faced the Cardinal. I could taste iron trickling into my mouth from the gore of Coldrun’s face.
[SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT: Congratulations! You have killed a Main System Administrator.]
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: The Desire System has absorbed the remnants of the Main System left within the Administrator and purged the body of any traces.]
That was interesting, but I’d consider it later.
“You never really believed I was a possible Saintess, did you?”
“No,” the Cardinal said flatly, clearly unsurprised by my question.
“Then why bother?”
She shrugged. “Just because I did not believe it did not make it not so. The Will of the Goddess is not for me to question or attempt to foresee.”
I debated for a moment how to go about my plan. When I finally decided, I slapped my hands together. “It truly was an unfortunate series of events, wasn’t it Romeo?”
The ebony boy cast me a confused expression, his face looking somewhat green and I noticed he’d distanced himself from the head I’d stomped.
“The daughter of a Lysorian Baron was betrayed by corrupt Lysorian nobles. Knowing that Cael slavers were at an all-time high in the borders, they conspired with the Slave Master Coldrun to capture her. After finding out about his missing daughter’s whereabouts, the Baron of Silverwater rushed to her rescue! But when he got there, he discovered that even the Cael King was in on the plan. Oh, how the King laughed in Baron Silverwater’s face. Baron Silverwater, however, couldn’t let his daughter rot as a slave. After all,” I said giving the Baron a rueful smile, “she has royal blood in her veins. So, he helped her escape, only to be stabbed in the back by a Cardinal, a member of a neutral religious organization. His daughter, the young Lady Silverwater, fought hard to save her father. Unfortunately, he died in the process of protecting her from the Cardinal’s two Pandorian warriors. In fact, everyone died in the crossfire. The Cardinal of a church couldn’t risk any bystanders or witnesses to her traitorous deeds with a Slave Master. When the Cardinal revealed herself to be a user of undead energies, she knew even more so that her great secret couldn’t be revealed. When Lillina finally arrived at the scene of her father’s last stand, there was no one left. Then, just as all seemed lost, a powerful Lysorian force broke through the gates of Sealrite, rescued the citizens from rampaging monsters in the city, and saved the recently freed Lilliana from death at the hands of a colosseum beast released by the Slave Master in a desperate attempt to flee.”
Nasq clapped playfully and Nida laughed. Both Marisar and Romeo had paled noticeably, clearly catching on to what I was indicating.
“You’re inciting war,” the Cardinal said, her red eyes aghast. I could see her mind processing everything I'd said at a rapid pace. She didn’t need to know all that; it wouldn’t do her any good in the moments to come. But I wanted her to know. I wanted them all to know of my vengeance. I wouldn’t just kill them, I would sully their names. Their houses. Their family and honor.
“No,” I said, turning toward her and allowing my darkest attribute of heart energy to turn the air in the room to a heavy muck. I let it crawl over me, drenching my Core of mostly lunar energy black with necromancy. “You already incited it. I was simply a witness to the church’s betrayal.”
“You promised you would not harm them!” she screamed, her ethereal voice cracking.
“And I won’t.” I smiled, raising my hands. “I won’t even touch them.”
Suddenly a scream resounded from a few of the nobles in the back and magic followed, tearing at something moving and cracking.
The nobles' magics and coreless heart energy were too weak to completely obliterate the undead corpses, so even when one managed to knock an arm off of the Earl, the arm simply crawled back to the body at a frightening speed.
“Holy Goddess,” the Cardinal whispered, grabbing a golden circle hanging from her neck by a string; the same symbol I’d seen embedded into the chairs. “That is not resurrection.”
“No,” I said, grinning wide as a noblewoman died with a scream on her lips and my dark necrotic energy infested her from the Earl as the walking corpse sunk its teeth into the noblewoman’s neck. “No, it’s not. But thank you for your help.”
The two Pandorian warriors clad in black armor tore at me, opening their Cores and shifting their heart energy into spheres of Authority to repulse my own.
An hour ago, perhaps they would have defeated me in tandem. When I was a bronze core. My silver-tiered Core exploded with light from within me, showering the area around me with a brilliance that those nearest to me couldn’t help but turn away from. I enveloped the approaching Pandorians with my Authority, completely crushing their pathetic defenses against it.
I didn’t just crush their bodies under the pressure of my heart energy.
I dominated their minds and their Will. Even the Cardinal was forced to her knees as her Pandorian guards cracked and broke against the obsidian floor that was more red than black now.
The Baron still spluttered at my feet. I looked down at him, disgusted by the blithering fool of a man. I leaned over him, the unmatted portion of my hair spilling over the side of my face to cast a shadow across my face as I whispered to him low enough that only he would hear. "Lilliana sends her regards."
His face was shock, confusion, outrage, anger, panic, desperation, and others I didn't bother to recognize as I picked up a sword one of the Pandorian women had dropped and drove it slowly, painfully through the Baron's heart. "Maybe in your next life, you will choose your victims more wisely. Lilliana was not a girl deserving of your disdain. Without you, she could have grown to be great."
The Baron squirmed and twitched, the golden chains still binding his abilities with a dull, golden flare. When eventually the flare stopped, so did his twitching. I knew he was dead.
With a bit of necromantic-attuned energy, however, he began to twitch again and his eyes shot open. Lifeless and unseeing as a moan of the undead escaped him in a wail.
“You… are a necromancer…” the Cardinal wheezed, her eyes filled with disgust and shock. “But then… how… resurrection…?” A great amount of energy surged from her stomach where I believed mages to harness their magic, but I waived a finger of energy and cut her flow off as easily as one might take candy from a child. She opened her mouth, shocked, but seemed to understand her death was coming. Based on the feel of her power, I'd known from the beginning she was more of a utility user, not one of strength or power, so I hadn't been worried. Especially once she'd attempted and utterly failed in her manipulation. The gall of her to attempt the manipulation of a Core user while she was coreless, regardless of whatever level her magic was.
More and more I was beginning to view this "magic" as being rather useless and particularly weak.
Adopting Gronch’s way of speaking, I said, “None of your fucking business, lady,” and then kicked her in the face. My foot crunched into her skull, and I felt her head shatter from the impact. “Nasq, Nida, get the Cores from the Pandorians.” Turning to the rest I said, “Let’s go. He should be here soon, and we need to get out into the city before he arrives at the gates.”
Even as I said that, new heart energy continued to flow into me from my undead creatures who, whenever they consumed heart energy, directed it toward me.
Romeo looked up, having bent over to vomit at the sight of undead corpses mauling at the living. “Who?”
“Duke Alistar, of course.”
The mention of Alistar's name cast a palpable excitement over the others. Nasq and Nida moved swiftly to extract the Cores from the fallen Pandorians, their expressions reflecting a mix of urgency and grim satisfaction. The air crackled with tension as the rest of my group rallied, preparing to leave the scene of the massacring undead atrocities.
As we made our way toward the exit, the sounds of battle and chaos outside grew louder. The city would be in chaos already from the released monsters, and our actions tonight would only stoke the flames higher. I could vaguely sense the Duke's presence drawing nearer to the city, his formidable power a bright beacon in the night. Somehow, I wasn't too surprised to tell the Duke had a Core. According to Chella, despite how Duke Alistar's proclivity to focus solely on protecting the border had caused his political influence to be the weakest among the Dukes, in terms of power, he was, by far, the most powerful. He just preferred not to broadcast it.
Still, I couldn't help but wonder where he'd learned about the Core. Or, perhaps more likely, if I'd been wrong to judge the power of an entire world based on small examples. But even the Cael King did not have a Core, so how was it possible that a Duke did? Was Cael just weak?
Questions I would ask the Duke later if my plan worked.
We emerged into the courtyard and were greeted by the great roar of Ethan who had, somehow, grown even larger. I roared back at him, letting loose from my throat a sense of rage and pride at my Paragons. I was still full of necromantic attuned energy when I released my roar of energy, and the sound did more than spread rage and pride, it echoed to the city with a rumble reminiscent of the Mist Veil Beast King.
I grinned at Ethan. "I'm going to have to teach you some energy tricks to bring you back to a normal size," I joked and slapped his thigh, which was about level with my shoulders. "Otherwise you'll never sleep in a bed again."
[SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT: Congratulations! You have killed a Main System Administrator.]
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: The Desire System has absorbed the remnants of the Main System left within the Administrator and purged the body of any traces.]
Another administrator had died? I glanced back at the banquet hall, now burning down with a black and orange fire that worked tirelessly to consume the screaming and shrieking creatures within. I rubbed my hands together again and cleared my throat. All the surviving Paragons and freed slaves looked at me, waiting.
"From here on out, we're splitting up," I instructed. "Paragons, you can go start your own paths. Those of you who did not choose the path of Paragon must also go forge your own lives now. But heed my words now. A new force will soon be entering the city's borders. Do not attempt to stop them. You will not be able to and I do not want you to. Let them come, for they will bring all of us a truer freedom than simply the deaths of Cael nobility."
One of the freed slaves stepped forward, kneeling at my feet. "Though I do not wish to become a Paragon, Queen Lilliana, I still wish to serve you." I could hear his heartbeat pounding in his chest with desperation, so I remained silent. "I wish to serve but... I cannot... I cannot be tied to such a System again."
I laid a hand on his shoulder and nodded. "For those of you who wish to continue serving, you may follow me into the city proper. We will be protecting civilians from the monsters we released until Duke Alistar's forces arrive."