Medusa kept shaking, while her parents were standing in front of Aure, who had a contrite and displeased expression. Aure had decided to bring his condolences personally to the parents, who were deeply angry at the loss of their younger daughter. Both members of the Council of Elders in the Sect of the Worthy, it was right that Mac and Gael should receive such an important visit, especially after having lost their daughter Medea in such a violent way.

Medusa and Medea's parents had tears in their eyes and were feeling a sudden urge to make Helial cross the Styx River shore to shore. That filthy Human had killed one of their daughters. Although Medea had never been endowed with a great talent like that of her older sister, this did not mean that her parents had not loved her up to the last moment of her life.

However, there wasn't much they could do. Helial had won following the rules of the Colosseum. He had completely and utterly destroyed the Sect's reputation, but he hadn't broken any rules. Medea had accepted to fight to the death and the Sect of the Worthy had also provided her and the other members of the Executioners' Team with the means to win that fight.

If Medea was dead, all that could be done was sigh in front of Helial's incredible abilities. And as Medea's parents were suffering from grief, an interesting flame could be seen in Aure's eyes.

If Medea's parents really cared about their daughter, even though they still had the most talented one, the same could not be said about Aure. However much an enemy may be hated, his most formidable abilities must always be recognized. No great enemy is worthy of being forgotten and always deserves a place in the Olympus of memory.

While the leader of the Sect was speaking with Mac and Gael and expressing them his condolences, his suffering and all the feelings that must absolutely be paraded on such occasions, a vague hint of a smile filled from time to time the pauses in which he had to listen to the parents' rant, so full of revenge.

But Aure heard nothing, as if a strange symphony was caressing his ears and making the sounds muffled. It was the concert of the present Orma that was coming to an end, that seemed to want an end. However, there was a need for an unobtainable soloist to lead the piece at its end, so that a new one could start.

Whatever the future results would have been, Aure had always imagined that Orma's solo position would end up in his hands or in Cesar's.

But, as the symphony deafened his ears and prevented the idiocies of Medea's parents from obscuring his mind, he could not forget he was facing a boy, not the old pompous King of Orma.

The two Elders were not the only ones to have feelings of revenge: their eldest daughter, Medusa, stared at Aure in silence, with a grudging look, but she didn't have the guts to speak a word. What could she obtain from the wrath of Orma's second greatest Immortal?

Suddenly, Medusa seemed to regain control of her mind. She shook her head, as if to send away something that did not really belong to her, and said, "I want to challenge Helial's team." The girl was at the first steps of the Third Phase, and all her team had already reached the same level. If Helial and his teammates accepted, the fight would have turned into a bloodbath.

Medusa's face was full of dark shades and her eyes were swollen with all the tears she had shed. Her nails had started to cut her palms and make drops of blood slowly fall to the ground.

Plop Plop Plop

Her parents had ignored her up to that point, not caring about their daughter's opinion and looking for a way to act and punish the Clan of the Sacred Eagle .

Madness began to rise inside Medusa's heart, which seemed to blacken more and more every second. Her pale complexion stunned her parets, suddenly awakened from their fury.

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Before they tried to open their mouths and talk, Aure turned to Medusa.

Orma's symphony inside Aure's head suddenly dissolved, but the silence was replaced by the high-pitched voice of Medusa.

"I want to challenge Helial's team."

Aure looked at the girl with bloodshot eyes and disheveled hair that kept moving on their own because of the evil Aura gathering around her. Like black snakes, Medusa's hair began to shoot upward.

"A death match?" Aure asked. This was the only thing that interested him, that the Human would be killed without the possibility of being resuscitated.

Medusa's body trembled slightly and a sardonic expression appeared on her face.

To the death, Aure nodded to himself. He wanted to smile with satisfaction, but he refrained.

Medusa's father intervened, more and more full of anger: "That repulsive Human will never accept your challenge. And if he would be so mad to accept ... "

Then you better not behave like idiots and underestimate him, thought Aure.

"... you will have to make him suffer and give him a slow and painful death. Your mother and I can no longer be seen in public after the huge mistake your sister made. She got herself killed and left us with this shame. How can we be present tomorrow at the meeting of the Sect's Council of Elders and say that our daughter, who had nothing to do but win, was torn to shreds by a Human who hardly was her equal in Phase?!"

Mac was enraged and had begun to sweat with anger, when a cold hand touched his shoulder, making him suddenly turn.

His wife, Gael, looked at him sternly: "Medea has always been a soft one because you spoiled her. These are the results of your impartiality. "

Aure turned a deaf ear and ignored that family quarrel, ready to take his leave. However, he noticed that Medusa seemed rather annoyed by her parents' behaviour, so he decided to stop a little longer to try and get some other interesting information.

Gael and Mac, respectively at the Eighth and Ninth Phase, were two members of the Council of Elders. Gael was the Ninth Elder, while Mac was the Seventh one. Inside Orma their prestige had no equal if not in the Clan of the Sacred Eagle and among some big shots in the Guild of Life and Death. In fact, although the latter still didn't have any Immortals, no one doubted that one day Circe would get that record too.

The Sect of the Worthy had ten Elders in its highest rank, all somewhere in between the Eighth and the Tenth Phase, the true backbone of the Sect, the foundations of their huge power. Each of those Elders was a great resource. In fact, putting all their forces together, the Elders of the Sect of the Worthy or of the Clan of the Sacred Eagle could probably have given even an Immortal a hard time.

The Elders at the Tenth Phase were practically a priceless treasure for any Clan or Sect, being only a step below an Immortal and thus constituting the second line of fire in a clash.

Those few monsters at the Tenth Phase who had never chosen a faction, like Crispius, were continually courted by the strongest powers of Orma and received every day any kind pressure to make them join one or the other.

Orma was a melting pot of powers that failed to unite and fought each other constantly. Even the Humans, in their perfidious and treacherous politics, had managed to create some sort of union against the other races, all for the sake of survival; but Orma's Goblins hadn't been able to.

The Goblins were a proud race and would never bow their head to weakness. In the Goblin kingdom, hierarchies counted for nothing. Cesar had built his reputation not on the honor of the Clan who, to be honest, was not so strong before his rise to power, but on strength and generosity.

Now that Cesar was showing hints of weakness, several blades were already getting ready to pierce his heart. Orma would never have tolerated a weak leader like him.

Never.

Orma was a city thousands of years old, one that had hosted a huge population long before many others had become civilized, in that world. Orma had even existed before Human race populated the planet, but had experienced a varied past of joy and pain. While human civilizations continued to grow and were becoming more and more stable, Orma had created empires, crossed wars, destroyed the lives of many kings and made others rise to immortal fame.

Orma was built on blood and honor.

Therefore, when Cesar's diplomacy began to be led by an Human-like judgement and no longer by the youthful vigor of the greatest warrior of the last millennium, a lot of dissent had begun to show up in the capital.

Crispio and other big shots who still had no chosen a side began to receive more and more tempting pressures and proposals every day.

There was a storm brewing in Orma and sooner or later it would have to burst.

Anyone who could not get on a ship before its beginning would probably perish.