Inside of the fortress, King Rufus was walking around, noticing the craters and the pieces of the creatures bodies that are now starting to smell, but another thing he noticed was that the mages had a hole in their chest and it looked like it was made with a knife or sword.

Bartholome was impressed by the amount of mages he saw on the ruins of the walls and the numbers of goblins and orks around the fortress itself. With the force they had now, it would be impossible to take down this fortress without heavy losses; the number of mages alone would make this almost impossible, even with the help of the five of them using magic spells.

‘It doesn’t make sense; how many soldiers did they have? How many nobles took part in this battle?’ Bartholome kicked a monster’s hand away.

‘It's really strange, Duke; the walls are in ruins and the structures inside here are nothing but rubles. How did they do that?’ Edinburg walked to the side of Bartholome.

‘Tell everyone to look for mages that don’t have their chest open like this one here and bring it to me.’ Rufus looked at one of his captains while pointing at a mage with its chest punctured.

The captain left with all of the soldiers that were around them, leaving only two to guard the five nobles. One of them was just observing everything. Part of his face and all of his hair were covered by a cloth. It was like he didn’t even care to be there at all.

‘Why are you even here, Julia? You look bored.’ The son of the duke spoke in a mocking maner.

‘It doesn’t matter what happened here; Edmund was the cause of it; if Father had listened to brother before the deal, we would have a killing machine in our hands.’ She took off her cover and her blond hair.

‘Shush Julia, with highsight everything is easier; don’t disrespect our father.’ Edinburg sigh.

‘I’m not saying anything bad; how was he able to have white hair all of a sudden? He wasn’t in pain, it wasn’t like he could get drugs from the servants; nobody talked to him, it was just a waste.’ She crossed her arms.

‘Julia!!!’ He raised his voice.

‘Enough!!!’ Rufus turned around, looking at the two.

The two siblings looked at their father and to one another for a moment; Julia sighed, and Edinburg gave an angry look at his sister.

Stolen story; please report.

‘There is a point in allowing people to talk with some leeway over your actions, Edinburg, it shows flaws that you couldn’t see so that you can adjust for the future, if i could get Edmund back, it would be good.’ The king walked closer to the siblings and smiled at them.

‘Your majesty is really wise; learn from this, Erick .’ The duke gave a pat on his son’s shoulder.

‘Yes, father.’ He nodded to his father.

After some time, the soldiers came back with the body of a mage with multiple holes in his body. Rufus made a gesture for them to lay down the body and he pulled a knife from one of the soldiers that was by his side and drilled into the chest of the creature right on the spot the others he saw before were.

‘Interesting, a crystal...’ He held on his finger a small blooded crystal.

The two horsemen cameback in a hurry but stopped right to the side of the duke and his son, dismounting and taking a kneel in front of the duke.

‘Sir duke, we found something you should see for yourself.’ The soldier looked up to the duke.

‘Let’s all see what this is about, i didn’t know that mages had this useless crystals inside of their chest.’ Rufus showed the crystal to the duke.

The duke was intrigued by everything he was seeing, from the fortress itself to the number of creatures on the ground. Now these same creatures have crystals inside of their chest and from the look of it, it was the same they sometimes find in caves while mining for iron or gold.

They followed the two soldiers and entered the forest again but on the other side of the fortress and in on the way there, the same imagery of the bodies of the creatures around the fortress.

As they go further inside of the fortress, one of the soldiers points at something on the ground. They got closer and every single one of them gasped at the sight of the gigantic monster with a hole in his chest and without his two arms and head.

‘What in the world is this thing? And is that right there is his head? ’ Julia pointed at something on the ground to the side.

Rufus and the duke desmounted and got closer to the creature corpse; he was huge. Looking at one of his missing arms on the group, the duke notices that the sword the creature was using was like him enormous; it had dents all over the blade and it was also bended.

‘All of this cuts are clean, like it was made in one single strike, everysingle one of them.’ Rufus stroked his chin.

‘And look at the trees around us; they are shattered. Someone fought this thing by himself?’ Bartholome looked at the destroyed trees.

‘Edmund… ‘ Julia whispered.

Edinburg noticed his sister’s words and thought deeply about it: maybe he should have stood up and stopped the transaction that traded his brother for peace; he didn’t really care about the fact that Edmund couldn’t use magic; maybe he could be a good administrator, anything. At the end of his thought, Edinburg sighed.

He came closer to the other arm, followed by Julia; it was on the other side of the creature and he noticed the dents on the blade and how bended it was. The soldiers that were accompanying them were shocked by how the surroundings were completely destroyed, with trees shattered.

‘I never talked to him; on that table was the first time i’ve heard his voice and to think he could be this powerful.’ Julia spoke in a cold tone.

‘This could be the work of the now duchess of the dokedom on the border; I don’t know if you remembered she had white fur.’ Edinburg looked at his sister.

‘No… she didn’t know how to fight, the way she walked and behaved, she was no warrior, she is just completely insane, I felt for sure looking at her eyes back there.’ She adjusted herself on the saddler for a moment.

‘Prohaps you are right, my dear sister.’ He looked again at the giant blade on the severed hand of the creature.