The demon stood before the inner vault doors, his posture relaxed despite the chaos occurring throughout the fortress.

He stared at Jack with a puzzled look on his face.

"Jakar," Kaedor said, his voice carrying its usual smooth tone. "What are you doing here?"

Jack didn't slow his approach, his red eyes fixed on the general who'd given him Oscar for loyalty.

"Open the vault door," Jack said, his flat voice carrying absolute authority.

Kaedor's expression didn't change, but something flickered behind his eyes.

But he didn't question.

He didn't resist.

He simply turned to the massive inner vault doors and raised both hands. The rings on his fingers began to glow with pale light.

Kaedor pressed his palms against the vault doors, and the enchantments responded immediately.

Runes flared to life across the surface.

The glow intensified, spreading from Kaedor's hands across the entire door.

Then, with a sound like a massive lock disengaging, the vault doors began to open.

They swung inward slowly, revealing the darkness beyond, the wealth and resources that Pho had accumulated over centuries of controlling his territory.

Kaedor stepped back, his rings still glowing faintly, his eyes fixed on Jack.

"The vault is open," Kaedor said, his voice neutral, professional.

'Why did I listen to him without question???' Kaedor thought as he panicked.

{Well, that was easy. Almost too easy. Loryn surrenders immediately, Kaedor opens the vault without argument... I'm not complaining, but doesn't this feel kind of... convenient?}

Jack's red eyes narrowed slightly, his enhanced perception from Blood Frenzy picking up details he might have missed otherwise.

The way Kaedor stood. The exact tone of his voice. The timing of Loryn's appearance right before the vaults.

Something wasn't adding up.

Jack stared at the open vault doors, and then at Kaedor standing there with just a flicker of confusion about why he'd obeyed so readily.

The Blood Frenzy state made everything sharper, more focused. Jack's red eyes tracked the subtle movements in Kaedor's posture, the way his hands remained at his sides despite the rings still glowing faintly.

Something wasn't adding up. But before Jack could determine what, he needed to test something.

"Kaedor," Jack said, his flat voice carrying absolute authority. "Run into that wall at full speed. Don't stop until I tell you to."

Jack pointed at the far wall of the antechamber, a solid surface of black ice and stone perhaps thirty feet away.

Kaedor's eyes widened slightly.

His mouth opened as if to question the command, to ask why, to protest the absurdity of what he'd just been ordered to do.

But no words came out.

Kaedor turned toward the wall, his posture shifting into a runner's stance.

Then he launched himself forward at full speed, his body accelerating to full velocity in an instant.

He hit the wall with tremendous force.

The impact echoed through the antechamber, a force that should kill most creatures.

Kaedor's body bounced off the surface, staggering backward, his face showing shock and pain.

But he didn't stop.

His body turned again, repositioned, and ran at the wall a second time. Another impact, harder than the first. Blood appeared on his forehead where it had struck the stone.

A third time. His nose broke, dark blood streaming down his face.

A fourth. His shoulder dislocated with an audible pop.

A fifth. His legs buckled, but he forced himself up.

A sixth. He was limping now, visibly injured, his breathing ragged.

Kaedor's face showed pure terror as his body prepared to run again, his mind clearly screaming at him to stop, to resist, to do anything except continue this self-destructive pattern.

But the compulsion was absolute, overriding every instinct he had.

"Stop," Jack said.

Kaedor's body froze mid-step, one foot raised, his entire frame shaking with the effort of halting momentum.

He collapsed to his knees, blood dripping from multiple injuries, his eyes wide with confusion and horror.

"What..." Kaedor's voice came out strangled, barely coherent through his broken nose and split lips. "Why did I... I couldn't stop. I tried to stop. Why couldn't I stop?"

Jack walked closer, his red eyes boring into the kneeling general. "Because you signed a blood contract."

His eyes went even wider, his breathing becoming rapid and shallow as the words crashed down on him like a tsunami.

"The papers," Kaedor whispered. "The documents at the meeting. Those weren't administrative forms. They were..."

"Blood contracts," Jack confirmed. A small smirk appears on his lips.

"Binding agreements that give me absolute control over your actions. Every command I give, you must obey. Every order I speak, your body will execute without hesitation or resistance."

Kaedor's hands came up to his face, touching the blood, the broken nose, the injuries he'd inflicted on himself because he physically couldn't disobey Jack's command.

"I'm bound," Kaedor said, his voice hollow. "Completely bound. My will, my body, everything... it all belongs to you now."

Jack studied the injured general with that same calculating gaze.

"You developed a method to create death tokens from gold. A process that most demons consider impossible, that requires understanding of manipulation and magical economics at levels few achieve. You built an empire of wealth through intelligence and innovation."

He paused, letting the words sink in.

"And you signed a document without reading it because you were too lazy to check what you were agreeing to. That's impressively stupid for someone supposedly so brilliant."

The mockery in Jack's voice was subtle but unmistakable.

Just a simple statement of fact delivered with the weight of absolute certainty.

Kaedor's face flushed with shame beneath the blood, his eyes dropping to the ground.

He had no response. Jack was right, and they both knew it.

Jack's mind worked through the situation.

'Someone is lying,' Jack thought, his red eyes narrowing slightly as he processed the possibilities.

Rynath's reaction had been genuine. The fear in her voice when she realized what she'd become, the way her body had moved against her will when he commanded her to stab herself.

That wasn't a performance. That was real terror at losing control of her own actions.

Kaedor was already fearful of Jack. Had been since their first meeting.

That fear made it hard to gauge whether his current behavior was genuine submission or calculated deception.

The blood contract compulsion seemed real, but fear could mask a lot.

Loryn, though.

Loryn was always power-hungry. Jack had seen it before.

The way his eyes lit up when discussing his experiments, when imagining himself on Pho's throne. That hunger was genuine.

But had Jack tested him enough? The cut proved willingness to injure himself, but any demon desperate for power might make that sacrifice.

The enthusiasm about the experiment could be real excitement or carefully crafted performance.

'Either Kaedor or Loryn is deceiving me,' Jack concluded. 'One of them is playing a role, pretending to be bound or loyal when they're actually working against me. I need more information to determine which.'

But that could wait. Right now, he has a vault to empty.

"Lead the way to the gold and death tokens," Jack ordered, his flat voice cutting through Kaedor's shame.

Kaedor pushed himself to his feet, wincing at the injuries but moving with the obedience of someone who no longer had a choice.

He limped toward the open vault doors, his dislocated shoulder hanging at an odd angle.

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