Chapter 4252: Unfettered Might (Part 2)

"You failed?" Ashtar Fhom asked in disbelief. "And your first thought was to bring whoever is after you to our doorstep?"

"No, I..." Sighorn’s voice trailed off as he realized the magnitude of his mistake. "No, no, no. Nobody can have followed me. There was no trace of Verhen when I left. He didn’t even kill anyone. It was the humans and the beasts who ruined everything."

"The Human and Beast Council got involved?" Zilma Jorn asked. "So much effort to protect a bunch of mortals?"

"No, I meant the Queen’s Corps and Verhen’s beast friends from the Woods." Sighorn shook his head.

"You’re making no sense!" Ashtar snarled. "How can fake mages and magical beasts slaughter a group of Awakened led by someone as powerful as Rayko? Explain yourself properly, you fool!"

"It was-" First came the tremors.

Something big, angry, and out for blood roared with such violence that the walls of the underground building trembled. The noise cracked the stone, blew out the Awakened’s eardrums, and cut Sighorn short.

"Nobody followed you, my ass!" Zilma cursed. "This-"

The darkness came second.

All lights went out, robbing the Awakened of their sight before they could recover their hearing. Ashtar and the others tried to conjure many different spells, yet nothing happened.

Something more than the mere absence of light filled the underground hideout. It brushed against the Awakened’s skin like silk, yet it smothered their breath as well as their mana.

"What’s going on? What happened to our defensive arrays?" Ashtar asked, hoping someone would hear and answer him.

No one did. No one stumbled into him and established a mind link. No one could tell him that every single magical formation that surrounded the safe house was losing its structural integrity.

Lith was still hurling a jet stream of Dread Flames from the outside along with dozens of seven-eyed Demons conjured by the Call of the Void. At the same time, more Demons attacked the arrays from inside the building, breathing their Origin Flames at the array’s focal points.

The alarms resounded, but no one could hear them. The magical formations broke down faster than they could repair themselves, but no one came to restore them or replace the exhausted mana crystals.

Before the Awakened healed the damage to their eardrums, the building around them was back to being stone and dirt. The smell of burnt copper was all that remained of the time, mana, and resources that the members of the cabal had poured into its enchantments.

"Verhen!" Zilma screamed as white eyes and maws lit the room with their faint radiance. "This is Verhen. You had him follow you here, you idiot!"

A rough hand grabbed her head and slammed it against the stone floor.

She tried to resist, but someone else kicked her in the stomach, squeezing the air out of her. Abomination Touch and another impact with the ground foiled her attempt to cast Full Guard.

The rest of the Awakened fared no better. Each one of them faced at least three Demons that could only be seen when they allowed their prey to. Fear and panic spread to the point that the Awakened unleashed the spells stored in their rings, hurting their own allies.

Neither fire nor thunderbolt shed any light, leaving the screams of pain as the sole proof someone had gotten hurt.

Tired of that charade, Lith cast the tier five Spirit Magic spell, Griffon Fetters, and relayed it through his Demons. The emerald chains erupted from the shadow forms and coiled around the Awakened, trapping them akin to a spider web.

Only then did he Warp inside the hideout and loosen the suffocating hold of the Call of the Void. The dark matter was still there, but it was thin enough to allow the Awakened to see the Tiamat.

"So many people." His voice was full of contempt, like a judge listing the charges before passing the sentence. "So many powerful Awakened, and you all came up together to go after helpless, innocent humans who never wronged you."

"You." Lith pointed at Sighorn. "Your stupidity in leading me here is no excuse for what you tried to do to my family. I’m going to make an example out of you. You’ll die so painfully that everyone will think twice before following in your footsteps."

Sighorn attempted to beg for mercy, but a Demon’s hand sealed his mouth and sapped his vitality.

"As for the rest of you scum, I’ll take my time to interrogate you thoroughly. I’ll decide what to do with you after learning why you associated yourself with this idiot and what you were planning to do."

"I’m going to kill you anyway, but based on how helpful you are, I might give you a swift death."

Many Awakened moaned and struggled against their restraints, trying to object or barter for their lives. Lith decided that they didn’t deserve hope, so he chose a prisoner at random and removed Zilma’s gag.

"This isn’t fair, Verhen!" She said. "We have done nothing wrong. We were nowhere near Lutia today, and you have nothing to prove that we were plotting against you or your family.

"We were just minding our own business when you attacked us unprovoked. I swear!" Many Awakened nodded at her words, drooling through the Demons’ hands.

"Do you really think I’m that stupid?" Lith’s voice lowered into an angry growl. "This idiot rushed here, so you knew him. When he told you that the mission had failed and his companions were dead, you only asked him if he had been followed.

"You knew what he was supposed to do in Lutia and with whom. Yet instead of restraining him and contacting me through the Council, you questioned him about the circumstances of his failure.

"Everyone in the Awakened community knows about the reward I offer for someone like him. You could have entered my good graces and earned yourself a Blade Weapon, but instead, you focused on making sure your own plan would succeed.

"You were nowhere near Lutia today, true, but not because you weren’t plotting against my family. You weren’t there because his plan didn’t convince you, and were trying to come up with something better!"

Lith growled, taking a brief pause to let his words sink in.

"You people are like him, just more careful. It makes you dangerous, and I won’t give you the time to learn from his mistakes and study my defenses until you find a weak point you can exploit. I’d deal with you here and now."

At a snap of his fingers, the Demons of the Darkness drained so much of the Awakened’s vitality that they fainted.

"Solus?" Lith called her with the communication amulet.

"Is everything okay? Are you okay?" She asked.

"I’m fine. What about our family?"

"The situation in Lutia is resolved. No one has gotten hurt, and the only damaged building is Zekell’s house." She sighed. "Kami is going to return soon, and I’ve already moved everyone to the Mansion."

"That’s not the reason I called you, and you know it." Lith replied.

"They... are not fine, Lith." Solus clenched her hands as her voice hardened. "Not Mom, not Dad, and especially not the kids. At best, they are traumatized. At worst, they are scarred for life."

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