Page 280

“Your Grace, this is unwise,” Olivia said.

“Agreed,” Aedan replied dryly as the two ventured deep into the slums of the city, or the closest place to a slum the city had.

It was not considered a slum as there were many buildings that were actually owned by various nobles, and used for various unsavoury reasons. In a way, this place was worse than a slum.

This part of the city was not spared of the ruination either. The death toll here was much higher as not even the Aeryons or the Talron soldiers had trod this far out. The rookery bordered the fringes of the valley. It was roughly a day’s journey from here to the centre of the city.

“You should have told Lady Erynthea.”

“If I had, she would have wanted to come with me but alas, at least one of us had to attend the luncheon.”

“She will be mad if she knew the true objective of your sudden business.”

“I’m sure she will and I won’t lie, I look forward to her being angry with me. It makes the coition more exciting.”

Olivia sighed. “She would not always be so naive.”

“She’s not. She just can’t help herself. Now, where do we go from here?” Aedan asked as they stopped before a junction that split into at least six paths.

Olivia looked at the small paper in hand which detailed the directions to a certain place. To be precise, to a certain someone. “Second path from the right. Go straight until we see a building that’s all boarded up and drenched in red paint.”

Aedan shrugged. “Simple enough.” And he trod down the path the paper instructed.

Olivia followed closely behind. “What do you intend to do once we… find her?”

“What do you think?” Aedan tossed the question back without any hint of his usual humour or wonted casual outlook.

Olivia stared at her lord, who was carrying a pair of long swords by his side and a few throwing daggers sheathed around his waist. He was even carrying a shield on his back. “Are we expecting heavy resistance?”

“You read the letters. Our dear friend had gotten herself quite a bit of power and influence. She had her own faction now, albeit just a handful of people. I believe most of her cronies are her former clients.”

“But is this intelligence trustworthy?”

“The Guild Master has no reason to lie to us, has she?”

“I suppose not, Your Grace. But if we’re expecting heavy resistance, would I not be enough as a deterrent?”

Aedan chuckled. “Olivia, you are not here as a deterrent. In fact, you were the one who asked to follow me. Your presence is of no benefit to me nor your absence is of any detriment to me. I will do this with my own hands. I want to feel it with my own skin as I choke the life out of her. Understand?”

“...Yes, Your Grace,” Olivia answered after a short silence.

The rest of the way was not long. The sun had not shifted in its position when Aedan and Olivia arrived before the building. The red paint was still there but most of the boards had been torn down.

“I believe it’s this place, Your Grace.”

“We’ll see,” Aedan muttered and walked towards the door. He did not bother knocking and simply let himself in. Since the door was locked, he asked Olivia to break down the door after his own unsuccessful attempt.

Olivia gave a gentle shove and the door popped off its hinges. The moment the door hit the ground, every individual in the building was alerted to the two’s intrusion.

The guards by the door were jolted awake by the loud noise of the two’s intrusion. There were only two of them.

“Afternoon,” Aedan greeted with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Who the fuck are—”

“Is Pinea here?”

“The boss ain’t here, boy. And you have made a grave mistake in—”

“Duly noted. Now, die.” Aedan tossed one of the many daggers on his waist at the thug who could barely register Aedan’s movements.

The dagger struck the thug square in the head.

Before the other thug could react, Aedan closed the gap between them and slit his throat with another dagger.

The hallway which led to the entrance was soon filled with a thunder of footsteps rushing towards him and Olivia.

“Do you need my assistance, Your Grace?”

“No,” Aedan said. “I need to do this myself.”

“As you wish,” Olivia bowed and stepped back just as thugs of varied appearances and figures flooded the foyer.

The thugs needed no explanations when they saw two of their own dead.

“It was me. I kill them. Now, if you don’t want to meet the same fate as your companion, I strongly encourage you to lead me to your whore of a boss who had probably fucked everyone here. Well, except for me and my lovely lady companion here.”

“Kill these two clowns!” one of the thugs shouted and all of them began charging towards Aedan.

“Very well.” Aedan snickered and took out a small bottle of grey ashe-like powder from a pouch dangling by his waist. He then scattered the contents at the charging thugs.

The onslaught of the thugs quickly descended into chaos as the scattered powder blinded some of their eyes and in the confusion, they hurt their fellow thugs in a panic.

Aedan snapped his hands and created a small spark of lightning between his forefinger and his thumb. The small spark of lightning touched the scattered powder that drifted over to him.

In the next second, the spark transformed into a large blaze and spread to all the places the powder had touched. Essentially, the entire foyer was set alight.

Screams and cries erupted from the band of thugs.

“Ouch,” Aedan feigned a wince. A small flame caught onto his sleeve but being a True Dragon, he was unscathed by the blaze.

“I’ll be outside,” Olivia said and made her out of the building. She was a True Dragon too but the water was more of her domain, so she decided to stay out. Nevertheless, she would be unfazed too should some of the flames catch her.

Taking advantage of the absolute disorder among the gathered thugs, Aedan began his massacre. He started off with a wide swing of his twin swords. There was no precision to his prelude. It was just a gesture and a sign for the unfortunate thugs for what was to come.

Aedan took more than half a dozen heads in the prelude. Another handful fell along with the ones that got decapitated, consumed by the fire.

One of the thugs took out a Spell Gem and he crushed it in his hand. The spell unleashed from the gem was a huge splash of water. The fire wasn’t completely doused but it did save a lot of his brethren who would otherwise die to the flames.

Aedan chortled and dashed into the fray. He opened up the torso of a thug who was still in a daze while at the same time, he slit the throat of another thug who was licking his wounds.

Someone cried out loudly in the crowd and he charged at Aedan with all his might. He was a big man, probably the tallest person in the room. However, Aedan threw the sword at the big man’s foot. The big man’s momentum carried him forward despite having his foot stuck to the floor by a sword. The big man shrieked as he fell forward.

The result was incredibly dreadful. The big man fell but since his foot was stuck to the floor by a sword, he ripped his foot through the blade and hit the floor hard. The massive thug bawled like a child as he clutched at his mangled foot.

Aedan silenced the big man permanently with a thrust into his head. That was not the most grisly and bloody happenstance in this massacre. Many that followed afterwards were more awful than the last. Aedan did not have his wrath fettered. He let it loose.

Aedan cut his way through the numerous thugs who came at him one after another. Even though they saw how terribly and ruthlessly their peers were cut down, the majority of them were not discouraged.

Nevertheless, Aedan continued to cut them down without any shred of hesitation. He brought with him many blades and the edges of all the blades were nearly dull when he fell the last thug in the building, excluding the one that leads these late thugs.

There were two only two floors up and the second floor was nothing more than the leisure quarters of the thugs. Aedan spotted a few women huddling in the corner. They were just whores the thugs bought and brought. He paid them no attention and climbed onto the next floor.

There were no rooms on the third floor, only a single vast space that encompassed the entire floor. There was a grand chair at the end of the vast room and a woman with many scars sat on top of it.

“Pinea,” Aedan chewed the name as he strode towards the woman.

“Your Grace,” the woman greeted with a scowl that spelt all of her worries. “You could have just sent me a letter if you wish to meet. You didn’t need to slaughter all of my men.”

“Cease the farce, Pinea. I know what you did.”

“Your Grace, you have to understand. I didn’t mean—”

“I am no longer ‘Your’ Grace and you are no longer an Aeryon, especially not after you blabbed our secrets to the enemy.”

“A-Aedan, you don’t understand.” The woman Pinea swallowed a lump in her throat. “I was threatened. He was going to—”

“So you decide that your life was the lives of those that you once shared your faith with.”

“Are you expecting to just let myself be killed? That’s absurd.”

“You could have lied. You are good at that, I remember.”

“If I lied, he would have known about it eventually.”

“And you could have sought refuge with us if that’s the case. When you left, our grace remained open to you. And what did you do with it? You spat on it and sold your siblings and family to the enemy. All for what? For a pouch of gold? You betrayed your family for money.”

“I did no such thing! Sure, I told him what he wanted to hear. But nobody died in the end because of me now, did they?”

“Except that someone did die because of you and you did take the enemy’s gold. But thankfully, the person you endangered was not favoured by death. And so, she lives.”

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Nobody died. So, don’t you think your reaction here is a little—”

Aedan did not let her words form completely. He discontinued her nonsense by throwing a dull dagger that pierced into her left eye.

Since the blade was dull, the dagger did not pierce deep. Still, it was agonising. Pinea fell off the chair, clutching her eye, and screamed out in agony as she flailed around.

Aedan ambled towards the shrieking Pinea and crouched before her. “The person you endangered is a Fae, a Fox-kin. If she had truly died, you would have doomed this whole city, you fucking stupid bitch.”

“I-I didn’t know… I didn’t know…” Pinea sobbed. “Forgive me… Please…”

“You know, if she had come along with me, I assume she would have asked for me to spare you. She can be ruthless and merciless at times but she’s a good person at the core of her heart. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said about me.”

“Mercy… Mercy, my Lord….”

“Do you know, your betrayal delayed her involvement in the sortie? A whole lot more lives could have been saved if she had joined the sortie early but she couldn’t, because of you. You have inadvertently caused the deaths of many innocents.”

“F-forgive me… I was—”

“Hush now. I don’t want to hear your reasons. Truth be told, I’m here because you hurt her. Every other reason that I have given was nothing more than to justify my… exaggerated retaliation. I’m a truly terrible person. I am not going to kill you… but you are going to wish that I had.”

And thus, the torture and maiming of Pinea began. The cries and throes of her suffering spread far and wide. But no one came to her aid no matter how loud she screamed.