The commander, a man whose face was a map of bad decisions and permanent scowls, didn't seem to grasp the concept of surrender. He stood up, his purple-charged blade humming with a sound like dying insects. Behind him, the remaining forty-nine rogue masters recovered from the gravity-slam, drawing weapons that crackled with enough illegal mana to power a small city.
"You have no idea what you've walked into," the commander spat, his voice trembling—not with fear, but with the delusional ego of someone who had never met a real monster. "This base is linked to the North's tectonic ley lines. We have mana-cannons aimed at every major supply route in the empire. You aren't just fighting us; you're fighting the mountain itself!"
Kazriel didn't even stop walking. He kept moving toward the commander with the casual, rhythmic pace of a man strolling through a park.
"A mana-cannon," Kazriel repeated, sounding genuinely underwhelmed. "You spent your budget on fireworks? I thought you were going to say you had something interesting."
"Kill him!" the commander roared.
The cavern erupted. Dozens of energy beams, sword-qi slashes, and elemental projectiles converged on the space where Kazriel stood.
BOOM.
The impact created a shockwave that blew the dust off the stalactites three hundred feet above. When the smoke cleared, Amien—who had shielded himself behind his stone pillar—peered out with his eyes squeezed shut, terrified.
But the corridor was silent.
Kazriel wasn't there.
"Looking for me?"
The voice came from directly behind the commander. Kazriel stood there, not even in a combat stance, one hand resting on the back of the commander's armor.
"You're fast," the commander gasped, spinning around—or trying to. He found he couldn't move. He looked down. His armor was completely frozen, fused to the stone floor by a layer of absolute-zero ice that had appeared out of thin air.
"I'm not fast," Kazriel corrected, looking over at Aria, who was currently leaning against the cavern wall, idly shaping a breeze into a sharp, lethal blade. "I'm just tired of waiting for you to do something worth my time."
Aria looked at the frozen commander, then at the stunned rogue masters. "Kaz, the one in the back left has a runic trigger in his pocket. If you don't take it, he's going to blow up the ceiling."
"Good catch," Kazriel remarked. He didn't even look back. He simply flicked two fingers.
A localized gravitational pulse slammed into the back-left bandit, pulling the runic device out of his pocket and crushing it into a metallic pancake before it could even click.
The cavern went dead silent. The rogue masters were beginning to realize that the 'Duke Heir' wasn't just a rich kid with good gear—he was an apex predator who had been playing with his food the entire time.
"Amien!" Kazriel called out, still not taking his eyes off the commander.
Amien jumped, nearly dropping his pillar. "Y-yes, Master?!"
"Pick three of them. The ones that look the most arrogant. They're yours to practice on. Don't kill them, but don't let them walk away with their pride intact either. I want to see those dragon scales do something besides shiver."
Amien looked at the forty-nine elite killers, then at the three Kazriel had pointed at, and gulped. "All three at once?"
"You're a dragon-blood, Amien," Kazriel sighed, looking at his watch as if he had a dinner reservation. "Stop acting like a chicken."