The runic circle around Ames's wrist broke and the pressure falling upon Albert vanished along with it.
Seeing that he was able to move now, Albert got up and rushed towards Ames with his knife pulled above his shoulders.
Ames was on his knees, unmoving. Albert swung the knife at Ames's back, about to stab him. But just before the knife could go in, it stopped just above his back, the tip touching his robe.
Albert was bawling out, eyes red in fury, but he hesitated pushing the knife forward, he wanted to pull his heart out and bleed him out, cut his body into pieces, but he couldn't.
The knife fell from his hand on the floor, he fell on the ground on his knees, he started wailing in despair, his eyes swollen as tears and snot flowed uncontrollably.
"Why…why did you take her away from me...why!!?" Albert sobbed, drowned in despair and helplessness.
"You…you killed her…I-I'll kill you!!" Albert growled as fury returned to his eyes, he picked the knife again and swung it towards Ame's back, but immediately someone caught his hand.
"Hold it!" a hoarse voice came from his back.
Albert was shocked at his hand being caught and the presence of a man other than them, as if he had appeared out of thin air. He moved his eyes towards the hand and saw a black leather glove on it.
He traced the hand back up and found a well built man wearing a long black enforcer coat and leather gloves, with an enforcer hat on his head, and his face covered with a mask and only his green eyes showing with a cut mark just below his eyes.
Before Albert could say anything, his front door was blasted open and more than ten enforcers in black suits rushed inside and surrounded them.
"Detain them both and carefully preserve the body!" the man with the green eyes commanded.
Two enforcers moved towards Cora's lifeless body, mana flowed out of them and a cocoon like structure formed taking her body inside while two other enforcers moved to Ames and Albert as they handcuffed both of them.
"Where are you taking my daughter! Oi you bastards! Release me!" Albert kept on shouting while Ames just stood motionless.
He didn't resist once and allowed them to restrain him. He stood up and followed them out of the house. His head down, eyes devoid of any emotion. He just quietly moved along.
They started moving through the road towards the village gates. The villagers were out of their houses as they watched one of their villagers screaming and cursing at the man he had brought home a few hours earlier.
"Release me! I'll kill this bastard! He is a devil! He used dark magic on my daughter and took her away from me! Release me!" gasps of shock followed from the villagers as they started murmuring and discussing.
Leaving one enforcer behind, they moved out of the village and started walking along the road.
They were quite a distance away from the village but Albert was still screaming and cursing out, without a stop.
"What rank are you? Why have you cuffed me? He's the culprit! He killed my daughter!" Albert kept screaming but no response came from the other side.
"I have a few connections in the upper ranks! You'll face the consequences if you don't release me right now! let me kill that bastard and avenge my daughter! He's going to die anyway after the trial!"
"Shut up!" one of the enforcers yelled at him, getting annoyed with his battering.
"Who are you huh! Don't think just because I'm poor I'm a nobody! I know the Marshall! I'll throw you out of the military!" Albert threatened them, trying to make them afraid.
"It's still midnight! Who the hell even called you at this time of the night! And why are you outside the city!"
Ames, who was walking along with them, without a word and expression on his face, suddenly his eyes opened wide in realization. Albert's words hit a chord and brought him back to his senses.
Just as he lifted his head, the sound of something hitting the ground and rolling away came from his side.
He turned for a look and was shocked to his core, disbelief and confusion written all over his face.
Albert was not speaking anything, and he never would again as his head was cut off with a clean strike and it rolled over at a distance. Blood gushed out like a fountain and slowly his lifeless body fell on the ground.
"Tch! Annoying pest!" the enforcer with the green eyes scoffed. A long, curved dagger in his hands and blood smeared on it as a few drops fell on the ground.
"W-why the fuck did you do that!" Ames screamed, he was shocked and furious.
He channeled mana into his hands, trying to break the handcuffs, but then his mana was absorbed in the cuffs. Ames was shocked again. He realized they were handcuffs made with void stones, which were a bane for wizards and mages as they made them powerless and unable to cast magic or channel mana.
"Who are you?" Ames asked in a skeptical tone, a trace of fear now rising inside him.
"You'll get to know soon!" the green eyed man said and swung his mana infused fist towards Ames.
The fist hit squarely on his face and then darkness spread in front of his eyes.
*****
Ames slowly opened his eyes as he woke up. He was lying on a hard metallic moving surface.
Slowly his vision cleared and he saw that he was in an iron prison placed in a moving carriage. A man was in the front supplying mana into a round glass ball placed atop a cylindrical metal rod, which was connected to the axel which in turn were moving the carriage wheels.
The carriage came to a stop in front of an arch shaped gate, devoid of doors but blocked with a transparent film of mana. The film spread from the gates further, to all around, forming walls and ceiling, leading to a dome of transparent protection.
Ames immediately guessed the location. It was the 'Pit of Remorse', where death row criminals are thrown to die, lying near the forest of corruption in between the Glaskow kingdom and the Edo kingdom.
One enforcer moved ahead towards the guard at the gate and after talking with him for a few minutes, he passed him a pouch filled with coins.
A wide grin appeared on the guard's face as he nodded at the second guard. The second guard placed his hands over the mana stone in the arc gate.
The transparent mana gate opened slowly. The carriage then started moving inside.
After moving for about half an hour the carriage stopped. An enforcer opened the prison gate and pushed Ames out.
Ames fell face first on the sandy ground. The green eyed man pulled him up and threw him towards the huge circular pit in front.
Ames slid along the ground stopping near the edge of the pit. The pit was huge, ranging almost thirty meters in diameter. Nothing could be seen below after a few meters from the top, it was complete darkness. The whole pit was covered in a black fog moving around the space.
The man grabbed Ames's collar and picked him up, holding him just at the edge.
"Are you the guys who had been following me all this time?" Ames asked in a shaky voice, fear could be seen in his eyes as one push and he would be thrown down in the pit.
"Yes, we had been following you! But we were never caught like the ones sent by your headmaster!" the man said with a wide smirk.
"So those guys were…"
"Thanks for getting them out of the way!"
"Who sent you then? Is it…Boris?"
"An orphan shouldn't dream of becoming the king! You should have known your place!"
"So that Boris has fallen this much to try assassinating a student! Doesn't he fear the headmaster!? You think you can escape after killing me? Blaze Snethorn is my master! Boris and you lot will have to deal with his wrath!" Ames tried to threaten them with Blaze, so that he can convince them to leave him. "Let me go! I won't charge you guys, only Boris will be held responsible for this!"
"Hahahahaha!!" the man laughed out loud as if he heard the greatest joke.
"Why would Blaze protect a wizard who has fallen towards darkness, used dark magic to kill an innocent girl and her father. Also killed all the villagers and some enforcers while running away. He killed the guards at the gate and fell in the pit while trying to run from the team of enforcers who were chasing him to take into custody for mass murders!" he smirked as he recited the events as if they were truth.
Ames's eyes opened wide in shock, he realized that he would be framed for all the death that they are going to commit and leave no space for his innocence.
"Goodbye! And remember to stay within your limits in your next life…if you do get to reincarnate!" dark and murky mana started forming in his hands as it covered his whole palm.
Ames sensed darkness and a rotten smell from the mana, unable to remember where he had felt it before. Just then realization dawned into him, this was the same rotten smell and murky texture he sensed from the wounds in Cora's heart.
"You bastard! It was you…" Before he could finish, the palm hit Ames's chest.
The dark mana seeped through his chest towards his heart. An intense pang of pain came from his heart. Ames screamed in pain. The dark mana clutched at the magic circles in his heart and broke them into pieces.
"AAAARRGHHHHH!!!" Ames screamed in pain and agony.
"Hail the endless night!" the man pushed Ames as he fell in the pit.
Pain, sadness, guilt, fury, all emotions passed through Ames's eyes. He took one last look at the man, his green eyes glowing as dark mana covered him, and finally he vanished inside the black fog.