Saying the Boreas were here, while not a complete lie, was only barely true. The casualties piled higher with every passing second as Helios Scions collapsed onto the frozen floor. If they weren't dead when they fell, the numbing cold finished them within moments.
But it wasn't an army of Boreas Scions, or even a small infiltration squad, that had done this.
No. It was one man.
Actually, calling him a man was too generous. He couldn't have been more than a few years older than Lucius.
To most, he was a blur of motion. Only when he paused to catch his breath did anyone truly see him. Even then, he never lowered his guard, keeping an ice shield raised in one hand and an ice-forged sword in the other, deflecting incoming beams of searing light.
Lucius studied him during those brief pauses, caught between awe, confusion, and an eerie sense of recognition. The boy had messy black hair, much like his own. But unlike Lucius's Helios-red eyes, his irises glowed an impossible shade of ice blue. The longer Lucius stared, the more he felt as if those weary eyes sang the same quiet song of resentment he often carried within himself.
From the hall's entrance, Lucius and the aspiring captain remained frozen in place. Neither moved to aid their fellow soldiers. They only stared.
So there really was an intruder. What luck…
Or perhaps, Lucius thought as another scream tore across the room, what terrible luck.
For a heartbeat, Lucius considered stepping forward. A flicker of instinct urged him to help, but it passed quickly. The boy wasn't slaughtering innocents, he was cutting down monsters who thought sacrificing their own citizens was acceptable. Even if the common soldiers were ignorant of those sacrifices, they still upheld the rotten system.
Letting the boy kill them… wasn't that just letting nature take its course?
Besides, Lucius's eyes narrowed, frost gathering along his lashes. I can't take him. Not even the aspiring captain would stand a chance.
The Helios Scions hurled their attacks wildly now, beams of searing heat lighting the frozen chamber. But it was useless. They were only Stage Three. And if they could fall so quickly, that meant the boy had to be at least Stage Six.
Lucius himself was a Gold Stage Three Loki Scion, with the addition of being a Helios Bronze Stage Two Scion, his strength roughly equal to a Bronze Stage Four. The aspiring captain beside him was a Stage Five. The gap between stage 4 or 5 and stage 6 may not seem like a lot, but it was actually monstrous. Every time a Scion went from bronze to silver, and silver to gold, their speed, strength, and magic potency all doubled. A single rank was a canyon.
The Boreas boy was on another level entirely.
Before either Lucius or the captain realized it, only three Helios Scions remained. The frozen hall was a slaughterhouse of blood, severed limbs, and shattered bodies.
Breathing heavily, the boy once again raised his ice shield. His icy blue cloak was now smeared with blood and his tired blue eyes swept across the last three soldiers. They circled him warily, blades trembling in their hands.
He sighed and tilted his head back, his breath a visible plume in the frigid air. For a moment, time seemed to still.
Then the Helios soldiers lunged. The one before him unleashed twin beams of sunlight, while the other two charged from either side, blades arcing toward his cloak.
Futile.
With a flick of his wrist, the boy caught the beams with his ice shield and vaulted into the air. The two flanking Scions' blades carried through, straight into each other's necks.
Their heads toppled before they hit the ground.
The last soldier barely had time to blink. A burst of wind propelled the Boreas boy forward, his ice blade carving cleanly through flesh and bone.
The headless body collapsed.
Forty-five bodies.
That's how many Helios Scions lie frozen across the compound floor. All of them were common soldiers. No generals, those had already gone home for the night, as they were no longer required to keep watch over the base during nightfall.
Beside Lucius, the aspiring captain's fist clenched, then slowly loosened. His face twisted into a strange, fleeting smile before settling back into blank composure.
Lucius's calm, quiet voice cut through the frigid air.
"We should get out of here. Before that, the Boreas maniac decides we're next."
The captain only nodded.
They turned down the hallway, both knowing an exit lay at the far end. But just as they took their first steps, a suffocating sense of death pressed against Lucius's chest. His instincts screamed, and he spun around.
He froze.
An ice blade hovered inches from his throat. Its edge kissed his skin, leaving a rim of frost as the wielder's tired, merciless blue eyes bored into his soul.
Lucius's body locked in terror. Panic surged, slowing everything to a crawl.
I don't want to die!
The boy's ragged breaths. His own racing heartbeat. Even the flickering lights, all of it dragged into slow motion.
On instinct, Lucius summoned Trickfire at his feet, and this time it wasn't an illusion. He wasn't insane—he didn't want to burn alive—but fire gave him a better chance of survival than an ice blade through the neck.
Shit.
"NOT HIM! HE'S THE PRINCE!"
The aspiring captain's roar shattered the moment.
The Boreas Scion's blade dissolved into water against Lucius's neck, flooding him with relief. But his flames had already ignited. Trickfire roared to life, engulfing both himself and the boy.
Lucius's screams tore through the hall as the hellish fire devoured his skin. The pain was unbearable, until suddenly, small but firm arms dragged him free of the vanishing inferno.
They belonged to the Boreas boy.
He laid Lucius's charred body on the cold floor, though the fire still clung to his clothes. Before Lucius could cry out again, ice swept over him, sealing him completely. Frost sank into his skin, flowing through his body, and with it came relief—icy, soothing relief. His burns knit closed, his flesh restored in seconds, until the ice melted away.
Lucius gasped, blinking up at the boy and his captain, both standing over him.
"So this is the Helios prince?" the Boreas boy asked lazily.
The captain nodded, his voice steady. "Yeah. He's a prince, alright."
The truth clicked instantly. Lucius didn't need to ask questions he already knew the answers to.
Coughing, he looked at the captain's devious smile.
"So you let him in here. You're a traitor to Helios."
The captain scoffed.
"You're one to talk. Nice flames."
Lucius smirked weakly.
"Thanks…"