The strike team had been mobilized within minutes of Alaric's orders.
Emma had gathered the Enforcers—thirty of the seventh divisions finest, each one a Votary of considerable skill—while Layl was supposed to coordinate with the Inquisitors. The plan was simple: strike the Revolution at its core, decapitate its leadership, and quell the entire disturbance from the root.
Yet, as with every plan drawn in a capital currently drowning in blood, friction had introduced itself almost immediately. While the Enforcers and Inquisition forces were mobilizing, Layl, Dmitri, and Yulan had suddenly abandoned the main formation with without warning, sprinting off to hunt a theatrical, smoke-shrouded lunatic in a fox mask who was causing bedlam atop the palace walls. The remaining Inquisitors rushed after her leaving only the Enforcers behind.
So they had proceeded without them.
The initial skirmish in the streets had gone well enough. The Revolutionists were disorganized, their ranks filled with civilians who had been driven mad by the Black Dandy or who had been seduced by the promise of a better world. They conducted a targeted extraction tactic, working with the knights to infiltrate the crowd, quickly detain the Revolutionists among them and withdraw them back behind the lines of knights without engaging the rest of the demonstration.
They had subdued most of the revolution, but Emma had intentionally permitted a small, marked cell to break through their perimeter. Using subtle Flow tracing, they had trailed the unsuspecting survivors straight through the old sewers and down into the sprawling, ancient ruins beneath Aethelberg.
Along the trail, Pihla—using her telepathic link—had picked up a frantic mental transmission:
'Layl's squad had engaged "Agent Orange," and through a bizarre series of events involving golden flames, dramatic theatricals and the kidnap of first prince Leon Zeppelin, the city-wide riots had been completely neutralized.'
Emma had gritted his teeth under his collar. He loathed when operations veered off course, but he was pragmatic enough to recognize a gift. With the surface chaos handled by Layl's clean-up crew, his squad could focus on one singular objective: capturing the Revolutionary and ending this nightmare once and for all.
Which brought Emma to the present moment, standing in the subterranean church, watching the masked figure on the altar laugh.
The man in the patchwork cloak raised his arms, his sleeves billowing like dark wings. Hidden pressure pockets along the high arches of the ceiling suddenly detonated with a series of quiet pops.
A dense, fine aerosol of Black Dandy exploded across the sanctuary. The purple-tinted residue drifted downward through the torchlight like a sickening black snow, blanketing the damp stone floor.
Emma's task force didn't flinch. Prepared for this chemical hazard, the Enforcers had already pulled high-grade filter masks over the lower halves of their faces. Pihla and Emma—the only two Saints present in the chamber—stood firm, their formidable ascended vessels effortlessly repelling the aerosolized drug through sheer, dense force of their Presence.
The Black Dandy, however, was not meant for them.
The remaining revolutionists standing in the sanctuary inhaled the black snow deeply. Within seconds, their pupils dilated into glassy, unblinking voids. Veins bulged along their necks, black and pulsing, as an unholy, frenzy-driven craze washed over their minds.
"Fight!" the Revolutionary bellowed from the altar, his voice echoing through the stone arches.
"Fight and bleed in the name of our grand Revolution!"
With guttural, unnatural roars, the drugged revolutionists threw themselves forward in a suicidal wave.
"Pihla, clear the vanguard!" Emma barked, his voice muffled behind his mask.
"I'm taking the lead for his head!"
Pihla pinned the charging revolutionists with her telekinesis while Emma drew his heavy, double-edged Grosse Messer sword, his movement a blur of blinding speed as he vaulted over the frontline of frenzied attackers. Pihla herself carved a lethal path through the crowd as she leaped toward the altar alongside her captain.
The remaining Enforcers took advantage of the opening and began to subdue the revolutionists.
Two Saints, moving with the terrifying, synchronized precision of seasoned veterans, targeted the Revolutionary's throat and heart simultaneously.
CLANG!
A shockwave of sheer, compressed kinetic force exploded outward from the platform, shattering the nearby stone pillars and blowing the falling black snow backward in a violent ring.
Emma and Pihla froze mid-air, their eyes widening in shock.
The Revolutionary had blocked both of their Flow-infused strikes with the veined heavy, blood-stained man catcher in one hand, its red teeth-like prongs catching Emma's heavy Messer, while his bare, Flow-coated left palm had caught the razor-sharp edge of Pihla's Naginata mid-swing.
With a dismissive, terrifying flick of his wrists, the Revolutionary unleashed a wave of raw pressure, flinging both Saints off the platform. Emma landed lightly in a low crouch, while Pihla flipped gracefully, her Naginata digging into the stone floor to halt her momentum.
Emma immediately activated his Flow Perception, his vision shifting to analyze the man's. his energy was orange in color and spiraling clockwise around him.
'A Votary?'
Emma's brow furrowed.
The man in front of him was undeniably a Votary, a full stage and a hundred times weaker than a Saint. The strength gap should have been absolute. Emma and Pihla's combined force should have sliced through him like parchment.
"How...?" Pihla muttered, her usual lighthearted cadence completely replaced by a cold, deadly seriousness.
Up on the platform, the Revolutionary let out a low, raspy chuckle.
"Ah, its good to see you again Emma. You've grown into quite the young man. Hehehe, you were always such a bright, observant boy. Even as a cadet, your mind was forever analyzing the board. My belated congratulations on becoming a Saint. It seems you have surpassed me so as the good senior I am I'll have to work extra hard to catch up."
Emma and Pihla exchanged a glance, confused. The Revolutionary continued.
"You're wondering how a mere Votary can hold the line against your magnificent Sainthood, aren't you?"
The man reached up with his free hand. Slow and deliberate, he held the face of his cracked porcelain mask and pulled it away.
The face beneath was handsome—strikingly so. But there was something wrong. His eyes were wild, deranged, and the skin beneath them was withered, cracked like ancient stone. Below the platform, Emma's breath caught sharply in his throat. His posture shattered for a fraction of a second, his eyes staring in stark, unadulterated disbelief.
"...Cynn? Cynn Nastrod?" Emma breathed, his voice dropping to a stunned whisper.
The Revolutionary—Nastrod—frowned, a flicker of genuine disappointment crossing his features.
"I thought it would come as more of a shock. Your reaction is... underwhelming."
"This must be a trick!" Emma roared and lunged forward, his feet shattering the floorboards as he brought his sword down in a devastating overhead cleave.
Nastrod didn't even move his feet. He raised his bare left hand once more, catching the razor edge of the heavy Messer directly in his palm.
SCHLICK!
Emma's blade bit deep, nearly severing Nastrod's hand entirely, splitting bone and sinew down the center. Without flinching, Emma violently yanked his blade backward, slicing through the remaining flesh as he leaped back to Pihla's side.
"Cynn Nastrod was a pacifist. He was a pacifist who valued life above all else, who despised war above all else! He volunteered to fight in the Aerthos-Kemet War ten years ago to save lives—and he died stopping the slaughter from claiming thousands more! You are not him!"
Nastrod looked down at his mangled, dripping hand, his severed fingers dangling by thin threads of skin. A warm, unsettling smile spread across his face.
"I am glad to see your edge hasn't dulled, Emma," Nastrod murmured softly.
"As for your history lesson... a great deal can change in ten short years."
Pihla looked between Emma and the man on the altar.
"Wait... Cynn Nastrod? The renowned Healer-type from the Qingyuan region who joined the Kingdoms defense force? I read about him in old war documents."
"The same," Nastrod confirmed. "I fought side by side with brave men and women who put their lives on the line to defend against the threat of Kemet's conquest. And yes—I did die."
His tone abruptly shifted. The whimsical quality of his voice vanished, replaced by a dark, bubbling cauldron of bitter, unadulterated resentment.
"And then I revived. Recently. And do you know what I found? The masses I saved remain bitter and divided! The nobles meant to serve them are nothing more than gluttonous vipers seeking absolute power! And the King? A spineless, rotting weakling on a chair while his own toxic offspring tear at each other's throats for the chance to burn the kingdom to ash!"
Paused for a moment, glancing at the Enforcers and Revolutionists fighting below.
"I gave my life thinking I was useful and my—our— sacrifice would make things better for both Kingdoms. And yet, ten years later, what has changed?! Things have worsened on a continental scale!"
He spread his arms wide, his voice once again becoming playful.
"Thus, my homecoming could not have come at a more opportune time!"
As he raised his wounded hand, the severed flesh began to knit together with terrifying speed. Simultaneously, twenty feet away, one of the drugged, fighting revolutionists suddenly gasped. A deep, jagged slash spontaneously tore across her forehead, spraying blood as her eyes rolled back and she collapsed dead.
Pihla's stomach churned with disgust.
"He... he transferred his wound to one of his own followers? That's revolting! He's completely demented!"
Nastrod smiled.
"My revolution is going to save millions," he said.
"Even if those millions must die so that millions more can live."
"This must be some kind of trick or he's a puppet similar to those automatons we fought in Veridian."
Emma shook his head.
"No," he said quietly. "This is the real Cynn Nastrod."
"How?" Pihla demanded, her voice rising in frustration.
"I read the records! If he's who he claims to be, he hailed from a city in Qingyuan—which was governed directly by Ki Lin Feng! She was his mentor! Why would he kill her, why the bloody hell would he cause all this?!"
Emma's jaw tightened.
"I don't know. But there's only one thing capable of resurrecting the dead and twisting the ego into pure, unbridled madness."
Pihla's eyes widened as she instantly knew what it was.
"Corruption,"she breathed.
Emma nodded.
"And to further prove that he's real—" He pointed at Nastrod's eye.
The Revolutionary smiled as his left eye transformed, the iris shifting into a silver Celtic Five-Fold Knot.
"The Arcane Eye of Abatement," Emma said grimly.
"No two people can hold the same Arcane Eye at once. Unless one dies for it to be passed on to the other and in the last ten years, I haven't heard anyone awakening that arcane eye."
Pihla's breath caught.
"That's going to make this operation a whole lot harder."
Without turning his head, Emma threw out a sharp command to Pihla.
"Don't read his mind. If you touch his thoughts, you might get corrupted too."
"Understood!" Pihla replied, her Naginata flaring with dense, golden Flow. Emma's sword also glowed as well as they both used Advanced Flow Infusion to saturate their weapons with energy causing it to crystalize the weapons.
Nastrod's Arcane Eye flared with a blinding, ominous light and he raised the man catcher as the two Saints sprinted up the steps to engage him once more.
Tucked deep behind the crumbling torso of the headless stone statue near the cave entrance, Raileigh and Jamie were crouching low.
Surrounding them was a faint, translucent violet bubble of Anti-Flow. Raileigh had conjured it to protect them from getting intoxicated y the still falling flakes of Black Dandy.
Jamie was kneeling on the cold stone, her right hand clamped tight over her left shoulder. She was breathing in short, ragged gasps, sweat beading across her forehead as her face twisted in pain.
"Jamie! Talk to me!" Raileigh whispered frantically, half-listening to the terrifying conversation between Emma and Nastrod while hovering over her with panic in his eyes.
"What's happening to you?! Did a stray piece of shrapnel hit you?!"
"It's... it's not a wound," Jamie choked out, her teeth grinding together. "It's... my birthmark its...something... is calling me."
Raileigh was at a further loss about what to do.
He turned his head to look back toward the altar, trying to parse the madness—
When he turned back around, his heart dropped straight into his stomach.
Jamie was no longer beside him.
Driven by an overwhelming, primal instinct that bypassed her conscious mind, Jamie was crawling on her hands and knees away from the barrier, her blue eyes glazed over as she moved blindly back toward the dark, narrow cave tunnel they had just squeezed through.
"Jamie! Wait! Stop!" Raileigh gasped, scrambling out from under the barrier.
"Where are you going?!"
He reached out, trying to grab her ankle, but she moved with unnatural, compulsive speed, slipping into the tight cave opening like a ghost.
"Damn it all to hell!" Raileigh cursed under his breath, abandoning all caution as he dove into the dark, damp hole after her.
Unknown to either of them, up on the high altar—even while parrying a lethal, two-handed strike from Emma's Messer—Nastrod's Celtic-knotted Arcane Eye had flicked imperceptibly toward the base of the headless statue.
With a subtle, unspoken nod of his head, he signaled a group of five heavily armed, frenzy-drugged revolutionists standing near to follow them.
Three of them managed to drop to their knees and scramble into the narrow cave entrance after Jamie and Raileigh.
Before the fourth and fifth cultists could squeeze through ,Pihla—noticing the movement out of the corner of her eye and seeing some of the revolutionists climbing up the alter behind them—swung her Naginata with brutal, kinetic force backed by her third resonant of telekinesis.
The resulting shockwave sent the nearby revolutionists flying and slammed the headless statue violently into the ancient wall above it, collapsing the entire cave entrance in a thunderous cascade of heavy boulders and crushed earth, sealing the tunnel shut.
Back up on the platform, Emma and Pihla lunged together, executing a synchronized, blinding pincer strike aimed straight for Nastrod's heart.
Nastrod threw his head back and laughed—a booming, manic sound that vibrated through the very bedrock of the ruins.
Reaching down, he finally channeled his own Flow into the living artifact resting in his hands—the brutal, pronged mancatcher forged specifically for him by Igor.
The artifact flared with a sickening, dark light, its teethy prongs expanding and twisting like living, ravenous jaws as Nastrod stepped forward to meet the Saints head-on.