The next day, SableWood welcomed the party of Viscount Garoth. The streets were filled with soldiers from both noble houses and normal citizens trying to sneak glances of the noble Viscount. And anybody who saw him didn't think he needed a full description. He was fat. That is what everyone concluded after seeing him. "Guess, there was some truth spoken by the storyteller," Azrael thought in his materialized form beside Master White.
Master White saw an open carriage escorted by thirty soldiers. The captain of this group was standing in the front swinging the official banner of the viscount house, leading this visit. The viscount sat at the centre of the carriage, his clothes a striking gold reflecting his money, plastered on his face was a fake smile that didn't move the eye, and a belly protruding enough to bounce in sync with the carriage wheels.
Seeing all of this, Master White muttered, "Tier-3..."
"Yeah. So, Two Tier-4's and one Tier-3.. it really is going to be troublesome." Azrael replied understanding Master White's concern.
"Don't worry, White. Our trump card is the element of surprise, with that we can take out the Viscount in one strike. Then, we are left with only two Tier-4's. And if everything goes according to our plan, then we can also take down the protector before moving to strike the Marquis." Azrael continued.
Master White nodded but his eyes were still fixed on the official party, who were now being received by the Marquis at the gates of his mansion.
After a while, The party and the Viscount entered the Marquis mansion and the gates closed.
The crowds of soldiers and people dispersed and got busy with their daily jobs.
Master White suddenly said, "There was no special tribute."
Azrael perplexed asked, "what?"
"There was no "special tribute" from the crystal cave Azrael. The Viscount was empty handed while arriving. He was the only one in the carriage, there were no crates or another wagon following behind indicating the presence of the mentioned crystal tribute."
Hearing that Azrael narrowed his eyes, as he looked back at the closed gates of the Marquis mansion.
"What will we do now? Something doesn't feel right here" Azrael asked.
Silence settled as they both found this situation dangerous. Both of them are paranoid planners. They believe in knowing all the information before acting upon anything. And now that there was an unknown development in their usual plan, they find the danger of their mission risen up a few levels.
"It was originally supposed to be an assassination, but now... It will be a massacre." After thinking about it for a while, Master White replied.
"We will just have to eliminate all of them. So that there are no unforseen situations, and also in this way there will be no loose ends." He said with a cold unapologetic tone.
Azrael thought about it for a while and ultimately agreed. But hearing that tone from him, he couldn't help but sigh. Azrael thought, "This guy is good with planning, but sometimes he doesn't consider the consequences. ha—Well, I guess I just have to stop a complete massacre."
They returned to their rooms and waited patiently. The plan was to strike tonight, when the banquet begins. They will sneak into the mansion with the food carriages that will be transported this evening and wait for the right chance to strike.
************
In the evening, as they had planned, they got inside one of the food wagons by disguising themselves with the help of The Veil. They took the appearance of a normal worker and slowly got mingled with kitchen staff responsible for the food preparations. The staff preparing the food had been privately hired. So, he had no problem getting in.
As Master White was doing the odd jobs to blend in, Azrael by his side in his manifested form was thinking about their next course of action.
"So, what do you say White? We will use the Stream of Death." Azrael said
"That seems to be the best option." Master White replied in the mind space.
"We will lace the food and wine with Stream of Death, and we will control the attributes of Death so that it is only a temporary coma." Azrael continued
"But our control is not at that level yet, Azrael." Master White voiced his doubt.
"We will try, White. We will try.. if we fail to control, then all will die, What's the big deal??" Azrael asked with a rhetoric smirk.
"Okay, I was anyways ready for a full massacre. You were the one who convinced me otherwise." Master White replied without a change in his emotions. Sometimes it was really hard to tell, who was more crazy between these two.
In the nighttime, when the banquet was just about to begin, they laced most of the food and wine with stream of death and everyone ate or drank it without a doubt. The banquet continued but they didn't activate the attribute of death yet. So, everyone was lively and were enjoying the time.
Master White stealthily exited the banquet hall and wandered around the mansion. As if trying to attract attention.
And he did get attention, from The Protector.
Surprisingly The Protector was the only one present at the banquet and the two main people, the Marquis and the Viscount were nowhere to be found. Seeing this as a good opportunity to eliminate the protector, he did this little trick to isolate them from the party.
"Who are you?" The protector asked in a low voice. Master White didn't reply.
They were standing in an empty corridor with a high ceiling window to their left, from which moonlight reflected on both the faces of Master White and the protector.
"I asked, who are you? What are you doing here?" As the protector started speaking, his Tier-4 aura erupted out.
Master White purposefully hid himself from the normal soldiers but revealed his aura to the protector. So, that he can corner him alone.
And with that purpose of his fulfilled,
"Now do as i say, okay?! We need to act here to confuse him and make him lower his guard. So, that there is less trouble for us." Azrael beside Master White spoke in his materialized form, visible to no one.
"Okay." Master White replied in the shared mental space.
"Turn around with an amiable smile on your face, and slowly start walking towards him." Azrael instructed.
Master White turned around with a big smile on his face, which was unsettling in every way. It was the epitome of fake smiles. A smile so wrong, that it sent shivers down the body of the one receiving it. He started walking towards the protector.
"I said an amiable smile or even a polite smile. But what was that, you dunce?!" Azrael slammed his non existent forehead.
"Appear friendly and don't alert him with your actions, okay? Please!" Azrael pleaded seeing the wrong behaviour of Master White, who clearly was not suited for these kind of things.
"Now casually say, that you got lost looking for Marquis Vance." Azrael immediately instructed the next action as he was standing very close to the protector now.
"OH I'm SoRy. BuT I Got LoSt when I wAs seArChing fOr thE MaRqUis." Master spoke in such an uneven tone, that it made Azrael open his mouth wide at the sheer stupidity of his actions. He stood just at an hands distance from the protector, who had his aura pressure constantly around him. The protector was also visibly shaken by Master White's speech but he chose to ignore it.
"Who are you?" The protector asked sternly, without indulging in any chat. He took the sword from his waist and held it in his hands in a striking motion.
"Now drop the bombshell." Azrael also not addressing the previous sentence, continued the instructions as the next few steps were crucial.
"I am Azrael Vaeloreth. Second son of Duke Ragnar Vaeloreth." Master White said with a straight face returning to his normal self.
Hearing that, the protector didn't react. He didn't know how to react to such a name. Without processing any of those words, as if on reflex the protector swung the sword at Master White.
"Whoa..whoa.. dodge that White! Move!" Azrael shouted, as Master White missed the sword by an hair's length.
"That's why I said to appear normal, you idiot!" Azrael remarked.
"Shut the fuck up! And can't you see, one way or another he already moved back." Master White retorted. Anger finally slipping through his cold mask.
The protector still shaken, made some distance between them. First it was the impossibility of the second son of a Duke present here, and then the idea of impersonation crossed his mind. All of this together clouded his mind, and he unconsciously took a step back, as Master White was deliberately standing very close to him. To make the Protector feel invasive in his personal space, and as planned he stepped back.
Where his feet got stuck in the "puddle of death."
"Now jump at him, White!" Azrael seeing the completion of their plan also got excited and ignored Master White's comment.
Master White also focused on the important task, jumped at the protector and pushed him down even more.
The protector was trapped till waist length before he collected himself and escaped. But that few seconds of hesitation is all what Azrael needed.
When the protector stepped out of the pitch black puddle, he saw Master White staring at him with a blank face.
"You know, I never thought I would use my name like that." Master White's voice echoed, he spoke in a bland voice. Devoid of any warmth.
The protector still couldn't understand anything. "What is happening here?" His voice sounded shaken, he was lost completely.
Even though he was just pushed into something which looked like an obvious trap, he didn't find any harm, and more importantly he was still comprehending the consequences of the name spoken and questioning everything that was happening.
"Well, I guess this one turned out really easy, Right?!" Azrael asked Master White, smirking in a rhetoric manner.
Without saying anything to the protector or to Azrael, Master White simply snapped his fingers.
The real trouble started with that snap, one by one anyone who ate even a little bit of food started dropping unconscious to the floor. All the guests and soldiers form both noble factions either dropped dead or were in a temporary coma.
But the true horror was for the protector, who visibly saw half of his body getting aged or corroded in real time.
The expressions of horror on his face cannot be expressed by mere words. His top half was fine. So, his brain was comprehending everything but wasn't able to understand anything. His legs were withering, skin drying and peeling, blood never flowed as if it had been dried for a long time, and his bones snapped like a broken twig. Half of his body uptil the waist was being corrupted and was decomposing in real time, which turned into humus and was spread like a goo-mucus like substance as it touched the ground.
With nothing to stand on, he fell with his torso to the ground. The most astonishing thing was, he was alive even after all that. Because he decomposed, there was no "actual" blood loss that was registered by his brain. The decomposition felt natural and it all seemed as mere aging. But the only horror was that, it happened only to half of his body.
Then The Protector screamed, a raw guttural scream of absolute despair and pain. .
"AHH... AHHHH!"
"AHHHHHHH.."
Pity there was no one to hear him, as every one was either dead or unconscious
Seeing the half-alive body trembling on the ground, something flipped inside Azrael, in his materialized form, his hands started trembling in excitement and then his eyes magnified as if he was looking at a magical wonder. It was a maddening feeling and he fully lost control relishing in it. He spoke, "Move closer white.. closer! Stomp on his chest."
Master White glanced at the materialized form with some recognition, and without any hesitation he moved closer to the Protector, and put his foot over his chest.
"Take out his heart White! Take it out.. I want to see how half of his body is still living." Azrael's voice filled with morbid curiosity and intrigue echoed in Master White's mind space.
And as he didn't find anything wrong with what Azrael had said, he moved..
He slammed his right hand into the chest and it came out the other side with the protectors beating heart.
Even in his last moments, The Protector couldn't understand the events that took place. Just minutes ago, he was monitoring the banquet and now half of his body is gone, with him dwindling on the brink of death. On top of that, all of this is done by someone claiming to be the Second Heir of Vaeloreth Dukedom. All of it really sounded.. impossible.
The eyes of the protector slowly lost its glow and he died staring with wide eyes at the beautiful white-haired abomination above him.
Master White had taken off The Veil's disguise. He was standing above the dead body, with the silver moonlight shining on his face, reflecting the blue glow from his eyes. His silver hair was now half painted red from the blood of the protector's beating heart which was still bleeding in his right hand onto the floor. It was a horrifyingly beautiful scene.
It was an astounding picture of violence.
After a while, as his momentary curiosity had died, Azrael who was materialized by Master White's side saw the partial body of the Protector with apathy. They both stayed like that for a few seconds.
Then Azrael commented, his tone carried insignificance "We never got to know his name, White."
**********
A/N : HUMUS - Humus is the organic material in soil formed from the decomposition of dead plants and animals.
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