Chapter 30 - Empty Trap

Lazrael stood in the hidden laboratory chamber of the royal palace, watching as Bakabali hung suspended in the green fluid of the containment tube.

"I see. The time has come," he murmured to himself, and then, in a strange and unnatural way, his body began to twist and collapse inward, shrinking into a tangled mass of shed skin.

Every bone, every organ within him vanished, leaving behind only a puddle of blood that oozed beneath the discarded layer of skin, a lifeless rug no one would bother to notice. From the shadows of the chamber, Glauk emerged, his eyes tracing every detail left behind after Lazrael's mysterious departure.

"Do you think Kaliga will grow suspicious of us?" asked Aldes, sitting beside Atbara beneath a tall tree, while Atbara's horse grazed on the faintly pink-green grass nearby.

"You're not the type to trouble yourself with such thoughts, Aldes. I didn't expect that question from you," said Atbara, wiping his rapier clean with a grey cloth.

"I know we're not creatures of noble motives, at least not in the eyes of the Dominions or the angels, but I can't shake the thought that our involvement in Lazrael's schemes..."

"...is excessive?" Atbara interrupted calmly. "Do you remember what he promised us in the end?"

"Complete freedom... though I wonder what he meant by something so absurd," Aldes muttered.

"What do you think freedom is, Aldes?" asked Atbara as he finished polishing his blade.

"Freedom? To do whatever you want, I suppose," said Aldes.

"In a looser, perhaps deeper sense," Atbara replied, giving a faint nod, as if hinting toward another layer of meaning.

"My freedom vanished the moment my happiness did. I doubt I'll ever give you a clear answer to that question," said Aldes quietly, watching the leaves drift gently before his eyes.

"I didn't think you'd grow so sentimental," said Atbara with a smirk.

"As Lazrael once said, I'm not a true demon. Besides, I've never had contact with others of our kind, apart from him and Magura. I keep wondering why he killed her," Aldes said.

"Perhaps Magura never understood the concept of freedom, just as neither of us truly do. We're slaves to our own dark desires. Maybe Lazrael knows that better than anyone, and that's why he's given us a reason to keep filling our inner voids... instead of killing us. Magura had no hope left," said Atbara.

"So even you don't know what freedom means... Seems I'm not the only one," Aldes replied, finally grasping a piece of his partner's truth.

"I've always been persecuted for my superior abilities," said Atbara, rising to his feet. "We are the only vampires who can withstand sunlight. A blessing of the sun, turned into a curse by those who despise change. By those who cannot bear to see in another what they lack in themselves."

"Patrol?" asked Aldes, glancing up.

"I sense something strange in the northwest part of the forest. I'll go take a look," said Atbara, mounting his horse.

"Call for me if you run into trouble," said Aldes.

"Of course, my friend," replied Atbara, urging his horse forward toward whatever presence had caught his attention.

"My friend, huh? Perhaps I really am a friend to him," Aldes murmured, leaning back against the tree as he watched the golden light flicker between the falling leaves, each one gliding slowly down across his face like fading embers of a forgotten peace.

In the central hospital of Tamasi, three doctors and two surgeons stood inside a surgical room, examining the brain of the Dominion who had disguised himself as an angel among the officers. The organ lay pale and lifeless, stripped of its usual iridescent hue, covered in silk cloth on all sides for surgical reasons.

"Strange..." murmured one of the surgeons, removing his mask and the forceps from the dead man's brain.

"It looks as if the prefrontal field has been completely altered," said another surgeon, mimicking the same gestures as his colleague.

"So that means his appearance, his thoughts, his plans, even his personality, none of it was what we would expect from this kind of being?" asked one of the doctors, intrigued.

"Judging by the brain's anatomy alone, I'd say he experienced something far beyond ordinary trauma. I've never seen a case like this before," replied the surgeon.

"We'll conduct a full autopsy to get a clearer answer, and find an immediate solution. We need to know what happened to him," said another doctor firmly.

The surgeons carefully lifted the brain and carried it toward the intensive analysis room. But in a sudden and horrifying instant, one of the surgeons' heads exploded like a firework, showering the others in a burst of blood.

"A–AAAAAAHHHHH!!!" screamed one of them, the closest, his apron soaked in gore, as the room fell into chaos.

"WHAT THE HELL!?" the others shouted in terror, dropping the brain onto the floor out of sheer panic, instincts for survival overpowering reason. One of the surgeons fainted on the spot. A doctor caught sight of a faint glimmer beneath the shadow of the operating table, and from his perspective, the entire room seemed to drown in a crimson haze, blood splattering against the reflective glass panels above, like a camera lens smeared red from underneath.

Moments later, the room was a slaughterhouse, walls dripping, the bodies of doctors and surgeons torn apart by unseen forces. The brain lay untouched on the floor, surrounded by carnage.

Meanwhile, Kaeda had been assigned the task of transferring the Dominion's body to the hospital morgue. She left the stretcher beside her, pulled out her keys, opened the morgue door, and stepped inside with an unnerving calm.

Dozens of Dominion corpses hung from the ceiling like cocoons, larvae waiting to become butterflies. They secreted a resin-like substance that preserved their bodies for long periods, each for a different purpose. Most were war casualties, their names engraved in the graveyard near the Kingdom of Christansa, as had been documented before. Others, more rarely, were criminals, each with a precise incision on the skull, dissected to uncover the roots of their moral decay.

"Code 337KM12O... there it is," Kaeda whispered, locating the assigned slot where she would hang this particular corpse.

She unzipped the black bag that covered the body entirely. For several seconds, she simply stared at it, the damaged jaw from the Marshal's blade, the strange texture of his skin. Then her gaze drifted to the other bodies around her. Their skin was pale, lifeless, expected of the dead, but this one was different. Its color was unnaturally white, almost luminescent, unlike the faint mint-green tone of the others. His chestnut hair had yet to begin decaying, and the dark rings around his eyes were slowly widening.

"Probably because he died just yesterday. The cells haven't fully undergone apoptosis yet," Kaeda reasoned quietly, trying to dismiss her unease.

But when she touched the body, something felt wrong. Pressing a finger against his chest, she realized there were no ribs, no muscles, just softness. Her finger sank deep beneath the skin as if into gelatin. She tried other areas, arms, abdomen, legs, all the same.

"How odd... feels like I'm touching a soft doll," she muttered, eyes widening in disbelief.

She glanced around to make sure no one was watching. Then, focusing her senses for a moment, she reached out mentally to detect whether Fernia was anywhere nearby, fortunately, she wasn't. Kaeda slipped a small knife from the pocket of her lab coat.

"Let's see what you really are," she whispered to herself, slicing into the body like a butcher at work in a slaughterhouse.

The brittle skin tore easily beneath the blade's edge. She cut a line straight down the torso, from chest to abdomen. When she finished, she slowly pried the cut open with her thumbs, careful not to let a single drop of blood spill, if any remained. Her gloved fingers pulled the flesh apart, and then she froze.

"WHAT... THE HELL!?" Kaeda gasped, her voice breaking with horror.

Her breath quickened. She looked up at the ceiling, her hearing fading from the shock. She tried to steady herself, but the truth before her was beyond comprehension.

"This... this thing was never alive," she whispered, trembling as she stared into the hollow cavity before her. There were no organs. No bones. Nothing.

Only a dark, endless emptiness, a silent abyss where a being's insides should have been.

Atbara rode through the forest, guided by the pulse of the trees themselves. With furious speed, he pressed onward, closer and closer still, his steed galloping between the towering trunks.

"Just a little more, Kataba. A few more meters and we're there," he said to the horse, his voice steady as they neared their destination.

But Kataba began to shudder. The animal's breathing turned ragged, its body tense with fear. The trembling grew so fierce that Atbara could feel it through the saddle.

"What's wrong, Kataba?" he asked, concern edging his tone.

And then, without warning, a colossal hammer came hurtling through the trees, slicing through the air like a thunderbolt. It struck. The weapon's head cleaved the horse's neck clean in two before burying itself deep into a nearby tree.

Kataba's lifeless body crashed to the ground, dragging Atbara with it. The warrior, stunned by the suddenness of it all, stared at the severed head of his companion. Blood spilled freely into the grass, pooling beneath the trembling leaves.

"Kataba..." Atbara whispered, lowering himself beside the fallen creature. He gently ran his hand over the horse's face, closing its eyes in silence.

"You can rest now," he murmured, grief softening his voice.

Then, footsteps. Heavy and deliberate, echoing through the trees. Whoever had done this was coming closer. Atbara rose slowly, turning toward the sound, his blue eyes narrowing to a cold, deadly slit.

"Kaaaaliigaaa... Ueeegghhh... Kaaaliiiigaaaaa..."

"Kaliga?" Atbara muttered to himself, puzzled.

From beyond the shadows, a figure emerged, its outline becoming clearer with each step.
A warrior cloaked in darkness, both awe-inspiring and terrible to behold. His face was nothing but a skull, twin eyes burning with deep, spectral violet light. His hair, long, wavy, and tinted a dark lilac, fell in haunted waves around his armored shoulders. The armor itself was black, ornate, and pulsing faintly as if alive. A flowing purple cloak trailed behind him like mist.
He looked like a knight risen from the grave, a lord of the underworld, or a soldier reborn from death itself.

"A Lich? Judging by those eyes... a high-ranked one, too. Who the hell are you?" Atbara said under his breath.

A Lich; a being that, despite appearing dead, preserves its soul within a magical vessel known as a phylactery. It commands its skeletal body with full consciousness and immense power.
Such a transformation can only be achieved by beings of great energy, through a ritual considered one of the highest taboos. The more intricate the Lich's appearance, the stronger it is.

"It burns... it hurts... this feeling tears me apart. I hate the fire... I hate this skin... I hate, KALIGAAAA!!!"

The Lich let out a scream that tore through the forest. Trees quivered violently, birds scattered into the air. Atbara covered his ears, gritting his teeth under the crushing force of the sound.

"Damn it! What is this thing?!" he growled once the shriek subsided.

The skeletal warrior's breathing was ragged and wet, each inhale like a blade tearing through his throat. Drops of blood leaked from between his sharp, exposed teeth. Slowly, he raised a trembling hand, and then, from behind, the hammer returned, spinning through the air like a deadly boomerang toward Atbara.

"Damn!"

He barely escaped death. The hammer missed his head by inches, slicing the top of his hat clean off. Atbara tore the ruined hat away, revealing his long, dark hair as it fell loose around his shoulders. The hammer landed back in the creature's grasp.

It was a grotesque weapon, its handle adorned with three human skulls, the steel head pulsing with vein-like ridges that throbbed and oozed blood.

Atbara drew his rapier, eyes locked on his opponent.

"Kaliga... Kaligaaa..."

"So reason's out of the question then," he muttered, and charged.

The Lich swung his hammer downward, not at Atbara, but at the ground.

"What!?"

The impact shattered the forest floor, uprooting dozens of trees and sending a tidal wave of earth into the air. Atbara leapt through the falling debris, darting closer with impossible agility. He aimed his rapier at the Lich's chest, but when the blade struck, it slid off harmlessly.

"What the—?"

The armor was impossibly dense. His sword hadn't even scratched it.

"EEAAHHHHH!" the Lich roared.

With a single motion of his arm, he backhanded Atbara midair, sending him crashing through several trees.

"Damn it! He's strong!" Atbara hissed, pulling himself up.

Then, he heard breathing. Heavy, rasping, right behind him.

He turned too late. The Lich was already there, swinging his hammer. Atbara ducked just in tim, the gust alone from the swing cleaved every tree in its path clean in half.

He rolled, using the moment to call upon his craft.

"Magical Crafts: Second Act — The Maiden of Shadows!"

The roots beneath the ground began to writhe and rise, weaving together to form the shape of a young girl. Her dress was white as bone, her eyes pitch black, her hair a cascade of dark roots.

The Lich wasted no time, he swung his hammer and split the girl in two.

Her face cracked open, but she smiled.

"Hahahahaha... KYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

The girl's head reformed as the roots knit back together.

They surged around the Lich, entangling him from every side, binding his arms and chest in an unyielding grip.

"Nghhhghhgh..." he struggled, trapped in the shadowy mass.

Above him, Atbara leapt, his rapier poised.

"HAAAH!"

The blade pierced the Lich's throat clean through. Blood poured forth like a waterfall. The creature fell to his knees, choking on his own crimson stream.

"So he bleeds...? An unfinished Lich, then," Atbara muttered, pulling his blade free.

But then, his eyes widened.

A surge of dark flame erupted from the Lich's body, igniting everything nearby. The trees burned, the Maiden of Shadows shrieked and dissolved into ash.

"What the hell?!" Atbara stepped back, shielding his face from the heat.

The skeletal warrior rose once more, cloaked in black fire that pulsed pink at its core.

"Another fire wielder? This is getting ridiculous," Atbara said through gritted teeth, watching as the Lich's hammer melted the skulls on its handle. The weapon's steel turned a blazing, unnatural rose hue.

"Second phase, huh?"

He tightened his grip on the rapier, and charged once more into the storm of flame.

Kaliga sat on the balcony of the royal palace, sipping a cup of warm tea. From where she sat, the kingdom unfolded before her in serene stillness, a quiet she had grown accustomed to, part of her daily ritual.

"Hmm!?"

She blinked in surprise as a thin line of blood slipped from her nose. Reaching for the handkerchief on the table, she dabbed it away with composure.

"What's wrong?" asked King Kasama, stepping out onto the balcony.

"It's nothing. I must've nicked my nose somehow," Kaliga replied calmly, wiping the last trace of red from her face.

"You should be more careful with yourself," Kasama said as he poured her a glass of water.

"I was already drinking tea, you didn't have to," she said, raising an eyebrow.

"Just drink it. It's meant for you," the king replied, tone soft but insistent.

"Ah, right... I forgot," Kaliga said, taking the glass and sipping obediently.

Kasama sat beside her. "How do you find the state of the kingdom? Of the nation itself?"

"There's been an incident at the central police division," Kaliga said, setting her cup down.

"Yes, I've heard. Such things rarely happen in our nation," Kasama replied, his voice thoughtful.

"I have a feeling it wasn't just some senseless act of rebellion," said the queen, her tone sharpening.

"What do you mean by that?" the king asked, leaning slightly forward.

"It was a distraction," Kaliga said. "All the primary forces, military and police alike, were gathered there. Even now they're scattered across the nation, far from their posts, busy investigating something they believe to be their top priority. They're disorganized... and this moment of chaos would be the perfect opportunity for whoever planned it to fulfill their true goal."

Kasama frowned. "What goal?"

Kaliga turned her eyes toward him, her expression grave.

"The Eleven Spheres of Alitus," she said quietly. "They were kept in the most discreet chamber of the central police headquarters. But I have every reason to believe... they're no longer there."

She lifted the glass again, taking another sip of the water her husband had poured...