Empires | Arc 3 | Chapter 9 | The Brute and the Butler

Human screams echoing from the center of Royal City violently shatter Jarrod‘s sleep. He rushes to the window. In the distance, the capital is burning, the eerie, flickering glow of the fires clearly visible from Golas‘s humble hut.

Jarrod sprints out onto the wooden deck. Taglia is casually sitting on the stairs, with Makisa leaning comfortably against the right pillar.

“What is it?” Jarrod asks hurriedly, marching past them toward the glowing horizon.

“Welcome party…” Makisa replies lazily. “…Or wait. Entrance party.”

Taglia looks at her with a knowing smile, the two of them sharing a quiet, amused moment amidst the distant chaos.

One by one, the rest of the group rushes out onto the deck—Friling, Leon, Maven, and finally Lesca, all violently ripped from their sleep by the explosions.

“What the fuck is happening?” Leon demands.

“I don’t know, but it seems they are Chaos‘s men,” Jarrod says, turning back to the group. “We need to go… now.”

“Let’s go,” Friling agrees instantly.

As the five original members of the Titan City step off the deck and onto the lawn, Lesca lingers at the back. She stops, looking down at Taglia, who hasn’t moved an inch from the stairs.

“Aren’t you coming?” Lesca asks.

“I will,” Taglia replies calmly. “But a little later.”

Jarrod, who was about to cross the gate, stops dead in his tracks. He spins around, genuine, unfiltered rage bleeding into his voice. “What do you mean? Innocents are dying.”

Taglia looks up at him. His voice is maddeningly philosophical, quiet, and absolutely calm. “What do you mean ‘innocent’? No one in here, or anyone who is breathing, is innocent. Check your words before sprouting them.”

The icy detachment makes Jarrod even angrier, but Friling steps in, asking quietly, “What do you mean not innocent?”

Taglia shifts his lazy gaze to the healer. “A mosquito drinking our blood without our permission is guilty. We eating the meat of dead animals is guilty. Those out there who lie, cheat, and threaten every day are also guilty.”

Jarrod takes a heavy step toward Taglia, holding back immense physical restraint. “You can’t call them guilty for those crimes. Those are the necessities of survival!”

“Oho,” Taglia smirks. “So you know about some innocent and guilty list I don’t know about? If you do, please share. I would love to know.”

Leon aggressively interjects. “We are wasting important time! They will soon come here and we will get ambushed. It’s better to ambush them than getting ambushed.”

Taglia looks away from Jarrod to Leon. “We are not wasting anything.”

“We are laying a trap,” Makisa adds, perfectly in sync.

“What trap?” Maven asks, remaining the calmest among the agitated group.

The wooden door opens, and Golas steps out onto the deck. “The biggest trap of all… self-doubt.”

The group falls completely silent, looking at the 168-year-old sorcerer for an explanation.

“They are expecting you to show up,” Golas explains gently. “And why wouldn’t you? You are the protectors. You protect and defend, which are precisely the reasons they are counting on. The moment you go, you fall directly into their trap. But if you don’t… if you wait it out, their zeal will soon give way to confusion, then doubt. And who knows? Maybe they will leave.”

Jarrod grinds his teeth. He deeply respects Golas, but letting people die is a fundamental violation of his core. “Be that as it may, sir, I can’t just stand here and listen to explosions and screams.”

Friling and the rest of the group know exactly what Jarrod means. They followed him precisely because of this unwavering nature. But for Taglia, Makisa, and even Golas—though none say it aloud—it is sheer tactical foolishness.

Seeing no reaction from the trio, Jarrod simply turns on his heel. He doesn’t care who comes or who stays; the discussion is over. He is going to save those people, even if he has to do it alone. Friling immediately follows his lead. Lesca shoots Taglia one final, lingering look before turning to follow her brother. Leon slowly marches after them.

Before leaving, Maven stops. She looks pointedly at her father, then turns to Taglia. “I guess our hearts are not as strong as yours… after all, you are the myth.”

She knows Taglia, but seeing her own father take Taglia’s side hurts deeply. Without waiting for a response, she turns and follows the rest of them into the night.

---

In the central district, the soldiers of the Head House charge desperately toward Rogue and Loyalist. Surrounding them, store owners and travelers flee in absolute terror.

Loyalist simply stands at the back, perfectly adhering to their dynamic: he does not interfere with Rogue‘s physical dominance. Rogue is massacring the guards by violently punching through the structural pillars of buildings, collapsing roofs onto the troops, or casually lifting civilians by the throat and snapping their necks with a single, sickening crack. The sheer, unfocused destruction proves they are not interested in conquering Royal City. This is a bloody beacon, explicitly designed to lure out the Heat users of Titan City.

But occasionally, a brave soldier manages to flank Rogue, lunging with a spear or firing an arrow at his exposed back.

The moment a projectile enters their airspace, Loyalist activates his Heat, A Dying Man’s Last Breath.

He holds his breath. Time violently decelerates. The world’s one second dilates into his ten seconds. Moving with pristine, effortless grace, Loyalist strolls up to the frozen attackers, casually plucks their swords from their hands, and slits their throats. When a volley of arrows approaches, he meticulously plucks them from the air, turns the iron tips around, and points them directly back at the archers.

He breathes out.

SLICK. SLUCK. SPULSH.

Time snaps forward, and the soldiers are instantly pierced by their own weapons. Rogue doesn’t even turn around to thank him; they operate as a flawless, synchronized organism, confirming this is far from their first slaughter.

Dozens of bodies drop, yet neither man breaks a sweat. To them, butchering these humans is the equivalent of swatting flies.

Rogue hasn’t even bothered to activate his Heat yet.

Minutes later, the group arrives.

Jarrod reaches the plaza first, having used his Push against the earth to hover and clear the distance at maximum velocity. Seeing the apocalyptic carnage, Jarrod doesn’t waste a single breath on words.

“Nature’s Tormented Echo!”

The ground beneath Rogue and Loyalist‘s boots violently tremors. The bedrock shatters as massive, jagged chunks of earth rip themselves free of gravity, levitating into the air to perfectly destabilize the battlefield.

Friling and Lesca arrive next, with Friling carrying his sister in his arms.

The four wings of his Archangel’s Wrath are already flared. Instead of engaging the executioners, he dives toward the collapsing structures to run rescue operations, knowing Jarrod is drawing the aggro. Lesca drops to the ground. “Swan’s Song of the Red Lake!” she chants.

Because Friling cannot lift the crushing debris alone, Lesca summons fifteen maroon-blooded skeletons to hoist the burning architecture. As the skeletons lift the rubble, Friling extracts the trapped civilians and shoots silver feathers into their bodies, instantly initiating the healing process.

Leon sprints onto the plaza. “Weapons of Doom: Lance!”

Speed 60. Strength 40.

He isn’t a red blur like the Arrow stance, but he is terrifyingly fast and structurally dense as he charges directly at Loyalist.

As the ground breaks apart, Rogue regains his footing and spots the necromancer. “There she is,” he roars.

Loyalist nods cleanly. “Get her.”

Loyalist snaps his attention forward, bracing for the charging Leon.

“Wounded Beast’s Suicidal Rage!” Rogue roars.

His human body violently ruptures. His spine elongates, pushing his height to that of a towering giraffe. The muscles in his arms, chest, and back explode into thick, leathery mass, mirroring an African elephant. His legs snap backward, reforming into the slender, hyper-kinetic digitigrade joints of a cheetah. A massive, thick serpent’s tail—complete with a living, venomous snake head at the tip—bursts from his spine. Finally, two massive, ruffled falcon wings violently tear through the flesh of his back. He is no longer just a ground-based brawler; he is an airborne nightmare.

The exact millisecond his wings deploy, Rogue doesn’t wait to find his footing.

SWOOSH.

He launches ten feet into the air, blasting directly through Jarrod‘s levitating boulders, soaring straight toward Lesca. Her back is turned; she is entirely focused on holding the collapsing buildings up with her skeletons while Maven and Friling pull out the survivors.

Seeing the chimera dive-bombing the necromancer, Maven aborts the rescue. She sprints directly between Lesca and the incoming nightmare.

“Holy Blades of the Divine!”

Five glowing blades instantly manifest in a crescent formation over each of her shoulders. Without hesitating, she launches four blades directly at the mutant.

Given his massive size and speed, Rogue cannot dodge. The blades violently impale his right deltoid, his collarbone, his left pectoral, and his right thigh. But the beast doesn’t even flinch. He continues his charge, closing the gap in a microsecond. Because Maven is standing directly in his path, Rogue simply swings his massive, elephant-thick arm.

SLAAAT.

He swats Maven away like a fragile glass cup. She is violently tossed high into the air. Desperately twisting her body, she tries to control her fall.

But Rogue doesn’t let her land. Mid-stride, he grips the glowing blade buried in his own collarbone, rips it out of his flesh, and violently hurls it back at her.

SLUCK!

The blade drives dead-center into Maven‘s chest, exploding out through her back as she crashes heavily into the destabilized earth.

DHUP.

In that exact split second on the other side of the battlefield, Loyalist holds his breath. Time violently dilates.

Leon, who was a mere five seconds away from closing the gap, halts mid-lunge, completely frozen in the air. Operating in his localized temporal reality, Loyalist jumps up, casually stepping onto the charging Leon’s suspended back.

DHUMP.

Loyalist breathes out. Time snaps forward.

DHUCRUCK.

The combined momentum of the charge and the crushing weight of Loyalist standing on his spine violently slams Leon face-first into the concrete. Loyalist remains casually balanced on his back. Leon twists, desperately trying to throw the man off, but that is when his eyes track the falling body of his master. He sees the blade protruding completely through her chest.

“MAVEN!!!” Leon roars, his voice tearing with utter despair.

But he cannot move. Loyalist presses his foot down with agonizing precision, grinding his heel directly into Leon‘s spine, locking the feral climber to the earth.

As Maven drops onto the uneven dirt, her life slipping away, she summons every last ounce of her fading strength to turn her head toward Leon. Her eyes lock onto his. Tears spill down her cheeks, but she forces a brave, heartbreaking smile as thick blood bubbles from her lips. She has only moments left before her organs fail.

Seeing her fall, Friling abandons the civilians. He launches into the sky, his silver wings blazing as he flies desperately to heal her. But mid-air, a shadow eclipses him. Rogue intercepts the flight path. The living serpent at the tip of the chimera’s tail strikes, sinking its fangs directly into Friling‘s right trapezius.

CLUCK.

The serpent violently tears out a massive chunk of flesh and muscle. Friling screams in absolute agony, dropping from the sky and crashing hard onto the pavement, his Archangel Heat instantly dissipating.

Seeing her brother fall, Lesca’s eyes ignite with blinding maroon light. She channels the raw 5D energy exactly the way Leon did against Taglia. She summons her entire legion of 427 skeletons. They swarm around her, actively merging their bones together, stacking into a grotesque, towering skeletal ladder. Dozens of other skeletons violently crawl up the structure to reach the hovering chimera.

But they never make contact. Rogue’s sheer, oppressive 5D presence acts like a localized furnace. The skeletons begin to literally melt, vaporizing into dust before they can even touch his wings—mirroring the exact same suppression Taglia demonstrated in 50% Primal Mode. The bone staircase crumbles into nothing.

Witnessing the systematic slaughter of his entire team, Jarrod‘s restraint shatters. “AHHHHH!” he roars. He violently thrusts his arms, hurling every single levitating boulder directly at the chimera.

Rogue sees the tectonic barrage coming. Even with his mutated strength, he knows he cannot punch through all the massive chunks in time.

But Loyalist sees it too.

He inhales. Time freezes. He casually steps off Leon‘s back.

CRACK!

The sudden release of pressure and the kinetic shift violently fractures Leon‘s spine. He opens his mouth to scream, but the sound never escapes because time has already stopped.

Moving in absolute silence, Loyalist leaps mid-air, positioning himself perfectly between Rogue and the incoming rocks. He systematically strikes eight of the massive boulders, physically reversing their kinetic vectors, sending them hurtling directly back at Jarrod. He lands smoothly on the ground and breathes out.

Time violently resumes. Jarrod‘s eyes go wide. In a flash, his own tectonic artillery is screaming back at him. Operating entirely on instinct, Jarrod fires a desperate Push, launching the remaining hovering rocks to intercept the incoming boulders.

Maven is bleeding out. Leon’s spine is shattered. Friling lies writhing in agony. And Rogue drops heavily from the sky, landing directly in front of Lesca.

DHA! DHA! DHA! DHA!

The boulders violently collide mid-air, shattering into dust. The immense strain of constantly manipulating the magnetic vectors ravages Jarrod‘s body, but he manages to stay on his feet.

But suddenly, his torso caves in. A crushing, agonizing wave of pain rips through his ribs and stomach, as if he is being beaten by a phantom.

DHISH DHISH DHISH DHISH.

The pain registers first, and only then does the air pressure violently release around his back—like the atmosphere itself had been frozen and suddenly thawed. Loyalist is standing directly in front of him. The exact millisecond the boulders cancelled each other out, the tactician had stopped time, closed the gap, and unleashed a flurry of devastating kicks and punches in the span of a single real-world second.

Jarrod collapses forward, coughing up thick blood, barely holding his torso off the ground by gripping his knees.

The group is entirely neutralized.

Rogue, towering over Lesca, looks down at her. “I am sorry. You are strong… but I have been told to kill you.”

Lesca looks around the plaza. Her entire team is unconscious, paralyzed, or bleeding out. But she refuses to break. She tilts her chin up, projecting her pure, arrogant self. “I am sorry too. Soon, you are gonna be my bitch.”

Rogue stares into her eyes for one still, silent moment.

SLAPPP.

He backhands her left cheek with devastating, chimera-enhanced force. The impact is catastrophic. Lesca‘s neck snaps nearly in half, the cervical vertebrae completely shattered. Her head does not fly off; instead, it dangles grotesquely inches below her shoulders, tethered only by rubbery strands of regenerating maroon muscle tissue, swinging sickeningly from left to right.

Because of the shock of the impact, her brain cannot process speech. She stares up at the monster, her vision violently tilted sideways. Any other human’s head would have been launched across the plaza.

Before her neck can fully knit itself back together, Rogue grabs her by the waist, picking her up effortlessly like a ragdoll.

“As much as I respect your strength,” Rogue growls, “I hate those who don’t know their place in the hierarchy.”

SLUUUMP.

He slams her back onto the concrete so violently that her physical form completely yields. She splatters across the plaza like dropped jelly. Her arms, legs, torso, and face liquify into a horrific pool of boiling maroon blood. There are no broken bones left to see—she is entirely reduced to a dark puddle on the pavement.

But the thick blood is already moving, slithering slowly inward in a serpentine motion, desperately trying to reform her torso.

“Do not let her Heat regenerate her body!” Loyalist roars from across the field. “Extinguish all the muscle mass and limbs fast! That will hopefully kill her!”

Rogue glances back at Loyalist, then down at the boiling puddle. “Let’s see.”

He lifts his massive, cheetah-jointed right foot, preparing to squash the regenerating core of the necromancer.

“Hey, Loyal, you were wrong,” Rogue calls out, not even looking down as he drops his foot. “Taglia is not here after all.”

DHUB.

His foot lands.

But it doesn’t splash into liquid, nor does it strike the concrete.

It feels as though he has just stomped onto a solid, immovable mountain shell.

Rogue slowly drops his gaze.

His foot hasn’t touched Lesca.

It has landed squarely on the broad, human back of a man curved protectively over her liquified body. The man has both hands planted firmly on either side of the puddle, his torso acting as an absolute, unbreakable shield.

Before Rogue can process what is happening, or even attempt to retract his leg… his right shin is cleanly severed just below the knee.

There is no pain. The cut was executed with such terrifying speed that it instantly friction-sealed the tissue and skin. There was only a microsecond of a burning sensation, and the only blood spilled was the few drops that escaped the exact moment the blade passed through the limb.

Knocked entirely off balance, Rogue hops on his remaining leg, desperately using his heavy serpent tail to stabilize his massive chimera body. He looks down. Standing beside the man shielding Lesca is a little girl, her katana already sheathed in a flawless Iaijutsu stance.

Beneath Rogue‘s severed leg, Taglia kneels in his 50% Primal Mode. His massive, engorged muscles hold the chimera’s weight effortlessly.

Taglia is staring down at Lesca‘s distorted, liquified form.

A single, heavy tear forms in his left eye.

He is witnessing the only person who validates and accepts him for who he truly is, violently reduced to a puddle.

She cannot physically speak because she currently does not have a mouth.

Yet, ringing loud and clear in his mind, he can hear her trademark, arrogant trash talk: Sick fuck… brute… asshole.

A terrifying flash of thought rips through Taglia‘s brain: What if she never speaks again?

The tears pool heavily in his eyes. There is no weeping. There is no howling. There is only the silent, devastating grief of a monster whose anchor has just been broken.

Suddenly, a sound cuts through the atmospheric dread. It is not heard by the characters on the battlefield, but the presence of it is undeniable.

“Uh-ohh.”

The voice is unmistakably Chaos.

Did it come from the sky?

From the shadows of the ground?

It is impossible to tell. But he is watching. And seeing exactly who has just entered the battlefield, Chaos is no longer entirely sure who will win.

But it will be fun to watch.