In the dusty air of the battlefield in the West, a young boy stood in the middle of a dozen armored corpses. He had wounds all over his body that slowly disappeared after a short minute. He caught his breath while kneeling on the ground and his sword stabbed into the dirt.
He gred at the lot still in front of him, their bdes drawn and ready to charge. He wiped the blood off his cheek and suddenly all the blood around him coiled and surrounded him like some sort of forcefield.
The Kingdom forces charged at him but the blood turned and hardened into a single sharp pointed spear right into his hand.
The Western front was dusty and the scent of smoke and gunpowder filled the air, but the Prince had long since been numb to this scent. He breathed in and raised his arm. Arched it like he was about to throw a javelin.
"Go." He murmured as his body snapped like bowstring and unched the red spear towards the enemies.
It struck one straight though, penetrating to hit another soldier behind. A normal spear would've stopped at this point but because this was being controlled, it pulled itself out of the lifeless body and began darting around and stabbing through every soldier like it had a mind of its own.
Every single time it pierced through, the spear got rger and rger until there was none more left to kill. It flew back into his hand and transformed into a cymore made of blood.
The prince gred ahead of him. There was another set of Kingdom scum sent here to dispose of him and this time their numbers far surpass the previous.
He raised his cymore to the sky and pointed it toward the Kingdom's army. "Come. Bleed for me."
The soldiers roared and ran straight to him.
He stabbed his bdes into the earth and closed his eyes to channel a gripping in his chest. He felt it. All the blood that had seeped and hardened on the battlefield. All the soldiers that had died and spilled their red for the earth to drink.
There had been a reason why they called him the Red Prince, and that was because he bathed in a rain of blood, but no one ever wonders where the rain comes from.
As the soldiers ran for him, the ground shook, and the rageful army ceased to move as panic began to set in.
"Bloodrise." The Prince uttered and from the gaps in the ground, flowed blood like va. They erupted into the sky and turned the air crimson red as the drops of blood stopped moving mid-air.
The soldiers gulped and shivered, there was only the noise of the liquid as it flowed louder than a gunshot. The almost serene scene was broken off with one of the soldiers running for his life screaming, followed by another, then another, and another. They all began to run away
The Red Prince clicked his tongue. Did they seriously think they could retreat freely without consequences?
"Bloodfall." He snapped his fingers and the drops of blood moved from one pce to another at lightning speed before dropping like rain and sinking back into the earth.
The noisy screaming had stopped and what followed was the cnging of metal armor and loud thumps as dead bodies fell one by one to the ground.
Now covered in blood, Ben stumbled as he tried to stand up. Wiping out an entire army was straining to him. He looked around him once more and saw the dead bodies of his allies.
He had arrived a bit too te. The horrified faces of his fellow soldiers, his people, now forever alone in a pce where fresh wind doesn't blow.
"All because of a stupid decision." He angrily smmed the dirt. "Who decided to do a sneak attack after finding a clearly fake leaked pn on a corpse." He sat down as he tried to calm himself. He was too tired and sleepy from everything.
"I will kill that General with my own hands." He clenched his fist and wiped his face only to realize blood was dripping from his nose.
He could heal most wounds easily by speeding up the process of which his blood would clot and heal but when it comes to things such as exhaustion he couldn't deal with it as much.
He felt dizzy and sleepy. He tried to stand up but he staggered and slipped. He was about to crash to the floor when a man in distinguished clothing caught him.
"Who… are you?" The Prince groaned, his eyes couldn't make out the face of the man due to his fatigue, but he saw the tailored outfit and a gentle expression on the man's face.
"Ah, Your Royal Highness, best not overexert yourself. What would the Empire do if we lost you too?" He spoke in such a way that sounded high css but at the same time humble. "The Madam had asked me to help around here and it seems I have my work cut out for me." A faint roar could be heard from somewhere. It was the sound of another army.
"Madam?" The Prince scrunched his eyebrows trying to think but was struggling to even keep himself awake.
"Don't fret over it, Your Royal Highness." He started humming and suddenly the world felt woozy. He felt so tired and numb. "Take a rest. You deserve it, just remember that the Underworld shares your sentiment."
His eyelids overpowered his will and they closed up turning the view into darkness.
"Ben!" His Sister's voice called out to him from the void. "Take my hand!" There was panic in her voice. Her figure slowly formed into existence in his head and he took her hand in an instant.
They ran through a forest reminiscent of the one where his sister had died. "Sister!" His voice was higher pitched and younger than normal. In fact, his entire body was smaller.
"Trust your big sister!" She tried to keep a good smile on her face. "You'll be okay I promise."
"W-What about you?" He felt himself say with a shake in his words.
The princess only clenched his hand as they darted around the bushes and trees, deciding to not answer his question. He felt the menacing footsteps behind him as the presence of the assassin approached closer and closer.
She then threw him behind a rock and ducked down right after him. She kept her hand on his mouth and his eyes as the scum's bde dragged across the soil and sliced into the barks of trees.
"Are you here?" The man pyfully ughed as he sliced down a shrub. "Or here?" Then he snapped a small tree in two. He clearly was pying with them.
"Ah, who am I kidding?" The man's disgusting atmosphere could be felt even through the boulder they hid behind. "I know you're behind that rock."
The two kids flinched and the Princess bit her lip before looking at her little brother. "Ben, stay here." Ben's hands trembled. He was reliving his Sister's death and he had no way to stop it. "Live. Survive. Okay?" He wanted to stop her, to pull her back but his body wouldn't move as he watched his sister step out of the rock and then…
Her screams began.
"NOOOOOOOO!" The Prince woke up in cold sweat in his tent. The maids around him cmored and called for his aide.
"Your Royal Highness!" His closest friend, knight, and aide de camp, Julian from House Hoss entered the tent and saw him sitting there struggling to breathe. "Hey… you good?"
Julian helped Ben clench his chest and he rexed his body before handing him a cup of water.
The Prince downed the drink in an instant before throwing the cup down and shattering it. "Fuck this. Bring me the General."
"Ben, you're not in good shape to–"
"He has to pay for the death of dozens." He snapped and the poor knight shut up. "I will see to his execution myself."
Julian sighed and gestured the knights outside to do as the Prince says.
Ben's thoughts were filled with anger and rage right now, but there was also a sense of curiosity. Who was the man that had saved him? What was he doing there?
A lot of thoughts ran through his mind but his first order of business was punishing the incompetence of his subordinate.
He stood up and realized he was in bathrobes and his chest was out in the open. He had a fairly lean body and the few maids who were still in his tent looked away in embarrassment.
He rolled his eyes and sat straight up. Julian sighed and stood up and sat next to him as a group of soldiers dragged the compining General inside the tent
"LET GO OF ME THIS INSTANT!" The old man screamed and the knights did let him go…by pushing him into the ground and forcing him to kneel under the Prince.
"Count Deckard." Ben's voice was dangerous as he addressed the kowtowing General. He gred at the stubby old man who was panicking and refused to look him straight in the eye. "Why are you so afraid?"
"I-It's just, I am deeply regretful of my actions, Your Merciful Highness." He nervously chuckled.
Ben raised an eyebrow, he had to have the merciful in his honorifics to try and squeeze in some pity points. It was abhorrently pathetic.
"Do you know what you have done, Count Deckard?" The Prince growled and the poor General whimpered and bowed his head.
"I have failed to intercept the enemy's pns." He shrieked. "I am deeply deeply regretful, Your Royal Highness so plea–"
He couldn't finish his sentence as a foot arched and struck his cheek sending him stumbling down. "You don't even know, do you?" Ben stood up and gred. He turned his back to the General and tightened his robes. "Slice off his tongue, Julian."
"W-wait!" The Count panicked and tried to run away but the knight grabbed his hair and smmed him to the dirt. He screamed and struggled but it wasn't long before the sound of the slice and his cries of smothered agony filled the room.
Fortunately enough, the maids had ran away before the act so as to not see what could happen any further.
"I hereby sentence Count Maurice Deckard to execution, effective immediately." Ben's voice was uninterested as the count's horrible screams were loudly filling the tent. "Reason, for treason and for sabotaging the army's movements against the kingdom, and the sughter of the Empire's forces."
Julian grabbed the count's dirty hair again and pulled him close to the Prince. His face was filled with pure fear and anger as he looked up at the imposing figure above him.
"Your entire family shall be stripped of their status. Don't worry, that's all they're gonna get." He reassured the man, whose tears fell like waterfalls and whose mouth tainted by an endless flow of blood. "Thank you for your service."
In an instant, the blood from the Count's mouth solidified and sliced through his neck. His body fell limp and his screams finally stopped. Julian dropped the lifeless corpse in the dirt and called over the other knights to clean it up.
"Would you perhaps know an important Madam in the city?" The Prince abruptly spoke, shifting the tension in the room from what just happened.
"I have met a few, yes." Julian responded in quick fashion, as if what happened was not anything out of the ordinary. "Why do you ask, Your Royal Highness?"
"The man, who brought me back here safely, spoke of a Madam." Ben expined but the knight only had a confused expression on his face.
"I'm afraid you're mistaken, Your Royal Highness." The knight cleared up. "We found you at the outskirts of the camp after you had gone after the squadron who had fallen for the Kingdom's trap, Sir."
"I see." Ben wasn't dumb. He knew that the man he met was clearly different from anyone he's ever seen before. He had a feeling of power to him. "An Adjudicator." He realized.
"Pardon?"
"Julian…Have you heard of what the General said to me st time?" The Prince faced the knight who was deep in thought.
"About the Underworld sir?" Julian answered. "Surprisingly as well, the Underworld had constantly provided us with intel about the Kingdom's movements and all of them have so far been proven true."
"Is that so?" So the Underworld was helping them. No, he couldn't be so sure, this might also be a trap. He couldn't even trust his own Generals, what good would trusting the rgest criminal group of the Empire do?
"Are you perhaps thinking of joining the investigation regarding the rogue Adjudicator, Your Royal Highness?" The knight wondered and Ben turned with a concerning smile on his face.
"The Underworld…I'm a bit interested now." The Prince ughed and went over to his desk and wrote something down rather quickly. After signing it, he handed it straight over to Julian, his aide. "Send this to Father, tell him I'll be returning to the Capital soon."
Julian blinked. "You are?"
"I have a gut feeling." He only vaguely expined and the knight was forced to leave without getting a complete answer.
The Underworld has been making confusing strides. They were both destroying and rebuilding their retionship with the Empire over and over. There was definitely something going on and the man who saved him was definitely involved with it.
Ben had instinctively felt that meeting this man and whoever this Madam was might make his wish to destroy the Kingdom happen much much sooner.
"The Madam of the Underworld huh?" He voiced out staring into empty space as he prepared to leave the battlefield. "I can't wait to see exactly what you are."
