I needed to let go of my anger. I hadn’t existed two months. Saha hadn’t even known about me. So what she had loved someone else in the imperial academy. Now she was with me. She smiled in my arms. She kissed me. She needed me. I needed to let go of something I couldn’t control. This impotent anger. This childish rage. Saha needed me to be the silent hunter. Her reaper.

  I felt the thin tendril worming into me snap and my soul caught it. With it in my hand I finally sank into the dark waters. As the waters came to claim my memories, I fed them my emotions. Living meant feeling and I had felt a lot of things over the past week. But this wasn’t the time to feel. It was the time to hunt. The dark waters covered me and my souls light dimmed in the dark water. Outside the waters, a blade made of ice formed in one of my left hand while my soul looked at the thread of malice wrapped around my forearm. I followed the direction it led to and began running.

  The Voss fortress was an old imperial fortress. Built in the classic imperial style. That meant it was a smooth granite block with thin long slits for windows. But like any fortress of the empire on the outskirts it had developed subsidiary buildings. These were smaller granite blocks. Where the fortress stood a hundred feet tall and wide, these smaller buildings were just forty feet tall. And just outside it stood two soldiers locked in mortal combat.

  I observed the waters while running. The predators reach was large. It had latched its threads into hundreds of people. And I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that his threads had bounced of the main fortress. Most probably because of the throne. That meant Saha was safe. And that meant I could hunt without care. Then I looked at the two men grunting while swinging their swords.

  I realized I couldn’t just act carefree and hunt. I needed to save everyone. Lives and souls. Order had to be kept. And there was no order but order.

  I didn’t give the soldiers a chance. I ran to them headfirst. I jabbed. Knocking one out and brought my elbow down on the other soldiers jaw. This one was tougher. Tougher than I expected. He staggered, swayed, but stayed on his feet. Instinctively, the man tried to use mana. He straightened in a blink and brought his sword up. A combat mage. I took a step back. Mana flashed in his eyes and clarity returned to his eyes.

  “Truechild?” The man hastily lowered his weapon and asked “My lord, what happens?”

  But I didn’t wait to answer. I ran past him and into the building. If he wanted to know he would follow. There was pandemonium ahead of me. Men and women were locked in combat. This close to the damned it’s emotion based magic had driven people into a mindless rage. There was no sense to fight. Most hadn’t even drawn their weapons. On one side, men were throwing punches and elbows at each other. On the other female soldiers were swinging kicks and not shying from headbutting each other. And even some of the civilians had gotten trapped in the spell. One very angry lady was trying to sink her teeth into a gray haired man. He was holding her back with a rolling pin.

  “Those are the new pastry chefs.”

  The baffled voice of the combat mage broke me out of my daze. I gave him a look.

  “Lady Saha will be really unhappy if anything happens to them.” The soldier explained.

  I sighed “Okay. Save lives. Save souls. Save pastry chefs.”

  I took in a breath and let mana condense all around me. Water vapor met the cold mana and formed walnut sized balls of ice. It took a few moments for the water to pool into the pockets of mana I had created and targeted the nearest soldiers. I flicked a finger and the balls impacted temples, chins, and jaws. Around ten people fell. I didn’t wait or celebrate. I was already making the next batches of balls. Two seconds later more soldiers fell. And finally heads started turning to me. I saw locked jaws, gritted teeth and spittle flying. I sent my last batch of balls ahead and rushed into the melee with fists.

  It wasn’t pretty. A women tried to dig her nails into my eyes. I side stepped and punched her in the jaw. A man bit into my arm. I headbutted him. Another tried to kick me in jewels. I slapped him unconscious. Suddenly there was a man behind me. The combat mage. He was covering my back. He took at an artifact and started zapping, our attackers to unconsciousness. He didn’t even spare the downed soldiers.

  With the imperial combat mage watching my back I stopped closer to the end of the hall. I stopped one of the pastry chef from braining the other. The imperial mage zapped the other. While I held the man to the ground.

  The combat mage stepped to the downed chef and introduced himself “I am Grek Grisslow, your highness. I am an Imperial Punisher assigned to…”

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  “Later.” I stopped him and looked at the stair case ahead.

  A man stumbled down the staircase with a head wound. His stunned eyes looked at me and then a snarl formed on his face. I took three quick steps ahead and slammed his head on the wall. The bloody woman chasing the man with a candle holder doubled over with a kick. I heard ribs snap and winced.

  I looked around there were a lot of injured people here. I needed to do something about that. But I couldn’t let the damned to getaway. So, decided to rely on my siblings. And the punisher could help me do that.

  General combat mages had no or very little affinity for external mana effects. Instead, they used mana to strengthen their body and use speed to duel enemies using knives or blades. That is why Grek had been able to keep up with me. But Imperial Punishers were not just combat mages they were artifact experts. They made up the lack of external mana with imperial artifacts.

  I looked at the confused man in front of me and ordered “Punisher. Use your communication armlet.”

  Grek’s eyes brightened “Yes. We should raise the alarm.”

  I shook my head “No. Get in contact with my brother. We need his healing here.”

  Grek paused and hesitated “Uh, my lord. His grace Duke Sage Truechild, sneaked out of the fortress.”

  I stopped and looked at the man. How does an eight foot tall, marbled skinned man, with shining golden brown eyes sneak out?. I asked “How?”

  The punisher cringed “Uh… He disguised himself.”

  I gave him an annoyed look.

  The punsiher raised his hands “He disguised himself with a beret and a mustache. And a loot. I was sent here to report to General Lloyd, your highness. I don’t know anything else.”

  I frowned. Sage was not here. And he wasn’t safe. I shook my head. Sage would have to take care himself for now. And my brother was a Truechild. I just hoped he didn’t cut the town in half. But that was something to deal with later. Right now I needed help.

  “Call my sister. Tell her what happens. Tell her to get healers.” I ordered.

  The punisher nodded and asked “And you my lord. We need get you to safety.”

  I snorted and started speeding up the stairs. I entered the second hall. Classical imperial military buildings were not built. They were crafted with granite from mana enriched imperial quarries. That allowed them to take massive mana blasts both from inside or outside and not even get chipped. They were testament to the empires immovability against the blighted barbarians. And that property had seemed to have enchanted the imperial ministers more because they overlooked one fact. Climbing stairs that were on both sides, front and back, was annoying.

  I had climb one flight of stairs. Run through the hall, quickly incapacitate the people, and climb to the third floor. Once again repeat the process and climb once again. Thankfully, not many people attacked me. Just a dozen on the second floor. And five on the third. Unfortunately, I started seeing dead too. Two on the second floor. Three on the third.

  “Your highness. Your highness.” Grek stopped next to me and panted.

  I was so consumed in the hunt that I had forgotten about the man. It took me a moment to realize that he hadn’t run off.

  Grek held up a token and said “Your sister.”

  I looked at him blankly.

  “Voss?” The token asked.

  I looked at the token.

  “Voss, you need to say something to communicate through communication tokens. I cant read your expressions through this thing.”

  I grunted in annoyance.

  “Okay, I heard that. Talk to me brother.” Ilya pleaded.

  “Damned.” I growled.

  “What!?”

  “Damned.”

  “Wait. How?”

  Annoyance entered my voice. This was taking to long. “Don’t know. Hunting.”

  “Okay. Listen to me brother. I am coming. Just tell me where.”

  I looked at Grek. Yes, that was his name. And pointed at him.

  Grek mouthed “Me?”

  But I didn’t have time to wait. I ran up. The fourth floor was full of rooms on both sides. Thankfully, they were empty. The fifth had more rooms with adjoining offices. We found two dead here and one injured man with a spike through his leg doggedly trying to climb the stairs to the next floor. He turned with a stern expression and a ball of fire in his hand. I looked at his eyes. There was clarity in them. He looked at me slack jawed and then turned to Grek next to me.

  “Punisher Grisslow? Your highness? What are you…”

  I stopped him with a rasied hand “Where?”

  Grek cleared his throat “Inquisitor Asaki. The highness is hunting the intruders. Could you please direct us to them.”

  I looked at Grek. He was good at talking. I looked at the Inquisitor and nodded at him.

  “Hunting. I see. They are locked in combat with General Lloyd and Knight Agatha. They want the throne key.” The Inquisitor replied.