The atmosphere in the subterranean interrogation chambers of the keep was stifling. It wasn't just the ambient heat of the volcanic city; it was the suffocating pressure of Chief Inquisitor Morok's absolute fury.

  Eight Ash Guards were lined up against the obsidian wall. These were the men who had been stationed in the eastern inner guard tower during the time of Lord Vael’s assassination. They had been stripped of their heavy crimson plated armor and their polearms. They stood in simple black undergarments with their hands bound behind their backs by Qi suppressing cuffs.

  None of them spoke. They simply stared straight ahead with the rigid, terrifying discipline that Demon Lord Ignis instilled in all her forces.

  Li Yu and Malos stood behind Morok. Li Yu kept his hands resting in his pockets. He was observing the eight men carefully. Malos, on the other hand, was leaning forward with intense curiosity and was practically humming a cheerful tune under his breath. He was treating the grim interrogation like a theatrical performance.

  "One of you," Morok began as his voice grated like grinding stones, "allowed an assassin into your tower. Or worse, one of you is the assassin. You fired a shadow art through the sanctum window and ended the life of the Sovereign's seventh son."

  The Inquisitor paced slowly down the line. The horrific burn scars covering his face and arms pulsed with a menacing orange light. The temperature in the room spiked with every step he took.

  "I will not ask for confessions," Morok stated flatly. "Traitors do not confess until their skin is peeling from their muscles. But before I begin the flaying, I brought experts to look upon you."

  Morok stepped aside and gestured to Li Yu and Malos. "Tell me what you see, travelers."

  Malos stepped forward first and was eager. He began to walk down the line. He inspected the faces, the sweat and the subtle tremors of the guards. He was putting on a very convincing show of being a detective. Whether he was actually looking for anything, no one knew.

  "Fascinating," Malos muttered while examining the third guard in line. "The pulse rate is elevated. The pupils are dilated. But alas, that is simply the natural physiological response to standing next to an Inquisitor who is threatening to peel off their skin. Fear is a terrible mask. It hides the truth as effectively as it reveals it."

  Li Yu simply tried looking at the physical evidence. He had seen the tiny pinhole melted through the reinforced glass in the sanctum. He had heard Malos's deduction about the two man team and the specific artifacts needed to bypass the arrays.

  He walked slowly past the eight guards. He wasn't looking at their faces. He was looking at their hands and their bodies.

  Using a shadow art of that magnitude required a massive channeling of death Qi. Using a secondary artifact to trick the arrays simultaneously required a delicate balancing of elements. Even for a highly trained assassin, doing both in perfect synchronization from across a courtyard would leave a physical toll.

  Li Yu stopped in front of the sixth guard in line. It was a demon with pale gray skin and sharp, angular features. He looked just as terrified and disciplined as the rest of them.

  "Inquisitor Morok," Li Yu said calmly without taking his eyes off the sixth guard. "When your men wear their heavy armor, are their hands completely enclosed by their gauntlets?"

  Morok frowned. "Yes. The Ash Guard armor is a completely sealed environment to protect against toxic fumes. Why?"

  "Because," Li Yu pointed out while gesturing to the pale demon's right hand. "If his hands were completely sealed inside his gauntlets for his entire shift, he shouldn't have frostbite burn on his index and middle fingers."

  Morok stepped forward instantly. The Inquisitor grabbed the guard's right hand and wrenched it upward.

  There, on the tips of the pale demon's fingers, the skin was blackened and dead. It wasn't a burn from fire. It was the unmistakable, necrotic tissue damage caused by channeling highly concentrated death Qi without a proper medium. To fire the shadow needle through the window, the assassin had been forced to remove his heavy gauntlet for precision and expose his bare flesh to the violent backlash of the art.

  The pale demon's eyes widened. The discipline vanished and was replaced by the frantic, trapped look of a cornered animal.

  Before Morok could even speak, the demon's jaw clenched violently. The assassin's body convulsed. He was trying to detonate his own spiritual core to take everyone in the room with him and destroy the evidence.

  He was too slow though.

  Morok's hand blurred. The Inquisitor slammed his palm directly into the center of the assassin's chest. A concentrated blast of white hot fire surged from Morok's scars and shot directly into the assassin's meridian network. The fire didn't burn the flesh; it instantly cauterized the spiritual pathways and completely neutralized the self-destruct sequence.

  The pale demon collapsed to the stone floor and was coughing up a mixture of blood and ash.

  "You thought you could die so easily?" Morok hissed. The heat radiating from the Inquisitor was now hot enough to make the stone walls glow a dull red. "You are an infiltrator. You will tell me everything before I allow your soul to disperse."

  The other seven guards quickly backed away and were looking at their former comrade with a mixture of horror and absolute disgust. Morok knelt down and grabbed the assassin by the throat. "Who are you? Who sent you to kill Lord Vael?"

  The assassin laughed. It was a wet and bubbling sound. "You think... you think you can stop it? The contract is paid. The Green Syndicate always collects."

  A ripple of genuine shock went through the other guards. Even Morok seemed momentarily taken aback by the name. Li Yu looked over at Malos with a raised eyebrow. "The Shadow Syndicate?"

  "Ah," Malos whispered back. His tone shifted from playful to slightly more serious. "One of the top three assassination organizations. They do not operate on petty grievances. They operate on supreme wealth and political destabilization. They are highly professional, utterly ruthless and incredibly expensive. If they took the contract to kill a Demon Lord's son, it means someone with massive resources is trying to provoke a war."

  "It doesn't matter who hired them," Morok growled while tightening his grip on the assassin's throat. "The Syndicate has crossed a line they cannot uncross. Where is your accomplice? The one who manipulated the artifact?"

  "Gone," the assassin sneered through blood stained teeth. "Slipped out through the magma vents the moment the chime rang. You are too late, Inquisitor. The borders will burn."

  Morok stood up. He didn't ask any more questions. He simply snapped his fingers. Two guards stepped forward and dragged the crippled assassin out of the room. He would be kept alive to see what other kinds of information they can get from him. They would also check to make sure it was actually the Green Syndicate that did the job.

  "You have my thanks," Morok said while turning back to Li Yu and Malos. The Inquisitor offered a stiff but respectful nod. "Your observation was helpful to travelers. You found the needle in the ash."

  "It was merely a matter of knowing where to look," Malos smiled brightly. "A very satisfying conclusion to our little mystery! Though I must admit, I was hoping for a more dramatic monologue from the culprit. This ended way too easily."

  Before Li Yu could ask if their wager was officially fulfilled and they could leave the city, the entire subterranean chamber violently shuddered.

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  It wasn't an earthquake. It was a sudden, catastrophic shift in the fundamental laws of the world above them. The ambient temperature in the room, which was already blistering due to Morok's presence, skyrocketed. The air became so dry that Li Yu's lungs actually burned when he took a breath.

  The magma trenches flowing outside the keep began to boil over and were spilling liquid fire into the grid like streets.

  Morok immediately dropped to one knee and bowed his head deeply toward the ceiling. The remaining guards did the same. They hit the stone floor in absolute synchronization.

  "She is here," Morok whispered. His voice was filled with a mixture of reverence and absolute terror.

  Li Yu felt the pressure descending from the sky. It was similar to the overwhelming aura he had felt back at the Whispering Wastes when the fiery projection had appeared to save the arrogant disciple. But this wasn't a projection. This was the actual physical body of the Sovereign of Flame.

  The heavy stone ceiling of the interrogation chamber seemed to groan under the weight of her arrival.

  "Bring the prisoners and the guests to the grand hall," a voice echoed through the keep. It felt like it resonated in the very marrow of their bones. Morok stood up quickly.

  "Come. Do not speak unless spoken to. Do not look directly into her eyes if you value your sight or your lives."

  They were escorted up from the subterranean levels and brought into the massive entry hall of the keep. The room was completely silent. Hundreds of servants and guards were kneeling with their faces pressed flat against the polished fire jade floor.

  At the far end of the hall stood Demon Lord Ignis.

  She was a towering figure and radiated an aura of absolute destruction. She wore robes of woven embers that seemed to constantly shift and burn. Her crimson hair flowed behind her like a liquid firestorm and her eyes were twin miniature suns. The air around her distorted heavily and made it difficult to look directly at her without feeling a stinging pain in the eyes.

  She wasn't looking at the kneeling servants. She was staring at the spot on the floor where Lord Vael’s body had originally been found. Her expression was unreadable but the suffocating heat in the room was a clear indicator of her internal state. A mother had lost her son.

  Morok walked forward and dropped to his knees ten paces away from her.

  "Sovereign," Morok announced with his voice trembling slightly. "The infiltrator has been caught. It was a member of the Green Syndicate. They were disguised as one of our own guards. They bypassed the arrays using a synchronized artifact among other techniques. We are checking to see if the information revealed is true or not."

  Ignis didn't move. "The Green Syndicate... They dared to touch my bloodline. They must think just because they hold the title of one of the top three assassination organization.. They think they are strong."

  Her voice was quiet but it carried the promise of an impending apocalypse. "Where is the assassin?"

  "Being prepared for soul extraction, Sovereign," Morok replied. "We will have the location of their local chapter within the hour."

  "Good," Ignis said.

  Then, she slowly turned her head. Her twin sun eyes swept over the kneeling guards and finally landed on the two figures standing near the back of the hall. Li Yu had kept his head bowed slightly to show basic respect but Malos was standing perfectly straight and was looking back at the Demon Lord with a pleasant smile.

  Ignis’s eyes narrowed. The suffocating heat in the room suddenly spiked and focused entirely on the gray robed scholar. Her Sovereign senses immediately pierced the illusion of the ordinary mortal traveler.

  She took a step forward. The polished fire jade floor cracked beneath her boot.

  "Well," Ignis said. Her voice lost its mourning tone and was replaced by a shock. "This is an unexpected variable."

  The kneeling guards trembled harder. Morok risked a glance upward and was confused by the Sovereign's sudden shift in focus.

  Ignis walked slowly across the grand hall until she was standing only a few feet away from Li Yu and Malos. The heat was unbearable. Li Yu had to actively circulate his Devouring Abyssal Leviathan Physique to absorb the ambient fire Qi just to keep his clothes from combusting.

  "I wondered why the threads of fate around this city suddenly felt so tangled," Ignis said while staring directly at Malos. "What exactly is the mighty Lord Malos doing playing dress up in my border town?"

  A collective gasp echoed through the kneeling servants and guards. Morok’s head snapped up and his scarred face went completely pale. The eccentric old scholar who had deduced the assassination method with a wooden spoon was a Demon Lord.

  Malos offered a polite and elegant bow that was befitting of a peer.

  "Greetings, Ignis," Malos said brightly. "It has been quite a few centuries since we last crossed paths. You look as radiant and terrifying as ever. As for my presence here, I assure you it is entirely coincidental. I am simply a humble traveler currently experiencing the wonders of the open road."

  Ignis stared at him for a long moment. The flames surrounding her shifted and danced aggressively.

  "My son is murdered in his sanctum by the Green Syndicate," Ignis said slowly and her voice dripping with danger. "And you just happen to be sitting in a tavern when it happens? You expect me to believe that is a coincidence?"

  Li Yu tensed slightly. If a battle between two Demon Lords broke out in this enclosed hall, the entire city would be reduced to a crater. He prepared to use the absolute strength of his abilities to break out of the keep if things went badly. He had grown quite accustomed to running away in recent times.

  But Malos didn't flinch. He simply looked into the twin suns of Ignis's eyes with unbothered calm.

  "Ignis," Malos said. His voice dropped the playful traveler persona for a brief moment and carried the true, ancient weight of a Sovereign. "You know me. I do not hide in the shadows to kill children. If I wanted your son dead, I would have done it openly. The Green Syndicate's crude methods are beneath me."

  Ignis held his gaze. The tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a blade. Then, slowly, the oppressive heat in the hall receded. Ignis let out a long breath that smelled of sulfur.

  "You are right," Ignis agreed. She treated him with the absolute respect a peer deserved. Malos might not have a massive nation or an army of millions like the other Sovereigns but none of the Demon Lords ever underestimated him. His mastery over fate made him one of the strongest and most unpredictable beings in existence. "You are too arrogant to use assassins. You prefer your tragedies to be self-inflicted."

  "Exactly," Malos smiled as his cheerful persona returned instantly. "I am innocent of this crime. In fact, my companion and I were the ones who helped your Inquisitor deduce the method and catch the infiltrator. We are upstanding citizens of the realm!"

  Ignis finally shifted her gaze to Li Yu.

  Li Yu met her eyes calmly. He felt the terrifying weight of her perception scanning his suppressed aura. She could tell he was a human and she could likely sense that his foundation was far denser than a standard Core Formation cultivator. But unlike Malos, Li Yu didn't have a recognizable Sovereign signature. To her, he was just an anomaly.

  "A human," Ignis noted. Her eyes narrowed slightly in curiosity. "It is rare to see one of your kind traveling with a Demon Lord. It is even rarer to see one traveling beside the Malos. Who are you?"

  "Just a wanderer, Sovereign," Li Yu answered politely and respectfully. He didn't offer any grand titles or elaborate lies. Saying less was better and he had no good story for why he was traveling with Malos.

  Ignis looked like she wanted to press the issue. The presence of a strange human traveling with one of the most elusive Demon Lords was a puzzle that warranted investigation. But a sudden, muffled scream from the lower levels of the keep interrupted her thoughts.

  The memory extraction on the assassin had begun. Ignis’s expression hardened instantly. The curiosity vanished and the enraged mother returned.

  "I do not have the time to unravel your eccentricities today, Malos," Ignis said as she turned her back on them. "My son's blood is on the hands of the Syndicate. I am going to find their local hideout and I am going to burn every single one of them until there is nothing left but glass. I will then start to weed them all out in time."

  She looked over at Morok who was still kneeling. "The moment you have the coordinates and the correct group that did this. Send them to me. I will handle the Syndicate personally."

  "Yes, Sovereign!" Morok shouted.

  Ignis looked back at Malos one last time. "You and your human are cleared of suspicion. You are free to leave Cinderholme. Do not cause trouble in my territory, Malos."

  "We are perfect gentlemen," Malos promised with a polite wave.

  Ignis didn't reply. She simply stepped forward and her body dissolved into a blinding pillar of white hot flame that shot directly up through the ceiling of the keep. She vanished into the sky and left behind only a perfectly circular hole of melted stone in the roof.

  Li Yu looked up and wondered why she didn’t leave through the doors but kept the words to himself. The suffocating pressure finally lifted entirely. The servants and guards collectively slumped against the floor and were gasping for the cooler air.

  Morok stood up slowly and wiped a bead of sweat from his scarred face. He looked at Malos with a mixture of awe and residual terror. He had threatened to torture a Demon Lord. If Malos killed him now, Ignis would not go through any kind of trouble to avenge him.

  "You... you may go," Morok said hoarsely. "The gates will be opened for you. Please accept my apologies, Demon Lord."

  "Thank you, Inquisitor," Li Yu said quickly before Malos could offer any more detective services.

  Li Yu grabbed Malos by the arm and steered the eccentric Sovereign toward the exit. The murder mystery was mostly solved, the culprit was caught and the angry mother was currently on her way to eradicate an entire organization of assassins.

  It was definitely time to continue their travels and stay out of trouble.