A glacial silence, thick and heavy, had fallen within the confines of Pandora’s Box. The churning walls of violet-black energy cast a sickly, pulsating light over the scene, illuminating the half frozen figure of Jolvuthiz. The Hallstatt Sword, a shard of profound, luminous blue ice, remained embedded in the back of his heel, its impossible cold having raced up his leg with terrifying speed. From the thigh down, he was encased in a seamless, glass-clear tomb of ice, fusing leather, flesh, and the churned, bloody earth into a single, immobile mass. The burning numbness of absolute zero had devoured all sensation, leaving only the terrifying void of paralysis. His chest heaved with ragged, vaporous breaths that plumed in the frigid air, each one a monumental effort against the agony locked in his frozen core.

  Bismark observed the trapped warrior, his cool, sly blue eyes performing a slow, dismissive sweep of the frozen ruin before him. A subtle, condescending curve touched his lips. He turned with unhurried grace, his polished boots crunching faintly on the frozen blood-slush. His gaze fell upon the scattered remains of the battle within the box: the arrows loosed by his own ensnared archers, their fletching now dusted with a thin layer of hoarfrost.

  He moved with methodical precision, a collector gathering specimens. His white-gloved hand, still pristine despite the carnage, plucked the first arrow from the ice-rimed mud. He did not hurry. Each movement was a deliberate act of defilement. He gathered them one by one, the bundled shafts forming a grim bouquet in his grip.

  Returning to Jolvuthiz’s side, Bismark looked down at the exposed expanse of the shadow-wreathed torso, the tattered vest and shirt offering little protection. There was no grand wind-up, no shouted threat. Only the cold, clinical application of violence.

  The first arrow descended, its steel tip punching through leather and muscle with a wet, percussive tear. Jolvuthiz’s body jolted against its icy restraints, a choked gasp ripping from his throat. Bismark did not pause. He became a machine of measured torment, driving arrow after arrow into the defined region of Jolvuthiz’s lung with piston-like efficiency. Each impact was a brutal violation, a wet thud that echoed dully in the confined space. The area quickly became a grotesque pincushion, dark blood welling thick and slow around the embedded shafts, the metallic tang of it flooding Jolvuthiz’s mouth and nostrils.

  Bismark’s focus shifted lower, his aim unerring. Another volley of arrows found their home, their points sinking deep into the shadow-warrior’s side, targeting the dense, vital mass of his liver with brutal accuracy. Jolvuthiz’s back arched as much as the ice would allow, a silent scream locked behind his clenched teeth, his amethyst eyes wide and staring at the pulsating anti-light of the prison walls.

  Finally, Bismark’s attention moved to the flanks. The remaining arrows were plunged with relentless force into Jolvuthiz’s kidneys. The pain was different here—a deep, nauseating, internal rupture that sent waves of sickening fire through his lower body, a stark contrast to the burning cold of his imprisoned legs.

  A raw, guttural sound was torn from Jolvuthiz, less a word and more the death rattle of a mortally wounded beast, as the final arrow found its mark.

  Bismark leaned down, bringing his face close to Jolvuthiz’s. His voice was a low, resonant purr, cutting through the haze of agony. “Before your light is extinguished, answer me. Do you belong to the demon race?”

  The word demon, acted as a key, twisting in the lock of his shattered mind.

  A memory, sharp and unbidden, tore through the pain.

  The world was hot and screaming orange. A house was a pyre against a starless sky, flames clawing at the heavens. The air tasted of ash and burning sap. The heat blistered his skin from meters away.

  A figure stood silhouetted against the inferno, immaculate and untouchable. The firelight glinted off prominent gold trim on a dark, high-collared jacket, off gold-edged epaulets and a large, ornate belt buckle. The man’s features were blurred by smoke and memory, but the uniform, the authority it radiated, was seared into his soul. The man’s voice, cold and formal, cut through the crackle of the flames.

  “Your parents are dead.” The words were final, a verdict delivered without emotion. “The Demon Race did—”

  The memory shattered, collapsing back into the present torment.

  The excruciating reality of a hundred and two arrows piercing his flesh returned, a symphony of agony conducted by the immaculate monster before him. Bismark’s question hung in the air, demanding an answer.

  Jolvuthiz’s response was not with words. His body convulsed, chest heaving. He gathered the bloody saliva and phlegm—the very substance of his ruin—and with the last vestige of his defiance, spat a thick, crimson globule directly into Bismark face.

  It struck his cheek with a soft, wet sound, a grotesque medal of contempt.

  Bismark recoiled, his cool composure shattering into pure, unadulterated disgust. He straightened up, his features twisting into a snarl.

  “That is repulsive,” he hissed, his voice laced with a revulsion so profound it seemed to outweigh the violence of the last few minutes. “It has a foul, slimy stench.”

  With fastidious, furious motions, he wiped the offending spit from his face with the sleeve of his immaculate navy coat, staining the pristine fabric with the evidence of Jolvuthiz’s final, defiant act.

  ~ ???????????? -??????????????????’?? -???????????? -???????? ~

  Silence, thick and clotting as the blood now seeping into the grout between the white marble tiles, had reclaimed the throne room. The iron-sweet stench of recent death warred with the cloying, sacred aroma of smoldering cedar incense, creating a nauseating perfume of sanctity and slaughter. Balisarda Sumernor stood within the jagged teeth of the shattered wall, a colossus of bronze scale and dark green wool framed against a panorama of orchestrated violence. The dawn light, piercing the thinning smoke, glinted off the polished scales on his chest and caught the platinum strands of his long, brushed-back hair. Below, his courtyard was a living tapestry of agony, a churning mosaic of dirt-brown leather, rust-red iron, and the desperate blue wool of the invaders, all rendered in mud and the darker crimson of split viscera. The cacophony was a constant, low-frequency roar, the shriek of steel on steel, the wet thud of impacts, and the distant, dying cries of men—a symphony he conducted with his mere presence.

  A low, contemptuous sound rumbled in his chest. “Pathetic,” he murmured, the word barely audible yet carrying the weight of a final judgment. His glacial blue eyes, the color of a winter sky over a frozen sea, tracked the movements below not with strategy, but with the dispassionate interest of a scholar observing insects trapped in amber. “They cling to life so desperately, when the simple act of staying away would have preserved it. They chose this fate. They yearn for the pyre.”

  The observation hung in the charged air, a verdict delivered to an audience of one.

  Then, a new sound breached the sanctum. Not the chaos of battle, but a single, resonant BOOM that vibrated through the very bones of the castle. It was a knock against the massive gold-inlaid doors, delivered not with request, but with announcement. A percussive note of undeniable authority.

  Balisarda did not turn. His gaze remained fixed on the carnage, a slight tilt of his head the only acknowledgment. “Who seeks an audience in the midst of my house’s desecration?” The question was a formality, a ritualistic echo in a room he commanded absolutely.

  The doors answered him. With a hushed, gravid sigh of immense weight moving on perfect hinges, they swung inward. They framed the familiar vista: the river of worn crimson carpet, the flawless expanse of gleaming marble, the raised dais and its snarling-wolf throne. And in that frame stood Hel, Principal Eight.

  The man was a study in calculated contrast. Where the room was opulent, ancient, and blood-spattered, Hel was modern, minimalist, and immaculate. His tailored charcoal suit hugged a lean frame, the sharp lines and structured shoulders a silent declaration of order. The only flourish was his tie, a black satin paisley that seemed to drink the light, its intricate pattern a map of hidden complexities. His presence was a cooling balm, a sudden, sobering dose of reality in the fever-dream of the throne room.

  “You asked a question to which you already possess the answer, Balisarda,” Hel stated. His voice was calm, dry, cutting through the room’s thick atmosphere with the precision of a scalpel. “It was your summons that brought me here. I merely answer it.”

  Balisarda finally turned from the devastation, a slow, deliberate pivot of his entire powerful frame. A ghost of a smile, a fleeting crack in the ice of his demeanor, touched his lips. “So I did. And so you have, Hel. Principal Eight, ever punctual.” His gaze swept over the headless ruin of Gwen, the congealing pool around her, the soldiers standing as rigid as statues, their fear a tangible scent. “My earlier… administrative duty… is concluded. Does the nature of our discussion warrant privacy, or shall we entertain the ranks?”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Hel’s sharp, intelligent eyes performed a swift, analytical sweep of the room, the corpse, the blood, the dust motes dancing in the sunbeams that stabbed through the broken wall. His expression remained a professionally neutral mask, but a faint tightening around his eyes betrayed his assessment. “Given the… context of your summons and the present environment, I would deduce our conversation is not for public record.”

  A flick of Balisarda’s wrist, dismissive and absolute. “Leave us. All of you. The audience is over.” The soldiers obeyed instantly, their retreat a silent shuffle of relief until the great doors thudded shut, sealing the two men in a vast, echoing silence punctuated only by the distant din of war. Balisarda gestured toward the broken wall. “Join me, Hel. I would like your perspective.”

  “What specific insight do you require?” Hel asked, stepping forward. His polished black dress shoes avoided the carnage with fastidious care, their mirrored surfaces reflecting fleeting images of the gilded chaos. He came to stand beside his king, a dark pillar next to a bronzed god.

  “This,” Balisarda said, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial register as he gestured to the melee below. “An invasion. A declaration of war. Yet, a single detail unravels the entire tapestry of their intent. Look closely. Tell me what you see that does not belong.”

  Hel’s gaze, keen and analytical, scanned the battlefield. It was not a soldier’s assessment of tactics, but a psychologist’s study of behavior. He watched the ebb and flow, the patterns of engagement. After a long moment, his focus sharpened. “Their weaponry,” he said, the realization cool and clear. “They field a modern military, yet I see no ballistics, no artillery, no explosives. Only blades and shields. They have deliberately neutered their greatest advantage to fight on a field that favors us. This is not a tactical error. It is a statement.”

  A cold, brilliant light of understanding and profound, insulted fury ignited in the depths of Balisarda’s blue eyes. “Precisely. You lack the context of the institution, Hel, but I was forged within it. This is a message, penned in the blood of their own men. It is from one of the Six Founders of the military, the Legacies, the architects of that bloated, corrupt machine. He has not forgotten the… restructuring I performed seventeen years ago. This is his mockery. A taunt.” He gestured with a hand, and from his palm, darkness coalesced, forming the hilt of a sword that was not there, a phantom limb of his power. “My power is that I can summon any sword, each with its own distinct ability, they view the blade as my signature. In all its forms. By limiting their armies to swords, they tell me that even my greatest strength is a triviality to them. That they will drown me in a sea of inferior imitations, sacrificing any number of pawns, just to prove a point. They have hesitated for seventeen years to do anything about me. These Six, puzzling over my motives from the shadows. Blaming me for the Peace Treaty between every single race being Violated. When the treaty itself has not even been violated in the seventeen years it has existed and still stands even today. Now, they emerge not with their full might, but with this petty, symbolic provocation. They have left their lane. They have prodded the god in his temple. Very well. I shall answer their invitation.”

  “To what end?” Hel countered, his voice remaining a steady, rational counterpoint to the king’s gathering storm. He turned from the window, his dark eyes meeting Balisarda’s. “You know the corruption you left behind. You know its rot. I am an outsider to its hierarchies and its sins. I do not know why you killed the Ultimate Bloodshed User. But it was never a simple assassination, was it? You knew the man behind the title. You knew his name.”

  “We first met when we were both seventeen years old in Thalvaren where I was born and raised, how ironic is that.” A strange, almost fond light softened the glacial ice of Balisarda’s gaze. “You see? This is your value, Hel. You are my therapist. My confessor who does not require a confessional. You question the god without fearing his wrath. You speak truth without trembling, as if you're a Philosopher. That is why you are Principal Eight. That is why you stand here, amidst the blood and the incense, while others are ushered out.”

  “Then let us dispense with the preamble,” Hel said, his hands resting calmly at his sides. “What is your desired outcome from me?”

  “Oh, direct and succinct. I admire that.” Balisarda’s voice dropped into a lethal, intimate purr. “You will stand beside me. When the inevitable breach of this room occurs, you will fight at my side.”

  A faint frown of confusion touched Hel’s brow. “To what purpose? You could reduce any who enter to ash and memory by yourself. My intervention would be… superfluous.”

  “That,” Balisarda stated, the purr hardening into diamond, “is precisely why I require it. I do not need your sword, Hel. I need your witness. Your presence is the statement. I want to dismantle their reality. To show them that their understanding of power, of right and wrong, is a child’s sketch. I want to demonstrate that this entire war is a futile pantomime, and that I have within my court those who see its absurdity as clearly as I do. You will be the mirror that reflects their folly.”

  “So, we are to be partners in this defense, Against that individual who has infiltrated the inside of your castle?” Hel clarified, ensuring the terms were absolute.

  “No,” Balisarda corrected, his tone leaving no room for misinterpretation. “The confrontation with the primary instrument of their will is mine alone. It is one of ten Masters of the military who comes, a piece moved by the hand of one of the Six. You will ensure the board remains clear. You will be the barrier that keeps the other pieces at bay. You will be the audience for the final act. Your ability will be used against them”

  “Why the insistence on a solo duel?” Hel pressed, his therapist’s instinct driving him to uncover the core motivation. “What is it about this specific opponent that demands such personal attention?”

  Balisarda’s gaze grew distant, looking through the stone, through the years, into a memory etched in fire and betrayal. “I have waited seventeen years for this specific dance,” he said, his voice losing its edge, becoming almost contemplative. “They chant their single, stupid question: ‘Why did you murder the Ultimate Bloodshed User?’” He turned his ancient, weary eyes back to Hel. “When the blow was struck, he did not scream. He did not curse my name. With his final breath, he threw his sword. A magnificent, arcing thing of light and hope. It sailed over the field and landed, point digging into the earth, at the feet of a boy hiding on a hill. That… I had not foreseen it. That it would land at the feet of his son. Mephistopheles. And now, the military has taken that boy, that raw nerve of grief and vengeance, and polished him into their ultimate pawn. This is what they sent against me. A ghost of my past action.”

  “Then your intent is genocide,” Hel stated, the word flat and clinical in the space between them. “You will erase them all.”

  “I feel no thirst for indiscriminate slaughter,” Balisarda replied, and his voice now carried the resonant, terrible weight of divine finality. “But they have fashioned the weapon of their own destruction. They have forced my hand. They will be met with a punishment of biblical proportion for their arrogance. Unless,” he added, the faintest, most dangerous of challenges inflecting his tone, “you believe your role includes staying my hand.”

  Hel met Balisarda gaze, his own eyes dark pools of unwavering comprehension. There was no fear in them, only a profound and sober acceptance of the scale of the power before him. “Even if I felt such a duty, the ability to enact it is far beyond any power I possess.”

  Satisfied, Balisarda turned his back on the conversation and on the war. He faced the ruined wall, the chaotic opening to his sanctum. He extended his right arm, not with the violent intent of his sword-summoning, but with the gentle, supreme authority of a creator. His motion was a slow, counterclockwise arc from his waist, a sculptor’s gesture sketching a new form onto empty air.

  This was not the manifestation of a blade, but the invocation of his second, more foundational power: the absolute dominion over architecture itself.

  Where his sword-summoning was an act of violent, instantaneous creation, this was a process of serene, deliberate reclamation. The air within the broken edges of the wall did not shimmer with energy, but grew dense with intent. The scattered stones and powdered mortar on the floor lost their randomness, their fractured edges aligning with invisible blueprints only he could see.

  There was no roar of reassembly, only a deep, grinding hum that resonated in the teeth. The sound of reality being politely edited. Individual blocks of granite, each weighing half a ton, slid across the smooth marble floor as if on greased tracks, lifting silently into the air. They rotated with geometric precision, fitting back into the wall not like rubble, but like pieces of a grand, three-dimensional puzzle clicking into their pre-ordained slots. Fresh, grey mortar seeped from the very essence of the stone, flowing into the seams and hardening instantly to a flawless, aged finish. The entire process was chillingly silent, a breathtaking display of control that rewound destruction with the calm efficiency of a master mason who commanded the very concept of stone and structure.

  In a matter of heartbeats, the wall stood restored, pristine and whole. Not a scratch, not a hairline fracture marred its surface. It was as if Jabari’s earth-shattering punch had been a momentary illusion, now dismissed by the true master of the castle. This fortress was not merely a building Balisarda occupied; it was an extension of his will, a symphony of stone composed decades ago and now perfectly conducted by his hand.

  Balisarda turned his back on the perfection he had wrought, walking toward his throne, his footsteps echoing on the lonely marble. The act of creation had required less effort than a sigh.

  “Mephistopheles,” he spoke into the silence, his voice low but imbued with a carrying quality that suggested it could penetrate stone and soul alike. “I know you cannot hear these words, but I feel every footfall you take within my home. I felt your gaze upon me that day, small and terrified on your hill. You watched me sever your father’s thread. And he, in his final moment, knew you would inherit not his glory, but his burden. You would be the one to labor in the shadows of his legacy while lesser men claimed the light.”

  He settled onto the throne, the dark green fur of his collar framing a face that was a mask of terrifying contradictions cruelty, intellect, and a deep, unsettling strand of something that looked like pity. “Your nights have never known peace, have they? Only the recurring nightmare of my blade. And yet… I am not displeased. You have surpassed expectations. You have carved your way through Aham and Otaktay. Your defeat by Deimos was a lesson, not a failure. But the true examination awaits. Can you stand before the lion? Can you overcome Simba, Principal Four, my very first Principal, my eternal guardian?”

  He paused, the silence in the throne room absolute, a held breath.

  “So I am left to wonder, son of my old friend: will your journey of vengeance culminate in my death? I feel a flicker of… empathy for the path you walk. A lost soul, navigation guided only by the star of my actions. For you must understand, Mephistopheles, all roads, yours most of all lead to Balisarda Sumernor.”