"Let go, you lowlife." The man said.

An amused smile appeared on Kael’s face as he let go of the man’s sword. "A lowlife, huh? It’s been a while since I’ve heard that."

The moment Kael’s words struck them, a surge of mana rippled outward. The shockwave born from that power crashed through the air, making the men shiver abruptly.

The men who carried a staff instantly fell onto their knees, gaze fixed on the ground.

And the rest started to tremble abruptly; instinctively, their grips tightened onto their swords.

"I didn’t let a lot of my mana flow, but still it was enough to take a 5-star beast down."

"All of them are clearly above the 5-star mark."

All of them had started to shiver; some even had their fighting spirit destroyed. But still, one of them took a step forward, sword trembling like crazy in his hand.

"W-what did you do to us?"

"Didn’t I say that a dead man doesn’t have to know?" Kael started walking towards him, steps steady.

Kael noticed the sweat on the man’s face, and a smirk appeared on his face. "I might let you live if you manage to touch even a single strand of my hair."

The man lunged forward, raised his sword, and struck it towards Kael. "AHHHHH!!!"

Kael didn’t move out of the way; he let the sword strike him.

A weak, but a smile of relief appeared on the man’s face. "I-I did it..."

Kael’s expression changed, and a still displeased look appeared on his face. "Look again."

Just two words left his mouth, yet they were enough to make the man question his very existence.

His eyes widened as he noticed that his sword’s blade had stopped an inch away from Kael’s skin.

A small trace of crimson mana was covering the spot that he had aimed for.

He gulped as a sweat rolled down his cheek and dropped onto the ground. "Uh... does that mean I’m going to die?"

A smile appeared on Kael’s lips, voice came cold. "You’re quite smart, aren’t you?"

And the moment he said that, he swung his hand towards the man’s head, and a huge shockwave followed it.

The walls around them cracked, and the stones fell onto the ground instantly, as dust erupted inside the chamber. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

The man’s head remained intact; nothing of any sort had happened to him. He turned cold, seized by the fear that Kael alone had instilled in him.

He fell onto the ground with a loud THUD. The rest of them had widened their eyes enough that they might gauge out any second.

Kael’s gaze shifted towards the others. "Does anyone out of you want to try and stop me?"

No one dared to speak; some even buried their gaze into the ground.

He walked closer, steps remained steady. A man who was standing next to the door lifted his gaze slightly as he noticed Kael standing in front of him.

"Fuck fuck fuck... I don’t want to die.... why did this monster come towards me?!"

"Tell me where that high priest of yours is." He paused, his gaze unyielding, before continuing. "Refuse me, and you’ll serve as nothing more than an example."

The man bit his lower lip, hands clenched as his face got entirely covered with sweat.

He remained still, didn’t have a single ounce of courage to mutter anything.

"You’re not going to talk?" Kael asked.

The man still didn’t say anything; his body started trembling with fear.

Kael’s gaze lingered on the man, thoughts stirring in the depths of his mind. "This one doesn’t seem unwilling to speak... could it be something else?"

Closing his eyes, he let his mana seep into the man’s body. The energy travelled through flesh and bone until it revealed a gruesome truth: a centipede, coiled tightly around the man’s heart.

A vein popped through Kael’s forehead as he grabbed the man by his neck. "Who’s the god you guys offer your prayers to?" His voice carried malice, but a sense of anger was buried alongside it.

The man still didn’t say anything, and slowly his knees started to give up as his cheeks turned purple in color.

Kael gritted his teeth; multiple thoughts lingered inside his mind.

"The centipede wrapped around this man’s heart moves with a will of its own."

"This order is cursed, turning humans into mere tools by binding a centipede to their hearts, knowing full well that the heart is the vessel of a man’s mana."

But he let a sigh pass through his mouth to compose himself.

He grabbed the man by his neck as he passed his mana through the man once again. He guided it towards the man’s heart, without touching anything else, to prevent alarming the centipede.

When his mana reached the man’s heart, Kael coiled it tightly around the organ. Bit by bit, the circle shrank, kept shrinking until it matched the centipede’s size.

Then the pressure began, crushing it until the creature was ground away, erased so completely that not even its atoms remained.

"If you test my patience, I’ll give you a death more sickening than that centipede."

The man gulped; he lifted his gaze lightly. "I-I don’t know much..."

"Why did you kidnap the kids?" Kael crossed his arms and looked right into the man’s eyes.

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