Chapter 48

A low, sinister voice spoke. The corpse’s mouth slowly split toward its ears, a grotesque tear in the flesh. As the smoke dispersed, Kaiyan’s figure became fully visible. He watched the creature with clinical detachment.

“Then tell me who you are, thing that is not human.”

Crack!

The corpse’s neck snapped. Kaiyan did not stop there. With terrifying, fluid strength, he tore the head completely from the torso and dropped it onto the floor. The severed head trembled, its lips curling into a jagged laugh.

『Are you not the thing that is inhuman? Who has ever called someone like you human?』

The prince placed one foot upon the laughing head, his expression void of emotion.

Crunch!

Even crushed beneath his boot, the wild laughter did not cease.

The warehouse had transformed into a vision of hell. Fire leaped in every direction, climbing ever higher. Acrid smoke churned through the air. Within that gloom, a corpse laughed, but the most unnatural and terrifying sight of all remained the human figure standing calmly over the remains, watching without emotion. Only after the head had been crushed beyond all recognition did the laughter finally die. Even then, the sound seemed to linger in the air, echoing from nowhere and everywhere at once.

“Lord Kaiyan, the flames—”

Before Isaac could finish his warning, the corpse’s torso lurched. Where the head had once been, raw flesh bulged and writhed with grotesque vitality. A new face shoved its way upward through the mire: round, gentle, and unmistakably the King.

『Will you cut me too? Hm? Will you cut down your own father?』

As the King’s face contorted into a hideous mockery of a smile, Kaiyan merely stared, his features carved from ice. He swung his blade in a clean arc, shearing the corpse’s right arm from its shoulder.

Thud!

Watching the severed limb twitch and begin to drag itself back toward the main body, Isaac scrambled forward, frantically rubbing handfuls of gray ash into the raw stump. Kaiyan cast a fleeting, cold glance at his companion, but Isaac ignored him, scraping at the scorched earth despite the searing heat of the flames licking at his skin.

It was frantic work, dangerous under the roar of the inferno, yet the arm stalled. It finally slumped dead to the floor as the ash suppressed the necrotic energy. Above them, a support beam fractured with a deafening crack, and the corner of the ceiling collapsed in a shower of sparks. Through the chaos, the King’s face shifted, features churning like raw meat in a grinder until they smoothed into the elegant, regal visage of the Queen.

『My child. My son. My dear—』

Without a flicker of hesitation, Kaiyan lopped off the left arm. He watched the Queen’s face, serene even in its artificiality, with nothing but stony indifference. Isaac rushed to repeat his task, grinding the ash into the fresh, cauterized wound.

The metamorphosis refused to end. The head cycled through the faces of Kaiyan’s younger sister, then his younger brother. With each new iteration, Kaiyan lopped off a limb, first the right leg, then the left, until nothing remained but a twitching, limbless torso.

The face shifted for the final time.

『Would you cut even this?』

Piercing blue eyes, identical to his own, glared up at him from the corpse’s neck. A perfect replica of Kaiyan’s own face stared back, lips spreading into a jagged, mocking giggle. Kaiyan looked down, his expression entirely devoid of anger, hatred, or even the slightest trace of hesitation. He raised his hand.

Crunch!

Before Kaiyan could land the final blow, a blade drove deep through the corpse’s throat, pinning it to the stone floor. The corpse’s eyes snapped wide, body spasming in a violent, final convulsion before falling deathly still. Isaac pulled his sword free, the tip of the steel impaling a glossy black bead, the magician’s orb, the dark anchor that had commanded the puppet.

『You… you… How are you still moving? Why did the spell not affect you?』

The corpse’s eyes rolled toward Isaac, as if only just registering that another person stood in the room. Its eyes widened with frantic disbelief and bored into him. Those blue irises gradually bled of color, darkening until they gleamed pitch-black, the charred orbs spinning wildly within their sockets.

Then—

『Ah. I understand.』

The corpse suddenly murmured, its mouth twisting into a vicious, ragged sneer.

『Now that I look at you, you are—』

Before it could finish the sentence, Isaac brought his blade down, shattering the orb impaled upon it.

Crack!

A horrific, soul-piercing scream erupted from the corpse’s throat. The entire warehouse shuddered violently, as if struck by a massive earthquake, and the air surged around them with the raw force of a hurricane. Flames roared upward in a terrifying frenzy.

The corpse, which had moved with such hideous, unholy vitality only moments earlier, collapsed into a blackened, rotting heap. Then, as though decades of decay were compressed into a single, agonizing instant, the flesh withered, crumbled, and scattered into fine, gray powder. The powder settled on the floorboards, tracing the outline of a distinct sigil. Every magician possessed a unique mark, a signature of their power.

The violent wind sweeping through the inferno dispersed the dust almost immediately, but that brief, crystalline glimpse was enough to recognize whose sigil it was. Even someone entirely unfamiliar with the inner workings of the magical arts would have seen this mark at least once after serving at court for any length of time. It was an infamous seal: the mark of the leader of the court magicians, the Guildmaster who ruled the Magicians’ Guild with an iron hand.

The warehouse roof, walls, and pillars collapsed one after another, consumed by the voracious fire. Kaiyan stood with the few remaining bone fragments of the corpse at his feet, staring down at the scorched floor where the sigil had appeared.

Isaac took one hesitant step closer. Only then did Kaiyan turn his gaze toward him. Even now, his face remained as inscrutable and impassive as a marble statue.

“The orb…” Isaac’s voice was barely a whisper. “I should have shattered it sooner. I am sorry.”

Before this, Kaiyan had been forced to hack at the corpse’s neck again and again. Before this, he had been made to strike down one familiar face after another. Isaac lowered his gaze, his frame trembling with exhaustion. He was coated in layers of soot, ash, and dust, with angry, red burns scattered across his arms and face.

Kaiyan studied him with a clinical intensity. “What are you?”

“I am Lord Kaiyan’s bodyguard,” Isaac replied, his tone steady despite his trembling.

Kaiyan’s eyes narrowed by a fraction. He stared at Isaac as though searching for a flaw in his logic or a hidden motive. His lips parted for an instant, as though he might utter a command or a reproach, but he closed them again without a sound.

Isaac felt tears pricking at his eyes. In truth, he felt an overwhelming urge to weep. Perhaps if he simply surrendered to the tears, the suffocating pressure constricting his chest would finally ease. It was the sight of this man, standing alone and indifferent amid the vicious flames and swirling smoke as if none of the carnage could touch his soul, that unraveled him.

“I am Lord Kaiyan’s bodyguard, which means my purpose is to protect you. That is my sworn duty,” Isaac spoke slowly, enunciating every word with deliberate care. “I understand you are accustomed to operating alone and find it more comfortable. I also understand that you do not particularly desire an escort. But as long as I remain your bodyguard, I ask that you tell me your intentions. Tell me what you plan to do, where you intend to go, and what I can do to actually be of use to you.”

Kaiyan watched him in heavy, suffocating silence. Isaac still could not discern what thoughts lurked behind those cold, blue eyes. The prince might consider him presumptuous, or he might deem him insolent. He might raise his sword and cut him down where he stood for daring to speak so plainly, but Isaac no longer cared.

He turned his exhausted body away and began gathering the bone fragments scattered across the floor. Kaiyan might strike the instant Isaac exposed his back, but if the prince truly meant to kill him, Isaac knew he could struggle with all his might and still never escape.

Isaac methodically gathered every visible shard into a small, deliberate pile. He murmured a benediction, “May you find your way to a better place,” and turned away.

Kaiyan remained frozen in place, watching Isaac with that same unreadable, hollow expression. The flames had already reached his feet, licking greedily at the heels of his boots. The structural integrity of the warehouse was failing rapidly; the ceiling groaned as it began to cave in.

“We should leave,” Isaac said firmly. “I believe you need to rest.”

Kaiyan continued to look at him for a long, agonizing moment. In the end, the prince did not draw his sword.

Isaac waited in the stifling heat as the prince slid his blade back into its scabbard with a sharp click. While he waited, a stray tongue of flame caught the hem of his cloak, and he hurriedly slapped it out, the fabric smoldering.

Kaiyan strode through the fire without a flicker of concern.

Isaac followed him outside into the cool, biting air of the night.

The long night was finally ending.

The dawn of the new moon drew near.

***