Chapter 47: The Twenty Vassals Of Lord Aden

The constant dripping of water echoed through the empty castle, at least it would’ve been a peace–invoking moment if not for the unnerving choking sounds and wet coughs that shattered the promise of peace.

Aden’s hand was still holding down on Lorelei’s throat and it would be no surprise if his hand print would be permanently engraved on her scarred neck.

“First,” Aden started. “Tell me everything you know about Silas— no, tell me how you knew my name.”

Lorelei’s eyes nearly rolled to the back as his hands unconsciously tightened around her neck.

This question had been at the back of his mind and try as he may, the overwhelming feeling of anxiety and fear never truly left his body.

“It was…from the ring,” Lorelei spoke, tears running down her eyes.

Aden’s eyes glowed with a cool blue as he looked at her deeply.

For a second he didn’t say anything, and Lorelei struggled for her life with every passing second.

“Continue,” He ordered calmly.

Gasping half–way, she obeyed.

The… name…” she wheezed, her voice a thin thread of sound. “I got it… From your mind.”

Aden’s grip didn’t loosen, but his eyes narrowed. “You went through my mind?”

“Not.. really… Your soul identity bore the name: Aden, and… I was instructed to follow the first Sun, who’s… name would be Aden.”

A chill that didn’t come from the cellar ran up Aden’s spine. He didn’t know if he was imagining it, but two hands gleaming with endless darkness manifested before him, slowly reaching for Lorelei’s neck.

Lorelei’s eyes whitened and she began spurting white from every orifice.

Aden’s expression grew pale and his arms automatically released themselves from her neck.

Lorelei collapsed, her body racking with violent coughs as she curled into a ball on the limestone floor.

He stood up, his eyes shaking violently but hidden expertly by his silver hair that casted a long, jagged shadow toward the iron door where the twenty Vassals waited in terrified silence. He looked at the golden vial in his hand and back at the door, his fingers curling around the container.

Lorelei regained her bearings quickly and knelt before Aden with her head bowed. There was no trace of relief at her lack of retaliation, if anything, it only brought more questions.

Aden pressed his hands to his forehead and wiped the cold sweat that had unknowingly formed between them.

“Tell the Vassals to come in.”

Lorelei’s head snapped upwards, a shine growing within them before she turned towards the rock–shut wall behind them.

Aden quickly spat traces of black and red immediately she reached the door and mumbled something under her breath.

’This is getting unbearable,’ he thought.

The hunger burned through him and scraped at the very core of his being. The golden contents of the vial looked more and more heavenly as time passed, but his instincts held him back each time he threatened to deviate.

The low rumbling of the door caused Aden’s eyes to turn in that direction.

A glimmer of hope flashed in his eyes as he waited for their reveal, but was quickly left dissapointed as the first figure stumbled through.

He expected Vassals who looked like the fierce warriors of a God’s personal guard. The hope that maybe, just maybe, these people were the key to his survival was strangled in his throat.

The first came out and it wasn’t a warrior. It was a man who looked more like a corpse than a servant, his skin the color of wet parchment, stretched so thin over his ribs that Aden could see the frantic, irregular thrum of a heart that shouldn’t be beating.

Then came the others.

A woman clutching a child whose eyes had already filmed over with silver cataracts.

An old man whose hands were fused into claws. Twenty shadows of human beings, all of them vibrating with the same sickly frequency as the Ring on Aden’s finger.

They didn’t look at him with love or the disturbing feverish gaze the bartender or Lorelei had, they looked at him with the terrifying, mindless hunger of a drowning man looking at a piece of straw.

“Master…” the first man wheezed, falling to his knees so hard the sound of bone hitting stone echoed in the silence.

Aden took a step back, his hand tightening around the golden vial until it threatened to crack.

The Heavenly scent of the Essence was a scream in his nostrils, tempting him to drink it all and leave these husks to the dust.

’This is the Silver God’s army?’ Aden thought, his lip curling in a mix of disgust and cold, sharp pity. ’I’m fucked. These are less than collection of broken tools.’

The hunger in his core flared, a black flame that wanted to consume the vial and then consume these people just to stop the pain. But he looked at the ring on his finger, then at the dying man at his feet.

“Lorelei,” Aden’s voice was a jagged rasp, his eyes tracking the black-and-red smear he had just spat onto the floor. “What is the meaning of this?”

He held the vial over the stone basin. The golden liquid shimmered, reflecting in the eyes of the twenty Vassals who had now all fallen to their knees, a silent, pathetic congregation.

Lorelei coughed lightly. “Do not be decieved by their appearances, Lord. These people served Silas Redwyn ever since he was a child— hundreds of years before he ascended to godhood, and they had never failed him since.”

Aden looked at the confident shine in the Third Vassal and back at the pathetic bunch. “Your foolishness must have gone up a notch if you think I’d believe that load of crap you’re giving me.”

Lorelei merely bowed her head and let a smirk form on her face.

Her hands tapped on the back of the man who greeted Aden initially, and even that small gesture threatened to cause his flesh to break apart.

“Zero, pick that piece of rock in that corner,” she gestured to the far end of the cellar shrouded in darkness. “Bring it here and shatter it.”

She raised her dirty finger. “All of this should be done within ten seconds.”

Aden’s eyebrows raised subtly and that flash of hope reignited within him.

A wet cough left the man’s lips as he struggled upwards. Aden’s hands hovered over the basin more closely with squinted eyes.

Aden didn’t pull his hand away from the basin. He watched the man named Zero with the cold, calculating eye of a jeweler looking at a cracked diamond.

Zero didn’t move with the grace of a warrior. He moved with the agonizing stiffness of a machine that had been rusted for a century. Every step was accompanied by the sound of grinding cartilage and a wet, wheezing rattle in his chest.

One second passed, then two.

The man reached the darkness of the far corner. His hand, trembling and skeletal, closed around a jagged chunk of reinforced limestone, which was a piece of the castle’s foundation that had fallen during a cave-in. It was the size of a man’s torso and likely weighed as much as Zero did.

Four seconds. Five.

Zero didn’t lift the rock with his muscles. As his fingers touched the stone, the air around his hand began to warp. The sickly, pale skin of his arm didn’t bulge; instead, it turned a translucent, bruised silver.

Aden’s eyes widened. He didn’t feel a surge of mana or a flare of typical Resonance. He felt a vacuum.

Seven seconds.

Zero didn’t walk back. He simply leaned forward, his center of gravity shifting in a way that should have sent him face-first into the dirt. Instead, the space between the corner and the basin seemed to shrink. There was no sound of footsteps, only a low hum that made Aden’s teeth ache.

Nine seconds.

Zero stood before the stone slab, the massive rock held effortlessly in one hand. Contrary to Aden’s expectations, he didn’t wind up for a strike, he simply closed his fist.

With as little force as Zero exerted, the rock exploded, but the aftermath was even stranger.

There was no explosion of dust, no flying shards. The rock collapsed in on itself, crushed into a fine, grey powder that leaked through Zero’s fingers like sand in an hourglass.

Ten seconds.

Zero collapsed back to his knees, a fresh trail of black blood leaking from his nose. He looked like he was about to disintegrate, but his eyes, clouded and grey, were fixed on Aden with a terrifying, hollow loyalty.

The pathetic bunch hadn’t moved. They remained in their grotesque, broken postures, but the air had unknowingly changed.

Aden stared at the pile of dust at Zero’s feet. His fingers, still hovering over the golden vial, twitched.

It wasn’t a show of strength like he predicted. It was more like a show of utility.

“I see,” Aden murmured, his voice losing its edge of mockery.

“They aren’t warriors,” Aden realized, looking at Lorelei. “They’re conductors that’ll just take my power and make it theirs, no?”

He looked at the twenty broken shells. They were a gamble. If he fed them, he’d have a shield that could crush mountains. If he didn’t, he’d be a God of a graveyard

Aden hesitated for a momen, then tilted the vial.

“Zero,” he said, his voice cold and commanding. “If you die before I find a way out of here, I’ll kill the rest of them myself just to balance the books. Do you understand?”

The man bowed his head until it touched the dust of the rock he had just shattered. “Thy… will… be done.”

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