Chapter 49: A Leader’s Burden Burns Hotter Than Any Flame

Aden was jolted awake by distant explosions and Lorelei’s arm that lingered a second longer on his chest as she ’woke’ him up.

He sat up quickly and nearly collided with Lorelei’s face. Pushing her head to the side with annoyance, he looked upwards with furrowed eyebrows.

“What’s happening?”

Lorelei sat next to him and began tying his hair into a large bun. “The Princess has found us.”

Aden’s breath hitched. His hands clenched beneath his robes. “Where is she?”

Lorelei’s hair fell on his chest as she whispered into his ear, “She couldn’t make it…”

Aden’s eyebrows furrowed as he took to his feet, letting the cold floor disperse Lorelei’s body heat.

“I don’t have time for jokes,” Aden said, his fingers brushing the rock sediments from his hair. “What’s the situation.”

Lorelei’s hand reluctantly left the position where Aden laid as she walked close to the exit.

“The Princess didn’t come personally. However, she sent some hypocritical Saintesses to exterminate us.”

Aden heaved a sigh. Somehow being surrounded with beings who had the abilities to cause him and his new followers severe internal harm sounded less scary than being confronted by the Princess herself.

’Been a while since I’ve used Resonance. This might be a good time to—’

Aden’s thoughts screeched to a halt as he looked around. Apart from Lorelei who leaned against the exit with a strange expression, his Vassals were nowhere to be found.

“Lorelei,” Aden called out quietly.

“Yes, Master?” Lorelei smiled.

“Where are the Vassals—!”

Aden suddenly fell to his knees with a pained groan before he could complete his words. He clenched his chest tightly and veins bulged on his neck and forehead.

Strands of saliva fell down his lips and dripped down on the floor, but Lorelei’s hands stopped them from being contaminated.

“I’m sorry I didn’t ask you for permission before sending them out, but it would seem one of them has been severely injured or killed.”

Aden slapped away Lorelei’s helping hands and struggled to his feet. “We’ll talk about your managerial techniques after this. Where are they now?”

Lorelei bowed. “They’re twenty miles from here.”

Aden didn’t waste any time. The air twisted around him as he blurred out the exit.

Before he jumped out the opening in the roof, he looked back at Lorelei who stood directly behind him.

Aden’s voice was dripping in skepticism as he asked, “Why didn’t you go and defend against the Saintesses?”

Lorelei twirled her red hair. “I wanted to fight alongside you…”

Aden’s expression grew tired. Sometimes he wondered if he could still be considered sane by letting this walking bag of toxicity accompany him.

“Let’s just go.”

Lorelei hummed excitedly and jumped after him.

Apart from the wind that tore through his eardrums and the explosions that gradually grew louder, no other sound made their way to Aden’s ears.

As they closed in on the battleground, Aden felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. He winced in pain and his eyes automatically began searching the space for the culprit.

“Lorelei, make sure no one does any damage to the Vassals,” Aden ordered as he stared into the distance with a hardened expression.

Lorelei’s face showed surprise. “But Master, that’s…”

Her voice trailed off as he shot her a glare.

“You made a foolish decision, it is only natural you handle the aftermath.”

Before she could respond, Aden flashed forward.

Lorelei stared with a dark expression as he rapidly closed the distance with four women in blindingly white armor floating several feet off the earth, aerially surrounding a sickly man who was leaking black blood.

“I’ll make you proud, Master,” she muttered before dashing sideways.

Aden landed between Zero and the Saintesses, the force of his arrival kicking up a screen of grey dust. His shoulder throbbed in sync with the gash on Zero’s arm, a constant, stinging reminder of their connection.

The four Saintesses didn’t flinch. They looked down at him with an expressionless, sterile calm, their white armor reflecting the harsh sun so intensely it made Aden’s eyes water.

“The Anomaly,” one of them said, her voice sounding like several people speaking at once. “You’ve finally crawled out of your hole.”

Aden ignored her, looking back at Zero. The man was barely standing, his metallic skin cracked and leaking that viscous black fluid.

“Zero. Get the others and retreat toward the lower tunnels,” Aden commanded.

“But… Lord… you…” Zero wheezed, his voice sounding like grinding gears.

“That wasn’t a suggestion. Go.”

Zero bowed his head and signaled to the shadows behind the rubble. The other nineteen Vassals, sensing Aden’s proximity, began to move with a renewed, desperate speed, slipping into the darkness of the sewer grates.

One of the Saintesses raised a hand. A shard of solid light materialized above her palm, humming with a frequency that made the air smell like burnt ozone.

“Nothing unclean leaves this sector,” she stated.

She flicked her wrist. The shard shot forward, aimed directly at the retreating woman and child.

Aden didn’t think. He felt the Resonance in his core surge, cold and jagged. He blurred, appearing in the path of the shard. He reached out and caught the solid beam of light with his bare hand.

The heat was agonizing. The smell of his own burning flesh filled his nose, and a sharp, stinging pain flared in the chests of all twenty Vassals simultaneously.

With a low growl, Aden squeezed. The light shard shattered into harmless sparks.

“You speak a lot about cleanliness,” Aden said, his hand smoking as the Adaptive Resonance began to rapidly knit the charred skin back together. “But all I see is four women bullying a group of dying refugees.”

The Saintesses finally showed a flicker of emotion—irritation.

“You shall be kept alive as per the order of the Royal family,” the leader said. “But that does not mean you have to be in prime condition.”

The four of them moved in unison, forming a diamond shape in the air above him. The sunlight around them began to bend, focusing into four concentrated pillars of heat that converged on Aden’s position.

Aden clenched his teeth as he forced himself to look upwards. The blinding light caused his eyes to turn teary, and his flesh dehydrated.

He looked around quickly and immediately ran through the barrier of heat that automatically formed as the blast shot downwards.

He screamed in pain as he fell on the other side of the barrier. The thick amount of Resonance he’d surrounded himself with alleviated the pain to an acceptable degree.

As he turned back, he saw the Saintesses suprsied faces, but his face paled when he realized he was still dangerously close to the attack range.

“Shit!”

He took to his feet and dashed forward, but his legs felt like they were made of lead. The heat from the barrier had been more than a superficial burn; it had cooked the air in his lungs and strained his Adaptive Resonance to its current limit.

The four pillars of light didn’t just hit the ground, they merged, creating a localized solar flare that sent a shockwave of thermal energy rippling outward.

Aden was thrown off his feet. He skidded across the jagged rubble, his robes catching fire. He rolled, desperately patting out the flames, but the physical toll was manifesting in the worst way possible. Miles away, Zero and the others had collapsed, and their shared exhaustion hit Aden like a physical weight.

“The Anomaly is resilient,” the leader of the Saintesses noted. She descended slowly, her boots hovering inches above the scorched glass Aden had just been lying on. “But resilience is not immunity.”

She didn’t use a beam this time. She drew a blade of solid, condensed light from her waist. The air around the weapon hummed, vibrating at a frequency that made Aden’s vision blur.

Aden struggled to stand, his left arm hanging limp. The skin on his palm was still trying to knit itself back together from catching that first shard, but the process was slowing.

’Damn it… I haven’t fought long enough for the Resonance to map their energy,’ Aden thought, his heart hammering against his ribs. ’It needs more data. I need to get hit without dying.’

It was a suicidal calculation.

The Saintess blurred.

Aden’s instincts screamed. He tilted his head just as the light-blade whistled past his ear, the heat of the passing blade cauterizing the very air. He tried to counter with a punch, but she was faster, her armored knee slamming into his gut.

He coughed up a spray of black bile, his body folding in on itself.

The other three Saintesses closed in, landing in a triangle around him. They didn’t strike immediately; instead, they raised their palms, weaving a translucent cage of light ribbons that pinned Aden’s limbs to the ground.

Aden screamed in pain as the poles pierced into his arms and feet.

His Resonance gradually thinned as they protected his innards from being roasted, but the pain was clear.

“Master!” Lorelei’s voice was a distant shriek. He could see her struggling against the two weaker Saintesses in the distance, her amber energy being burnt away faster than she could weave them.

Aden’s head hit the dirt. The Sync with the Vassals was now a chorus of twenty people screaming in his head. The pain was so overwhelming it was becoming a dull, rhythmic throb.

’Not enough…’ he thought, his eyes half-closed. ’I need… the frequency.’

The lead Saintess stood over him, her blade pointed at his throat. “Yield. Your body is already failing. If you continue to resist, the feedback will kill your followers before we even reach the carriage.”

Aden looked up at her, a bloody, terrifyingly calm smile spreading across his face.

“Almost… got it,” he rasped.

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