The messenger took a deep breath before speaking.
"Lich King Mitas reached out and said that he will be completely pulling out of the region to focus their efforts on the south. Of the three liches inside of Palatine at the time of its destruction, one perished permanently, one is still in recovery but apparently is screaming from his phylactery, and the last resurrected successfully, but died permanently shortly thereafter while claiming that the grim reaper was coming for him.
"Due to the other recent permanent deaths of liches in the Mancean region and this most recent incident, they believe they are being hunted. Lich King Mitas has opted to pull his forces back into one area to keep a better watch over them or else he fears a rebellion. He claims he could quash a rebellion quite easily, but reducing the number of undead under his rule would only work to harm Inmortuae as a whole."
Emperor Carnet sat in seething anger for a few moments before giving his command, "Tell that bastard that I want what is mine and that will be the end of our arrangements. I'm officially giving the orders for a full-scale retreat back to Carnet land. Order every commander to bring all the slaves and whatever troops remain. If someone is trying to hunt us, we will fight them on our own terms and they will have to go through the slaves first!"
The throne was shattered as the emperor slammed his fist into it, but the messenger understood and ran out of the throne room as fast as possible. He was able to keep his life and that was all that mattered to him for now!
…
Emperor Carnet entered an underground facility via magical elevator. He was so far below the top soil that he was positive no one knew of the location of this place besides him. There were others that knew of its existence, but they were all trapped here, until they died and were turned into experimental materials themselves.
"Where are we at with the progress? Have you figured out how to integrate the materials I gave you into my body yet?" The emperor asked as soon as he found the researcher he was looking for.
She was scarred and maimed. Much of her long blue hair only came from her head in tufts, her legs were completely gone just below the knees and she moved around using a magic wheelchair. There was evidence that her mouth had been sown shut multiple times, but it was currently able to open.
Her eyelids were held open with hooks and her eyes themselves were bloodshot to the point that her sclera were almost pure red. She wore rags for clothing, and evidence of torture and whip lashes could be seen all across her body, some even leaking fresh blood.
"I'm sorry Your Majesty, but we, no I, need more time! The process of replacing your organs with more powerful ones isn't the issue, it's the mana compatibility! We have been successful in placing organs into other bodies with full function and no rejection on a cellular level, but no matter what we try, the mana compatibility issue is unable to be solved!" She bent over in her chair while crying.
Before the Emperor could speak, she interjected, "If His Highness would allow me, please let me close my eyes to sleep. I'm sure that if I can get rest just for a little while, I'll be able to solve the problem within a few years, no two years! Please, just let me sleep!"
The emperor slowly approached the disheveled and small blue haired woman in the chair before gently using his hand to lift her chin to look into her eyes. However, his expression soon darkened and he slapped her so hard that she was sent flying out of her chair and into the nearby wall.
"I THOUGHT I SAID TO HAVE IT FINISHED THE NEXT TIME I VISITED! I WANT WHAT I DESERVE! WHY SHOULD OTHERS HAVE SOMETHING THAT I DON'T? YOU PROMISED YOU COULD DELIVER! BUT EVERY TIME IT'S ONE EXCUSE AFTER ANOTHER!"
He stopped shouting as he walked closer to where she fell as he lifted her up by the neck, "I provide you food. I provide you water. I even provide nutrient supplements to keep you at peak performance! This is how you repay me? By providing nothing and asking for sleep and more time!?!"
He then let go of her neck, only to grab her by the knee stubs with both hands, hanging her upside down. "Fine, you can sleep, but if you don't have what's mine for me by the time I come back, I will personally watch over the project from then on!"
After that, he crushed both knees within his hands before violently ripping the flesh and bone off of her body. She fell to the floor head first. Between the pain and landing directly on her head, she fell unconscious almost instantly.
As he left the room and entered another area of the facility he yelled at one of the workers there. "Make sure she doesn't die! As soon as she comes to, get her back to work!"
A creepy man in white bloodied robes with long black gloves bowed to the emperor, "Right away Your Majesty."
…
Meanwhile just minutes after Kayn released the arrow, he placed as many powerful barriers around himself as possible and dove straight into the secondary explosions happening all around the city. He didn't have much mana left and even he was in danger of losing his life to the catastrophe he caused.
As fast as he could, he launched himself straight to where all of the 6th stagers had been gathered as the explosion went off. Using Mana Sense, which was very inaccurate at the moment, but still did its job, he snatched the mana cores of every 6th stage he could find that wasn't already completely deteriorated.
Within just 10 seconds of flying into the city and grabbing nine cores, he was already on the verge of losing his life due to the fire. Even though it was his own mana that started the fires, the current burning was not his own mana. With a final burst, he launched himself out of the explosion zone to fresher and cleaner air. It was still ridiculously hot, but he was able to ward off the heat with just his body.
Kayn examined the cores he had taken to see how badly they were damaged and if they would still be usable only to find that one of them was actually a phylactery. Without another thought, he used another portion of his dwindling mana to inject Extinction Flames within, killing the lich almost instantly.
Kayn was relying on his wings to keep him afloat and even then, his physical body was almost as exhausted as his mana core was. He wanted to go back into the city to see if he could recover any more 6th stage cores or the SSS-class rune beast stone core, but they would be long destroyed by now no matter how resilient they were.
He knew that if he was caught within that main blast, there would have been nothing left of him. How the cores he found weren't completely destroyed was already a miracle. He shoved the degrading cores into his Void Loop and started off into the distance.
He truly miscalculated the overall destruction that would be caused by the initial and then secondary explosions. It wouldn't be surprising if he killed some innocents that were being used as slaves in the surrounding towns and villages. Tears dripped from his eyes, but Wrath was still in control, justifying his every action as righteous revenge and that he was giving those people true freedom.
Knowing that somehow Kindness was slipping in again, he forcefully pushed down his emotions and let Wrath lead his thinking. Just as he was shaking his head of all unnecessary thoughts, he noticed two things flying through the air out of the corner of his eye due to the effects of the All-Seeing Eye.
There were two souls, liches most likely, skating through the air towards their phylacteries to revive. It seemed an automatic process as the two liches were in ghostly forms with their heads dangling. Kayn didn't know how, but he guessed they were somehow unconscious even in soul form.
Grunting through the exhaustion and pain, Kayn quickly caught up to the two souls and injected large amounts of Purging Light into the souls as they continued flying back to the phylacteries. This caused both to start screaming at the top of their lungs, but only one woke up. She turned around to see who had somehow attacked her, only to witness a figure draped in all black with a black hood.
"AHHH THE GOD OF DEATH! THE GRIM REAPER IS AFTER ME!" She screamed and launched off even faster to revive, hoping to escape the harbinger of the final death.
Kayn was of half a mind to chase after the two ghostly soul specters, but he didn't have the mana for it nor did he know what he would find on the other end. His only option was to pump more Purging Light elemental mana into them and hope that it would finish the job.
The mana Kayn used to enter the city and then just now used to target these liches was supposed to go towards escaping the area as fast as possible, but that was no longer an option. Instead, he fell to the ground and melded into the shadows.
The safest place he could rest and recover was within the shadow realm currently. Pulling out the Wanderer's Villa might give his position away if someone with keen senses were searching the area though. Kayn calmed his mind and plotted out his next actions.
First, he would remove all of the pests from Mancean land, then he would move south to help the tribes warring down there.