An awkward silence hung in the air like smoke after a battlefield. The fifty-plus spies, all lined up in front of Josh Aratat, stared at him with the dull terror of rabbits caught in a torchlight. Not one of them spoke. Some trembled. Others exchanged subtle glances, each silently pleading for someone—anyone—to be the first to step forward. But no one did.
Josh, with a hand resting lightly on the hilt of his ornate kingly staff, sighed and tilted his head.
"So… fifty trained spies, and not a single mouth among you remembers how to speak?"
One spy—an older man with a thick moustache and an eye-patch that didn't seem to serve any real purpose—raised a hesitant finger.
"Actually, my Lord, I'm just a part-time spy. I mostly run errands and, uh… water plants."
Josh gave him a long, blank stare.
"…Get him out of my sight," he muttered.
The man fainted right there on the spot.
Josh turned to his generals and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. His mask was still up, but his tone had shifted from icy warlord to tired team leader managing a room full of underperforming interns.
"They've seen too much," he said quietly. "We can't let them report back. I'm thinking… memory wipe?"
He turned to the assassin-empath standing calmly beside him, her cloak fluttering gently in the breeze.
"Ralia Amia," he said, voice commanding. "Can you wipe their memories? Just today's events."
Ralia's eyes lit up, and a grin tugged at her lips.
"You finally need me for something?" she said, stepping forward with a spark in her voice. "I'm honored, My Lord Black Dragon. I won't let you down."
The spies started to fidget as she approached.
"What is she doing?"
"Wait, memory wipe? That's not part of the—"
"I should've listened to my mother and opened that bakery…"
Suddenly, one man bolted.
"Jeremy! No!" someone cried amongst the spies as his legs almost gave way to trepidation.
Jeremy, a sharp-eyed agent of Prince Jaden, leapt into the air with a burst of wind at his heels—Feather Walk, the legendary movement technique taught only to Jaden's inner circle. He soared up like a leaf caught on a breeze, his figure shimmering in the rising sun.
"I'll report back! You'll never catch—"
Josh didn't move much.
Just one slow breath.
And then, his aura flared like a sunstorm.
"I Am King," he said quietly, activating the powerful and legendary protocol that he had stumbled upon by a lucky chance.
His kingly awareness activated. His eyes locked onto Jeremy's form in midair. With a fluid motion, he raised his kingly staff, its golden runes lighting up like molten veins.
Then—
Boom.
A crack like thunder tore through the clearing.
Jeremy was struck from the sky mid-flight. Not stabbed, not wounded—obliterated. Smashed into the ground like a swatted fly, his body turning into a sad, wet pancake of blood and regret. His boots landed fifteen feet away from the rest of him.
The entire spy line gasped.
One man hiccupped and fainted.
A young spy near the back burst into tears.
"I only joined last week!"
Ralia gave a playful shrug.
"Well… that makes my job easier."
The rest of the spies didn't even think of resisting after that. Ralia calmly walked past them one by one, placing two fingers to each forehead. With a shimmer of empathic energy, memories flickered, warped, and vanished like chalk in the rain.
It was a curious sight—hardened spies blinking dumbly, mumbling to themselves, bumping into each other like dazed chickens.
Far beyond the clearing, hidden behind a tangle of thornbrush and thick undergrowth, three figures lay low, barely breathing.
They were the last of Prince Jaden's contingency—a trio of elite watchers draped in cloaks woven from blackleaf silk, nearly invisible against the shadows of the manticore forest. Alongside them crouched a handful of other spies from rival regions who had also hung back, cautious enough to delay approaching when the others had foolishly stepped forward.
They had been watching from a distance, but distance did little to dull the horror.
They had seen everything.
Jeremy—arrogant, fast, always the braggart of their cell—had launched into the sky like a god on wings, confident in his Feather Walk, the prince's proudest signature technique. And then… he was just gone.
No scream. No prolonged struggle. Just gone. One moment he was in the air, defying gravity, and the next, he was red mist and a single blood-slicked boot.
A hush had fallen over the hidden observers. No one moved.
Then one of them—a younger spy from Region 11—whispered with wide eyes, "Did… did that staff just think him into the ground?"
"Shut up," one of Jaden's remaining spies hissed, but his voice trembled. "Shut up and don't move…"
Another spy beside him nudged him violently.
"I'm not waiting here for my organs to become soup!"
And then, as though they all shared one terrified mind, they ran.
They didn't sneak. They didn't tiptoe. They didn't whisper.
They ran.
Branches whipped across their faces as they tore through the underbrush, thorns catching on their cloaks. One spy tripped on a root, fell flat on his face, scrambled up without dignity, and kept running, leaving his hood behind.
Another hurdled a log with such desperation, he forgot his silence technique and crashed headfirst into a bush of stinger-leaves. He yelped—loudly—but still ran. He would rather be stung for a week than turned into artistic blood splatter.
Their breath came out in frantic gasps. None dared look back.
Behind them, the memory-wiped spies were bumping into each other like drunk dancers at a silent ball, completely unaware of the supernatural slaughter that had almost occurred.
But those running remembered.
Every flash of power. Every word Josh Aratat had spoken.
Every smirk from that unnervingly calm woman with the memory-wiping hands.
They didn't know where they were running to. Only that they had to get far away from that man with the kingly staff—the one who declared himself king and turned their comrade into airborne stew.
One of Jaden's spies, a veteran named Rowin, hissed between ragged breaths,
"Forget reporting—I'm quitting! I'm going to live in a mountain and raise goats!"
"Shut up and keep running!" the leader growled. "Report first. Then goats."
Behind them, birds exploded from the trees. A beast in the deeper woods roared, startled by the frantic stampede of fleeing men.
But still they ran.
Because in that moment, even the wild creatures of the Manticore Mountains weren't as terrifying as the calm smile of Josh Aratat, the man who didn't even need to chase them.
He had said it himself.
"Let them go. Regardless of what happens, their activities are futile… in the face of absolute strength."
Those words echoed in their heads like thunder.
And so they ran.
Because some truths strike deeper than blades.
And the truth was this:
Josh Aratat wasn't just a warrior.
He was a walking declaration.
Josh turned to his generals, just as Conrad Stan's hand reached instinctively for his sword.
"Should I go after the runners?"
Josh waved him off coolly.
"Let them go. Strength is like the sun. No matter how far they run, it still burns their backs."
The line of generals exchanged glances.
"That was… poetic."
"Yeah, that's going in the quote book."
"Right under 'Don't talk to me until I've had my morning manticore roast.'"
Meanwhile, the memory-wiped spies wandered off into El'dan City, dazed and muttering.
"Why are we at the foot of a mountain?"
"I think I came here for… milk?"
"I was supposed to marry someone today… I think?"
Josh turned back toward Ralia, who had just finished the last one. Her shoulders were relaxed now, her eyes warm with pride.
He placed a gloved hand gently on her shoulder.
"Good work, Ralia."
Ralia blinked. Then blushed—bright red like a beet dropped in the snow.
"T-thank you, Lord Josh."
She looked like she'd just been knighted by the emperor himself.
"Alright," Josh said as he turned toward the waiting steeds. "Mount up. We ride."
They climbed onto their Varnakian war steeds—proud, battle-hardened beasts whose hooves struck the ground like drums of thunder.
Ralia, as always, chose to ride with Conrad, clinging lightly to his back while hiding her continued blush in the folds of his cloak.
And with that, they disappeared into the misty horizon, leaving behind a group of fifty confused men, a bloody crater where Jeremy used to be, and a morning in El'dan City that no one—not even the sun—could properly explain.