Glendaria’s monstrous, pearlescent teeth loomed mere inches away from my face.

Healing Celes fully, repeatedly using the repulsor ring and wielding the Deathstorm Ward took a lot out of me. As the Captain’s maw approached me millimeter by millimeter I felt that I was drained, completely out of Qi, screwed. The Pharmacist didn’t give up. During the last few seconds, as time became suspended by the acceleration of the fractal engine in my mind, my soul-companion had been reaching out to our ten oath-keepers. The Dantian connection, like control of the servitors, didn't seem to be limited that much by distance.

At near-instantaneous velocity, likely equivalent to that of the speed of light, the Pharmacist pulled on the Dantian-forged strings of the people tied to us. Arianna and Avidius couldn't give me as much, since they were hurt badly and needed their Qi to recover. However the seven castle servants and the Magistrate were a whole other matter - they weren’t here for the fight and didn’t get terribly injured.

The Magistrate likely thought himself safe and secure in his office. I was the one who took his place, facing his treacherous guard, about to die in his stead. Via the invisible string of Qi stretching between us I pulled on his oath and on his Dantian with absolute conviction, based on the fact that I was about to perish.

I felt, perceived Lord Manning sitting in his office, tiredly gripping his head. He yelped, slamming head-first into the table as I drained his life and power in sheer need to survive the next few seconds. Nearly all of his Qi poured into me across several hundred meters of space, instantly bypassing thick walls of stone, wood and iron as if they weren’t even there.

The Citadel Key on my finger flared with renewed brilliance. An efficacious repulsor pulse slammed into Glendaria Xericson, shattering the scales on his body. He flew backwards across the entire cavern, colliding with the back wall, marking his flight with a pearly spray that scintillated across the gap between us. He crumpled down into the fighting arena filled with dummies that Arianna so kindly offered me to beat up earlier.

With the Magistrate’s vast focus and power, wielding the Key ring, I activated all of the dummy servitors and ordered them to attack Glendaria. A hundred faceless mannequins turned in the direction of the captain, rushing towards him all at once as he slowly rose to his feet. They kicked and punched him at full strength, pulverising more of his pearlescent scales. He fought violently, but the fighting dummy servitors were persistent, designed to be hit again and again. They crowded him like ants, engulfing him in a mountain of squirming vaguely-human shaped mannequins. A minute passed, then another.

I exhaled, thinking that it was over. Enormous ghostly wings suddenly sprouted through the pile of dummies. With a supersonic detonation of displaced air the dummies flew outwards and the Captain of the guard was rushing at me once again, his burning, orange eye focused on ending me.

How in the hells was this bastard still at it? As he flew towards me I stared at his armoured body, trying to determine where his servitor’s beast core was hidden. There! I finally saw it with my Qi-infused eyes. A bright star shone on his chest. It was priorly hidden beneath the layers of scales and the attack of the dummies had finally exposed it. His polished beastcore gemstone was hanging on a gold necklace.

“Ludj! Bite that core!” I screamed, pointing at the winged Captain heading towards me. My servitor friend unfolded himself from the gold lantern hidden within my armour.

Power from my oath-keepers poured into me from all directions. Time slowed to a crawl. A green hammer of repulsion flashed from my Citadel ring and struck against the winged alligator like a freight train. In the instant when he was suspended in the perfect equilibrium of two opposing forces, within a mere arm’s reach from me I created the Pharmacist’s ghost. I intersected my ghostly fist right into his head and closed it. A painful electrical pulse disrupted, shocked all of the neurons in the Captain’s mind, momentarily disabling him.

He wasn’t able to fight back or move a muscle as Ludj bit through the servitor core on his chest. The gemstone of incredible power and it's containing mechanism shattered in the teeth of my gardener.

The Captain screamed as the connection between him and his servitor tore. His ghostly wings disintegrated, blown away into fading plumes of silver smoke.

The repulsor force threw the servitor-less man into the forest of arms and they engulfed, entangled him, binding him to the floor. A muscular, armless, human figure revealed itself as the pearlescent scales started to flake off him, breaking up into colorful sparks.

I looked around.

I was the only person in the entire castle remaining on my feet. Through my connection I knew that the Magistrate and the servants had passed out from the massive Qi drain I had inflicted upon them with the vows.

I slowly approached the bound Captain, my celesteel-armoured boots clinking on the stone floor. I winced slightly with every step, trying very hard not to show that I was about to pass out from the pain in my chest. I turned my frown into a hate-filled, all-piercing gaze, catching onto the dark thoughts that danced in the back of my mind.

[Consume. Devour. Kill.]

"Captain Glendaria Xericson, I presume?" I loomed over the bound, armless, bleeding man. He made a small nod, squinting at me with one eye.

"I am Baroness Ash Sparks-Manning, fiancee of Arianna Manning!" I announced, putting Qi into my words so that they reached across the entire cavern.

"B-baroness?" He choked. "There hasn't been a Baron in the Gold city in six hundred years! Not since the decimation of the warring clans…"

"Be silent, renegade!” I barked with an echoing gale. “You and your men are in violation of your contracts with the Manning estate. I hereby accuse you of treason against the Magisterium!"

The Captain blinked at me, looking stupefied. He had expected to face a weakling nobody, but instead was confronted with a powerful Baroness.

"As the holder of the Magisterium Citadel Master Key, and the highest Authority in this castle." I flashed the emerald ring at his face with a growl. "I hereby find you all guilty! Your punishment will be immediate decapitation and the execution of your kin down to the fifth generation!"

"What…?!" The Captain choked, staring at the emerald ring and then back at me, sweating.

"Justice carrying-servitors will be immediately dispatched from the Citadel to carry out the deed."

The bound men gasped in shock.

Glendaria paled at my words. He knew what the Winter palace’s Deathstorm Ward could do at full power. Arianna told me earlier that the palace could indeed dispatch servitor hunters.

“Murrz!” I barked. “Place this miserable traitor’s head in your mouth!”

Ludj stepped from behind me and opened his ghastly mouth over the Captain’s head, silver teeth glinting.

“Any last words, Captain?” I inquired, leaning down to the desperate-looking man.

“B-baroness…” He whimpered, his prior unbreakable resolve suddenly gone.

“Yeeees?” I smirked viciously.

"Please! Please don't hurt my wife and daughter!” He begged, staring at Mr. Murr’s grotesque maw. He saw the ease with which my ghostly gardener bit through his servitor’s beast core.

"And why should I not claim the lives of your kin, Captain Xericson?” I hissed menacingly. “You have broken your oath of allegiance and attacked two noble Mannings tonight! You have spilled the blood of my bodyguards! Justice must…"

"I'll do anything! Please! My family and I have been forced into obedience by the Emissary of the Hidden Hand! They placed a two hundred-star servitor-killer under my home! Take my worthless life, but please… spare, protect the lives of my wife and daughter! I beg of you, Baroness! My family is not responsible for my sins!"

With the Captain's confession the tide broke. One by one his men declared their confessions of treason to me, begging me to spare their lives, crying for protection of their kin. Familial bonds were strong in the Gold city and Clint had used them to turncoat the Magistrate's men.

Arianna slowly rose from the ground, cradling her shattered hand. She limped to where I stood.

“Hells! Qi-ssing bastard broke my arm and cracked my ring,” she spat.

"Your oaths to the Magistrate are thus nullified! You and your men will swear a new oath of absolute obedience to me, Glendaria! My fiancee Arianna will bind it." I uttered. "All of your families will be relocated to my Citadel and will also swear an oath of allegiance to me!"

Glendaria nodded, tears running from his intact eye. He had no idea what he just signed up for. This oath was the one I would not let him escape from.

. . .

Lying on the floor, beneath the yellow stalactites of the armoury cavern, Captain Xendaria sang the vows of allegiance, becoming Xendaria-Sparks in exchange for a celesteel knife which I had placed on his chest.

“Are any of your men capable of reattaching arms?” I inquired, glancing at his extremely injured, profusely bleeding body. I was quite surprised how long he stayed conscious and focused even though his arms were cut off and he was missing an eye. Immortals were tough bastards. The Kiss of Celesteel was barely affecting him.

“Y-yes, m-my Baroness,” He muttered. “Lazarus Jun is a Field Surgeon Barber. He can sew my arms back on with his kit.”

Lazarus was the second person I bound with the obedience contract after Captain Xendaria. He rushed into the barracks and returned with a Surgeon Barber’s kit.

“Do you have any painkillers in there?” I ground out quietly as he passed by me.

“Yes, your excellency.” The Surgeon bowed, producing a tonic from his bag. I handed the tonic to Arianna. She gulped half of it greedily and in moments a relaxed smile spread across her face.

She glanced at me as she relocated the cracked emerald ring to her left hand. “Here, tonic up. I can see you’re hurting.”

She handed me the pain-numbing bottle. I stared at her.

“What?”

“Your behavior is very sus right now,” I muttered.

“What in Qi-ss is ‘sus’?”

“You’re being suspiciously nice.” I pointed out. “Offering me half of your painkiller bottle.”

Arianna glared at me.

“Ah, there we go. That’s more like the Arianna I know,” I grinned and downed the tonic.

My fiancee’s glare intensified.

I relaxed as most of the pain in my chest faded. A bit of happiness filled me from within. It wasn’t anywhere as good as the serenity field courtesy of Celes. I briefly wondered if there was cocaine in this bottle or something else awful. Eh, whatever. I had the Dantian of many people now. I probably won’t get addicted to painkillers from half a bottle of… approximately 300 milliliters of whatever this was.

I watched as the Surgeon Barber expertly reattached arms back to my new garrison Captain and turned around to assess the situation of my other two comrades. Celes wasn’t moving at all. Avidius was gurgling, holding his bleeding throat.

“Hey, Lazarus,” I ordered. “Can you sew up the throat of Avidius and check on Celes?”

The field-doc nodded. He got to my bodyguard and kitsune before I did.

“I can certainly help Avidius… but this girl,” Lazarus made a pause as his hand rested on her neck. “...she’s dead.”

“What?” I blinked.

“She’s definitely dead... There’s no pulse. I’m sorry,” Lazarus exhaled, looking nervous. He likely feared my wrath. He wasn’t one of the people present at the battlements when Celes was shot.

“What the fuck did you dart her with, you asshat?” I barked at Glendaria who followed me like a lost puppy.

“Um.” He gulped. “The Hidden Hand gave me that dart. It... contains a potent substance extracted from one of the deep creatures’ glands. Ceborakian poison. I was meant to shoot the Magistrate with it, but she wasn’t going down and… I got foolish and desperate. I’ve been told that it instantly stops the heart, even of a one-hundred-star high-cultivator. Please forgive me... Baroness.”

My own heart stopped. My Celes. I grabbed my first friend in the world, hugged her, and tried to listen to her breath. She was cold, not moving. Her body was limp, stilled. She’s been dead for at least 10 minutes now. Damnation! Why didn’t I check on her sooner? Why did I waste my time subjugating these idiots with the oath, when I could have...

I pulled her mouth open and shoved my arm into it.

“Bite me! Celes!” I ordered. “Bite my freaking hand! Come on!”

Celes remained still.

“Please! I need you to be alive! I need you…” My vision blurred. “I… can’t fix the world without you… please...”

I would abdicate whatever powers and titles I had gained today, I would give up all of my levels for Celes… if only to hear her voice, to feel her serenity radiance in my twin-soul, to receive just one more hug from my one real friend.

I held the body of Celes and started to cry.

I had no idea how Tardigradas worked. I had no clue if she would wake up again or sleep for another ten thousand years. Would she have to take another body?

Would she even remember me?