The Heads are Soaring

Hector and his soldiers were amazed to see Elena, Audrey, and Dred clean up the whole battlefield in just a few minutes. Elena found a few other people who were blackmailed into serving Sliton Empire, but she didn’t bother with them. As they were walking towards Hector, Audrey asked furrowing her brows, “Why did you talk to that guy? I don’t think that it was a good idea.”

“To be honest, I don’t know. I just had a hunch that I should talk to him because unlike the others I saw something different in him than simple hate and wrath. I know that it’s pretty stupid, but that’s how I felt. Do your actions always have to make sense, miss perfect?” she asked with a chuckle, teasing her again.

Audrey surprise attacked Elena and pinched her back, “I told you that I’d punish you from now on. I won’t become your amusement park,” she said furrowing her brows.

“Hiss- You bi… *cough* That was painful.”

“Do you really think that I don’t know what you want to say even if you cough in the middle of the word?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Elena replied with a goofy grin on her face. Shaking her head, Audrey sighed loudly.

Stopping in front of the King, both sides looked at each other silently. Taking out a small device, the king held it out and broke the silence, knowing that he was in no place to play the role of a mighty King. “You have come. Take this, it will help a bit with learning our language.”

Taking it away, she looked at the cube-shaped device with interest. “Of course, since one of the people on the list was here. We also got a few others and the location of the General. Once we get the whereabouts of the Emperor too, we can… overtake his position,” Elena replied, spilling the beans. “And thanks for this.”

Furrowing his brows, Hector said, “No problem, but this is the first time I’m hearing of this.”

Waving her hand, Elena rolled her eyes as she replied, “I told you before that I don’t care about this place. I just want to be a queen in name to cover a past event. There has been a misunderstanding and unless I do this, goodies will come after me too, which I don’t want to happen because then I’d have to kill them.”

“Goodies? What are you talking about?”

“Just a few people. Anyway, once that will be clarified, I’ll leave this planet and go my own way. That’s why I will need you and your Electors to take an oath. Make sure that all of them will be present, yourself included,” she said, waving her finger.

“Fine, that much isn’t a problem,” he nodded his head.

“If anybody ‘strange’ or powerful comes your way and asks about me, tell them that you know me. Think of a backstory…” she said while hopping onto Dred’s back. Turning towards him for one last time, she added, “Don’t betray my expectations because good or not, once you betray me, you won’t see the light of the next day. This might sound pompous, but nobody can save you from me. They can just delay it.”

As she finished her sentence, Dred flapped his wings and the three of them flew away. Her bloodlust pressured Hector and the people nearby so much that they barely had enough strength left to stay on their legs, while the weaker ones simply blanked out. Gulping loudly, Hector turned around and looked at his men before walking towards their base.

---

The General was in his underground base, staying safe from any kind of attack. There was an escape route too, which made it possible for him to leave if they were to be discovered and attacked. He was looking at the big screen in front of him with a frown on his face, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

“Enlarge it,” he said to one of the technicians.

“Yes!”

As the technician fiddled around, the satellite focused in on Elena and her friends. They were raining hell on the Empire’s soldiers with their powerful spells, all the while staying unhurt. Even if a few of the bullets grazed Dred’s scales, they couldn’t penetrate him and bounced off.

“Do we have any information about them?” he asked, his voice calm and self-confident, even after seeing the terrible footage.

Noticing his calmness, the technician collected his courage and said, “We don’t have any kind of information related to these people or that monster.”

“We don’t? Then note that rockets, rifles and sniper rifles don’t work against them. They also have very powerful Magic, perfect for mass destruction. We don’t know anything else. Save the footage so that I can examine it later. We should leave this base since they may have learned of its position from the Commander on the F front. We will leave in four hours, prepare everything until then,” the General commanded before turning around and leaving the room.

“Yes!”

Three hours passed by and most of the files and tools were saved and packed up, so the technicians finished it earlier than asked. Standing in the small hall of the underground base, the General was happy to hear the report. “Wipe all data and then we are set to go,” he shouted.

The leader of the technicians saluted and ran through the door to do his bidding. Stopping in front of the main console, he started typing when a shadow ran up his body and bound him. He couldn’t do as much as move a finger. A thin layer of stone formed on his body and vines coiled around his head, sealing his mouth.

“Wlo ale you?” he tried to shout at the red-haired woman in front of him, but only a low grumbling came out of his stuffed mouth. He tried to shout as loud as he could, but Audrey punched him in the stomach.

“Shush, you idiot. They won’t hear you since I made a Wind Barrier. I just stuffed your mouth so that I wouldn’t have to hear your shouting,” she commented as she got back to fiddling with the console.

“How do I use this? Although I worked as a programmer, I have no idea what syntaxes you use…” she furrowed her brow and turned around. The vines slowly loosened up around his head, making it possible for him to talk again. Of course, the first thing he did was shout as loudly as he could.

“HELP! HELP! THE MAGICIANS ARE HERE!”

Shaking her head, she slapped his face, making him turn mute. Grabbing his left hand, she looked into his eyes lovingly before breaking all of his fingers.

“AAARGH!”

“I told you to speak or I’ll, oh wait… I didn’t.” Wrinkling her brows, she muttered, “Now that I think about it, I should use their language since he doesn’t understand my words… Oups? Let’s see if he will understand it.” Looking into his eyes, she spoke slowly, using their language “Just tell me what I want to know or I’ll torture you.”

Panting heavily, not used to the pain, the technician said, “I won’t tell you anything!”

“Oh, but how much you will talk,” she replied as she grabbed his other hand and broke his fingers.

“ARGH! YOU BITCH! I’LL LAUGH WHEN YOU LIE ON THE GROUND UNDER ME, YOU SLAVE!”

Gasping, she covered her mouth, “Haah- how short-tempered?! Did he call me a bitch? He was talking too quickly… But I’ll notify you that if you don’t spill the beans, I’ll show you the true meaning of pain. This is only the warm-up.”

The technician tried to spit on her face as a reply, but his spit flew through her shady body and landed on the screen of the computer. “Okay, you are becoming really annoying. Let’s see what you do after this,” Audrey furrowed her brows and conjured a sharp shard of serrated stone in her hand. Pressing it against his skin, she slowly cut through his tendons and nerves, making him feel excruciating pain.

“Gh- AAARGH!” he tried to hold back his scream, but couldn’t stop it.

“Yes, scream like a pig if you don’t tell me what I want,” Audrey said, cutting deeper into his flesh and nerves. Knocking on the stone covering his crotch, it slowly disappeared. Pressing her finger against the sharp edge of the blood covered stone shard, she looked into his eyes. “I wonder what your scream will be like when I dismember you. I’ve never seen it in real life but supposedly men will have female voices afterward. Wanna test it?”

Gulping loudly, the technician started sweating profusely as a much more private place was mentioned. His wounds could heal if he stayed alive but the loss of such an ‘important’ part wouldn’t. “By the way, since I don’t know how advanced your technology exactly is, I’ll crush it so that they wouldn’t be able to give you back your manly part,” she said with a chuckle, giving him hope for his survival since she didn’t want to break him.

Seeing him staying silent, she used the stone shard to cut his clothes but the moment it touched his thigh, he shouted while the shard got closer and closer to his member, “STOP! PLEASE STOP! I’ll talk, okay?” he lowered his voice, feeling the shard stopping, but still poking his skin.

“That’s the way,” Audrey replied with a smile. The technician told her what to type and with his guidance, she easily found everything she ‘needed’, the only problem is that she didn’t need any of the information she found.

“What is this crap? Tactics, plans, the locations of your bases? We know of these to begin with… Where the hell is your Emperor hiding?” she asked as she turned around, pressing the shard against his skin once again.

“W-Wait! I don’t know! Only our General knows it! The Emperor’s location is unknown to all of us. He did hold speeches through the communication channels and updated his plans as you can see it on the computer, but he never met either of us personally. Neither of us, except for the General!” he replied hurriedly as if his life was on the line.

“Although it is wonderful that my memory is good enough to learn a language on a basic level in just two hours, it turned out to be fucking pointless! Thanks, Elena! But this is still amazing, I’m starting to like this Mana and its effects more and more!” she talked to herself before focusing back on her victim.

“Hmm, then you are pretty much useless.” Looking around, Audrey raised up her right hand and made a gripping movement as she said, “Stone Coffin!” The stone squeezed the guy’s body, breaking his bones, and squeezing his organs and blood out through the puncture wounds at his crotch and neck. Slightly frowning upon the sight of blood fountain, filled with her victim’s heart, lungs, and other organs, she turned around and walked towards the door.

Stopping for a moment with a thoughtful face on, she muttered, “It doesn’t feel right to say spell names. But it still felt cool! I hope that I won’t do it again or Elena will never stop teasing me…” Covering her face, she squatted down, “Oh my god, that can’t happen. It would be too embarrassing and Jake too would… AAAH! Absolutely not! I will never do this again!”

“I won’t tell it to anyone,” Dred spoke behind her back, startling her so much that she jumped up and bumped her head into the ceiling.

“Careful… This base isn’t tall enough to jump around in,” he added.

Audrey looked at him with a sense of dread in her eyes. “You- you saw it, right?”

“Yes, I was here since the beginning but you were enjoying yourself so much that I just stayed silent. But to earn back your trust after my prank, I swear that I will take your secret to the grave. In return, you shouldn’t bring up my prank anymore… though I’m not trying to blackmail you since I was in the wrong there, it would be great if you could…” his voice died down as he looked away.

“Fine, fine! Okay? I will never mention it and you will never mention this. Deal. Now, what is Elena doing?” she said hurriedly and changed the theme.

“Interested? She is experimenting with a new use of Ekilsta. If it works, Ekilsta’s usage would increase dramatically! Let’s go and you can see it for yourself,” he said as he disappeared with his Shadow Step. Shrugging her shoulders, she followed him.