As Olop woke the day after the competition he’d gotten confirmation that the annoyance he’d had to deal with had been properly taken care of the usual way, and he couldn’t help but celebrate with an early drink.

Really, what’s his name should have just agreed to it. Or at least had the tact to be well-mannered in his rejection. The humiliation, honestly. But then if he won’t work for me this is better anyway, it’s ridiculous how hard it is to get someone with an awakened crafting-type skill. Don’t any of those idiots know what an honour it would be to put their talents to use for the most important city in the world?

A part of the man couldn’t help but feel extra vindictive about it too. He’d been rejected by Falk often enough that he couldn’t help but take some of it out on the boy as he dealt with him. Perhaps it would have been preferable to simply ruin the boy's career, but that was all but impossible with an awakened skill holder. No, it was better for him to be dead, else Olop would never feel content.

Admittedly, doing it so soon may have been rash, but if he left the city it would only become harder, and he was sure that the group he usually assigned to it couldn’t be traced back to him. At the very least, any time he’d dealt with a problem like that in the past had been fine. Tossing someone in the dead god’s trial was the perfect means of disposal. In all the millennia it had been on the world, nobody had ever left it, meaning not only was it a perfect way to get rid of an annoyance, it ensured the body was never found.

Honestly, I can only imagine how many others have used it the same way in the past. He thought with a laugh before beginning to move on with his day. While most of his tasks could be delegated, there were still a handful of things he had to do as the head of the political side of allfaith, but at the very least most of it could be done in the comfort of his mansion with his servants around to ensure his needs were met. At least that was how it usually went.

As he took a seat on a cushion, getting himself relaxed as he did, the sounds of demolition could suddenly be heard all too close, making him jolt upright and call out to his staff.

“What the bloody hell is happening?”

None around had any idea, it was only as a group of his hired guards came rushing in that he was able to find out just what was going on.

“We’ve got two mages attacking sir! We’ve lost the dining room and a few others in the surrounding area to the first strike and the rest of the guards are already down! We need to get you out of here!”

He could barely process what he was being told. His guards were far from incompetent, he’d only hired the best to ensure his safety and was making sure to pay them well. The very idea that only two mages could do something like that without being stopped was ludicrous, let alone the fact that they would. Did they really think that they’d be able to get away with this? He wouldn’t even have to dispose of them like any other pest, if they weren’t killed as they were being stopped they would be executed without question.

It was those moments of shock that brought his chances of escape to zero though. As he took his first steps towards his guards, ready to rush to leave, the front and back of the room he was in simply disappeared with a gush of air. Olop was barely able to process the giant boulder that shot by him as he caught sight of the two who had caused such destruction. One he thought he recognised, a cloaked figure he was sure had been present during the contest, and the other he knew he did as he yelled out.

“You think you’ll get away with this Falk you bastard! I’ll have your fucking head!”

He motioned his guards to attack but before a move could be made by them the yeti attacked first, a grey-black mana pouring from him and leaving those around him instantly incapacitated, not only the guards, but his other staff collapsed on the ground in an instant. Only he was still standing and making him aware of just how desperate the situation might be for him.

Wasn’t he just a fucking smith?

“Alright alright, stop this nonsense now and we can sort this out,” Olop commanded, showing none of the fear he was feeling as Falk stayed silent. The rage on the yeti’s face was clear for all to see and his bloodlust poured from him.

Seeing in the yeti’s eyes that there'd be no negotiating and with nothing else he could think to do, Olop tried to run. He just needed to hold out long enough for the city's templars to arrive. As the religious capital of the world there was plenty, and a disturbance like this wouldn’t go unnoticed, but before he made it more than a step the man was on him, and with the tremendous strength that came from both his race, as well as having awakened skills and years of training to increase his attributes, he grabbed Olop’s arm with one hand and his shoulder with the other, and began to pull.

The scream that erupted from Olop’s throat left it raw, but he couldn’t even notice it compared to the pain of his flesh tearing and bones breaking as his arm was ripped from his body, blood poured out of him in a flood as he watched in horror at the damage that had been done in an instant.

The pain left him on the verge of passing out and he didn’t understand why he wasn’t as Falk swing his severed arm at his face, using enough force to crack his beak and bring him to the ground, hitting him again and again as the other failed to be mercifully knocked out, the reason for that becoming apparent as he briefly lost vision in one of his eyes, only to regain it and focus on the other mage there and realizing what they were doing.

They’re healing me. He thought in despair. It was clear there were no good intentions in the act. It was to prolong his suffering to the greatest degree they could, denying him the mercy of his mind fading as they worked to kill him. His bones broke and they were carelessly rehealed in whatever odd angle they had bent in. His bleeding was always stopped enough to keep him conscious and his body was made to cannibalize itself to make up for what was lost, and cruelest of all, any injuries to his brain were treated with a level of care to ensure he remained perfectly aware of everything that was happening.

It was only when he was certain that he was going to die that he felt a glimmer of hope as he caught sight of a crowd standing outside of the hole in his wall. Clad in armour with weapons drawn, a hundred templars were there and at the ready, with someone even more dangerous than all of them combined standing at the front. The non-affinitied mage Vasta was with them, giving him the faith he would live and thinking of how the two before him would be forced to suffer for their acts before he ended their lives.

It wasn’t just him that noticed either. Both Falk and the hooded mage with him turned to acknowledge the group for the briefest of seconds before they continued on the endless beating and healing, not caring in the slightest about the crowd behind them.

“Contender Falk, enough,” Vatsa told him, seeming more exhausted than anything else as she saw the scene before her and getting the yeti to pause as he answered.

“This man is going to die, and if you know enough to know I’m a contender then you know that you can’t stop me, so back the fuck off.”

“Please help!” Olop tried to beg through his shattered beak, having no issue with sounding desperate. The extreme pain that filled him made it impossible to hide. “These maniacs broke in and killed my staff! They’ve been torturing me since, you have to do something!”

“Please, the rest of the folks here may be a bit low on vitality, but they’ll live,” He said with a sneer as he gave the downed man a powerful kick, throwing him against a wall as he did. “I’m sure you wish you were so lucky.”

“Falk!” Vasta yelled, ignoring the exchange. “He is going to die for this, so step back and let us handle it.”

What?

He thought he must have misheard. There was no way that was what she just said, but as she looked to where he laid as if she was seeing dirt, Vasta made her proclamation.

“Olop, for the murder of the apostle of the god Myriad you are to be sentenced to death, along with the associates you’d worked with in the act. I’d say not to resist and accept your fate quietly, but it doesn’t look like you could even if you wanted to.”

“What? Are you insane, I haven’t killed an apostle!”

Even for all the work he did in allfaith, the gods didn’t have their eyes on him. Crime wouldn’t exist if they were all-knowing, but attacking an apostle would change that instantly. All of his less-than-scrupulous activities would immediately be investigated and he enjoyed his quality of life far too much to ever consider such a thing. He could only feel his stomach drop as Vasta continued.

“As witnessed by Myriad, for having the apostle Ben Heph and the soundsmith Greed thrown into the dead god’s trial your fate is sealed. The investigation and interrogation of your associates has already been completed, all there is left is holding you until your date and means of execution are selected.”

…That was his name, wasn’t it?

It was at that point that for the second time that day, he was certain he would die.