The agonizing memory made Minerva’s body jerk violently awake as her mind seemed to remember the insufferable pain of having both her eyes gouged out for the sake of some ‘examination’, in that solitary cell she knew there was no more hope for her, but if she could save someone else unfortunate enough to be caught by that monster she would do so without a second thought.

“Yes…! YES!” His nauseatingly excited voice came from under the metal door that separated her from the main room, there was a cold breeze coming from it as Minerva crawled close to the metal entryway. “Nothing will hold me back anymore…! Nothing!”

As his laughter grew louder, so too did Minerva’s disgust and before she could try another futile attempt at breaking open her shackles with magic a loud noise of a door violently opening in the next room stopped her as she tried to pay attention to the sound.

“What is the meaning of this interruption?”

Jakob seemed irritated by whoever entered the room.

“Father, it’s captain Olivia, she’s leading a group of soldiers and they are coming this way.”

“And? Didn’t I give you command of the first battalion to deal with this sort of thing?”

“You don’t understand, they are not following my orders!”

“How incompetent can you be?!” He shouted. “Bah! No matter, I accomplished more than I ever hoped with this specimen, we are done here.”

“Huh?! What are you thinking?! They have this place surrounded!”

“This is probably the end for you, but not for me. You served me well Oliver.”

Suddenly a loud noise of a gunshot made Minerva flinch from pain as the sound seemed to be ringing her ears.

“Gah! Y-you! You can’t!”

Another gunshot followed it and after that the tower shook with a dry sound of an explosion.

Inside the spire, Olivia, Phoebe and Leona led the charge with a few dozen soldiers behind them, the captain and high elf wore similar outfit while the tactician was wearing a solid metal breastplate that covered the entirety of her torso alongside a pair of steel gauntlets. Between each hand, Leona held a longsword made of a shimmering pale metal that emitted a faint blue light which illuminated some of the staircase.

“How long until we reach him?!”

Phoebe asked.

“Not long!” Olivia held a bolt action rifle outfitted with a bayonet between her hands, the knife was prepared with a razor sharp edge easily capable of killing someone in seconds. “Be prepared for anything!”

“Please, Krieg… you must be alive…! You have to!”

Suddenly a loud noise came from up the stairs and Olivia clenched her teeth as she recognized the sound.

‘Gunshots.’ She thought. ‘Jakob… are you going to steep so low as to kill helpless people?’

As they climbed halfway through the tower, they found a wooden door ajar. Olivia kicked it open and took aim towards the middle of the room, Krieg was lying motionless on a stone table in the center of the room while Jakob was holding a derringer smoking from the barrel with Oliver holding his stomach as a patch of blood grew bigger on his clothes.

“Jakob Arc! You are under arrest! Come quietly or face the consequences!”

Other soldiers fanned out behind the captain and took aim at him.

“You’re finally here…” The old elf tossed the weapon on the ground and pulled a syringe from his coat. Its contents looked like diluted blood from the dull red color. “Good! Good…”

“Jakob I’m warning you! Put that thing down!”

“I’ll allow you to witness the pinnacle of my research!”

In one swift motion he injected the syringe’s contents inside his own arm. Seeing the scientist do so without hesitating made Olivia have a terrible chill go down her spine as she shouted.

“Open fire!”

Some of the soldiers hesitated but after witnessing their captain shoot first without holding back they started to pump the old elf full of bullets. Leona held Olivia back as she shouted from the top of her lungs.

“Stop! Or you’ll hit him!”

The moment she was told so, Olivia lifted her right arm, prompting the other soldiers to stop shooting as both Phoebe and the tactician went to get Krieg. They approached the table and the high elf quickly glanced at the scientist, or rather, what was left of him. The corpse was on both its knees with bullet holes gushing blood out of everywhere, most bullet wounds were around the torso but some managed to hit his head and legs, if he wasn’t dead with the captain’s first shot, he would surely be with that many puncture wounds.

“Krieg?!” Leona’s startled voice made Phoebe turn around but her tension was instantly lifted the moment the tactician was hugging the knight as he sat up. “You’re- you’re alive!”

She sobbed as the confused knight patted her back with his large left hand.

“Princess, what… what happened?” His voice was rough, probably due to the lack of drinking water. “Are you okay?”

“I’m the one who should be asking that! I thought- I thought I would never see you again!”

She broke up in tears, crying her lungs out but not from despair, but joy instead. The whole scene relieved the tension in the room as Olivia let out a relaxed sigh and with a motion of her head she ordered the soldiers to take Oliver off the ground.

“Treat his wounds and take him to the prison. I’ll talk with the other captains as soon as we solve this.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Two soldiers used their empty rifles to fold both ends of a big rectangular blanket and used it to carry the wounded young elf like an improved stretcher down the stairs.

Krieg stood up with the help of both Phoebe and Leona, they shouldered each of his arms and managed to take him towards the doorway. As they were about to get out they heard a female voice come from behind the reinforced metal door on the side of the entrance.

“Get out of here! He’s not dead yet!”

Upon glancing over her shoulder Leona saw the crooked corpse full of bullets to creak as bones and flesh seemed to knit itself back to life as the previously kneeling corpse was now standing.

“Ha… haha… haha!” The loose jaw was trembling as the terrible laughter left the scientist’s mouth. “It won’t let me die, not here!”

A dreadful feeling assaulted her senses and before she even realized, Leona was casting a defensive spell.

“Frost Rampart!”

With a motion of her right hand, a wall of ice curved alongside the stone wall and grew in front of them as something impacted with the side of the tower, sending rocks and furniture towards them. Thankfully Leona’s spell stopped most of it but one of the stones from the tower managed to break through it completely, narrowly missing Olivia and hitting the side of the doorway.

“What in the world is that thing doing here?!”

The captain was in shock, after destroying half of the tower’s wall the winged death angel was hanging from the dilapidated side with its snake like right arm while protecting the old elf with the other. Jakob’s previously mangled body was regenerating while also growing what seemed to be wing frames made of bones from his back.

“Captain… I gave you a chance to go back to your homeland and you threw it away.” The old elf’s voice was becoming more and more distorted as his body grew larger than he originally was. His long and thin limbs became bulkier and his skin even more pale than before. ”Even though you had a child in your belly you deemed necessary for the people of this land to exact revenge upon me for the destruction of your homeland, now with this newfound power I shall crush any and every hope of yours until nothing else but despair remains!”

It felt like there was a lump inside Olivia’s throat as much as she wanted to scream of anger her body just wouldn’t move. However, seeing the old elf move towards her prompted a voice shout from behind her.

"Northern winds hearken to me, pierce through my foe, Ice Spear!" A stake of ice was aimed at his chest but the death angel grabbed the frozen projectile mid air with its left snake head and shattered it to pieces. “Tsk! Phoebe take Krieg out of here!”

“Princess you can’t possibly-!”

“Didn’t you hear me?!”

Seeing how she was determined to see it through to the end, all the high elf could do was to make sure she was focused, so instead of arguing she simply nodded and took him downstairs as fast as she could.

“Interesting… so you’re not a dual elemental mage but a triple?” Jakob sounded intrigued. “Oh how much I would like to test your capabilities as a mage, but I’m afraid I have to settle this first.”

Seeing how Leona was able to attack despite having to take care of Krieg made Olivia spring into action as she quickly took aim and fired at his head. However once again the death angel defended him by using part of its shoulder to shield from the bullet that simply bounced off the scales.

“Nnngh! Aaargh!”

Enraged and out of bullets in her rifle, the captain dashed in with the bayonet.

“Wait! Captain Olivia!”

Paying no need for Leona’s warning, she slashed at the snakehead which made the death angel recoil while spilling dark purple blood across the left wall and once it was out of the way she went for a stab aimed at the left side of his chest using the weight of her body.

“Die!”

She managed to sink half of the blade into the elf’s pale skin before it became stuck, as if she was seeing things, the elf didn’t move a muscle and instead took the charge that would’ve killed him in normal circumstances without any apparent fear in his face.

“Not bad Captain… that would’ve killed any other man, but this hardly does anything to me.”

He grabbed the rifle with his left hand and snapped the weapon in half by crushing it in his hand, before she could react his other hand grabbed her by the throat and began to lift her up off the ground.

“Gah! You- monster!”

“I’ve abandoned my fleeting humanity in exchange for boundless potential. However, seeing as you all are a threat to my existence and my subjects, you must die here. Know despair as I’ll tear everyone you know to pieces just as I’ll do it to you!”

He removed the bayonet from his chest and as he was about to gore her with her own weapon, Leona released a spell just in time to interrupt him.

“Cutting Wave!”

A thin vertical slash of water going at high speed managed to knock his left arm back, however it didn’t seem to be able to cut through his skin.

“You’re a quadra elemental mage?” Seemingly unaffected by the attack he lowered the knife but still kept holding the squirming captain through the throat. “Now this isn’t a chance I can let it pass. You, grab her, make sure to not kill her.”

Seemingly giving orders to the death angel, Jakob simply waited for it to attempt to capture Leona with its left snakehead and as it was about to bite the right side of her body a figure appeared behind the hanging angelic. With a distinct sound of steel being drawn a second later the death angel let out a deafening roar as its snake head that supported it was cut clean making it lose balance and fall off the tower. Landing beside the old elf, a woman of gray hair sheathed a long curved blade coated in purple blood before looking at the abomination in front of her.

“Well now, you did a number on this kingdom while I was gone, haven’t you? Jakob Arc.”

Seemingly recognizing the voice, he was preparing to use the captain to block and attack with his left hand but in a blink of an eye he lost both arms with one swing of her blade.

The singular attack forcibly released a coughing Olivia on the ground, both of his arms were flopping like fish out of water which could only be described as a horrifying sight.

“Lady Minerva?!”

Leona shouted as she recognized the woman.

“Ngh! Damn you Elizabeth!” Jakob stumbled back. “I thought we had a deal!”

“There is no deal with a man that deceived me for the last two years. You used her as you saw fit all the while keeping me in the dark.”

“Ahaha… I don’t know how you discovered it but your daughter served her purpose.” Both of his arms began to regenerate at an alarming speed, where the flesh stump was a second ago many strings of flesh began to knit itself while recreating what was his bone structure before being cut. “I won’t let anyone take away what is mine by right. Hunt me down if you will, but let it be known, I will come back eventually and have my revenge for your betrayal.”

“You won’t escape!” The woman tried to swing the blade upwards against his neck but the two cut limbs suddenly jumped her and she had to cut them both down, that gave him enough time to jump down from the tower as the death angel caught him midair and flew away from the capital. “Dammit!”

Leona ran towards the dilapidated wall and prepared a fireball but by the time she hurled the spell the two monsters were already out of reach and the flaming sphere simply exploded midair.

“He escaped…” Leona clenched her fists but before she could do anything else the woman fell on her knees. “Are you okay?!”

“Y-yeah, don’t mind me young lady Leona. I still-” She used the scabbard to shoulder her own weight to stand up. “-have things that I must do.”

She walked towards the reinforced metal door that was bent with the impact of a piece of the previously blown wall. Seeing how she was doing okay for the time being Leona decided to focus her attention on Olivia who was still struggling to breathe, she knelt beside the woman.

“Are you alright?”

“Mostly yeah, I wasn’t expecting him to have so much strength.” She took a deep breath. “I felt like a child trying to fight against a bear.” She glanced at the streets below and had half a smirk across her face. “I think we might have attracted a bit too much attention.”

Looking over the broken edge of the wall Leona saw a crowd of citizens looking up at the destroyed tower seemingly not understanding what exactly happened there.

“I can’t blame them. I would be curious as well.” She stood up. “But that’s beside the point. Let’s get out of here before something else happens. Lady Minerva?”

The tactician looked over her shoulder just in time to witness the older woman hugging a silver haired young woman about her age seeing how they were both tearing up. She instantly knew they were family.

“King slayer Elizabeth.” Olivia cleared her throat before speaking towards the older lady. “I never thought I’d see you here.”

Leona raised an eyebrow whilst looking at the captain, the old woman turned to them while standing in front of the young woman in tattered clothing as if to shield her with the left hand blocking the way while the right was going for the handle of her weapon.

“I believe you are the captain of the first battalion, Olivia of Astera, isn't it?”

“Oh? For someone that only kills big shots I’m surprised you know my name.”

“I only kill those who are deemed unworthy of their position.”

There was tension in the air but calmly judging by her stance and position of her arms, the tactician deduced the assassin didn’t want to fight but instead protect the young woman behind her.

“Captain.” Leona tapped her left shoulder. “I think we should regroup with everyone else.”

“You’re right.” She answered while still glaring at the assassin. “I’ll head down to disperse the crowd. But be careful Leona.”

Once she headed downstairs Elizabeth’s shoulders relaxed and her hand moved away from the sword handle.

“Thank you young lady Leona.”

“Elizabeth Du Haine, correct? I’ve read a lot of your exploits in the eastern kingdom, but I wasn’t expecting to meet such an infamous person in this place.”

She chuckled.

“I apologize for misleading you with my name.” She bowed before turning to the young woman behind her. Her long silver hair and pale complexion made Leona wonder if she wasn’t related to the captain in any way. “I was looking for my daughter, Minerva? If you can-”

“Yes mother, I haven’t forgotten my manners.” She smiled before bowing. “My name is Minerva Eduhainaust, it is an honor to meet you, Lady Leona.”

“The pleasure is all mine Minerva.” She smiled weakly, but it just lasted a few seconds before she turned to Elizabeth. “I know it has nothing to do with you or your family, but I want you to come with me. Any information that you can provide regarding that lunatic will greatly help not only me but everyone in this kingdom.” The assassin nodded once. “Then let’s go, we can’t afford to waste any time.”

Leona began heading downstairs.