Death of a Subordinate

"I am not taking a dig at privileged kids, but life wasn't easy for everyone," Michael took another sip and said casually.

"Some of us had to claw our way up, Miss Jennifer. So after reaching the top, we won't have the same kindness and compassion as you. We simply lose those feelings and put a price on everything. After all, we haven't experienced any kindness or compassion," Michael said, smiling.

"However," Michael took a long sip and placed the empty cup on the table again,

"I am not a monster either. I already made a deal with Aqua Palace. I am to distribute the cures through them starting from next week," said Michael.

"Next week?" Jennifer creased her brows but chose not to say anything.

Upon finishing the feast, the servants left the grand hall after bowing to them. They were fortunate to work for the Voldigard family. Otherwise, they wouldn't have received extra cures for their family members. After everyone left the grand hall, Michael went directly to his room and began to brew the cures in silence. On the other hand, Gaya and Nightmare sat on the bed with their eyes closed to cultivate. After all, they had to take advantage of the thick arch energy in the atmosphere.

Michael placed his table facing the open window. He stared at the evening sky brewing the cure. A few hours passed in utter silence when Michael finished brewing almost three large crates of cures. Since there was a possibility of a reaper coming to assassinate him, Michael remained vigilant. Before starting again to brew potions, Michael removed the broken APD and fixed it quickly. The vampire made a number to the APD while in the Shadow Realm.

If he hadn't repaired the APD now, problems might arise later. Thus, Michael fixed it under the light of candles. Although they had chandeliers, Michael enjoyed the darkness. His next goal was to brew enough potions to cure five hundred people. It was indeed a small number, but brewing more would take time. Fortunately, Michael had nothing to do for a week. At Least that was what he thought until his vision completely turned red with the system's notifications.

[WARNING!]

[Subordinate Heinberg is dead]

[The host has lost 50,000 badass points]

Michael clenched his fist when his vision was blocked by pulsating crimson red warning boxes in front of his eyes. He couldn't believe what he had just heard. The system did not only reduce 50,000 badass points but gave him a massive headache like someone's been hitting his head with a sledgehammer. But neither the headache nor the badass points disturbed Michael. Rather, it was the notification.

"What the fuck?" Michael furrowed his brows as he tried to contact Maxine.

"My Lord,"

"Where is H?" Michael asked, gazing at the gloomy city under the night sky.

"He went to the peace talk with General Quintus. Tiberius went with them. Is something wrong, my lord?" Maxine's voice turned grave.

"Where?" Instead of giving Maxine a direct answer, Michael asked where they went to hold the peace talks. If anything, the system couldn't be wrong, and if it said Heinberg had died, then it must be true. The question was how and who killed Heinberg. But after hearing Maxine, Michael could answer his own question.

"In the abandoned castle in the hissing wood,"

Michael ignored the rhythmic clicking sounds produced by the undead harvesting the arch energy crystals with pick axes.

"Where are you at?" Michael asked Maxine as Gaya's eyes twitched.

"In the stormville mountain, my lord,"

"I'll be there in a minute. Get ready to move out," Michael cut the connection without saying anything further. Afterward, Michael quickly closed the windows as well as the curtains. The room lost all the light, and the darkness took hold of the room. With a simple wave of his hand, Michael snuffed out the light from the candles and chandeliers. When the room fell pitch black, Michael's eyes glistened like rubies.

"Stay here," Michael told Gaya a second before he vanished from the room.

Maxine dropped the pickaxe in her hand. Feeling uncomfortable because of the graveness in the Dark Lord's voice, Maxine flicked her wrist. In the next second, a skull mask and black robes materialized in her hand. She quickly placed the mask on her face and put on the dark robes above the dusty brown tunics. A cold breeze brushed past her back as Maxine felt a terrifying yet familiar presence. Maxine didn't need to turn around to tell that the man standing behind her was the Dark Lord.

'

But unusually, the glistening blue crystals flickered, and the dark caves became darker. There was also a coldness in the air that sent shivers through her spine. She had never felt such a presence from the Dark Lord before. Coupled with the Dark Lord's questions about Heinberg and where he went, Maxine had a sickening feeling in her gut.

"No time for pleasantries. Lead me to Heinberg now," Michael said.

Before Maxine could reply, Michael grabbed Maxine by her shoulder, casting the lightning dash. Michael only wanted Maxine to show him the way. He had no need for a backup, especially when one of his subordinates had died a few moments ago. This was the first time Michael lost a subordinate. Though he remained calm, Michael wanted to rip whoever killed Heinberg into shreds. It took so much effort to make each and every subordinate loyal to him. The last time Michael checked, Heinberg was on his way to becoming completely loyal to Michael. Every single subordinate was the cream of the crop, hand-picked by Michael and Gaya. So losing one of them really stung Michael.

Considering Michael pushed himself to the limit, his speed was to the point everything looked blurry.

"I shouldn't have taken Azazel away from the surveillance room," Michael blamed himself for making such an amateur mistake. Though all his subordinates had Spyders that functioned as neck cameras, they were useless without Azazel to monitor them and inform Michael that something went wrong. Since Michael took Azazel with him to Awor, there was no one to watch the feed. He would have put Vedora on the job if they didn't go into seclusion to cultivate. Such a bad time to go into seclusion. Still, Michael had no way of foreseeing the future. He knew there was no way he could have predicted Heinberg's death.

After thirty minutes of flying at a speed closer to the speed of sound, Maxine stopped him. She pointed at a worn-out castle tower protruding out of the thick canopy. Michael's eyes quickly adjusted themselves to the darkness. Upon flying closer to the castle, he activated his thermal vision to see if there were any life signs inside the castle. Except for veins and roots coiling around the ruined tower, nothing occupied the castle.

"System, teleport Maxine back to the Stormville mountain,"

The runic teleportation immediately teleported Maxine back to Stormville mountain. Afterward, Michael slowly flew towards the broken castle. Only the tower was visible to Michael. The rest was covered entirely by the canopy. He entered the castle through the opening where a huge bell used to be.

"Azazel," Michael contacted Azazel while descending towards the throne hall.

"My Lord," answered Azazel.

"Return to the dark forest and tell me where Tiberius is,"

"As you wish, my lord,"

Upon landing on the once lavish throne hall, Michael saw the large roots and veins running chaotically throughout the hall. However, there was a stone table in the center that was spared by nature. With a wave of his hand, Michael conjured the alchemy flames, vanquishing the darkness with the jade light. As he got closer to the square stone table, fresh blood glistened under the jade light.

Michael furrowed his brows, looking at the puddle of blood on the other side of the stone table. He squatted down beside the blood and touched it with his hand.

"Still warm," Michael felt the slight warmth from the blood. However, he couldn't be optimistic. The ground had absorbed most of the blood, but still, there were at least three liters of blood in the puddle. No way a person could survive after losing that much blood. The question in Michael's mind was whether the blood belonged to Tiberius or Heinberg.

Michael stood up to investigate the scene until Azazel contacted him again. While floating around the table, Michael noticed two sets of footsteps on either side of the table. He closed his eyes, picturizing the scene. In his mind, he could see Tiberius and Heinberg sitting on one side of the table and five people on the other. According to the footsteps' depth, Michael could tell whoever it was, they all wore heavy armor.

"Quintus, were you here?" Michael asked himself, slowly opening his eyes.

"Why did those idiots come here alone?" Michael muttered under his breath.

Apparently, the peace talk was just a facade to kill Heinberg and Tiberius. If General Quintus had Heinberg killed, he didn't want anyone to find Heinberg's body. Besides, he may have taken Tiberius too because no footsteps were leading to any of the broken windows or collapsed walls. Knowing Tiberius and his skills, it would be challenging for Quintus's men to take Tiberius alive without a fight.

"How did they ambush them?" Michael saw no signs of footsteps in the blood puddle. So Michael looked upwards and flew towards the ceiling. To his surprise, Michael saw claw marks on the ceiling straight above the table. He looked deep to see if he could see more caw marks, but he only found four. The pattern and distance between each claw mark told Michael that a person wearing sharp claws was sticking to the ceiling like a gecko.

Michael looked down,

"When the time came, he dropped to the ground and probably cut Heinberg's throat. The sudden turn of events must have caught Tiberius off guard," Michael concluded. To learn how Tiberius went down, he needed more evidence, but luckily, his investigation came to an end when Azazel contacted him through the earpiece.

"My Lord. I found Lord Tiberius. He's been tortured by someone in a dark room as we speak,"