Meanwhile, in a dark room dimly lit with torches, Tiberius was hanging from the ceiling with his hands and legs bound by metal chains. His entire body was riddled with cuts and bruises. Heinberg's body lay on the ground beside Tiberius. His throat was slit from one end to another. Whoever killed him made sure Heinberg had no chance of healing at all. The cut's deepness was to the point they almost cleaved his head off.

"Arggh," Tiberius growled as blood oozed out of the cut on his left cheek. Despite the torture, the fire of anger burned bright in Tiberius's eyes. In addition to the anger, he grinned, revealing blood-stained teeth.

"You have no idea who you're dealing with here," Tiberius said, looking at the darkness. After Tiberius growled and spat the blood in his mouth, three figures walked out of the darkness. The man who walked forward with a devilish grin on his face was General Quintus The armor itself consisted of broad ferrous strips fastened to internal leather straps. The strips were arranged horizontally on the body, overlapping downwards. They surrounded the torso in two halves, being attached at the front and back by means of brass hooks, which were joined by leather laces. Tiberius saw Quintus grin before handing over the golden spartan helmet with dark blue plumes.

He had golden hair styled to resemble the caesar cut on earth. The two soldiers behind Quintus stood almost seven feet, wearing heavy armor from head to toe. The armor exposed not a single place in their body. After handing over the helmet to the heavily armored soldier to his right, Quintus unsheathed the bloody dagger he used to cut Tiberius.

"Are you talking about the Pirate Captain who could use magic or the black one who controls the senate of Maven and Gisel from the shadows?"

"Both are the same, you moron," Tiberius snickered. He didn't show a single sign of fear to Quintus or the dagger, no matter how many times Quintus cut him up. Upon hearing Tiberius, Quintus didn't look surprised. As a matter of fact, Quintus knew the black one and the Pirate captain who could use magic were the same. After the black killed Pirate Lord Vance, the news about the black one spread throughout the continent like wildfire. At this point, there was not a single person who didn't know about the black one. Even the three kings of the southern continent had formed a secret alliance to fight the black one in case he tried to invade them.

The alliance extended its arms to Kingdom Miral. They believed Miral might be the last senate-ruled kingdom that was not under the control of the black one. Normally, the three kings wouldn't meddle with the senate-ruled kingdoms. However, after the black one annexed the pirates, they put aside their differences to join forces. They believed their kingdoms weren't far away from being invaded by the black one. So Miral declared war on Prerid to lure the black one out of the shadows. Simply put, the most powerful kingdoms in the Southern continent joined forces to fight the black one. The peace talks were just a facade to take out the black one's subordinates so the alliance could learn more about the black one.

"It's a bad move to kill him," Tiberius spat yet again as Quintus moved closer to Tiberius.

"Why was that?" asked Quintus.

"He knows him more than me. He would have told you more about him. Arghhh," Tiberius growled as Quintus slowly ran the dagger across Tiberius's ribcage. General Quintus enjoyed inflicting pain. Seeing people suffer and cry in agony gave him a sense of pleasure that even the most beautiful women at night couldn't. To be honest, General Quintus wasn't as patriotic to Miral as everyone thought. He simply enjoyed the pain and suffering war brought on people.

"How many of you are working for this black one?" Quintus calmly asked and slowly licked the blood from the dagger.

"Six or seven," Tiberius said, gritting his teeth to fight the pain.

"Names," Quintus asked.

"We don't use names, just numbers," Tiberius just lied instead of revealing the names. He wanted to buy time until the Dark Lord or the Dark Queens found him.

Before Quintus and his men hung him on the chains, they ripped off his shirt and pendant and threw them into the room's dark corner. That's when Tiberius saw the pendant glimmer twice. He remembered Maxine giving Tiberius the silver pendant and telling him it might save his life someday. Tiberius believed that day might be today. Until someone comes to his rescue, Tiberius wants to stall Quintus. However, something told Tiberius that Quintus wasn't too interested in extracting information from him. Instead, Quintus focused on torturing Tiberius.

"Then let me enlighten you. Maxine, Corey, Gibson, Shorty, and Senator Caius," Quintus surprised Tiberius.

"Your employer shouldn't trust the pirates. A couple of girls and a mug of ale, those filthy pirates started to sing everything they knew about the black one," said Quintus, ridiculing the pirates in the process.

"Not everything," Tiberius snickered.

"He's not called the black one. That's just how he dresses,"

As he talked, Tiberius saw a glimmer behind Quintus once again. Seeing the glimmer, Tiberius sighed in relief. The two armored guards and Quintus might be deadly warriors, but they were nothing in front of the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen. Either of them could kill Quintus and his guards with a single spell. Tiberius started to roll his eyes around as though he was searching for the assassin who jumped on them at the abandoned castle. Despite Tiberius and Heniber being highly trained warriors, the assassin slit Heinberg's throat and knocked out Tiberius in a blink of an eye.

"Then what do you call him?" Quintus asked somewhat, looking amused by Tiberius's answers.

"The Dark Lord," Tiberius snarled and waited for Quintus to cut him again. However, Quintus surprised Tiberius by turning around and leaving the room. After Quintus left the room, the two heavily armored soldiers gawked at Tiberius.

"GRRRR!"

"HRRGGHH!"

The two soldiers growled at Michael like they were some kind of beasts. Tiberius even saw a puff of smoke coming through the two holes in their helmets. Tiberius yanked the chains seeing the two slowly stepping towards him.

"This is a good time for you to show up Dark Lord," Tiberius kept tanking the chains as the two monstrous soldiers approached him. The torches flickered just as they were about to grab Tiberius's head. The soldiers halted their steps to look around the torches flickering. Suddenly, the dim light radiated by the torches got completely snuffed out. As a result, the room completely fell into darkness.

"GRRRR!" One soldier roared as Tiberius heard the sound of metal clanking. A few moments later, the soldier lit a match stick to see what was happening around them. But as soon as he lit the match stick, Tiberius saw the Dark Lord standing behind the two soldiers.

"GRRRRR!" The matchstick quickly lost its flame as the room became dark once again.

Pulch!

Pulch!

Tiberius couldn't see anything but heard muffled ground followed by heavy thuds as though something heavy fell onto the ground. Afterward, Tiberius didn't hear a single sound. He yanked his chains in the darkness. A few moments later, the torches slowly started to burn again, lighting the room with dim orange light. As expected, Tiberius saw the Dark Lord standing before him between the two dead bodies. The two monstrous soldiers' legs were still twitching. Still, there was no way they could survive because Tiberius saw no heads attached to their shoulders.

"Heinberg," before cutting Tiberius down, Michael turned his gaze to Heinberg's body. When Michael first wanted to turn Heinberg into his subordinate, the system didn't let him. The system said Michael couldn't force someone to be his subordinate. Still, Michael made Heinberg work for him using fear. It almost took Michael four months to raise Heniber's loyalty to the point the system accepted him as a subordinate. But all those efforts and future plans for Heniber went into the drain.

Michael squatted beside Heinberg, conjuring an orb of jade flames to see Heinberg's face. His eyes were still open and contained a tinge of shock.

"Rest in peace," Michael closed his eyes before looking at the long cut across his throat.

Unlike a loyal subordinate, he could earn 50,000 badass points in a snap. So whoever killed Heinberg just signed their death warrant. Looking at Heinberg's body, he could only sigh. Even the system had no power to bring death back to life at its current level.

"Dark Lord," Tiberius yanked the chains again as Michael stood up. With a single flick of his wrist, Michael sent a wind blade to cut through the chain.

Thud!

Tiberius fell to the ground and growled in pain. Upon seeing the cuts and wounds on Tiberius's body, Michael then threw a healing potion toward him. He could tell General Quintus took his sweet time gutting Tiberius like a pig. So Michael wondered how Quinuts would feel to be at Tiberius's place for a change.

"Take his body and follow me," Michael ordered Tiberius, who quickly emptied the healing potion into his mouth. The healing potion closed all the cuts in Tiberius's body. Tiberius immediately felt refreshed and revitalized. So he slowly stood up and walked to Heinberg's body.

Michael was about to reach the door when he halted his steps. He then turned around to see Tiberius following him, carrying Heinberg's body in his arms.

"Was it General Quintus?" Michael asked in his demonic voice, which sounded colder than usual.

"He tortured me, but he didn't kill Heinberg. It was someone else," At this point, Michael accessed the feed recorded by Tiberius's necklace Spyder and watched everything. The assassin who killed Tiberius possessed inhuman speed. He was either a highly trained assassin to even match Michael's skills or enhanced by some means. Otherwise, he couldn't have killed Heinberg and knocked out Tiberius in a blink of an eye. He was simply too fast.

"Wait for me," Michael said before willing the system to teleport Tiberius to the dark forest. Afterward, Michael opened the door to see where they were. If he had any luck, he might meet General Quintus. But it was doubtful since Michael sensed no one around him.