Back in the castle, Michael stood outside a room with the glass between him and the prisoners. Gaya put all three prisoners in the same room and tied them in a chair. Her white robes were drenched in blood. The blood wasn't hers but the prisoners'. Gaya showed them no mercy. The ground beneath them was littered with nails, teeth, pieces of flesh, and blood. Unfortunately, no matter how many ribs she broke, nails she pulled out, and teeth she knocked out, the prisoners didn't agree to give them information by writing. After three hours of nonstop torture, Gaya grew tired of it and stormed out of the room.

"I hate to say it, Michael, but they are not going to break," said Gaya.

"Anyone can be broken, Gaya. What irks me is even if we break them, I don't think they'll have something valuable to share. Someone with brains and resources is pulling the strings behind the scene. If what I've seen told me anything, it's that their employer doesn't make rookie mistakes. They pulled out their tongues to keep them from talking. The ballista might reveal more things than these guys,"

"So what should we do with them?" asked Gaya.

"Whoever is behind this, we should send them a message," Michael turned around and headed toward the door. Before turning the knob, Michael looked over his shoulder at Gaya.

"In blood," then, Michael left the room, leaving Gaya to deal with the three. Since the interrogation had bore no fruit, Michael's next destination was the portal hall where they put the ballista. By the time Michael arrived at the hall, no one was there. Gaya put the ballista near the portal and Elidyr's work table. The sight of a familiar weapon such as this reminded Michael of medieval war times on earth.

"I wonder who built this," Michael muttered to himself. Deep down, he felt there was a connection between the ballista and the creator of the death kiss crossbows. Otherwise, it would be a damn phenomenon to have two geniuses capable of building mass destruction at the same time. The first thing Michael noticed about the ballista was the wood they used to build it. Despite how big it looked, the ballista was extremely light. The reason was the wood which was sturdy yet light in weight. Michael walked around the big ballista, studying every inch of it.

"Where did they get this wood?" Michael asked himself. The wood didn't seem like a common one. So if he could track down its origin, he knew he might be able to identify the person behind the recent attacks on his pirate crew. If Michael hadn't seen the sonar pulses and the ballista, he would have let his subordinates figure it out. After seeing them however, he knew this was a task for him.

The ballista could simply fire out arrows the size between six to eight feet in length, and the weapon itself had the overall size of a fully grown elephant. While he was studying the ballista, Nightmare, and Vedora flew into the room. They almost crashed into the ballista when they saw Michael standing beside it. Fortunately, Nightmare was not at his true grown size. If that were the case, the ballista would have been crushed into pieces by him.

"Can't you play outside?" Michael asked as Vedora landed on his shoulder and Nightmare landed on top of the ballista.

"They are too much of chicken to fly through the storm," Nightmare chuckled,

"Who do you call a chicken, shithead?" Ayag snapped.

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"Quit messing with her, Nightmare," Sarba tried to diffuse the situation as always.

"If you are going to fight, take it outside. I have something important to do," said Michael. He had no interest in meddling with their sibling quarreling. Finally, Vedora and Nightmare halted their bickering for a moment and turned their focus to the ballista.

"Oh yeah. I heard you caught the sons of butchers who were attacking our pirates," said Ayag.

"Caught one of them. But they are not talking," Michael shrugged.

"Why not? I bet we can make them talk," Ayag snickered.

"You can't," Michael said as he squatted before the ballista and looked at its bottom. As he expected, there were countless gears and mechanisms built under. Although Michael knew he could have built a ballista with more efficiency and power, the one before him did surprise him. Whoever built the ballista must be a once-in-a-lifetime genius. Usually, the cultivators tended to be on the dumb side as they always preferred to solve problems with spells and murders. So they rarely had to use their brains.

"What if we did?"

Sarba tried to stop Ayag from betting against Michael because he felt something was amiss. However, their sister was hot-headed and had already hatched a plan to get something out of their bet.

"You can ask me anything," Michael didn't even turn around as he casually said. Just sending them away would be a win for Michael.

"You better keep your word then," Ayag proudly said before flapping her wings. Having no choice, Sarba and Cain joined her in her quest to make the prisoners talk. After Vedora left the hall, Nightmare dropped down to the ground, landing beside Michael.

"They aren't dead right?" asked Nightmare.

"Nope," Michael shook his head.

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"They just don't have tongues,"

For a moment, Nightmare had neither an expression nor a word. But when he imagined Ayag's face when they realized the prisoners had no tongues, Nightmare broke into laughter. It took Nightmare a brief moment to stop laughing and turn his gaze back to Michael, who seemed completely focused on the ballista.

"You need any help? What are you looking for?" asked Nightmare.

"Creators leave their mark on the thing they created. It's like a signature. So I am hoping to find one left behind, whoever built this," said Michael.

Nightmare frowned as he raised his leg and placed it on the crescent-shaped handle.

"Do you mean something like this?" Michael raised his head and took a closer look at the handle. However, he saw nothing but plain wood.

"I don't see anything," said Michael.

Nightmare was surprised because he could see a symbol resembling the letter 'H' dimly glistening on the handle.

"Don't you see the glow on the handle? Take a closer look," Nightmare rubbed the symbol. Still, Michael saw nothing.

"Hmm," Michael rubbed his chin as he realized the mark may be invisible to the naked eye. Luckily, Michael had various visions as he switched to the thermal vision first. The result disappointed Michael as he saw no symbol like Nightmare suggested. So Michael switched to another vision and saw nothing. One by one, Michael used all of his vision, yet the result was the same. Michael knew dragons had a special vision that enabled them to see the world from a different view. Unfortunately, there was no potion or technique to mimic their sight.

Therefore, Michael had to rely on Nightmare completely. However, that didn't mean Michael had no way of seeing the symbol. He quickly took out a parchment, an ink bottle, and a platter. Under Nightmare's curious gaze, Michael poured the ink onto the platter.

"Draw me what you see on the parchment," said Michael.

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"Nice idea," Nightmare nodded as he dipped his claw into the ink.

Michael watched Nightmare slowly draw the symbol on the parchment.

"Done," Nightmare surprised Michael with his drawing skills. To be honest, Nightmare seemed like a better painter than Michael himself. When Nightmare lifted his leg off the parchment, Michael saw a symbol resembling the letter 'H'.

"H?" Michael tilted his head as he took the parchment in his hand.

The H on the parchment looked exactly the same as the symbol Hammond engraved on his inventions. Of course, Michael didn't know any of this, just like Hammond didn't know the Dark Lord was staring at his symbol. In fact, Hammond didn't even know someone had used his invention to attack the Dark Lord's army. As Michael was staring at the parchment, Ricky entered the hall carrying a golden scroll in his hand.

"My Lord," Ricky bowed toward Michael and handed over the scroll to Michael.

"We received this via an eagle," said Ricky as Michael opened the scroll.

Nightmare flapped his wings once and leaped onto Michael's shoulder to have a better view of the scroll. Thanks to Gaya, who taught him how to read, Nightmare could read everything on the scroll.

"I will wait for you at the same place we met before. Meet me at dawn tomorrow," Nightmare slowly read the words.

Unlike Nightmare, Michael recognized the handwriting as soon as he laid eyes on the scroll. To be honest, he was waiting for a scroll from the empress. He had a feeling she wanted to talk about the dwarves and their mass destructive weapons. One way or another, the empress's problem got solved. She wanted the weapons gone, and Noah made sure of that. But Michael had a feeling the destruction of the weapon and the prototype was not the end but only the beginning.

"You can leave," Michael dismissed Ricky and turned his gaze back to the ballista.

"They want to play with toys," Michael muttered as he walked around the ballista. The images of Fairbank and his crew's death flashed across Michael's mind. He may have not known them personally, but they all served him loyally. It was his responsibility to avenge them. No matter what, Michael wouldn't rest until he made whoever initiated the plan to attack them pay with their lives.

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"I will show the toys I have," Michael snickered. His mind always began to craft new weapons to build but first, he had to send a message to whoever built the ballista and decided to use it against him.

The next day when the sun rose, the entire continent of Ozer was in shock. But it wasn't Michael's intention to terrorize the Ozer continent. Instead, he wanted everyone in Elon to know what would happen if they dared to go against the Dark Lord. Michael particularly wanted the news to reach Noah's home, the Winston manor who was preparing for the baby shower.

Unknown to them, the god of time and space was planning to crash their party.