The pentagonal marks on their necks crumbled away into dust, and awareness and focus returned to their eyes. Two pairs of b.e.s.t.i.a.l eyes blinked several times as they flitted about before settling in on Li. 

A rustle of sharp movement.

Ada and her husband had retreated, their backs to the opposite wall as they stared ahead in fear. Li was far more nonchalant, making sure his expression was neutral as each of his hands held onto the beastwomens' wrists, holding back bared claws and muscles trembling with exertion.

"Relax," said Li, his Allspeak translating simultaneously into both the language of the Feli and Serpi. As he spoke their tongue, the beastwomen, their expressions wild and fierce, their fangs bared, softened just a little. "I'm here to help."

"You lie!" said the Serpi, her forked tongue flitting from her mouth. Her free hand opened up and pointed towards Li, the glimmer of magic swirling around her fingers. "Just as all the other humans have."

The Feli was no less aggressive, her long golden hair rising as her innate power flared out. She also took her free hand back, the claws on it extending even further. "You will not deceive me by speaking my own tongue. I will never submit to control under your like again."

Li sighed. He had half expected this. Lore painted out beastmen as fiercely individualistic and combative, and that combined with the high stress environment of being ferried around as a slave were the perfect ingredients to concoct a potent brew of tense anxiety and aggression. 

"Let's talk later," said Li with a nod, casting [Sleep Spore], his least invasive and damaging way to put down the weaklings of this world. 

The Serpi flitted her tongue out, smelling the air, and almost immediately, her fierce expression softened. The magic around her free hand dulled, and the strength in her arms slacked like a cut rope. Her long black lashes fluttered as her eyelids became heavy.

The Feli's golden hair began to settle down as her nose twitched, the invisible spores circulating through her body. Her yellow tail swished from side to side in lethargy, and she let out a small mew as she opened her mouth wide in a yawn. 

Li let go of their hands, and they slumped to the ground in sound and docile sleep. He stooped down and slung each of them over one of his shoulders. It was a little awkward to carry both of them as they were almost up to Li's height, but his superhuman strength managed. 

He turned to Ada and her husband. As expected, they were terrified. Understandably so. The duchy was intensely anti-human, every single temple priest espousing an ideology that humans were superior with heroes at the pinnacle of human achievement. An useful ideology in this world, too, as the duchy stood in opposition against the vastly larger Republic composed entirely of non-humans. There was nothing more motivating than fear of the other. 

But still an ideology that bred silly ignorance, as was the case with these two, though it seemed far less so with Ada herself. Considering her father had been taught to respect all life, it stood to reason he had pa.s.sed down some of that to his daughter. 

"They're a little tense from being treated like slaves," said Li matter of factly. "You'd act much the same in their circ.u.mstances, I'm sure."

He pa.s.sed by them, going down the end of the low hallway where the magic bound sliding door was. 

"What're you goin' to do with em'?" said Ada as she and her husband tentatively followed behind Li. 

"How long are slaves kept here?" asked Li, ignoring her question for now.

Ada s.h.i.+fted on her feet. "Well, I never really kept count. I shut their crimes out of my sight."

"Two to three days," said her husband. "I kept track the first few times to see if I could get any details to report them on. But the men are masked and look tough as nails."

Li nodded. "And how long has it been since these two have come here?"

"Just a day, I reckon," said the husband. 

"Then you have one or two days. How fortunate," said Li. 

Ada and her husband looked at each other, and when they saw that neither of them knew what Li was talking about, they gave quizzical expressions to him. 

"Take your daughter, father, and the most precious of your belongings and leave if you value your lives. I'm breaking these two beastwomen out of this hosue, and Chevrette will wonder where his product has gone." 

"But where will we go!?" said the husband, panic rising in his voice.

"Anywhere," said Ada flatly. "Anywhere but here. We have a chance to leave this accursed place. Let us take it."

"Go to the n.o.ble estates," said Li. "Ask for Count Alexei. Tell the guards by the gates that Li sent you. That name alone should let you pa.s.s, there, you will be safe, but I cannot guarantee your lives on the way."

"Our daughter, your father, Ada, we cannot provide for them," protested the husband. "Without the bakery, with the coin, what will we do? We've nothing to our name. Less than nothing if we factor in Chevrette's loan. With the house, at the least we've had a warm roof and food for our little girl."

Ada balled her hands into fists, and they trembled like mad, but she managed to shake her head with surprisingly firm determination.

"We've used that as an excuse far too long," said Ada. "I've been willin' to swallow them until now because the moment we tried somethin', we'd be killed. But now, we've a chance to escape it all, dear, this life that puts so much blood upon our hands."

"Dear-," said the husband, protest still laced in his voice.

"What will you tell her when she comes of age?" continued Ada. "Will you hide the truth from her forever? That her full stomach and warm house come from the blood o' girls same as her?" She shook her head. "This good man's guaranteein' our lives, and it might be hard startin' anew, from nothin', but I'd rather build up honestly from the dirt than lord over even a castle built on blood." 

After a moment of silence, the husband nodded. "You're right. This is the first time I've seen you so…alive, just as you were when we were possessed by young love and hope. If starting again will mean seeing you like this forever, then I'll do it."

With that, they took each other's hands, wasting no time in rus.h.i.+ng down the hallway to get the rest of the family and their belongings.

That settled, Li leaped into the attic with the beastwomen, jumping precisely so that they did not get hit by anything on the way up. He looked around at this room, this holding cell that had seen so many suffering pa.s.s through it over so many years. It did not affect him as much as he thought it would. 

His sentimentality had definitely dimmed as he spent more time attaining G.o.dhood, but at the least, he could still feel the preciousness of the lives breathing on his shoulders, relying upon him for their survival. 

Li had jumped up here to take himself away from the married couple's sights as he was going to shapes.h.i.+ft into a flying creature and get back to the farm, which, guarded with a forest spirit and demon herald, might as well have been the most fortified place in the entire duchy. However, going by foot was a terrible idea considering the optics of a foreigner carrying two beastwomen on his shoulders, so flight was the best option. 

"[Wings of the Obsidian b.u.t.terfly]" whispered Li. He had two spells that granted him wings, the other being [Wings of Simurgh], but those wings were far too large to reliably use here. He had another flight based spell that was less obviously combat oriented. 

Amber b.u.t.terfly wings sprouted from Li's shoulders in a flourish of color. They were twice Li's size but pliable, letting him fold them over the beastwomen and fit into the s.p.a.ce of the attic. They were unlike the wings of any natural b.u.t.terfly, dotted with jagged growths of obsidian.

The patterns upon the wings weaved into countless rows of angry red eyes that gleamed with dark energies that emanated an insanity aura that would prevent any mortal from gazing upon Li's form during flight. 

Li held the beastwomen close to him before he leaped up, smas.h.i.+ng through the roof. He put the wings above him to s.h.i.+eld the beastwomen from the impact, but when he made it out of the house, he unfurled the wings and beat them once, sailing him high above the silent midnight city.

Countless little lantern lights dotted the cityscape as n.o.body wanted to be out and about in this ominous night so filled with dark clouds. A good thing for Li as it minimized attention to him. With that, he wasted no time in flying back to the farm, making sure not to go so fast that the speed affected the beastwomen in his arms any. 

Li could have given the family back at the bakery more protection, but he wanted them to take upon some risk. If they were to truly become determined in changing their lives, in making up for what they had done, then they had to find it within themselves to brave death.

By breaking out of the house, Li intended to force Chevrette to think hard and divert his resources. If the slaves had simply been let out, then it was plausible that the family had somehow undid the runic seals and freed them, but being broken out by force indicated a third party that would keep Chevrette on edge. He would have to consider far more possibilities, not to mention the fact that he had to repair that hole in the roof unless he wanted people to know about the holding cell in the attic.

That gave Li more time to put the pieces of his own plan into action. To take down Chevrette in such a way that it would let the city function normally while bringing all the farmers to his side, he had to go through more official channels. He had to destroy Chevrette's reputation entirely so that the poor people that loved him so for his generosity would reject him. 

With a destroyed reputation, the force of the law would also come down upon the n.o.bleman, and if the law seized him, then the crown would make sure that all of Chevrette's business interests and owners.h.i.+p of the bank – the two things that made him so necessary to the city so as to make him unkillable normally – would transfer over to another.

Li would make sure that one of Alexei's lackeys or the count himself would take over that owners.h.i.+p. 

But there was first the matter of rallying the people against Chevrette. Mere evidence of slaves was not enough as Ada had already said that the farmer that brought attention to it, likely even bringing in evidence, was ridiculed and later disposed of.

No, someone had to rile the people up first. Then the law would naturally follow. Li knew that it could not be Alexei who did this. He kept to himself and his businesses catered mostly to the upper cla.s.s, so he had no real grasp over the common man.

Li looked down, his eyes focusing on the small dot that was his farm. He flew downwards, and as he got close enough, he realized that there was a carriage parked by the farm. The same type of traveling carriage that Triple Threat had used to go down south.

As Li made a gentle landing, his wings sinking into his body, he nodded in satisfaction, realizing that his piece, his rallying figure, was already in play.