Seraphine sat in the cafeteria while having her lunch, and beside her, Katherine was seated calmly with a glass of blood resting in her hand and a bowl of oats in front of her.
Both of them were facing forward, and even without speaking a word, the tension in the air was easy to sense.
The atmosphere at the table was dull, and the silence between conversations felt heavy somehow.
Leila sat across from them with a clearly pissed expression, her brows drawn together while she poked at her food with little interest.
Beads of sweat slowly formed on Ethan's forehead as he tried his best to keep his composure.
Every now and then, his eyes shifted toward Leila, watching her reactions carefully, but she remained focused on her meal, ignoring him completely.
Kara and Desmond were seated to Leila's left, quietly observing the situation, while Galeion sat next to Ethan and continued talking animatedly about some brawl he had recently gotten into with a senior student.
Galeion narrated the incident with great enthusiasm, his hands were moving as he narrated the story with gestures, but it was painfully obvious that Ethan had no interest in the story at all.
His mind was occupied with a much bigger problem at that moment, which was Leila's visible anger toward him.
But the group had realised long ago that Galeion was horrible at reading the room.
Leila, meanwhile, continued to ignore Ethan entirely and only spoke occasionally to Kara, treating him as if he were not even present at the table.
"What is wrong with that Maximus boy from your tribe?" Kara asked suddenly, changing the topic as if she had just remembered something distant and strange.
Leila's interest was immediately piqued, and she lifted her head slightly to look at her. "Huh? What about him?"
"You don't know?" Kara tilted her head in curiosity. "He has been acting strange these days."
"Yeah," Suddenly, Galeion nodded as his attention shifted completely from the incident he was referring to earlier.
He nodded his head in agreement as he recalled his own experience.
"I challenged him to a fight the other day, but he ignored me completely, and after that, he started avoiding me like a plague. He does not have a warrior's heart."
Galeion's expression turned dismissive as he remembered the encounter.
Leila's eyes softened slightly, and her voice lost some of its sharpness as she responded.
"Poor boy has suffered a lot."
"What do you mean?" Katherine asked calmly as she looked at the swirl of blood and took another sip from the glass. The faint rosy shade of blood left on her lips made her look strangely mysterious.
Leila let out a slow sigh before slouching back slightly in her seat, as if the memories weighed on her shoulders.
"He is the son of Duke Sinclair, but his mother had commoner blood," she said,
"He was always treated as an outcast in his own family. Whenever we met at banquets, his own brothers and sisters mocked him openly in front of everyone."
She paused briefly before continuing, and her eyes grew colder. "And the Sinclair duchess," Leila added, her voice turned grim,
"She is a venomous woman. Her mind works in ways that a normal person would never imagine."
Leila clenched her fingers slightly as she spoke on.
"Every noble lady hesitates to form bonds with her. On my last birthday banquet, the Sinclair duchess gifted me a torture weapon."
"What?" Katherine asked softly, but her eyes sharpened with interest.
"She said young girls like me find pleasure in torturing innocent and weak men," Leila spoke, giving Ethan a sideways glance.
"What the hell!!" "cough*!" Ethan blurted out before coughing violently, his voice cracked, and a chill ran down his spine.
Soon, Ethan erupted as he hurriedly turned towards Leila and grasped her hands from the other side, bringing them to face him.
"Umm... Leila, it was my fault," Ethan said nervously, reaching out and taking her hands in his. "I am sorry, I never meant to say you looked fat"
"Hmph!!" Leila turned her face away immediately, making Ethan's heart sink even further.
Katherine, Seraphine, and Kara could not help but giggle at the scene, while Galeion, as clueless as ever, spoke with complete sincerity.
"Huh!! Ethan, why are you apologising? We are men. Men do not apologise for telling the truth."
"What??" Leila shot Galeion a deadly glare, an expression that clearly said, 'You will die a virgin'
The rest of the table burst into laughter at the interaction, but unfortunately for Ethan, he was one of those laughing, and the moment he realised it, he received a sharp death stare from Leila.
Her expression clearly warned him that if he messed up again, she would personally pay a visit to the Sinclair duchess.
"Guys," a heavy voice suddenly interrupted them.
Everyone turned toward Desmond, who had stood up near the window with a serious look on his face, his gaze fixed on something outside.
Curiosity surged through the group, and one by one they all stood up to see what had caught his attention.
"Maximus??" Leila spoke out loud, her voice filled with disbelief.
"Why the hell is he running like he is being chased by dogs?" Katherine asked, her brows furrowing.
"Look at his expression," Seraphine added softly. "He is running as if his life depends on it."
"Let's go," Kara said instantly, already moving before anyone could stop her.
"Wait, Kara," Leila raised her hand to stop her, but it was already too late.
As if on cue, Katherine ran after her, and Seraphine followed close behind. Leila shook her head in resignation before going after them as well.
"Wait!! Leila!!" Ethan called out, but she did not stop.
Ethan had no choice left. He exchanged a look with Galeion and Desmond, and after a brief sigh, they decided to follow as well, not running but walking quickly enough to keep up.
***
Skybreak Empire...
The titan race was truly mystical, and unlike dragons or phoenixes, they did not fight endlessly for supremacy, despite being among the strongest races in existence.
They possessed a unique racial ability that allowed them to change their size and transform into colossal warriors.
Though most of the time, they remained in shorter humanoid forms because the transformation consumed enormous amounts of mana.
Although what they considered short was called giant by other races
The Skybreak Empire was the territory of these titans, and they did not build ordinary homes, since such structures were too fragile for them.
Instead, they constructed massive pyramids of golden earth that could withstand their presence.
Because titans were very few in number,they had a lot of land available to build such pyramids.
Just like phoenixes and dragons, they relied on ritualistic breeding to propagate their race, a limitation shared only by dragons and phoenixes.
This weakness was compensated for, by their long lifespans and immense strength.
They worshipped water above all else, and most of their settlements were built along rivers.
They were a secluded race with very little politics and pride, unlike the rest, and to them, the most powerful force in existence was water itself.
Currently, water was being worshipped at the outskirts of the sky break capital.
The titan emperor stood in his gigantic titan form in the midst of the holy river, his gigantic legs disrupted the heavy currents of water.
One of his hands was raised high, afternoon sunlight filtered through his colossal fingers, casting patters of shadow over the land.
The hand came down with terrifying force, striking the surface of the flowing river.
bhum!!
Another hand followed.
bhum!!
Horns and drums blared along the riverbank as titan warriors blew massive bone horns. Their formations stood perfectly aligned on both sides of the river.
While between them a few drummers stood matching beats with moving fist of the emperor.
bhum!!bhum!!
bhum!!
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bhum!!bhum!!
bhum!!
bhum!!bhum!!
bhum!!
As the rhythmic beats of the river, drums and the deafening horns echoed together on the outskirts of the Skybreak empire's capital.
In a secluded corner of the pyramid city, inside a humongous pyramid, blood spurted from the mouth of a titan dressed in golden robes, his face was being pressed violently against the ground by blue-clawed shoes.
splrt!!
A man wearing a dark blue raven mask stood above him.
Nine-HeavensStormcleaver's blade was pressed firmly against the trembling fingers of the titan, the pressure so intense that the bones began to split.
"No, no, no...!! Please noooo!!!" the titan cried desperately.
As if his cries meant nothing, the pressure from the blade did not lessen, but instead surged violently.
Too violently.
Arrrghhhhh!!!
A scream tore from the titan's throat as his fingers were severed from his hand.
His screams were deafening, but in front of the blaring of the horns and the sounds of the titan emperor punching the river, they were nothing.
The arm with the severed fingers twitched violently as the titan man cried, but before it could take in the pain of one hand, he saw his other hand getting frozen as an ice block appeared covering it.
Soon, the blood and veins inside his hand got frozen and slowly, in front of his face, which was pinned to the ground, the blue raven mask man stretched his index finger back by the thumb as if ready to shatter the ice block with a flick.
His deep blue eyes lowered as he looked into the golden-robed titan's eyes and said.
"Is the pain better than being my slave?"