Prometheus, that was his name although at this point there was no sense in thinking about it; suddenly a fire had covered the entire underground complex beneath the city of Alessandro. The capital city of the province of Maeve was extremely imposing, being older than the Hegemony itself and so large that to traverse it on foot one would take months.
The fire would take hours to reach its peak probably, but that would already be enough to draw the attention of the authorities, which in itself was a considerable problem.
"Destroy everything, leave nothing incriminating, even your slaves and servants if necessary," he shouted orders while throwing dozens of notebooks and notes into the fire, hours of research into the trash; although at this point there was no sense in lamenting, the information itself was useless beyond the symbolic. What was truly important and what really hurt him to destroy was in front of him.
"A real shame," growled one of the alchemists in charge of the research, while trembling in an attempt to contain his frustration in front of them; there were dozens of small abominations that had already lost every previous aspect of what they had been.
Feys, beasts, and even Sidhe, and other creatures and races that had been deformed by the touch of The Tempest writhed like masses of flesh covered in tumors while expelling pus and blood from every one of their pores due to infections and self-inflicted wounds from their painful existence.
"How much time will this set back the advances," he growled with pain while grabbing one of the containment bars with anger.
"Months, maybe years, but the losses can be recovered if we recover that girl alive; maybe we can use her in some way and advance the rituals," said the alchemist.
"The rituals are sacred," growled Prometheus, offended in a certain way.
The alchemist hid his disdain while saying with certain tact: "Rituals are rituals, results are what's important; The Tempest doesn't care if there are sacrifices or not, but the intention. Feelings are the greatest source of energy, rituals are means to gather that emotional energy, focus it, just as runes or sigils are unnecessary if the mystery is mastered."
"Then master it quickly, then we won't need rituals," growled Prometheus while thinking of leaving the place. "Kill those things quickly and burn them, I don't want any more demo..."
But before he could finish, his eardrums exploded from the intensity of the shockwave that impacted his body.
In an instant his world spun as if it were a mirage; he saw a familiar but also unknown figure floating in the air in front of him, he tried to say something but realized that his mouth had already disappeared.
But what had not disappeared was the pain.
...
Fire, she was the fire or rather she wanted to be the fire.
The flames covered her entire prison consuming everything around her, there was no longer flesh on her where they could hurt her, there was no longer pain only fire, the warm and vengeful fire that consumed everything she hated.
Although she no longer had a body as she had conceived it before, she continued to retain a vague human and unconscious form; she extended what appeared to be her arm, which at this point was a set of bright and painful flames, which devoured the metal wall in an explosion of fire.
As if they were fireworks, the flames spread like a wildfire throughout the place; everything could burn in this world because that was her will.
"I wish everything were that easy," whispered a voice behind her; like a mirage a figure materialized behind her who seemed indifferent to her flames as if it were an illusion.
"Master," she whispered despite having neither mouth nor throat at this point.
"Yes, I'm glad you still consider me your master, Labrainne," whispered the beautiful woman; she was covered in a crimson veil and was attired in a beautiful and blinding golden dress, she was the image of perfection in body and soul.
The holy compassion and mercy that only gods could have.
"What am I," she murmured now terrified by her appearance; confused she tried to contain the flames that now acquired a dark reddish hue.
"Calm down, calm down it's not your fault, you simply awakened a gift that was always yours," she murmured as she advanced and hugged her, drawing her to her shoulder; to her surprise the flames had disappeared, even her body had returned to normal and she was wearing the same clothes as before.
"What just happened," she whispered confused.
"You are a witch darling, you are a witch and from now on the veil of confusion and falsehood has fallen; from now on the world is yours to change, but there is a price, there is always a price."
...
Labrainne had awakened as a witch and as a pyromancer; on top of everything she was probably a jackpot for the Witch Cult, but for now the main objective was to find information about the illuminated of The Tempest.
"Mars, can you calculate the location of the archives?" she asked while looking slightly at her companion; she didn't enter her mind as she did with Labrainne although doing so in itself with her telepathic abilities was complicated, besides she also didn't know if she could withstand the amount of information in Mars's brain.
The Witch Cult had been founded less than three years ago, at least on the continent, but its number of members continued to grow at an accelerated pace. Twelve of those members had awakened their gifts, the rest were auxiliary agents, or people who showed talent for the apparent awakening.
Labrainne was one of the latter.
The nature of her abilities according to her leader's own description was quite complicated; as she had explained, probably if she hadn't intervened with her manipulation of laws, anomalies like them, the witches, would have likely died because of their own abilities.
Spontaneous combustion, a stroke, or other mental conditions or apparently degenerative diseases.
Their master had saved them and had paid a cost for that, they couldn't let her down; as saviors of the world and of all lives in it they couldn't allow it.
Mars dressed in her typical whitish toga covered in golden lines, which barely covered her chest, evidencing that she wore nothing under the toga. She wore a death mask on her face that hid it from prying eyes while her ebony black hair, which was braided, fell over her right shoulder.
But what stood out most about her was obviously her two horns similar to a bull's that protruded from her head.
"Over there, I can see clashes and combat in this direction as well as greater resistance, here they must be keeping anything of use."
The remaining five responded with different voices and postures of assent; it was rare for all seven to gather.
But for that reason, it was impossible for them to fail.