I Destroy the Empire

Chapter 2: Contingencies

“INTRUDERS!”

From the high air tunnels, three figures dropped into the room, landing in a spray of dust and shadow. They all wore gas masks with bodies that were lean and lethal.

The battle was simultaneous. A chaotic, perfectly executed plan.

The smallest of the three, a girl with pale silver hair, slammed her hand on the floor and pointed at Theron. A device on her wrist flared, and a net of crackling purple energy erupted from it, slamming into the Lord Commander, and shielding him from the rest of the fight.

Theron didn't even flinch. He simply stood there, encased in the barrier, watching with a blank, analytical look. He could break it, Seraph knew. But he wasn't. He was... observing.

A brown-haired woman with the nimble grace of a cat loosed two shafts from her bow. Not arrows, but vials. They shattered on the floor, erupting in a thick, acrid smoke that instantly filled the room.

"Get him!" a man's voice yelled.

The dark, silver-haired man in a long coat didn't attack. He sprinted for the altar, throwing a small, metallic cube at Seraph. The cube clicked, unfolded in mid-air, and slammed onto Seraph's torso. It wasn't a weapon. It was a container. Metal bands snapped around his body, and with a sickening lurch, Seraph felt his world compress. The cube swallowed him whole, shrinking down to the size of a fist.

"I have him!" the man shouted.

The werewolf, Fenris, lunged through the smoke, claws extended. The silver-haired man didn't flinch, drawing a sleek sabre and a smoking vial in one motion. He met the werewolf's charge, blade and poison against tooth and claw.

From the other side, the dragon-woman, Nefeli, flew at the archer, her own bastard sword a blur of steel. The brown-haired woman dropped her bow and drew a rapier, her movements impossibly fast. Steel met steel in a ringing crash.

Aelia and Brog charged the last intruder.

"Stop them!" Aelia screamed.

The half-ogre brute raised his cleaver to bring it down on the small, pale-haired girl.

But she wasn't alone.

A dark wraith, a being of pure shadow and malice, materialized behind her. It was massive, wielding a battle axe in one hand and a sword in the other. It moved with the grace of a seasoned warrior, its axe catching the brute's cleaver with a screech of unholy metal, while its sword engaged Aelia's Arming Sword.

It was a stalemate. Three on three. Or… four.

The silver-haired man, Kaelen, ducked under a savage swipe from Fenris, jabbing the vial of knockout poison straight into the werewolf's neck. Fenris roared, stumbled, and collapsed in a heap.

“I’ve got him!” the silver-haired man shouted, snatching the cube from the altar. “Now, Lyra!”

The girl named Lyra, who was holding the wraith and the barrier, nodded.

She clenched her fists. The purple barrier around Theron didn't just drop. It began to spin, faster and faster, becoming a vortex of molten energy.

At the same time, the dark wraith threw its head back and screeched.

It was not a sound. It was a psychic weapon.

Seraph, being inside the cube, felt it. His betrayers were caught in the open and they howled in pain, dropping their weapons to clutch their ears.

With everyone dazed and their ears ringing, the molten barrier consumed the wraith and shot across the room, swallowing the three intruders. The mass of purple energy then blasted up, rocketing through the air vent they had come from, disappearing in a flash.

The silence that returned was deafening, broken only by the groans of Aelia and Brog.

Nefeli was the first to recover. Her scales spread, her form shifting, wings half-formed as she prepared to fly after them. But she stopped. The tunnel was too small for her true frame.

“Alert the Knights! Lock down the city!” she hissed, her voice a strange, sibilant whisper.

“Stop.”

Lord Theron’s voice was unchanged. He stepped forward, calmly adjusting the cuff of his gauntlet. The purple energy hadn't even singed him.

“Let them go.”

Aelia staggered to her feet, her face pale with fury and confusion. “But, My Lord! Those are likely the King’s killers! Seraph... he's alive! We must capture them!”

Theron raised a single, armoured hand, and she was silenced.

He stood up and walked to the massive dungeon door, his footsteps the only sound.

“Make sure that air tunnel is sealed for the future. The fact that they came for him means they had a plan for escape.”

He paused at the door, turning his head slightly. A small, cold smile touched his lips.

“I have more important things to do. Just let the Kingdom know the King’s killer is dead.”

He looked over at the unconscious, drooling form of Fenris.

“Say Fenris ate him.”

With that, he was gone.

Aelia stared at the empty doorway, her entire body shaking. Her lips curled up, just a bit. A small, hidden part of her... was thankful he had escaped.

Far from the dungeon, the three rescuers ran, the compressed cube held tight in Kaelen's hand. They burst from a sewer grate onto the rocky shore of a fortress built over a flowing lake.

It was nighttime. The moon was full, reflecting on a small boat where a huge, silhouetted person sat, holding the oars.

The brown-haired girl, Elara, waved and called out with a breathless laugh.

“BO! We got him!”

The massive person in the boat let out a booming laugh in reply, activating a glowing enchantment on the boat's hull. It was ready to fly.

That was how Knight Lieutenant Seraph Ignis died.

And in that dark, flying boat, Seraph Ignis slept as the others panicked to stop his blood and keep him alive before they got to their destination.

***

His first sensation was light.

Not the searing, magical light of the dungeon, but a soft and dull glow.

His second was pain. There was a deep, agonizing itch where his limbs used to be.

He opened his eyes.

The ceiling was wite and sterile. He smelled chemicals and herbs, they smelled familiar… Like a memory from his teenage years.

"Oh, shit!"

His ear picked up a familiar voice. A face swam into his view. It had dark silver hair, sharp grey eyes behind thin-rimmed spectacles.

"Welcome back to the land of the living. Only took you nine months."

Seraph’s throat was dry. He tried to speak. A raw croak came out.

"Kaelen?"

Kaelen Yunis, his oldest friend, the rebel noble and back-alley doctor, gave him a tired, brilliant smile. "The one and only. Long time, buddy."

Kaelen gently slid an arm under his back, helping him sit up. Seraph looked down.

He had arms. He had legs.

They weren't his. They were made of a dull, grey, enchanted metal, intricately jointed. His hands were the same, but the fingernails were long, black, and sharpened to points.

"Your contingency plan worked," Kaelen said, his voice soft.

Seraph looked at him, his mind a fog.

"...What plan?"

Kaelen’s smile faltered. "Hmm. What do you remember?"

Seraph’s brow furrowed. He remembered the parade. The adulation. He remembered...

"I was on the dias... with Lord Theron... and then..."

His eyes widened. The memories flooded back, not as a fog, but as a tidal wave of fire and betrayal.

"I was wrongly accused... in front of the entire empire... as the King's slayer."

His face, which felt strangely tight, twisted in an expression of pure rage.

Kaelen watched him, his expression grim. "He's in here," he called to someone outside the room.

Kaelen helped Seraph stand, his new legs wobbly and strange. He half-carried, half-dragged him to a full-length mirror.

"I assembled the crew the moment we got the announcement," Kaelen said, his voice a low murmur. "We saw your update at the old base. Elara... well, Elara will never call you crazy for your 'meaningless' contingency plans ever again."

Seraph stared at the mirror.

He saw Kaelen, tired and worn, but alive.

And he saw the man beside him.

It was not Seraph Ignis.

The man in the mirror was a stranger. His jet-black hair was gone, replaced by shoulder-length, wavy silver. His face was different—the jawline sharper, the nose straighter. Only his eyes remained: piercing, amber, and now burning with a cold, terrifying fury. Faint, silvery lines, like a spider's web, traced the new contours of his face.

He also noticed new arms that felt foreign but held together by sorcery he didn't understand. He felt his power surge as his blood boiled a little.

He saw the flashes. Brog's cleaver. Fenris's teeth. Nefeli's cold stare. Theron's smile.

Aelia's sword, raised to take his life.

Seraph’s blank expression turned to one of profound sadness. Then, slowly, it hardened.

A new smile touched the stranger's lips. It was a cold, charming, utterly predatory smile.

"The Death Plan," Seraph whispered, his new voice a smooth tenor.

"Pyralis Cinderfall will be my name from henceforth. I already planned for a new name long ago."

He looked at Kaelen, his eyes alight with a terrible purpose.

"We're putting the Death plan in motion."

Kaelen looked stunned. "No way. Seraph, we're not actually... That was just a hobby. A game you started for a 'what-if' scenario!"

The man in the mirror shook his head.

"The Empire has betrayed me," Pyralis Cinderfall said.

"It must be taken apart… Piece by piece."