Astor was a powerful supernatural being brought into being by the will and machinations of a god. He had lived for thousands of years and killed thousands upon thousands of people and supernaturals. In his life, he had only ever been caught off guard once, and that was when the hero Theseus came for his head back in Athens. By the time the first minotaur, Asterion, was born, Medusa had been around for more than a few years. At that time, Medusa was already cursed by the gods and turned into the gorgon that would go on to terrify so many all over the world.
She had not yet been beheaded when Asterion terrified Athens, forcing their king to sacrifice young men and women to him every seven years. At that time, Asterion was doomed to death by his own fate. The gods had decreed that the minotaur had gone too far, and so a hero was born among the humans. Normally, a human could never face a supernatural being such as Asterion and live to tell the tale, but heroes were far from being just humans. They acted with divine right that gave them powerful destinies even over supernaturals. Theseus was the hero brought about by the gods to deal with the minotaur that believed itself to be a god.
In those days, Cate/Medusa was doing everything she could to disrupt the gods. She had yet to learn that she was simply too weak to do anything to harm the gods. She went around the world, stepping in whenever she sensed anything to do with the gods. In most cases, she disrupted their plans by killing heroes before they could do anything and many other things. Cate was born in Athens, and even after the gods cursed her and the people ran her out of her home, Cate still loved her home. She loved this city that held so many memories for her. At that time, Cate returned home to see how her family was faring, and this was when she learned of the rise of the minotaur.
At first, her rage that this supernatural being was killing so many people just to satisfy its hunger drove her into wanting to kill Asterion, but she put this anger to the side when she learned that the minotaur had gone against the gods and a hero was coming to kill him. She watched patiently, and when Theseus and Ariadne made their move to kill the minotaur, Cate saved him with ease, and that was the end of the matter. She managed to cast an illusion that fooled the hero and his lover into believing that they killed the minotaur. After saving the minotaur, Cate did not just send him on his way. She stopped him from killing the innocent, and on top of this, he had to work for her. For a very long time, Asterion was at Cate's beck and call.
In short, the minotaur was Cate's loyal servant up until the day she was beheaded by Perseus. After that, the minotaur believed that it had regained its freedom, and so it went on to live its life as it pleased until now, when it realized that the woman before it was Cate. "How have you been, pet?" Cate whispered in Asterion's ear. The minotaur shivered from head to toe at these words. There had only ever been a single person who called him "pet." It had been thousands of years, and yet these words still sat deep in his heart, wrapped in hatred for having been made a servant and respect for the power and ambitions he remembered from Medusa.
"Medu…" Asterion was about to say something when he felt his heart being squeezed. He understood the threat being made. He calmed down and forgot the thousands of years of pride he had built up. Cate pulled her hand out of his chest and looked at the minotaur before her. "I hope he is still as wise as he used to be," Cate thought. Bang. In the next moment, the minotaur fell to his knees and bowed deeply with his hands placed on the floor and his palms open for Cate's inspection.
Galeazzo was stunned at the sight. He had been friends with Asterion for many years, and he had never seen him do anything remotely this humbling. "Command me, master," he said. Cate smiled at this. Galeazzo wanted to flee this instant. Things were headed in a direction he neither understood nor accepted. Galeazzo had lived long enough to understand that he would not fare well fighting in enemy territory. He immediately raised his left hand and used the ring on his middle finger to cast a spell that increased his speed by tens of times that of a normal human.
The ring was his totem. As a mage, this totem increased his power to allow him to do things he would otherwise never be able to do. Cate just shook her head when she saw this. "Kill everyone else except these three," she ordered. The minotaur roared with such power that the earth trembled. Galeazzo did not wait to see what was going on. He turned around and fled this place like a blur. He moved with such speed that the earth trembled with each step he took. An explosion of wind was left in his path, and in less than a second, he was gone.
The minotaur gave chase right after that. He was not fast at all, but it seemed that he did not care. It was as though there was no escape from his grasp. Cate sat down on one of the chairs and waited. She even grabbed a glass of wine. After a few minutes, she began hearing screams coming in from all over the underground facility. She heard people begging for mercy, crying out for help, and others casting spells to try and escape. Unfortunately, Asterion had already used his power to turn the entire place into one large labyrinth. This was an ability he was born with, and it was the same power that was used against him so long ago.
Cate did not feel any pity for these people. After all, they felt nothing but excitement when they were watching her trapped in the labyrinth. Many of these people had even made bets on her life. There was no reason for mercy, as far as she could see.