**Moments earlier**
In a hollow room of pure white, glowing blue orbs were spread throughout the place—each distances apart from each other.
There in the center, a man sat with nothing but white clothing: a shirt, drawstring pants, barefoot, and medium-length hair that was gray as ash.
The most distinguishable feature about this male was the heavy, dark gray tungsten blindfold over his eyes, giving no signs of remission.
All around them, there were W.M.A. officers, armed to the teeth that never took their eyes off of any of the prisoners here, each officer an S rank mage in their own respects. Had any of these officers chosen to reside in a Kingdom, they'd be Vice Captains or Captains of a prestigious Guild—perhaps, even, higher ranks…
The W.M.A had hired them all, paying them a hefty sum to simply keep watch of the most dangerous criminals in all the nation—A.K.A. Grade 0 criminals.
It was not only their strength that was hired, but also their attentiveness and unrivaled skills in battle that landed them in this Keeperforsaken place. There were about thirty of these highly skilled officers with only about six prisoners here alone.
Ironic really. The stronger one was in the W.M.A., the more likely they were to stand in this blank space—day in and day out—than be a General or Admiral on the front lines. Nevertheless, they each took their jobs seriously. Any delay or stagger in movement could—
It was then they got an alert from their comms. It was quick and carried no sound due to this space needing to be a hollow silent; and normally only one comm was necessary to ring, but here in this moment, every single one rang—shifting their attentions to it for but a point of a second…
Crack…
One of the officer's heightened senses heard the sound from one of the blue orbs… the one with the gray haired male and tungsten blindfold.
But the sound didn't come from the orb, rather…
"Two-fifty-two, check status on prisoner X6," the officer talked through an earpiece as he vigilantly kept his eyes on the prisoner, X6.
No signs of abnormality… Is there something the matter—
Crack.
Wait! Hold on! How did he—
Without a moment's notice, the tungsten blindfold on the gray haired male cracked all the way down the middle.
The officer didn't even hesitate as he snapped his fingers, and he was in front of the blue orb in less than a blink—zoning himself there.
Seconds later, others joined him in front of this specific prisoner's cell.
"Fuck!" he said as they arrived, but were too late—even as lightning quick as he was and the others' swift arrival.
"Funny really…" the gray haired male spoke. His voice was like calm waters that hid a massive creature just below its surface. "How all it took was for all of you to look away for less than a second… allowing me to do this…"
When the tungsten blindfold shattered before the officers' eyes, there was no sound as time seemed to slow from their point of view.
The pieces of the blindfold fluttered in the air and behind them were closed eyes that even the presence of time steered clear away from.
When he opened them, there was only a sea of red that beheld this place.
"Kneel."
The sound of a crack echoed in all their ears and even a visible fracture in the air could be seen once this male opened his dreadful eyes. The pressure from them alone made them shudder if they ever met their eyes with his.
But it was the sound of his voice and the words he uttered that commanded them to do as he ordered.
The soldiers fell to their knees one after another, dropping their weapons in the process.
One was slightly more resistant to it than the rest as he only bent over from where he stood in the back.
"Augmentation Magic: Caster Contravene!"
After his spell, a light of yellow mana shot from his feet, enveloping him and the others—letting them all stand as they once had.
"Oh?" The red eyed and gray haired male said. "Quite the powerful spell you have there… Too bad I am your opposer."
The male descended from his floating orb cell, and landed gracefully onto the floor of the white space. His white prison clothes fluttered as if drifting on their own wind.
When he arrived, he spoke again—a stronger command,
"Dispel."
As the single word entered their ears, his yellow aura cracked and shattered from them all, never to return.
Their eyes were wide within their balaclavas as they fell to their knees once again.
What the fuck…!? the officer thought as his eyes trembled to the floor.
"Very good," the male said. "Oh, it is nice to finally be free from that godawful cell."
The male began to crack his neck, completely casual as the thirty officers remained knelt before him.
It was then two more 'officers' arrived descending down from high up behind him. He knew of their arrival.
When they landed, the female of the two shouted, "Master Wrath!" Her tongue caressed his name like she had waited forever to say it.
"Such a pleasure to see you both, Lilith, Arthur. My devout followers… and fellow Riot Gang Head Officers," Wrath replied, turning his head to see them, slowly.
When the kneeling officers saw Arthur, their eyes widened ragefully—connecting the dots with Wrath's welcome to him.
"So that's why…" one of them muttered.
"Only one of us should have gotten the alert… yet… we all did at the same time…" another added, deducing.
"Aye," Arthur replied as the pressure on him and Lilith had somehow eased on them, and he walked forward nearing Wrath. "I tampered with your comms with my magic when I came to visit for the last routine check-up. It took months to be granted access to the seventy-first floor, and even then, I was only allowed to do routine check-ups twice a year. So, getting you all together within this half-mile radius had to be done on the second visit—any longer would be unacceptable to my Master."
He nodded to Wrath. Even as he stood so near, he could not look him in the eyes. It was as if the mere doing so would cause him to kneel just as the officers before them.
"I appreciate your patience Master," Arthur ended.
The words made each of the officers' tremble as they witnessed a lead officer—a renowned soldier of the W.M.A. like him call this dangerous, ruthless criminal 'Master'. They couldn't believe someone so high in ranking was working in the shadows with one such as Wrath.
"I expected nothing less from my 1st Head Officer of Riot Gang."
The look of defiance emerged on all their faces; forcing themselves to look up and face the threat before them. Soldiers second, mages first they were as their pride from each of their respected Kingdoms chose to oppose the menaces—Wrath, the prisoner, Arthur the 1st Head Officer of Riot Gang, and the mysterious girl behind them with a sly look on her pretty face.
"We… will not… bow to fucking criminals—"
Then like a whisper in all their ears, the voice came like a soft breeze. It entered their head—their mind as they obeyed the voice without a second thought. Without needing to do anything. Their hearts stopped and the air was gone from their lungs, left to suffocate and writhe as their eyes rolled to the backs of their skulls—where the Keeper awaited them.
"Die" was all Wrath said, and they did just that.
His eyes glowed such deep crimson that the white room reflected that same hue. And then his nose bled…
It was then that the other two: Lilith and Arthur pulled out half plague doctor masks and put them on. The beaks of them shrouded their face from the nose down, leaving only their eyes in view.
Arthur then gave Wrath one as well—his own, which was the color black but reflected gold. Each of their masks taking on steampunk features—a symbol.
Wrath wiped his nose and slung his on, and from Lilith's badge, she pulled out a fur hooded greatcoat and rested it on his shoulders.
It was then that the alarms rang even in this place that was supposed to be forever silent.
"That's the black alert. Never in history has it ever sounded," Arthur said, observing, voice muffled by his half-plague mask.
"Then we are making history," Wrath replied as he turned around with them both following from behind. "Ah, I almost forgot."
He only turned his head to face the other five orbs that floated in this place. All of which contained criminals with the same degree of offense and threat as he. Though he was the only one who could escape in the way he did, these other five…
"Free," Wrath spoke, and their orbs broke open one by one.
As the five emerged from their floating orb cells, they dropped to the white space that now glowed an echo red.
"You are free to join me or leave. Your freedom is yours to do as you please. All I ask, is that you cause chaos wherever you pass," he said to them, almost like a poem as he proceeded to walk away with Lilith and Arthur, following behind.
Their silhouettes were of different sizes. One was drastically larger than the rest of them, two average height, one female, and one with orange hair and scars all over his face…
They said nothing as they witnessed Wrath's greatcoat fluttering like a cape behind him. A man who was just like them, moments ago—now their savior.
***
Wrath, Arthur, and Lilith all ascended from that same platform, going from floor to floor as he simply spoke, and freed each prisoner from their cells.
From the floor above: the sixty-fifth up to the fifty-sixth floor, which was like a sea prison, he unleashed chaos from the prisoners and the Graded beasts that occupied the place. From the floor above: the fifty-fifth floor and up where Lilith had caused a scene, had intensified with the prisoners breaking into the dome-windowed halls. The W.M.A. officers failed to keep them at bay—some even freezing as they entered out into the landscape.
From the floors above those, where the heat had come as quick as a flood to their skins, Wrath commanded the officers to dive into the blazing sea, and created elevated platforms and ramps for the prisoners below to come and go as they pleased—doing so all with his words alone.
Then when they entered the space above, darkness shrouded them, and all was silent once more except the sounds of the black alert sirens going off in the distance.
Without warning, a group of stealth officers met them a floor above later like suspended in air, dashing quickly, but still far too slow.
"Halt," he said, calmness in his tone. And they listened as they all froze in a stasis—some even remained suspended as they leaped.
"Bright," he spoke next and the room lit like a flash, revealing all its parts.
Unlike the floors below, the prisoners here were not in cells—trapped by their very own magic blessings. But with Wrath there now, that was no longer the case.
"Unaffected." His spoken word trailed through the air, entering each of the prisoners' ears one after another.
"Go with your Anatomy magics. Their walls and their weapons will no longer affect you."
Ascending still, the prisoners tested his words, beginning to run rampant rather than scared—finally free from their blindness and the preventions of their abilities. And Wrath watched as they slaughtered every last officer on that floor.
Higher and higher still, they rose. Not a single floor aside from the seventy-first could trap him. Contain him. The words he spoke and the actions they evoked were true. None could defy Wrath.
To him, Tartarus was like a glorified playground, and he was the only one playing.
"Say, Master Wrath… How about making this place your Kingdom?" Lilith implied.
"Hm…" he pondered as they continued to rise. "Not a bad idea. I've been meaning to find a new base after all. How about it? Tartarus. The very place that confined me—now my throne."
The two Head Officers glanced at each other momentarily and then back to Wrath. "I think that's a fine idea, Master," Arthur said.
Lilith gave a soft, deviant smile and tilted her head; the echoes of W.M.A. screams sounding the air as the floors below yawned beneath them. "Let's do it."
When they passed the floating cell area and spoke freedom to those prisoners, the blue lights plastered their faces. Wrath remained as he was as a serene smile beneath his doctor's mask overtook him in contrast to the chaos he wrought to the place.
"Good," he adjourned. "When we reach the top, let the others know so that they may be on their way. From now on"—he raised his head upward as the blue of these floors had begun to faintly shade into an orange hue—"Tartarus will be our new home."
As they entered the massive brass pipe and smoke area, Wrath drew out his arms like an orchestrator as the three of them were met with an army of W.M.A. officers surrounding them from every angle, each with mana powered weaponry fiercer than the next, ready to take them down at a moment's notice.
They were like a swarm of bees from every nest as their stingers—their weapons had begun charging with great intensity. The looks of sheer dedication etched on each of their balaclava covered faces—their eyes like raging, roaring fire.
"Ex-lead officer, Arthur!" The warden of Tartarus shouted—voice explosive. "I urge you to surrender now… or so by the Keeper, I will unleash hell upon you for your class SSS crimes against the world. Do yourself a favor and let your last free actions be one of worthy acumen!"
Arthur said nothing as he glowered with his head down at the warden. His officer's cap still perched nicely upon his head and that half-plague mask ironically revealing his true identity to them all.
"You have managed to earn even my trust as you climbed quickly through the ranks… all for you to spoil it with such juvenile actions to free a prisoner. What changed, Arthur?" The warden's booming voice sounded.
Wrath and Lilith both stood on the platform unfazed as they remained silent, letting Arthur speak. "What changed?" he repeated the warden's words. "Why… nothing changed. Like a dog, I am loyal to my master."
The look of disgust etched every part of the warden's chiseled face. Shadows even formed briefly as he let his mana aura erupt from the pores of his skin. Blue flame scorched the air, cindering the metal and pipes of the place but careful not to burn his W.M.A. comrades. To them, this fire was a healing flame, but to enemies…
"What a disappointing answer… No matter," the warden said with deadly calm. "Whatever path you decide to take, this is over."
"I agree," Wrath said at last. His voice was lighter, but when he spoke those words, the warden felt chills where his blue flames had etched from.
The next words from Wrath's lips were silent to the booming man's ears—it had seemed, hysteria had caught him first rather than after. Like when the body realizes like muscle memory before the mind could comprehend. A primal feeling, as if his ancestors before, telling him to run but he did not listen—so it shut off in a desperate attempt to lessen the eminent suffering that was to come.
The warden was the most intimidating man amongst the army, but his eyes trembled like a child in the presence of a dragon.
In and out, his eyes blurred as it focused on Wrath's moving mouth. The single word—he could only read—that said, Explode.
Like a stone thrown in a pond, a ripple of explosions sounded off from behind Wrath, Lilith, and Arthur. It coursed closer and dreadfully closer, erupting from each soldier all the way to the warden. And he could do nothing but watch the series of fireworks erupt from all around him.
It was at that time he felt his own chest heat up, and his face began to sweat. Still there was no sound in his ears as his body had accepted its fate.
His rising heartbeat thumped ever so faster with each half-second that ticked. Over and over again until he clenched a terrible hand to his chest, and it felt like a furnace—but not from his magic.
This feeling was unlike anything he had ever felt, like he was compelled to listen no matter what, as his body was commanded to do something it could not physically do—but it listened anyway. And by the Keeper's hand, a miracle occurred.
His eyes began to force in separate directions; the room becoming disoriented to him as his mouth opened like he was regurgitating his stomach. His blue flames snuffed out, replaced by another unbearable heat that arose out of him until it was free.
And then like scheduled firework, the massive space became engulfed in a sea of detonating flames.
Layers and layers of obeying metal hovered in the air around both Arthur and Lilith. By will of Arthur's magic, he protected them against the endless explosions sounding off all around them.
But Wrath stood amongst it—appearing to look ethereal in their eyes.
His hand shuddered for a moment, but he quieted it with his other as he hid them away in his greatcoat…
His back faced them as an eerie aura emitted, merely standing there with the sleeves of his greatcoat fluttering from the gusts. He craned his head hauntingly back—one crimson eye meeting theirs as it relaxed into a calm maroon color that they could finally bear to witness as he said,
"Now… shall we begin?"