Chapter 46: Absolute Justice's The Only Way
Hercule Dent
The dining room of the Briand Manor unmade itself. One moment, I was seated across from the most intriguing and potentially pivotal political figure in Aedelgard. The next, reality itself was vomited inward.
The entire windowed wall, a masterpiece of masonry and glass that offered a view of the rain-lashed street, ceased to exist.
It became a horizontal storm of shrapnel—jagged shards of glass that caught the gloomy light like falling stars, splinters of wood that became deadly needles, chunks of concrete and dirt that carried the force of cannonballs.
The roar was absolute, a physical force that hammered against my eardrums and stole the breath from my lungs. The magnificent mahogany table between us was lifted as if by a giant's hand, flipped end over end, and smashed against the far wall with a crash that shook the very foundations of the manor.
Instinct, honed by years of navigating the streets of Aedelgard, took over. I threw myself backward, my chair splintering beneath me, as a spear-like fragment of the window frame whistled past, embedding itself in the wall where my head had been. I hit the floor hard, the impact jarring my teeth, and scrambled behind the overturned, ruined husk of the table.
My heart was a frantic drum against my ribs, each beat screaming a single question: who? Who would dare?
Through the choking cloud of plaster dust and the relentless patter of rain now flooding into the ruined room, a voice cut through the chaos. It was profound, chillingly calm, and laced with an authority that felt ancient and absolute.
"Highlord Iskander Briand. The Court of Basilisks sentences you to death."
The Court of Basilisks. The name meant nothing to me, yet it froze the blood in my veins. It sounded like something from a forgotten myth of the Vritra, not a organization that operated in the real world, smashing into a Highlord's dining room.
I risked a glance over the shattered table. The center of the room was now occupied by a figure crouched in a crater of broken marble floor. He was clad head to toe in a form-fitting dark suit that offered no identifying features save for one: a single, stout black horn that curved from the right side of his head.
An awakened Vritra Blood. But the horn was wrong—different from the elegant, wicked curves of the Scythes or the Sovereigns.
His face was hidden behind a stark white, featureless mask, save for two small horn-like protrusions at the top corners. It was eerily reminiscent of the masks worn in the presence of Sovereign Kiros.
But my gaze was ripped from him to the other figure. Where Highlord Briand had been sitting, a man now stood tall amidst the devastation. And he was… shining.
He was encased in armour of pure, brilliant gold, form-fitting and impossibly elegant, as if forged from sunlight itself. At the center of his chest, a bold, stylised "A" emblem gleamed. And from his temples swept two sharp, small and elegant horns. My mind reeled.
He was a Vritra Blood? Highlord Briand had been hiding his ascension? But that was impossible. The scrutiny he would have been under…
The masked assassin moved, a blur of lethal intent. A short sword appeared in his hand, and the technique was flawless—a thrust so precise and powerful it could only have been honed by the Vritra themselves. It was a killing blow.
The golden-armored figure—Briand?—didn't dodge. He didn't even seem to brace. With a motion too fast to properly follow, he simply moved his elbow, meeting the razor-sharp blade with his vambrace.
The sound was a shriek of metal on metal, and a shower of sparks erupted from the point of impact, each one instantly extinguished by the rain pouring through the gaping hole in the wall.
"Court of Basilisks?" the figure's voice echoed, and it was Briand's voice, but layered with a new, resonant power, a confidence that bordered on amusement.
"I won't comment on the name, Batman villain wannabe, but the matter remains that bursting into my home isn't a good way to make friends. Especially if you endanger the people currently inside."
His head turned slightly, and his eyes found me. They were still that distinctive lavender, but now they sparkled with an inner, golden light that mirrored the energy wreathing his form.
"Officer, might I ask you to check on the surroundings? I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt," he asked, as if requesting a refill of wine, not in the midst of a battle.
I could only stare, my mind a blank slate of pure, uncomprehending shock. I was a police officer. I dealt with thieves, smugglers, the occasional rogue mage that defied the Vritra. I did not deal with… this.
This was something from the tales of the Relictombs or the war in Dicathen, not an evening in Aedelgard.
"Certainly," I heard myself say, the word automatic, emerging from a place of pure professional habit buried deep beneath the terror.
The masked assassin's head twitched toward me at the sound of my voice, a predator noting distraction. It was all the opening the golden warrior needed. A fist, sheathed in gleaming metal, shot out.
There was no technique to it, just pure, overwhelming force. It connected with the assassin's torso with a sound like a forge hammer striking an anvil.
The man was lifted off his feet and launched across the length of the ruined room, crashing into the far wall with a impact that shook another painting from its moorings.
"Unfortunately for you," the figure declared, his voice now ringing with a new, terrifying authority, "Aetherman is your opponent. Well, I surely don't want you to escape, so... Sylvia!"
At his call, the air beside him shimmered. From a spark of concentrated golden light, a form manifested. Not a weapon, not a shield or whatever type of gadget an Instiller could craft.
A butterfly. A creature of breathtaking beauty, its wings woven from solidified sunlight and starlight. It beat its wings once.
And the world moved.
It wasn't a blur. It was a dislocation. One moment, the ruined dining room, the pouring rain, the two combatants—one rising from the wall, the other standing defiant.
The next, I was alone.
The silence was deafening. The rain still fell through the massive hole in the wall. The dust still settled. The wreckage of the table, the shattered china, the splinters of glass—it was all still there.
I slowly, shakily, got to my feet. My heart was still pounding in the sudden quiet. I stood amidst the destruction, the cold rain soaking my shirt, and tried to process the impossible. The name echoed in the hollowed-out space of my mind as a smile appeared on my face.
"Aetherman, huh? Truly, truly fascinating."
Iskander Briand
The world dissolved into a nauseating swirl of color and void, the solidity of the Briand Manor's dining room ripped away into nothingness. My stomach lurched, a primal protest against the unnatural travel. The second my feet found purchase on unfamiliar, rocky ground, instinct screamed.
Sylvia, where are we? I asked mentally, the thought a frantic dart in the chaos of transition.
The answer didn't come fast enough. A blur of motion, a whisper of displaced air, and the cold, deadly gleam of that short sword was already a hair's breadth from my neck.
I jerked backward, the edge passing so close I felt the phantom chill of its kiss on my Adam's apple. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat of pure survival.
'Far away from Aedelgard, Child,' Sylvia's voice finally echoed in my mind, calm yet strained, a steady lighthouse in my personal storm.
My eyes locked onto the source of the threat. The black-clad figure stood poised, his white mask an emotionless moon in the dim light of this new, desolate place.
That single, brutish horn, so unlike the elegant curves of the other Vritra Bloods I knew, gave him a prehistoric, triceratops-like menace.
He didn't spare a glance for the alien landscape, didn't show a flicker of shock at the instantaneous teleportation. His entire world had narrowed to a single purpose: killing me.
He came again, a specter of lethal intent. I dodged to the right, my Asuran body moving with a speed that should have been incomprehensible to him. Yet, my eyes widened in disbelief. He wasn't just reacting to them; he was anticipating my moves!
He flowed with my dodge, his body already committing to a move I hadn't even fully conceived. A low, perfectly placed kick swept my ankle, not with overwhelming force, but with devastating precision, disrupting my balance for a critical fraction of a second.
I raised my arms, the vambraces of my armor meeting his descending sword in a shower of furious orange sparks that illuminated the grim determination in his masked gaze.
The clang of metal on aether-forged one was a sharp noise in the silence of this nowhere.
A cold frustration began to seep through the adrenaline. Who is this guy? I thought, the memory of Earth's comics surfacing in a wave of surreal excitement.
A fusion between Taskmaster and the Talon? My right gauntlet shot out, snatching the blade from the air mere inches before it could find my throat. A surge of triumph flared—got him.
However, it was a bait. The move I had predicted was just the opening gambit. With a preternatural grace that defied anatomy, he twisted, his body moving in angles that screamed of something deeply, fundamentally wrong. His foot connected with the side of my head with a solid thump.
My head, reinforced by my self-surgery and aether, didn't budge an inch. But the insult of it, the sheer audacity, sent a wave of hot anger through me.
"I am starting to get a bit annoyed here," I growled, the words vibrating with a low threat.
I reached for the Djinn Slate at my hip. Creation answered my call with a surge of intent. Pale golden light erupted around us, weaving itself into solid, impenetrable walls, a perfect cube sealing us in a prison of my own making.
The only light now was the soft, ethereal glow of Sylvia's will-o-wisp form, floating beside me like a nervous guardian angel.
"What is this Court of Basilisks?" I demanded, my voice echoing flatly against the smooth walls.
The Horn offered nothing but silence. He was a statue of focused malice. Then he moved again. Another slash, parried. A blow to my head, then my chest, a rapid-fire series of strikes that tested my armor's integrity.
Between my shoulder blades, I felt a familiar, faint warmth—Creation at work, instantly stitching new cells into my being, replacing any atom of flesh that dared to strain under the assault. The healing was so effortless, so instantaneous, it was almost an afterthought.
Compared to Gawain, this guy is nothing, I reassured myself, a sliver of confidence returning. He can't damage me enough to even put Creation or my aether core under stress.
Enough. "Static Void," I declared, and the world froze.
The frantic dance of combat ceased. The Horn was suspended mid-step, a puppet with its strings cut. The silence was absolute, profound. I stepped closer, taking the time I had stolen to really look at him.
The tactical suit was sleek, advanced, something that wouldn't have looked out of place in a spec-ops unit back on Earth. But it was just a suit. The horn, the mask—they were the true mysteries. They told me nothing.
I summoned two disks of swirling, pale golden aether, their edges sharp and humming with potential. Sylvia's wisp form circled within them, adding her will to mine. As the last of the frozen time bled away, I thrust my palm forward.
The disks shot out, striking the Horn's chest in rapid succession. The first hit with a concussive thump, the second exploded in a silent burst of light and force. He was catapulted backward, crashing against the wall of the aether-box with a sickening crunch.
The wall itself shattered under the impact, the constructed matter dissolving back into motes of light that streamed back into the Djinn Slate and my core.
I walked forward, the crunch of gravel under my boots the only sound. "Who sent you?" I asked, my voice low and cold.
To my astonishment, the figure pushed himself up. He rose slowly, deliberately. And then he began to move again, but this time it was different. His steps were strange, ritualistic, a flowing, gliding dance that was utterly alien. Was this some unknown mana art I couldn't see?
The answer came from Sylvia, and her mental voice was sharp with an alarm I had never heard before.
'Child! Get away! I know those moves!'
I trusted her implicitly. I moved to sidestep, but my trajectory was once again predicted. It was like fighting a ghost that could see the future and used invisible weapons.
His fist shot out, a perfect mirror of the blow I had just used on him. It connected with the 'A' on my chest plate with a sound like a bell being struck.
And I felt it. Not just the impact, but something else. A strange, pulling sensation deep within my core. For a terrifying instant, I felt a flicker of vulnerability. But aether, not mana, was my lifeblood.
Whatever technique he was using, designed to disrupt a mana core, slithered off my unique energy source without purchase. Still, the physical force was immense. I was thrown backward, skidding across the rough ground for dozens of meters, my armor screeching in protest.
Sylvia, what was that? I exclaimed, pushing myself up, my mind reeling. He really is Taskmaster! He copied my punch!
'Those steps were the First Sequence of Mirage Walk, Child,' Sylvia said, her tone heavy with a dawning, horrific realization. 'The secret technique of the Thyestes Clan! Even adult Asuras struggle to learn its principles! For a lesser to wield it…'
Thyestes Clan? I asked, my mind racing to catch up. Are they other dragons?
'No,' she replied, her wisp form flickering with agitation. 'They are pantheons, another race of Asuras. They are known for their Force-type mana arts that make them masters of hand-to-hand combat... if this Vritra Blood can use them...'
The implication hung in the air, colder than the void between stars. Who knows how many more things Agrona has stolen, corrupted, and weaponized, I finished silently. This wasn't just a Vritra Blood; this was a walking testament to Agrona's blasphemous ambition—or whoever was behind The Horn.
They were breaking the rules of the world itself, grafting the sacred arts of higher beings onto their mortal soldiers.
A new, more terrifying thought insinuated itself into my mind. What if this wasn't just a soldier? What if he was something more? Another chimera, like me? A failed experiment, or a successful one? The paranoia deepened, taking a specific, chilling shape.
What if this guy was King Grey? The thought was ice in my veins. Agrona had reincarnated him. He would have recognized Grey's monstrous, peerless skill. He would have sought to harness it.
'No, Child,' Sylvia cut in, her voice firm, severing that thread of panic. 'He's not... King Grey.'
She was right. I clung to her certainty. Yeah, I thought that, I replied, forcing calm into my thoughts. Even if he is using a sword, King Grey was far more brutal. He didn't predict; he overwhelmed. This was different. This was a cold, precise, and calculated replication of skill. This was something new.
The Horn began his advance again, falling into that unnatural, gliding rhythm of the Mirage Walk. My greatest flaw yawned before me: my immense power, shackled by a lack of true, refined technique.
Every punch I threw, no matter how fast or powerful, was evaded. Every kick was parried. He was a master painter, and I was a child throwing buckets of color at a canvas.
But I was a child with buckets of aether.
A grim resolve settled over me. Fear and frustration melted away, replaced by a cold, focused will.
"Let's see what this assassin of 'The Court of Basilisks' has in serve for The Aetherman then," I declared, my voice ringing with a new, steel-edged confidence.
—
The calculation was cold, brutal, and executed in a fraction of a second. He read my every move, so I would give him a move he couldn't possibly ignore. As his blade came in for another impossibly precise thrust, I didn't parry. Instead, I twisted my body and met it with my left forearm.
The sensation was not one of pure pain, but of profound violation. A searing coldness, then a sickening crunch of bone and aether-infused metal giving way.
The blade carved through, and for a terrifying, weightless moment, I saw my own severed forearm, still clad in its golden gauntlet, spinning through the air, a grotesque parody of a farewell wave. But the sacrifice had its purpose.
The force of the blow, the sudden lack of resistance, threw the Horn's balance off for a microsecond. My right hand, already moving, smashed into his wrist with the force of a meteor. I felt the delicate bones there shatter. His sword, along with my own severed limb, clattered away into the gloom of the rocky clearing.
Sylvia, block the aether from healing my arm, I commanded, my mental voice a grim knot of focus and pain.
A strange, phantom coldness settled in the stump of my wrist. It was a bizarre sensation, to feel the immense, life-giving energy of aether being consciously held back, a dam against a tidal wave of instinctual regeneration.
I had to focus Creation elsewhere, diverting its intent, ensuring the Goldrune armor itself wouldn't autonomously try to rebuild what I needed to remain lost. The pain was a distant thrum, a background noise easily ignored compared to the screaming priority of the fight.
I couldn't surprise him with conventional tactics. So, I would be unconventional. Reckless. Pure Aetherman style. After all, what opponent, no matter how prescient, could predict that their victory—a severed limb—was nothing but a calculated, bloody piece of bait?
Just as I predicted, the Horn's entire strategy pivoted. He was a predator, and he'd drawn blood. His movements became a relentless, focused assault on my left side, a symphony of exploitation. His empty hands clenched into fists, and the dance changed. The lethal grace of the swordsman was replaced by the brutal, efficient rhythm of a boxer.
A flurry of punches rained down on my flank, each impact a sharp, percussive note against my armor.
Thump. Thump. Thump-thump-thump.
And with each connection, something changed. The blows began to feel different. Heavier. More… impactful. It was as if the force behind them was compounding, each punch building on the last, a terrifying kinetic feedback loop.
I saw his knuckles split open against the unyielding gold, blood welling and spraying with each strike. But the wounds didn't stay; they sealed over instantly, the skin mending and then hardening, reinforced by plates of glistening, obsidian-like steel that seemed to grow from his very flesh.
'Kiros' boxing?' Sylvia murmured, her voice laced with a dawning, horrified recognition.
Kiros? As in Kiros Vritra? I asked, weaving and absorbing the blows, buying time to understand my enemy.
'It makes sense... before Agrona's and his Clan's betrayal, Kiros had close relationships with the Thyestes Clan. He was always a brawler at heart, obsessed with physical perfection and dominance. This is his art, perverted and gifted to his servants.'
Oh, neat, I replied with a mental snarl that held no humor. I was getting a crash course in divine family drama through a series of increasingly painful punches.
Ironic, that I was coming to know Agrona's extended, dysfunctional family not over a dinner table, but by having my ribs used as a speedbag. I wanted to wipe them from the face of the world, and instead, I was getting to know their favorite fighting styles intimately.
Enough. I feinted a massive right haymaker, a telegraphed, clumsy blow he would see coming from a mile away. He did. He flowed under it, his body coiling to deliver a crippling counter to my—theoretically—defenseless left side. His hand shot up to block the stump of my arm.
Perfect.
Aether, Creation, do your thing.
Pale golden light erupted from the severed end of my wrist, not a trickle, but a torrent. It was a miniature sun of potential, weaving bone, sinew, muscle, and nerve in a blinding, instantaneous cascade.
The golden armor plates snapped back into place, sealing over the new flesh with a sound like a ringing bell. My reborn fingers, thrumming with raw aether, snapped shut around his throat.
Sylvia! I shouted inwardly.
She didn't need instruction. Her will-o-wisp form coalesced into the solid, furry shape of her mouse manifestation mid-air, becoming a tiny, living projectile. She shot forward, a bolt of silver and purpose, and struck the center of his white mask with a sharp crack. A spiderweb of fractures spread across its emotionless surface.
"Tell me everything about the Court of Basilisks," I growled, my voice low and dangerous as my grip tightened, my Asuran strength augmented by coursing aether, "or I squeeze your throat like a lemon."
A beat of silence. Wait... do they even know what lemons are in this godforsaken world?
I wasn't going to kill him. Not yet. He was a pawn, like Seris, like Sevren's sister... and like so many other Vritra Bloods turned into Agrona's weapons. A tool of a higher, crueler power.
But the cold mindset of war whispered that if he offered nothing, he was a threat that needed to be permanently removed.
No answer came. No sound at all. No gasp, no struggle for air. Just an eerie, absolute silence from within the cracked mask. A horrifying thought occurred: had Agrona, or Kiros, or some other monster, taken his voice as part of his conditioning? Was he a perfect, silent instrument, robbed of everything but his purpose?
'Child, maybe I can do as I did with Sir Gawain. I can try to enter his core, awaken him—' Sylvia proposed, her voice tentative.
Sure, I said, my hold unrelenting.
As her form began to shift back into the wisp, preparing for the delicate work of spiritual intrusion, the Horn moved. It wasn't a struggle; it was the last, desperate twitch of a scorpion's tail.
His right hand blurred to his boot, retrieving a dagger I hadn't sensed, its blade dripping with a viscous, iridescent liquid that seemed to swallow the light. It shot upward with impossible speed, aimed with lethal precision at the vulnerable juncture of my jaw and neck.
'Chil—' Sylvia's warning was a spike of panic.
Continue, I mentally commanded her, my voice iron. I want to learn. I held my ground, refusing to flinch as the point dug deep into my neck. I felt the cold slide of metal, then the immediate, warm flood of aether already knitting the wound closed. "Your tricks won't hel—"
Agony. Not the clean, sharp pain of a blade, but a nightmarish, internal fire. It was as if every nerve in my body had been doused in acid and set ablaze. My muscles seized, contracting violently. A guttural sound, half-growl, half-scream, was torn from my throat.
"A neurotoxin?! Ah! The God of Misfortune has been having quite his time with you! But pain is the least effective weapon against Aetherman!"
I focused through the white-hot static flooding my nervous system, channeling pure will into the hand still clamped around his throat. Pain? It was an old acquaintance. This was a mere discomfort compared to the slow, cellular decay of my first life, compared to the soul-deep trauma of Sylvia's sacrifice. This was nothing.
Sylvia, how are you doing? I gritted out mentally, my body trembling with the effort of ignoring the venom.
'Not good,' she replied, her voice strained, distant. 'It's… shielded. There's something protecting his mind, his core. It's like trying to grasp smoke.'
Too bad. The final option faded. Sylvia retreated into my core, and I was left staring into the fractured visage of my silent, struggling enemy. I had to kill him. The logic was inescapable. He was a weapon aimed not just at me, but at everyone connected to me.
He was a threat to the entire fragile status quo of Aedelgard.
Then why did the thought of crushing the life from him make my reborn arm feel so heavy? Why did the silence behind that mask feel like a tragedy instead of a tactic?
"Damnit!" I said under my breath, my voice raspy and slightly tentative from the residuals of the toxin. While I kept him still with my right hand I raised my one.
All those brave words about killing in cold blood Agrona... King Grey and Kezess Indrath and I can't even end a murderer... I said to myself.
'Child...' Sylvia said feeling the tension in my body and soul.
Letting him go meant destroying my identity as both Highlord Briand and The Aetherman. It meant putting to risk all those close to me, from Jerem and Mondrak to even Seris and Sylvia.
If a Sovereign, if a Vritra, was behind this utter and complete justice was the only way.
With a fast and precise motion of my left hand I cut the neck of The Horn—an execution through and through.