Calverd's breath came in ragged gasps, his chest heaving as he held back a surge of overflowing emotions. He glared sharply at the Victoriaz Kingdom army commander towering before him, his eyes filled with burning rage.
"How dare you kill him!" Calverd growled. His hands clenched tightly, ready to unleash his telekinesis magic.
Hearing that growl, Balden merely smiled condescendingly. The burly man swung his bloodied giant sword casually, then rested the cold metal blade against his right shoulder.
"Traitors and criminals absolutely deserve to be executed!" Balden replied with full confidence, his tone holding not a single ounce of regret. His cold eyes stared at Calverd as if looking at a mere insect. "And very soon, it will be your turn, boy. So, stop your howling and just wait for the death that will come to pick you up in a moment."
"Traitors? Criminals?" Calverd repeated, his voice suddenly rising, his emotions completely ignited by the royal commander's incredible hypocrisy. "It is you who dragged and imprisoned us underground for no clear reason! You tortured us, brutally raped helpless prisoners, and even murdered others purely for your own satisfaction and twisted pleasure!"
Without the slightest fear of the disparity in their strength, Calverd raised his hand and pointed straight at the commander's scar-riddled face.
"You and all your subordinates are the real criminals here! We only wanted our rights, we only wanted our freedom!"
"Hahaha!"
Balden laughed so hard that his shoulders shook. His deep laughter sounded mocking after hearing the words of the indigo-haired youth who was shouting while pointing at his face.
His laughter slowly subsided, replaced by a darkened expression. The commander took a slow step forward, returning Calverd's gaze with a deadly glare, akin to an apex predator that had locked onto its prey's movements before pouncing.
"You talk too much, trash. Rest assured, I will free all of you tonight... with death, of course." Balden said casually, yet laden with absolute dominance. He tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword. "I will make sure you—"
Crack!
The sound of breaking bones suddenly ruptured the air between Balden and Calverd. The sound was so crisp, as if a giant tree branch had just been forcefully snapped in two.
A brief silence enveloped them.
Balden froze in place.
However, less than a second later...
"Aaarrrgghhh....!!!"
The army commander screamed with a piercing, agonizing wail. The greatsword in his hand slipped from his grasp and fell onto the ground.
Thud!
The man's body immediately collapsed, violently hitting the ground. He groaned uncontrollably, lying flat on his back with his eyes staring blankly into the dark night sky.
When Balden looked down, he found both of his legs forcefully bent forward. His kneecaps had been completely shattered and crushed by an invisibly heavy pressure.
Calverd was utterly shocked witnessing this sudden and unexpected fatal attack.
What just happened? Did the invisible man finally step in to help us after realizing his spouse had been decapitated? Calverd thought, his heart pounding rapidly.
However, when Calverd accidentally turned his head and looked toward the spot where Kaydan had fallen moments ago, his heart seemed to stop beating for a second.
The youth who had initially been beheaded and covered in blood was now standing tall right there with his clothes fully intact, as if nothing had ever happened to him. There was no wound on his neck. There was no pool of blood.
Not only Calverd, but Balden, who was enduring excruciating pain in his legs, was also severely shocked upon seeing the youth who had definitively been killed by his sword now stepping forward to approach him.
"Y-Y-You..." the commander stammered, his face deathly pale as if looking at a ghost rising from hell when staring at the figure of the gray-haired youth. "This is impossible! My attack couldn't have missed! You should be dead from decapitation! H-How can you still be alive?!"
Crack! Crack!
"Aahhh..!!!!"
The man's scream broke out again as two identical cracking sounds echoed in succession. This time, a gravitational pressure had broken and crushed both of the commander's arms until they were mangled out of shape.
Balden was completely paralyzed, writhing on the ground like a helpless worm.
Kaydan walked with calm, cold steps approaching Balden's defenseless body.
My husband truly possesses an illogical and terrifying power. Kaydan thought with unfading awe, recalling the Soul Seal ritual from the night before. He really made me into an immortal human who cannot be killed.
Once he was right beside the sprawled commander, Kaydan squatted down slowly. He stared intently at the face of the man who was grimacing in unbearable pain.
"Even if you exert all your strength to stab my heart, tear my body apart, or even sever my head a thousand times..." Kaydan said in an incredibly cold tone, his eyes glaring mercilessly at the man who was in a state of severe shock, "...I still cannot die."
Kaydan paused for a moment, letting despair creep into his opponent's mind. "I am an immortal."
Boom!
The jarring sound of a magic explosion rang out again, originating from the fierce battle of the prisoners fighting the soldiers in another area of the palace courtyard.
Calverd, who was standing not far from them, had heard the gray-haired youth's words very clearly. His eyes widened, his breath hitching. He truly never expected that the person he had desperately tried to help and protect was an immortal.
However, amidst his shock, a logical question suddenly crossed his mind.
If he really is an immortal... then why did the invisible man bother asking me to help him get out of the prison corridor? Calverd thought in bewilderment, his brain trying to piece together this puzzle. With his immortality and gravity magic, couldn't he have easily gone on a rampage and broken through this place alone without needing my help in the slightest?
And at that exact second, Calverd's memory swirled back to the words and promises made by his mysterious savior in the cell earlier.
He finally realized the sincere intention behind the mysterious man's command.
He didn't need my power to save his spouse. He merely used it as an excuse... an excuse so he could pull me out of this snare of despair.
A small smile filled with deep emotion began to bloom on Calverd's face.
At the very least... thanks to his kindness, I will truly be freed from this place and be able to live freely in a new place!
Kaydan slowly raised his right hand and positioned it right above the bruised and terrified face of Balden.
"Your time to rest has truly arrived. Goodbye." Kaydan said, as cold as ice.
At that very moment, an incredibly dense gravitational magic pressure pressed straight down on the man's head. As the seconds ticked by, the pressure felt increasingly heavier and crushing. Balden's skull began to creak.
"W-Wait! I beg you, don't kill me!" Balden pleaded in a pitiful voice, trying to move his paralyzed body as he felt the extreme pressure ready to crack his head open. His arrogance and cruelty had evaporated to nowhere. "I... I have an eight-year-old son at home. My wife is already gone! If I die tonight, my son will live all alone in this world!"
Hearing that plea, Kaydan's jaw tightened. He glared sharply right into the man's eyes, his anger only burning fiercer.
"You have a son, and you feel afraid that he will live suffering all alone?" Kaydan asked in a very low yet deeply piercing tone. "Are you trying to joke with me on the verge of your death?"
The gravitational pressure from Kaydan's palm grew even stronger in tandem with his peaking fury.
"When you and your troops massacred innocent civilians... did you never once think about the fate of the children whose parents you cruelly murdered?!" Kaydan snapped, venting all the vengeance of the victims. "You are absolutely sickening!"
"N-Nooo! I beg you—"
Crush!
Before the commander could even finish his final sentence of plea, the Victoriaz Kingdom elite commander's head instantly shattered into pieces like a watermelon crushed by tons of weight, accompanied by fresh blood and bone fragments that splattered and soaked the ground.
Balden Slawar had died in a tragic manner.
Kaydan pulled his hand back, staring in disgust at the headless corpse for a moment, then slowly stood up. He turned his head and looked at the indigo-haired youth who had been standing frozen, watching him all this time.
"Hey!" Kaydan called out, his tone having returned to calm as he looked at his comrade-in-arms. "Could I ask for the help of your magic to lift this man's body into the air?"
Immediately, Calverd snapped out of his daze, hastily nodding his head. "O-Okay! Of course, I will do it!"
The indigo-haired youth quickly extended his hands forward and activated his telekinesis magic, locking onto the remains of Balden's tragically dead body.
Slowly but surely, the headless corpse in black armor lifted off the ground and floated higher into the air, becoming a highly conspicuous sight amidst the darkness of the night.
Seeing that the commander's body was at a sufficiently high position and could be seen by everyone in the courtyard, Kaydan took a deep breath, channeling mana to his throat to amplify the volume of his voice.
"All of you, stop your fighting!!!" Kaydan shouted in a loud, booming voice from where he stood, trying to halt the unnecessary chaos.
Boom!
Unfortunately, at the exact second he shouted, a large-scale magic explosion echoed loudly from the direction of the battlefield.
Amidst the euphoria of the massacre and the bloodlust that had blinded their eyes, not a single one of the prisoners or the remaining soldiers heard his shout. They were completely unaware that Balden Slawar had fallen.
Everyone in that courtyard continued to slash at each other, cast spells at each other, and kill one another.