The Guardians' Throne - The First Magic Swordsman

                                                    When the sound reached the guards, they felt their bodies getting relaxed and their eyelids heavy little by little. It didn't take long before they put their backs against the walls of the mansion and then slowly fell down on the ground and fell unconscious. The guards had little to no resistance against magic…

"Their armor made some noise, but it seems no one noticed it…" Zaos thought as he approached the walls.

                                                    It was hard to tell for how long the spell would last, so Zaos hurried up and climbed the walls. Once he entered the garden of the mansion, he didn't notice any guard in sight. However, he could sense five presences inside the mansion. It was probably the Keazanna family… However, he couldn't feel any other presence inside.

"It is weird… I thought I would find some presence below the mansion, but I guess that would be too much," Zaos frowned.

                                                    After looking around the mansion, Zaos felt some presence in the backyard of the place, and those presences were coming from below. Zaos quickly approached the place, but he didn't find anything but a well there… It was quite empty and seemed abandoned. Zaos decided to climb down, and when he stepped on a certain brick, he ended up finding a secret door a few meters below.

"Oh, boy… deep down, I was expecting that I wouldn't…" Zaos said and then gave up to sigh. "Let's get this over with."

                                                    As it turned out, Zaos found a pretty large corridor in front of him. After moving to the right side, he found a door and a torch illuminating the place. He slowly opened the door, but still, that made quite the noise…

"Huh? Who are you?" A tired and pale-looking middle-aged man asked.

                                                    Zaos didn't recognize the man, nor the other one who suddenly appeared from a certain room. Before they could make any noise, Zaos approached and pointed his sword to their heads and made the signs for them to shut up. Zaos looked around and saw some boxes and some rooms that had doors made of metal. They were cells, and a terrible stench was coming from them.

"Open those boxes," Zaos said.

"Do you have any idea what you are doing? Who does all this belong to?" The pale man asked.

"No, enlighten me," Zaos said.

"It belongs to the kingdom, to the royal family!" The man raised his voice. "Unless you want to be hunted like a rat, you should give up now."

                                                    Zaos turned the blade of his sword to the side and then hit the man in the head with the side of his weapon. The impact made the mall unconscious on the floor.

"Are you going to obey me or do you want to sleep too?" Zaos asked the other man.

                                                    The second man nodded and approached the boxes while trembling. Without hesitation, he opened a box and then showed several focus amulets. Zaos let out a long sigh… in the end. Derenus was right.

"Open the other boxes," Zaos said.

"There is nothing in there, only trash," The man said.

"I didn't ask that, I told you to open it," Zaos said.

                                                    The man hesitated, but in the end, he obeyed… Zaos regretted asking that. In those boxes, he found a lot of ashes and bones. It seemed while they dealt with their prisoners, he buried them to take less space like that. The men trembled when he looked around and saw Zaos's cold eyes. He was going to die, he was certain of it, and there was nothing that he could do to prevent it.

"Open the cells," Zaos said.

                                                    With his head down, the man obeyed. He was already a dead man anyway. He might as well do as he was told, and perhaps he won't suffer too much. Zaos found in the dark cells, some chairs covered in dried blood, and a weird-looking object attacked the chairs' arms. It seemed that it was made of glass.

"What is that for?" Zaos asked.

"… To drain the blood from the prisoners from their wrists," The man replied.

"How do you refine the blood?" Zaos asked.

"We just wait for the blood to separate itself from the particles of magic," The man replied.

"Is that so… well, goodbye," Zaos said and then beheaded the man.

                                                    Soon after, Zaos has also killed the other guy. They were only alchemists working for the kingdom. Still, what they were doing was sickening. If they weren't ashamed of that, they wouldn't be doing that underground.

                                                    Due to the rage, Zaos forgot to ask if the prisoners were taken somewhere as well. Still, he found some documents that revealed three other places where focus amulets were made after looking around. They could be found on the other sides of the kingdom, South, East, and West… destroying those places wouldn't change much. Still, Zaos felt like doing that and taking away the focus amulets from the king. He deserved to suffer some economic losses. After all, he sent Zaos and his unit north to do his dirty work for him.

"I doubt that they will be able to capture many of them now that they are growing stronger, but… well, it is not like I have any reason to intervene in their fight," Zaos said.

                                                    Both sides made Zaos feel sick in the stomach. One used zombies and defiled the dead, and the other captured innocent kids because of fear and used those to fabricate magic items and make a profit from them. The best thing Zaos could do was to stay away from those bastards…

                                                    Fortunately, the place had some oil lamps, and Zaos used that to put the place on fire. Since it didn't have much fuel, it would take a while for the flames to spread, but that was fine. It would give Zaos some time to leave. After emptying those boxes and filling his backpack with the focus amulets, Zaos left the mansion and disappeared into the darkness.