Damien stepped outside the gate, and the first thing that caught his gaze was the bodies.

  The ground was littered with them. Many of them. Dismembered corpses of people who'd been unfortunate to have been here when the attacks had begun. Both the soldiers and Civilians alike, they were all slaughtered. It didn't take him long to find the culprits, seeing as they all slithered around, their putrid mouths feasting on the remains of the corpses that hadn't already been melted by their acidic venom.

  Damien shook his head in pity. He detested pointless killings and, above all, hated the involvement of the weak in the battles of the mighty.

  Aside from the snakes, the only other beings present were the two people levitating above the ground, looking majestic and unconcerned about what they had just done.

  He identified Elora Darkfang, with her black hair and silver-slitted eyes. She was one of the oldest and most powerful people who served the Solarian Empire, under the Emperor himself. Feared by enemies and allies alike, she was infamous for her assassination skills, which were mainly flavored with a heavy use of poisonous substances.

  A snake, true and true.

  The Poison Mistress hovered beside Igor Shadowblight, the Empire's newest Spirit lord. Damien chuckled inwardly, Guess they'd already found a replacement for the one I took.

  Honestly, he wouldn't have known who the man was had he not made a point of keeping informed of every Spirit lord that chose to serve the Empire. At least the important ones. As it was, Igor and Elora were one of the few Pillars who operated outside the Empire—their Hidden Pillars— which put both of them right up on the list of people he'd been informed to watch out for.

  The two Spirit lords weren't the only ones who took notice of Damien's presence. At his appearance, the feasting snakes below suddenly stopped, raised their heads to look at him, and hissed, baring wickedly looking long black fangs. The older ones with a smidgen of intelligence had already guessed what and who he was, likely tapping from their mother's instincts. They could feel it, so they swiftly retreated towards their mother.

  The younger ones, on the other hand, those with barely any trace of intelligence other than a ravenous and endless need to feed, rushed at him, slithering through the sand, around and over the bodies of the dead.

  Damien barely had to do anything. He simply released a fraction of his aura, with enough weight to it that it saw the snakes pulp like crushed fruits, splattering onto the ground, just like their victims. He spared none, including the fleeing ones. Their crushed parts littered the sand, staining it with acidic blood that smoked and popped, releasing an acrid, foul-smelling odor.

  Damien looked up at both Spirit lords and met the scowling face of Elora. "You should train your children never to bite more than they can chew."

  He released a little smile when her scowl morphed into one of fury. Most of those snakes had been painfully and expensively cultivated for years, Damien knew. He didn't care.

  "You're going to pay for that," She gritted out right as her silver eyes flashed.

  Ignoring the intimidating gesture, he stopped a couple of feet from them. "I remember sending one of your spies with a message not to interfere in any business of mine, and look at this—" he gestured at the bodies scattered all around. "— not even up to an hour later llllllllland you do exactly what I warned against. You people never seem to learn."

  He nodded toward the distance where a high-pitched agonizing scream echoed out. "I guess that's how you reward patriotism."

  Igor summoned a massive hammer in his right hand, and a huge tower shield in his left, and then the essence of shadow rose to clothe him in black armor riddled with long, jagged spikes rolling from his shoulder down to his wrist. "The Empire does not respond well to threats, and certainly not ones from lessers."

  "Oh," Damien arched an eyebrow, "the newbie finally speaks. Tell me, is your Emperor aware of who you're going up against? I didn't think dear Solaris would be willing to risk you both, especially you, Elora, after what went down between him and me a while ago."

  The poison mistress's lips widened. "We know how weakened you are. You might be capable of fighting off one of us at the moment, but two?" A small tickling laugh echoed out, anticipation dripping right off her tongue. "Your head will adorn the Emperor's throne by sundown."

  Damien shook his head, she wasn't wrong. He was weakened after the massive amount of energy he'd expended holding together his makeshift domain. But weak as he was at the moment, Elora and Igor were so far below his ladder of possible threats. ShadowBlight, especially.

  There were few people in the Empire capable of truly challenging him, and neither of the Spirit lords before him was on that list.

  Damien slowly lifted himself off the ground with a nonchalant shrug. "Come on then. You both need a teaching moment on where you stand on the hierarchy of power," he finished right as power flooded his limbs.

  Igor attacked first, leaving a booming shockwave in his wake and a deep displacement of sand. The man brought his massive hammer down on Damien with such crushing force that it would have no doubt seen multiple boulders crushed to dust.

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  Damien caught it in his palm, the energy from the collision blasting back the sand around him for more than a dozen feet to form a large cone.

  The man only had time to widen his eyes before Damien's return punch landed straight on his face. And unlike the first attack, Damien's hit harder.

  Igor was blasted back in a whirlwind of rocks and sand, forming an artificial cyclone as he whooshed past his partner to crash fifty meters away.

  Elora came in next, daggers made out of darkness with their edges glistening with venom stabbed for him. One swiped for his neck while the other tried to eviscerate him from hips to shoulder. He snapped both weapons, then used their broken edges to slice off her wrists. It would regenerate in seconds, but that was enough time for him to deal with the approaching Igor, now warier.

  The man stepped aside from the retreating Elora. His weapon was now wreathed in smoky shadows that danced along the metal like some kind of twilight flame.

  This time, Damien didn't take the attack with his hands—he wasn't that stupid — instead, he conjured a grey shield—more a thickened energy barrier—that appeared in the path of the hammer, a shield which cracked the instant it came in contact with Igor's weapon.

  Damien grimaced, his element wasn't exactly built for defense.

  Taking the opportunity while Igor's hands were still occupied, Damien came in with another punch, but what his fist met was a thick metal shield.

  He stepped back, wringing his hand to shake off the jarring vibration that ran up his hand from punching a Spirit lord-reinforced material. The attempt had failed, sure, but the force had still sent the man skidding backwards.

  All their exchange of blows had only taken a few seconds, but the effects from the forces expelled had seen a drastic change to the environment, causing shockwaves and quakes that caved in one side of the city wall and pulverized the corpses on the ground.

  Dozens of conjured blades whistled through the air as Elora advanced, their blades glistening with dripping venom.

  Dodging would have left Damien open to the underhanded attack the woman no doubt planned for him, so instead of doing that, he blasted energy from his body in a short but powerful wave, dispersing the conjured constructs in contact.

  For the second time in a row, Damien caught her again on the wrist, smiling tauntingly as he did so.

  "You're all so weak," he said and smiled wider when he saw the woman's eyes flash with frustration.

  His words came back to bite him an instant later when he failed to register Igor's approach, and he paid for that with a painful grunt as the man's hammer crashed into him, hurling him like a projectile straight into an undamaged part of the city wall.

  Damien didn't just crash into the wall— he broke through it with such force and speed that he went through a few more buildings after it, collapsing each of them into rubble before he crashed into one that managed to hold him. Even so, the building didn't stand for much longer, collapsing inward the instant Damien extricated himself from it.

  He groaned. That hurt... a little.

  Barely having time to take stock of himself, Damien had to turn sideways to avoid the sharp dagger aiming for his heart, and again, he failed to dodge the second one that whistled in a moment later, piercing past his cotton shirt and into his shoulder. He grunted and then stared at the origin of the projectiles.

  Over the rubble of collapsed buildings, Elora dashed forward, trailed behind by another wave of conjured daggers. Igor followed not far behind with his hammer poised for an upward swing.

  This was getting too embarrassing, Damien grumbled, so he decided to get a little bit more serious. He pulled the dagger out of his shoulder, infusing the injured area with an excess of destruction essence to eradicate the venom. Even though Elora was weaker than him, she was still a poison mistress in the realm of the Spirit lord. He recognized her craft and knew how foolish it would be to underestimate them.

  Damien squared his shoulders, faced his attackers head-on, and then summoned his Warspear. Seven feet of magically grown wood, joined at one end by two extra feet of black blade met Elora's attack, punching through her defenses and into her shoulder. And instead of stepping out of her reach, Damien did the opposite and stepped in closer. He grabbed hold of her other arm—the uninjured one—and spreading her arms wide, he used her as a makeshift shield for the incoming hammer that Igor swung his way. Luckily for the woman, the other man drew back just at the last moment.

  Cursing under his breath, Damien kicked the Snake woman into her partner, pulling out his weapon as he did so, and then stepped back to put some space between them. The force from his kick sent both Spirit lords tumbling straight into another building.

  A little bit of perception expansion told him that the people were still not done evacuating, and unwilling to see any more casualties, he decided to take the fight back outside.

  Igor had just gotten back up on his feet when Damien caught up to him. With a little blow to the head to disorient the man, Damien grabbed hold of his armor, and then, with all the strength he could muster, he threw the man towards the wall, barely watching to see where he landed.

  He stalked toward Elora, catching the blow she threw at him, and then he picked her up by the collar of her light, hide-created armor.

  "I hope you understand that I won't treat you any differently than I would a man? In my eyes, you're just as powerful and dangerous as any male."

  And then he punched her back down into the ground, creating a mini crater. The woman was bleary-eyed when Damien picked her back up and kicked her into Igor, who had just been getting back to his feet. This time, both assailants found themselves thrown back out of the city, via the city walls. Payback.

  Employing his will, Damien levitated himself out through the man-shaped hole in the wall. He brought his spear down on Igor, who was again just beginning to rise. The spear tip pierced into a crack in the armor, drawing blood. With his other arm, Damien stopped flat the shield that the other man brought crashing down on his head, grimacing at the jarring force.

  He drew back his spear and then swept the feet off of Igor with the withdrawn weapon. Before the man could land on the ground, Damien's foot caught him on the chest, sending him flying past Elora who moved aside at the last minute.

  "If I remember correctly, you said something about how the both of you would crush me," he smiled tauntingly. "It seems you've both overestimated yourselves, again."

  Elora seemed on the verge of explosion, anger all but bursting out of her. Blood spurted out of the injury on her shoulder, and also from her mouth. Damien didn't really mind that, her healing would kick in a second now, if it hadn't already started.

  Igor looked the worst. His shoulder, same as Elora’s, spurted blood, which stained his once pristine armor. It wasn't pristine anymore, now spotting a half dozen cracks and dents.

  Despite the visual signs of heavy injuries, Damien knew both Spirit lords were barely injured. It would take a lot more than simple un-infused cuts and punches to truly wound them

  He sensed their next action the moment their expressions turned firm, and a second later, a massive wave of energy erupted from both Spirit lords as great illusory images rose from behind them.

  And as Damien stared at the artificially darkened skies, now transformed, likewise the sands below, he wondered how it had all led to this.

  Keilan will have my head for this.