Chapter 334: Heavens Palm
The reunion in the canyon was a quiet, profound moment, but as Damien looked past his battered students and his newly rescued parents, his mismatched eyes one a void of pitch-black shadow, the other a blazing, tyrannical gold settled on the thousands of Imperial Knights.
They lay unconscious on the jagged obsidian floor, their minds forcibly shut down by the crushing weight of his 8th-Order [King’s Mantle].
Lord Pythios was among them, his core shattered, tossed aside like broken trash.
Damien’s smile slowly faded beneath his elegant silver half-mask.
"They are sleeping deeply," Elizabeth Voss noted, stepping up beside her son. The Empress of Deceit looked at the sea of Central Empire armor, her silver-white hair catching the faint light.
"But they will wake eventually. What do you plan to do with them, Damien?"
"I planned to leave them as a message," Damien murmured, his voice turning cold, analytical.
"But the board has changed. Emperor Aurelius is paranoid. If his elite vanguards return to the Central Capital and report that ’Zero’ has returned from the Abyss as an 8th-Order... he won’t just send an army. He’ll probably mobilize all his forces before we are fully prepared [5]."
Damien stepped forward, his dark leather boots crunching softly against the flash-cooled obsidian.
"I need time to consolidate our forces. And I cannot afford Aurelius knowing that I have returned to the surface."
Alaric, Elena, and Lukas watched from the dirt, still catching their breath.
They saw their Teacher raise his right hand toward the canyon floor.