The Fox Cub's Head Rolls
"Izakar." The taboo name sliced through the murky air swirling with ash, plunging the mine into suffocating terror and an eerie silence. Elise, pale as death and trembling violently in extreme shock, finally lifted her quivering head and glanced anxiously at the collapsed mine entrance. Her eyes lost focus, shaking as if she'd come face-to-face with a calamity crawled up from the abyss.
"M-Master... that name... haa, no." Elise swallowed dryly, barely squeezing out the words. "There are too many ears here. Not just the slum rats cowering like mice, but the remnants of the domain, bereft of their lord—they could burst in at any moment. If we're to speak of him, we should move to a safer place first..."
She was gingerly tugging at my sleeve, her blood-drained face pleading for us to relocate, when it happened.
Clank! Crash!Thud, thud! Heavy, oppressive sounds of armored plates clashing pierced the dust from the ruined entrance, echoing ferociously. The stomp of sturdy military boots crushing ash amplified into dozens, hundreds, shaking the ground. Squeezing through cracks in the collapsed rock walls came Ignis's elite knight order—the high-ranking butchers who'd ruled the domain with an iron fist under him, draining the commoners' lifeblood.
Dozens of heavily armored magic swordsmen flooded the mine in an instant. They faltered briefly at the blood-soaked carnage but quickly encircled me and the three women, exuding chilling killing intent and mana.
Parting the dense ring of steel plate came a man striding arrogantly, his fiery red cloak billowing like flames. Pyrion, the domain's number-two powerbroker under Ignis.
True to his name—"Burning Ember"—gaudy flame motifs flickered tackily across his ornate armor, and the hilt of his sword gripped in hand pulsed red with mana from an embedded magic stone.
Pyrion tilted his chin smugly, sweeping a venomous gaze over the mine's horrors: scorched crumbled walls, terrified commoners prostrate in fear, Elise and the sisters behind me.
His eyes finally settled on Ignis—reduced to a bloody pulp of a bitch by the commoners' clubs, crawling pathetically on the floor.
No grief or rage for his fallen lord crossed his lips. Instead, a grotesque, greedy glee spread—like a sycophant witnessing the mountain he'd groveled before crumble into nothing.
"Tsk tsk, for the mighty Lord Ignis to end up such a pathetic hunk of meat. Rolling at commoners' feet in that freakish wench's form... truly tragic, utterly lamentable."
His voice dripped blatant mockery, utterly unconvincing. Pyrion gripped his sword hilt ostentatiously and swaggered forward.
He hadn't the slightest clue what abyss I harbored, nor what the savage demonic aura scattered here signified. Peak arrogance.
"But this grand domain of blazing flames cannot go a single day without a master! With Lord Ignis meeting such an ugly end, all power and subjects now fall to me, Pyrion, rank two. Knights, hear me well!"
He flung his cloak dramatically, bellowing his mad decree to the air.
"Clear away that revolting carcass at once! Bind the traitors—Elise, the summoner bitches beside her, and that nameless rat who assassinated the lord—so their bones shatter, and drag them kneeling before me!"
"Bind me and make me kneel?"
Pyrion's pompous, pathetic declaration echoed off the collapsed walls. Elise and the sisters froze in disbelief; the knights tensed to draw blades, closing in.
In that choking silence, a deflating chuckle escaped my lips.
"Kuh... heh, hahaha..." It started low and sinister, a metallic rasp. But it scraped up from my savage depths, erupting into a mad cackle that shook the entire mine.
"Ha, hahahaha! Kuhahahahaha!"
My beastly laughter boomed over the blood-and-ash-choked ruins, carrying not human emotion but the pure, oppressive waves of a demon. Black-red demonic aura surged from my body in a tidal wave with the laughter, crashing outward.
Clank! Crash! The elite knights, moments ago tightening their noose with bravado, recoiled from the horrific abyssal pressure laced in my laugh, stumbling back. Their armor clattered in terror, filling the mine.
"Wh-what the hell?! How dare some bastard laugh like a lunatic here?!"
Pyrion staggered a step too, panic plain on his face. I laughed maniacally for a long stretch before cutting it off sharp.
Only my piercing glare cut the darkness like a blade.
I stared down at the blustering fool with his chin raised, as if he were a loathsome bug crawling at my feet—icy contempt in my gaze.
"What a laughable, pitiful sight."
My voice plunged colder than the laugh, spine-freezing chill.
I took a slow, deeply menacing step toward him.
"The arrogant tiger that crushed this domain for decades croaks, and out crawls some mangy fox pup from god-knows-where, fancying itself king."
"F-Fox pup...? You scum! How dare you insult me, Pyrion, like—?!"
"Shut your fucking mouth."
My thick killing intent and demonic aura crushed his voice flat. The flickering flame motifs on his gaudy armor were mere pathetic matches before my pitch-black abyss.
I glared with bloodshot beast eyes, piercing his terrified pupils straight through.
"Your petty rank games mean shit to me. I have one question for you vermin."
I squeezed it out slow and clear, like choking his throat.
"Are you... stronger than the hunk of meat sprawled there—Ignis?"
My icy query dropped amid the ash; Pyrion's smug face flushed beet-red in an instant. Comparing the domain's new ruler to its fallen bitch predecessor? His shallow, vile pride ignited.
"How dare you... how dare a rat like you wag your irreverent tongue at the new lord?!"
Pyrion lost reason, veins bulging as he shrieked. He half-drew his sword neurotically, bellowing madly at his quailing elite knights, crushed by my aura.
"What are you waiting for?! Hack off that arrogant bastard's limbs, sever his filthy head, and present it at my feet!"
As the knights hastily bared killing intent and gripped hilts—before they could even tense—
The demonic power cloaking my flesh in heavy ripples tore the space before me with grotesque cracks. Pure, savage abyssal authority—devoid of mana—warped and folded physical distance by force.
Fwosh...! "Wha...?"
In that blink, my body leaped space, ghosting right to Pyrion's face—close enough to brush noses. Knights and the spittle-flying fool alike gaped dumbly, blind to my unnatural shift.
I peered into his pupils contracting in horror, whispering hell-scraped chill into his ear.
"I hate backstabbing loudmouths like you most of all."
Before the whisper faded—
Splurch! My black-red blade-hand, reshaped like beast claws, impaled his throat without mercy. His ornate armor, mana-laced gorget—paper before my demonic strike.
Squelching rupture and splintering bone overlapped; rank-two braggart Pyrion's head tore free, pathetic and gruesome.
"K, guk...!"
Not even a proper death rattle. His head spun high in the air, veined face frozen in shock—unaware it'd been severed.
Thud. It tumbled onto the ash heap. Crimson arterial spray from his headless corpse soaked mine floor and knights' plate raw and reeking.