"Emerald Leaf Merchant Guild Leader Izumrud, you who are the leader of one of the Four Major Merchant Guilds ruling the lands of the Mercenaries' Lodge and the responsible sovereign of the Central Region Lands. Hundreds of thousands of merchants, tens of thousands of soldiers, and three Generals under your command look to a single word coming out of your lips.
And I am Batu, exiled from his homeland, blown about in every wind like a stray dog, and wearing death like an armor. Together with my five thousand men who are my bosom friends, I am a bandit plundering your property, your money, your reputation. I live in your lands as my heart desires, I damage your property as I please.
I know for how long you've wanted my dead body at your feet, therefore you spare no effort. Rejoice Izumrud, the opportunity that has adorned your dreams for years has come to your feet. Together with the Sand Army, we are waiting for you on the Mohacs Plain.
If you call yourself a man, you step out of the Golden City, which you couldn't step outside of out of fear, and take the head of your army. If you say no I learned my lesson, I tremble with fear every time I look at my face I hide with a mask so no one sees, continue sitting on your emerald throne, but don't take the word manhood into your mouth when talking about yourself.
Batu, who won't die without spitting on your carcass!"
Before passing to the second of the three short tapping sounds heard to indicate the voice recording was finished, the mechanical hawk fell to pieces. There was no need to wait for Izumrud to take off his mask to understand he was angry, hearing him scream tearing his lungs out was enough.
Even though there was no living creature taking a breath in the hundred-pace area around the throne room he was in, dozens of people had heard the sound coming out. It was as if this sound was declaring the quiet times of the Emerald Leaf Merchant Guild were over.
While things were proceeding noisily in the Golden City, the soldiers standing guard at the entrance of a mountain in the northern part of the continent couldn't even let out a single sigh while dying. The purple needles entering through their necks provided the opportunity for a silent journey by causing them to lose control first of all the sensory organs located on their heads, then of their bodies.
Their bodies, turning into a piece of meat that would fall to the ground, could perhaps be the only opportunity they got to make noise, but there were some things waiting for them on the ground. Small things the size of a hand with eight mechanical legs stepped in and provided a soft landing.
"Leonardo is very great, but this apprentice of his turned out to be even more formidable. Look at these things he made, what was he calling them?"
While watching the events behind the rock he hid together with the Nameless Ten and Bookworm, Alyon couldn't maintain his silence any longer when he saw the small black mechanical devices appearing.
"Robot, that is the name he called them, and I am at least as amazed as you. It's these things, I mean robots, that found the secret place and inspected the path for us."
Bookworm, who didn't forget anything he heard or saw, was the most suitable person such questions could be directed to. He knew the name of the mechanical devices, Michelangelo's latest invention, perfectly well, but even he could only say 'thing' due to amazement.
"Get ready, the robots will open the entrance for us. We don't know what awaits us inside, stay close and don't take risks unless necessary!"
After giving his last instructions, Bookworm stepped out from behind the rock he hid and began to walk; Alyon, and then the warriors of the Nameless Ten followed him. In the light of the information they received from Nafız at the other end of the continent, they were about to enter the facility they found and knew experiments were conducted on orcs inside.
The red light shining inside the narrow passage, which couldn't even be understood to be there looking from afar, was the sign they were waiting for. Still, the Nameless Ten members didn't hold back from reaching for their weapons, they didn't let their guard down unlike their superior walking in front of them.
After walking at the same pace for about fifty paces, they entered the path opened by the door having teeth showing they interlocked when closed. They were hearing the clicks the metal feet of the robots made along the path made of the same material, and their breaths, becoming more frequent with every step, were struggling to catch the sync.
"What a massive place this is!"
When they finally entered the facility, they froze in front of the glass whose height exceeded four meters and length ten paces. While Alyon examined the area the size of Bearstrangler's tribe where he was born, everyone had different priorities.
"I think we need to go this way!"
They were standing on a ledge ten paces long and three paces wide. Even though Bookworm, seeing the stairs going down from its end and changing direction every twenty paces, took priority and headed that way, the others were nailed to where they were.
"Look at that!"
The Leader of the Nameless Ten pointed his finger at a spot beyond the glass remaining on their left. A pipeline, emerging from the floor and rising up to the ceiling, was dragging something along with the water flowing inside it.
Everyone now saw the green thing inside the pipe with the top cut off continuing on crossed legs, but when it came under the ledge they stood on within a few seconds, they lost their viewing angle. As if the twelve orcs had made an agreement, they moved towards the right side at the same time and gathered there by the opening leading to the stairs.
The thing they just lost was now gliding and advancing right before their eyes, and as the gradually descending pipeline wound its way wandering the whole place, they followed it without taking their eyes off. No one spoke, maybe what this was came to their minds, but none of them stated their opinion until it fell into the giant pool at the right end of the area.
At the final point, there were hundreds of things completely identical in color even if not resembling in shape, and now everyone was sure of what they were. Still, they froze, even though a hundred breaths passed no sound came out, but the pipeline had started to carry its new passenger.
From the same place, in the same way, they witnessed the journey of an orc body with a head but the lower part of its body not in place, up to the side of the others. While coming here, they knew research was conducted on orcs, they were sure they would see their dead or tortured compatriots, but they couldn't even guess encountering such a system.
Wearing the silence like a cape as they went down the stairs, they had to watch the orc bodies, a new one of which came almost every two minutes and each possessing a stranger shape than the previous one. As the angle changed, as the distance between them and the pipeline decreased, they attained the misfortune of seeing the destroyed bodies more closely.
Some had their limbs, some their sensory organs, and some almost no longer had a body, but they all had a single common feature. Metal plates the size of a hand nailed onto their bodies and the numbers on them.
Their locations were different, even though their sizes were generally the same they could show differences, but when they arrived at the head of the massive pool they were gathered, the twelve orcs saw there was one of this on all of them. All those warnings, all that preparation before entering were in vain; right now all their attention was on the pool, which had thousands of orc corpses inside and emptied its waters into the sea through a hole opened on the surface of the mountain.
Even if they couldn't see the exact end of the hole, they knew the geographical location of the mountain; they were as sure as their names that the bodies pouring into the sea together with the waters of the pool would be shattered to pieces when they reached the surface. How could such a thing be? While the Orc Empire was the official owner of one continent and the de facto owner of the other two, how could such a place exist on the World of the Six Civilizations?
Alyon, in his life that could be considered short by orc standards, had witnessed or directly given the order for many scenes where orcs were oppressed, tortured, killed, but even he couldn't stop his hands from trembling in front of thousands of dead bodies so brutally massacred.