Nerida had shielded Amphelise with her body once again and drenched in blood she gripped Amphelise's black clothing as hard as she could, grinding teeth.
Ismael used the scope to enjoy every second as closely as possible. For a brief moment she looked back at him but couldn't say anything. She could see him, his smile, she could feel the pleasure he had breaking her down.
Her eyes rolled up when Amphelise slowly let her down on the ground.
"Loovis should have killed him on day one."
"Fight, run, hide, my little mouse. I've got you here, my pet."
Ismael enclosed the garden in on her, the air was hot but the fog was cold. She could flee and rest but not escape.
At the castle, Loovis ran to the main room in fear after feeling that two of the Cardinals were gravely injured and one of them was deeply emotionally scarred.
Upon entering, he realized the Grimoire was not there anymore. He could not see it. He could not understand it. How Ismael could have had his hands on it without him knowing; and yet, it was gone. But Loovis was still walking slowly, step after step, shaking, shivering, crying, tearing up, step after step, towards it.
"Unbearable. Sick. Disgusting. Vile behaviour. Unforgivable. Truly regrettable. So this is what it's like to lose everything. The plague installed itself into Perseus and now we are suffering the consequencies of it. How. How. How. How. How. How. How. Why. Why. Why. What will he do with it? Cassius! Faviel! Melisa! Theigon! He doesn't care about his friends. We've become the Suffered!"
"Yes King!"
"All four of you. Go find Ismael, don't even bring me his head, just kill him. Kill him a billion times if need be. Kill him. Bring back Amphelise, Nerida and Ashnael. Bring back the GrimWar. Do not falter."
Gone, he turned off all lights in the castle and joined the lower rooms, which look abandonned, with an excedent of dust, a patio, hundreds of mechanisms and torture chambers.
"Ismael. You've won this. But I've made myself pretty clear with this one, my Cardinals cannot fail. Four of them on your tracks, you will never see the light of the day. I want to see you properly executed. I can see through the eyes of Theigon, just like any other. And I can see them tracking you down. You will fall. And nobody will pick you up, not even yourself."
"THE WORST HAS HAPPENED! BLESSED BE PERSEUS. THIS IS IT. AFTER THIS I KILL MYSELF. AFTER THIS I END IT ALL. WITHOUT THE GRIMWAR I AM NOTHING. I AM NOT LOOVIS, I AM A SUBCREATURE. AN INFERIOR SPECIES. WILL I EVER RECOVER?"
His screams were deliberately loud and screeching, resonating and maddening. He had lost the little of hope he had left, and woth that, he accepted his fate. He collapsed on the ground, his face and hands slamming the concrete floor.
But the pain here was different, the shock sent him back like an electric discharge.
"My skin cannot interact with...my own castle?"
"This isn't your castle any longer, brother of Efalis."
"WHO DARES?"
"My name is Yael. Sister of Ismael."
"I see. Lord you've put in my hands a way to exalt my revenge against my foe. I appreciate it. Lord. Lord have mercy on me for I have doubted you."
"Don't thank God when you tear down his principles when you breathe. If I take down the general here and now, the soldiers will fall shortly after."
Loovis extended his hand towards her and a raging red wind crashed on her, but she was unfazed.
"We'll just say this was a test. Now", he says, throwing away his green coat, Yael saw the seals on his arms. Four on the left arm, four on the right arm.
"Wake up, all of you. Ashnael, Faviel, Nerida, Cassius, Amphelise, Melisa, Theigon, Universalis. Get to Ismael's position and kill him."
Ashnael and Nerida were lifted by a dense purple and black smoke filling up their wounds.
"As long as I play it safe, stay hidden and keep shooting, I'll be fine for most of the hunt. They will never escape Garden White. To their perspective it'll just keep on expanding every time they'll try to run to the borders of the place. Loovis seems to have reached a point of anger if he's connecting with all of them. Even I can feel it, the signal is weak but the pressure is strong. They're obviously being forcefully awakened to go back to the field and the other ones are really close."
Amphelise gets shot in the brain and turns to stare at the direction of the sniper. Ismael stands invisible and doesn't make a sound, the grass around him doesn't move by an inch.
"Well, here she is. Something familiar about this high-precision shot. She's back."
Steps behind his position revealed the presence of an enemy. The boots in the greenery. But he didn't panick, he remained calm and composed, they were looking for him, so far they didn't know where he was, and he could tell by the random aspect of the footsteps. He even slowed down his heartbeats per minute to act as if he didn't exist at all. No heat, no hormones, no high blood flow, no presence.
A weapon is armed behind him. He still doesn't react. The weapon is shot and the sound was insane, but he doesn't react.
"I'll make it. I'll hold those three as prisoners for as long as possible while taking down those remaining. I've done harder things in my life, I can make it. It's Theigon behind me, and by the looks of it, he knows I'm close. The footsteps, if I haven't lost my mind yet, are morse code. He mimics a soldier losing his patience at some points, trying to look for his prey in the bushes but that's just to give it rythm. He's telling me to stay down for now and later to go as far as possible."
At the undergrounds of the castle, Yael had taken ahold of Loovis arms and both could feel the pain from touching the other. Yael was too pure and Loovis too corrupted but she overpowered him and plunged her hand into his heart to crush it.