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.
