The Hawk understood immediately that he had been fooled.
The man he had killed was likely a member of the Transcendent Clan, but more importantly, he had been bait. A deliberate sacrifice used to confirm the Hawk's existence.
Now the Supreme Leader would know.
He would deduce that members were being targeted. That identities were being stolen. He would analyse which individuals had disappeared, which Selves behaved irregularly, and from that, he would begin mapping the Hawk's movements.
From this point onward, movement would become far more difficult.
The Hawk stepped out from an alley into a courtyard surrounded by a cluster of run-down shacks. The locals carried on with their lives, some sitting idly, some playing cards, others working without urgency.
From a distance, he noticed a family gathered around a table, speaking with an old woman leaning out from a doorway.
This would be the last time he would see them.
The Hawk passed by them with a smile, and on the ground he dropped a Spell and continued onwards. They called him back, saying that he had dropped something. He continued walking forwards.
He could not leave any trace of his existence.
An explosion tore through the courtyard.
When the smoke settled, no one remained.
The Hawk turned back into the alley. By nightfall, he had concealed himself within the sewers beneath the Golden City.
Each night, he reminded himself, without emotion, that to sacrifice everything for others was a privilege.
He had sacrificed his closest friends; he had sacrificed the one he loved; he had sacrificed his mother and father. Now he stood beyond all of it. There was no one he could not sacrifice.
As his mentor had once taught him, this was necessary in the pursuit of justice. To succeed, one had to reduce the world to a simple truth: people were either assets or liabilities. The Hawk had been chosen because he had the potential to become an asset. And if he was to serve others, he could not trust them; he could only measure their value.
The Shadow Clan was an asset; Lian was an asset; Ashar of the Noctis Mountains, if they could find him, would be a tremendous asset.
And the Supreme Leader?
The Hawk sat in darkness and meditated.
"I have to kill him," he said to himself. "I cannot continue this mission until I do."
**
"By now, he will be desperate enough to consider killing me," the Supreme Leader thought. "It is already clear that we are dealing with a Third Tier intelligence ability, one that allows its user to switch between personas. I am certain the Western Leader is one of those personas. We have seen similar cases before… but never to this extent."
He paused.
Who does he work for?
He sat in a vast silver hall, its walls metallic and cold. Chains hung from every direction, binding figures in various states of ruin. Some were still recognisable and others were not.
Among them, Kareth stirred, only just beginning to awaken.
The Supreme Leader watched him.
"Why am I not dead?" Kareth rasped. "Why do you insist on continuing this torture?"
"It is not torture," the Supreme Leader replied calmly. "It is an experiment. I wish to understand why my previous work on you failed."
"You are disgusting."
"Yes," he said. "It is interesting that you continue to resist. Your will rejects what I have placed within you. And yet, from the moment you were captured, your life became an instrument of the King's Will. Everything here serves that purpose."
"There is a higher power," Kareth said weakly. "One you will answer to."
"In this place, I am the higher power," the Supreme Leader replied. "For the sake of the King, I assume that role, and all that comes with it."
He activated the Undead poison within Kareth.
Kareth convulsed as control slipped from his body. His gaze drifted to the figures around him.
At first, he thought he was hallucinating.
Animals were chained nearby, dogs, horses, grotesque worms. Scattered among them were objects: weapons, armour, strange constructs.
Then he saw it: they were people, or what had once been people. Now they were twisted, altered, reformed into something else.
Kareth screamed, and the Supreme Leader put him to sleep.
It had begun as a simple desire from the Lords, to reshape humanity into something easier to govern. The Undead were one result: hollowed versions of humans, stripped down into obedient shells. But the Supreme Leader had never been satisfied.
With a quiet, almost childlike curiosity, he had always wondered how far he could go. If humans were transformed into animals, without their awareness, would they become easier to control? If certain individuals existed only as tools, why not transform them directly into tools?
Weapons, armour, objects, he believed that the energy of a human, preserved within such forms, would grant them unique properties.
Even the Lords had recoiled from this. For all their detachment, for all their control, they still held some attachment to their own kind. The Supreme Leader did not understand this.
Through Kareth, he intended to reach the final answer, this being the human spirit. If he could isolate it, he could understand it, and then he could alter it. And once that was done, there would be nothing left to resist, only total control, and only perfect obedience to the King's Will.
When Kareth woke again, the next phase would begin.
As for the Hawk of the Shadows—
The Supreme Leader had no intention of killing him. If he could capture him… bring him here…
That would be a far more interesting experiment. He already had ideas, many ideas.
The Supreme Leader rose and left the hall, ignoring the distant screams of the altered beings behind him. Above ground, he walked through the Castles of the Soldiers and stepped out toward the open fields.
The moon hung high in the sky.
And there, without even realising it—
The Supreme Leader removed his mask.