Wenlianna and Silence toss the last of the irreplaceable components of the mana extractor through the portal, and Silence says, “It is time to go.”

“But, we must shut down the portal!” exclaims Wenlianna.

“If it withstands the collision, then we shall close it afterwards,” retorts the absolutely stoic summoned Princess.

The brunette glances around. She managed to shut down the mana extractor, so the airship will burn off the remaining mana as it does what it can to stay aloft. As far as Silence knows, everyone that could be recovered has been evacuated by the other Angels of Death, and several of the Death Knights themselves have been sent through via Arachne’s orders.

“Wh-What about Princess Arachne?” asks the Magic Artisan.

“She is evacuating with the pink Valkyrie.”

Many times in just the last few harrowing minutes, Silence responds instantly without so much as even giving the illusion of checking with Arachne, let alone anyone else. Wenlianna knows telepathy is effective, but Silence doesn’t even seem to be actively starting the spell’s connection, let alone pausing to communicate with Arachne or anyone else.

Many humans are capable of easily lying to get another to cooperate, even if learning the truth later will create problems between them after the fact.

“Then…”

Suddenly, as Wenlianna starts to make one last check, Silence lunges close and grapples Wenlianna to her soft, leathery chest, lurching the non-combatant young woman towards the portal.

“S-Silence…!?”

The Angel of Death tries to carry Wenlianna through the portal, and the brunette is just about to fight, because she still feels worried that the mana fire reaching the portal is the absolute worst case scenario for everyone, since the Citadel is a crucial resource for the fight against the magical disintegration anomaly.

But, Silence only narrowly reaches the portal’s projector structure, and her hand latches on as the whole world seems to crash.

With a suddenness worse than the magma impact, the two are yanked upwards, with the only reason they don’t slam into the ceiling being Silence’s grip on the portal arm. Wenlianna can’t help but scream. She is battered against Silence’s body, and her legs hit painfully against various surfaces while the two flop around. Metal flies all around them, screeching and buckling violently as the entire direction of the airship chaotically changes like a box of tools being thrown viciously down the stairs.

Wenlianna forces her eyes closed, clinging to the summoned Princess as pain forces her screams to intensify and tears pour from her eyes.

It feels like an agonizing eternity during which the only thing protecting Wenlianna and Silence from becoming paste is a magical barrier Silence is absolutely pouring mana into, given how many times the barrier pops, booms, and crackles like a fight between an entire army of lightning elementals.

And, before she knows it, Wenlianna feels gravity shift one last time in sync with a strange, static tingle, before she tumbles painfully across a hard surface. She cries out in pain, and she can hear voices around her, surprised by her landing.

It takes a moment, drowned out by her own pain, but Wenlianna realizes what’s happening when she’s no longer being flung around by the airship crashing.

“Silence!” cries out Wenlianna. She struggles to sit up, and Gwenesphia jogs over. “Wenlianna! Are you alright!?”

“Where’s Silence!?” asks the human quickly and frantically. She can’t make out anything other than the colors she can associate with various beings; the dark black of the few Death Knights that passed through the portal, the white of the Angels of Death, the green mixed with differing colors of goblins, and a bunch of other splotchy blurs that could be anyone else.

“Wh-Who’s Silence?” asks the gatonine as she tries to help Wenlianna. But, Wenlianna’s arm surges pain, possibly having broken, and she cries out, flopping onto her back as she screams.

“Medic!” shouts Gwenesphia. “Healing magic! Quickly! Looks like bone-...!”

“Silence…!” cries out Wenlianna through gritted teeth. “Silence is… In danger…”

Balamae’s voice speaks next from somewhere nearby, “You’re the last one through, your Grace. The airship is lost.”

Wenlianna looks to the portal, which is flickering some. “N-No…! W-We have to…” She tries to crawl with her good arm, but Gwenesphia hugs her close and prevents her from moving.

“You have to be healed, Wenlie. And, the portal is failing.”

“Th-There’s still time…”

“Something’s wrong,” calls out another voice from nearby. Wenlianna easily recognizes Ahok’s voice, and a small troop of female goblins is assigned to keep everyone a certain distance away from her as a passive perimeter and buffer. No one would dare attack Ahok and expect to live, but she is still traumatized by the mission to attack Fort Twilight.

The goblin magic artisan jogs to Wenlianna, and any of the men get shooed politely backwards by her escorts, since her ability to operate is more important than almost anything right now, especially because they’re in the Citadel’s core.

“I-I lost my glasses… What is it?” asks Wenlianna, trying to ignore the pain in her arm.

“The portal… it’s… it… stabilized…”

“What?” asks the human.

“Are you certain the airship has reached the ground?” asks the goblin.

Balamae’s voice answers, “Yes, my Lady.”

“The support structure should have collapsed… S-So why…?”

“S-So then… Silence?” asks Wenlianna again, her eyes watering.

“I’ll send golems through to investigate,” replies Balamae. “Empress Gwenesphia, you should retreat for now…” 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

“I’ll go through,” states a male voice.

“Kuboen!?” shouts Peiburi’s more distinctive voice in turn.

“No one gets left behind,” replies Kuboen. Hearing the voices of Gwenesphia’s siblings, Wenlianna knows why they’re present. The gatonine Empress is worried about everyone, especially since she must have heard about the airship.

More surprising is the fact that the dragons didn’t pass through the portal, since the “battle” against the mana fire turned into an actual battle against a monster, from what Silence was saying.

“G-Give me a potation, quickly,” replies Wenlianna. “I-I’m going, too.”

“Wenlie, no!” exclaims Gwenesphia.

“I have to. If the portal doesn’t shut down…” She groans as the throbbing in her arm gets worse for a bit.

“You’ll be no use if you can’t see…” cautions Ahok.

“And, I can’t guarantee I can protect you, your Grace,” replies Kuboen. “I’m going through to find out the status on the other side, and to act quickly as need be. If I end up stranded, I can navigate towards our allies with ease.” He taps a weirdly-shaped staff on the floor, adding with a nervous, but somewhat smug tone, “Plus, the third Dragonslayer is going to be born today.”

“Technically, you’d be fourth,” replies Peiburi. “Daniel is the first.”

The gatonine growls, and there’s an awkward pause otherwise as they decide what to do about Wenlianna. Healing magic is safer, but if it can be avoided and natural healing take its course, that’s typically better. But, the human knows something is out of place. She’s conscious because Silence must’ve cast something on her during the course of their struggles to shut down the mana extractor or even right at the end. While not as uncanny as Yaulwembor, Silence seems quite powerful in magic, even having been created only hours ago.

“You have to let me go…” urges Wenlianna. “If we can’t shut it down from this side… The supports must still be running.”

“Then, I’ll just destroy them,” replies Kuboen.

“No… It’s not safe to destroy a portal that way. And, it started to break, so I think something else is wrong.”

The goblin who initially helped Wenlianna speaks. “Klur say catman-Lord Kuboen and Klur go through first. Human Wenlianna receive new seeing glass and potation in meantime.”

Balamae’s voice, emanating from a golem nearby, lets out an exasperated sigh. “Unfortunately, I am bound by orders to allow all Empresses to act autonomously… Lord Kuboen, Field Marshal Klur, you have permission to deploy. The airship is a hazard zone rank three, extreme danger of collapse, fire and smoke, and potential explosion hazards present.”

Both men nod, and Kuboen replies, “We’ll wave you through if it’s safe, your Grace. Field Marshal, let’s go.”

Gwenesphia receives a liquid and feeds it to Wenlianna. It is naturally extremely bitter and has a sharp, cutting-like sensation that hits the brunette’s tongue; the extreme alcoholic content unique to potations, but which makes them far more fast-acting than high grade eastern potions.

She whimpers and tenses as pain surges once more in her arm. It’s healing this time, along with any and all scratches on Wenlianna’s person. She can hear Balamae order, “I’m sending the specifications Xyreko has stored for your glasses to the kobolds, your Grace. They’ll bring you a new pair shortly.”

“Th-Thank you, Balamae…”

Gwenesphia urges, “Wenlie… Wh-What about…” She quietly touches Wenlianna’s belly so she doesn’t have to say it out loud.

Wenlianna smiles softly. “Not yet… So… it’s alright…”

She can feel her head starting to swirl soon after taking the potation, but it was a necessary evil in this case.

If the mana fire destroys everything, especially the Citadel, she’ll have far greater problems than the struggles of not being blessed with a child yet. And, she’s only in any real hurry because of how happy she sees everyone else so far. She can still serve as Magic Artisan, so long as the others continue to allow her to minimize her role as Empress.

And, before all of that, they have to stop both a titanic dragon and a mana fire.

***

Shortly before, the world seems to come to a sort of eerie standstill. Hekate watches in horror as the mountain of a creature known as Sayrdarralouche arcs through the sky. Each second upwards is that much longer before it’ll reach the ground when it starts moving downwards.

And the faster it’ll be going when it does so.

The feldrok teen has moments that she’s sharp, and moments that she’s the dumbest person present. She’s not deluded enough to believe anything otherwise. She doesn’t like using it as an excuse, but it is the truth that she lacks experience in virtually all things, not least of which is magic, which she can impress far more experienced mages with her sheer mana output; an output that she has earned only alongside powerful friends and family.

And, the one who helped her the most, taught her the most, and who she looks up to the most does everything in his power to teach Hekate whenever he’s doing something new, even though he worries about letting his Earthly hybrid weapons and technology leak out of Fievegal control, which will far more rapidly alter the balance of power for Zenkon.

One such technology was used not so long ago to obliterate Kernuules and his “respawn points”, as Daniel called them.

Though they used magic in a far more complex way, the technology’s principle was simply, make something heavy fall extremely quickly.

Even Hekate’s most powerful, condensed magic spell, which is effectively just her throwing a “bomb” of compressed magical energy, paled in comparison to a regular old tree being “dropped” from really high up.

By the time she connects all of these dots, fifteen seconds have elapsed, and the titan’s hapless form seems to have reached its peak.

Hekate knows how this story ends. And, in the direction Sayrdarralouche is travelling, her friends and allies are gathered.

The black-haired girl acts without thinking, springing off of Zuzia and vanishing in a teleport. She can do so in about two seconds now, which means she has enough time to make two trips at most, and seconds of each trip to move as many people as she can.

The moment she arrives, the two elven sorcerers notice her, and Serrentuk shouts, “Senn! Cast what you can!”

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“Right!” The two dump their spells in the seconds that Hekate makes eye-contact, mentally adding them to her return trip. Serrentuk is apparently thousands of years old, which is unfathomable to the sixteen year old who felt every agonizing minute of her formative years as Morthybargaron’s punching bag and slave.

And, her reduced distance from the mana fire is noticeable instantly.

The spells flash, but Hekate wasn’t planning to wait for them, anyways. She has no real idea what could actually have happened if their plan failed, but it doesn’t matter. They’ll die anyways if things go like a Fiendbreaker, even as far behind the landing zone as they are.

Hekate dumps the two elves in the command post, feeling a depression in her body from the intense mana usage. But, she doesn’t have time to dwell on it. She’s already formulating her next target, which she has to guess at.

And, she makes the most horrifying decision she can in doing so.

Hekate emerges from her second teleport about a hundred feet in the air. She gasps. Daniel has said that being crushed by Neith was far worse than a fall from miles high, but even so, Hekate can’t help but be afraid of heights. She doesn’t remember it clearly, but she has nightmares of being dropped by Morthybargaron and his closest allies as a form of torment and torture.

And, of course, none of those dragons are alive anymore thanks to Daniel.

Regardless, Hekate is slammed by the mana waves from the white inferno, feeling like she’s tumbling through the air. It takes all of her willpower to resist, reminded of yet another horror of her childhood.

She shakes her head, trying to ignore it. She doesn’t have time.

Daniel did this against the Devourer! You can do it, too, fuzzy!

“And, her parents would have thrown her off the flyway!” These words drifting through her mind

as well belong to Jeavana, having said it during the raid on Centerhold itself when she dragged Daniel through Ryukana’s portal. Hekate heard it, even through her fearful panic while Doephluev pulled her close and they regrouped with Daniel and Yaulwembor.

I have to learn to fly eventually…

That said, today is not that day. Hekate only manages to open her eyes quickly to scan for everyone she can find. She can only do what she can do, but a glance to the north from her position, glancing up her belly, horrifies her. Sayrdarralouche is already falling. Ten seconds have passed, and in five seconds or so, a ‘Fiendbreaker’ thousands of times larger than Daniel’s will hit the surface of Zenkon. The only difference is velocity. The dragon roars, and Hekate returns her focus quickly, concentrating all her heart on her goal.

She hears snickers in her ears, but she ignores them. They have to be fear-created hallucinations. Nothing more.

I am Hekate fell Lawson, the Empress of Ruin. Nothing is more powerful than me!

Hekate surges her magic and trusts the rest to her instincts, her spell, and the sheer force of her will, which helped her endure life for as long as it has.

***

Zuzia watches in horror as the realization fully sinks in. ‘What goes up must come down’ is one of the easiest lessons children figure out in a most basic sense, especially when taught it. They may not be readily able to define it the way Sir Isaac Newton did or that Albert Einstein refined even more definitively, but children figure out what it means to fall down, and how to avoid that. They learn to avoid dropping fragile things. They may even learn what it takes to prevent coming down for as long as possible, such as with balloons and airplanes.

In the heat of the moment, Zuzia forgot a lesson that she learned as a child and treated a titanic enemy like little more than a video game boss she is meant to defeat.

It genuinely seemed like a good idea at the time until the dragon, with lingering flames and his bellowing roar echoing into the distance, looks more and more like a meteor.

The same thing, though on a larger scale, that wiped out the dinosaurs.

She feels Hekate vanish from her shoulders for a moment, but her eyes are glued to the horror of what she’s just done.

Sayrdarralouche is gargantuan, and there are people in the direction of the mana fire from her. She doesn’t know where they are specifically, but she also has no idea how far the dragon is going to travel. She hoped to reach the mana fire, but she was in a fight against the relative weakness of his tail compared to the weight of his body, Hekate’s ability to reinforce his tail, and any other sort of defense his slow-acting undead-seeming mind can formulate against her swinging motion.

Considering she just managed to actually throw eight thousand tonnes of lizard without nailing herself deep into the ground, Zuzia was too busy being amused and impressed with herself.

She starts to step in that direction, but it’s already far too late. Thirty three seconds, if anyone was counting, were an eternity to those who had come to a stop to watch, including the perpetrator of the impending meteor strike. But, it was far too little time for Zuzia to really piece it all together and decide to act.

Too little time for her to undo her mistake.

With something so large, it’s not quite the same as a lightning strike. Sayrdarralouche’s body continues sinking into the ground short of the horizon formed by the mana fire long past the time it takes for the sound to reach her. Flickering light from the intense forces, friction, and even ionization make it look instantly like a lightning storm.

Or, more like a ball of aluminum foil in a microwave, but on a nightmarish scale.

Zuzia is slammed in the feet by the ground-wave four kilometers away, and she stumbles from the suddenness. Her gaze is knocked downwards, where she finds the consequences of her barriers as well; they may have held, but she wasn’t truly “stationary”. Her feet compacted the ground swiftly and violently, leaving a pockmarked pattern of diamond footprints from the inhuman forces involved.

And, the swift ground wave was only the beginning. A deep rumbling like a distant earthquake continues to shake Zuzia, making it difficult to remain balanced, and she tries to look towards the cataclysm.

It takes several long seconds before Sayrdarralouche’s tail comes to a stop, slamming to the ground as the impact craters the surface of Zenkon, launching dirt and rock violently into the air like a tidal wave. The sound wave arrives, rolling in like a gust that rumbles deeply and continuously. A surge in the bright glow of the mana fire sweeps upwards, burning the wave of soil like it’s a wave of oil washing over a fire. Nausea swirls in Zuzia’s stomach as she watches in horror, and spears of glittering material refract the bright surface-bound starlight, solidified from the “splash” of what should have been solid material being viciously compressed from immense forces. The brunette falls to her hands and knees with her own sickness, only imagining the horrors of anyone caught within the impact zone or even several kilometers away.

The impact echoes far and wide, and the world itself seems to fall silent in its wake, even more eerily silent than when the former tax-accountant threw the titan into the air. The gavel of God would normally seem like the only thing that could produce such power casually, and Zuzia is reminded with absolute dread coursing through her veins that her power is a God-given gift, and growing reckless can bring dire costs. Humor is how she stays focused. It’s how she kept her spirits up when she continued her hikes after her Grandfather passed, joking, memeing, and occasionally, livestreaming when she had cellphone coverage. She didn’t have much of a following, but rambling at a camera while she was hiking up hills helped

her pass the time and appreciate new things about the scenery when she went out of her way to show off the places she liked to go.

But, she’s not simply walking up a tall hill anymore or starting a fire by hand. She is fighting monsters and titans, and her strength was given to her more directly by a clumsy angel who doesn’t even know her own strength, let alone the capacity she granted to Zuzia.

“Dear God… forgive me for yet another blunder… I… I am not worthy of the gifts you granted me…”

When she opens her tear-forming eyes, she is startled at what her eyes fall upon. She blinks a couple of times.

It’s a footprint.

But, not just any footprint. It is barefoot, and roughly the size of an adult’s foot, larger even than Zuzia’s. She looks slightly ahead, and in line with someone’s gait, there is another footprint, continuing on a path ahead. This path seems to head in one direction; the titan Zuzia just flung across the plains.

If she takes them literally, she’s not being carried, but shown the way, possibly as a sign of something else.

Zuzia wipes her eyes and looks up. There is a strange amount of color in the sky. It’s not a distinct rainbow, like what God sent to symbolize his promise not to destroy the world with a flood, but there is a mysticism that Zuzia can’t help but stand in awe of.

Maybe she’s reading too much into it when she is flooded with feelings of despair, but she also dreamt of her Grandfather recently, and it gave her strength when she needed it.

Right now, Zuzia is being treated to a view of beauty on this eve of tragedy to remind her that she is never alone. And, even if she is to be punished or face reprimand, she was given her gifts for a purpose.

The brunette wipes her eyes clear and sniffles. “Right. I have work to do.”

She may not be able to help anyone that was unfortunately directly in the way, but she must return to the tasks at hand; finding a way to help stop the mana fire or evacuate Urflasdat.

She glances around. The dragons are alright, including Yaulwembor, and seeming to have lost interest in Sayrdarralouche, the draconic being lifts into the air and flies back towards the north, where the command post is.

Neith helps Jeavana sit up, and Zuzia jogs to them.

“N-Nice throw,” coughs the golden dragon, glancing at the titan’s corpse as she massages her neck.

“I… I think… I did something terrible…” murmurs Zuzia.

“It was a reflex action,” retorts Jeavana. “One I’m personally thankful for. If there was collateral damage, it’s a small price to pay to see-...” Neith tries to be subtle about it, but it’s still a big movement when he hits Jeavana’s tail with his own, which halts her. She looks at him, and the grey dragon shakes his head.

“It’s alright, Neith… She’s right. I know that… It’s just…” She looks to the distance where the titan’s body has finally come to rest, and where an unknown number of soldiers remains.

“I’m not seeing signs of movement,” remarks the blue dragon as he approaches. “I do believe it’s dead. And, Hekate teleported somewhere. She’s not one to flee from battle, so… I wouldn’t lose hope just yet, Lady Zuzia.”

Zuzia only knows a little bit about any of the people she’s met recently. Hekate is a brazen, somewhat foolish girl, but she’s kind hearted and brave. The fact that she came to Zuzia’s aid in spite of her ears bleeding is proof that she takes on responsibilities far beyond anything that should ever be expected of a sixteen year old girl, no matter how much magic she has.

Hekate did in fact teleport to Zuzia several times, but can she really rescue people that way? They avoided trying against Zuzia because it would sap an unnecessary amount of Hekate’s mana for one person who could cover the ground on her own, much to the fox-eared girl’s terror.

“Jeavana, fall back to Daniel’s position,” orders Neith. “Magnir and I will scan the fallout zone for the injured.”

“Right,” replies Jeavana. She starts with a shake that starts at her large, reptilian head, continuing the motion down her entire body before stretching her wings. She winces, instantly yelping and pulling her wings back in.

“Are you alright?” asks Magnir.

“I-I’ll be fine. I think something might be broken, but I can make it back.”

“Move quickly and be safe,” replies Neith.

The golden dragon nods, and she starts limping on all fours back towards the command post, picking up speed as she finds a balance between what she can withstand and the fastest she can manage to move.

“I’ll go with you guys if that’s alright,” states Zuzia. “It’s my responsibility, so I need to do something to help.”

The grey dragon nods. “Certainly, my Lady.”

He holds his claw down for her, and she climbs on so that he can lift her to his neck, where she is able to sit as if he’s a gigantic orca or something broad like that. That said, his armor has handholds in his dragon form, as if this is a common occurrence. She smirks and takes hold, thankful that Daniel and his allies seem to have a fair amount of foresight for situations just like this.

“Can you fly, Magnir?” asks Neith as he stretches his huge wings.

“Of course, General. Just had my senses rumbled a bit.”

“Good. Hang on tight, Zuzia.”

“I’m ready!” calls out the human.

She dreads what they’re going to find as they take off, with the two male dragons using magic to gain lift far more easily than their large size would seem to need.

Fighting Neith, Serrentuk, and Amalaskae made Zuzia forget real world physics for a time because she is more like a fictional superhero.

BUt, if she really does want to be a superhero, she has a long way to go.

***

Daniel coughs as he recovers his footing. Without warning, bodies rained from the sky only a few yards off of the ground at most around the same time as the seismic wave and shockwave of the undead dragon Sayrdarrlouche slamming to the ground several miles away. As it all comes together, Daniel quickly searches.

Hekate!?

He scans the crowd of newly injured soldiers and knights, mostly from Mornistae, who were still trying various spells and methods against the mana fire near the front lines. Rikuto mentioned something about having a few dozen knights and soldiers still making efforts at the front lines, but it would seem they’ve all been unceremoniously deposited near the command post.

Daniel jogs into the crowd, searching. He knows of two people on the battlefield right now who can teleport masses of people all at once with their current levels of power; Yaulwembor, who was engaged in vicious battle against Sayrdarralouche, and Hekate, who went to find and retrieve Zuzia. Senn and Serrentuk can probably move people via similar means, if not outright teleportation, but they are similarly seated on their behinds, massaging their backs as they make sense of what just happened as well.

That leaves Yaulwembor or Hekate, and Daniel can see Yaulwembor in the distance, especially when she takes off to fly towards the command post, thanks to her own titanic size, even if she is a bit smaller than the dragon they were fighting.

“Hekate!” calls out the human, shouting before he even really has a full thought in his head. He is feeling worried all of a sudden, even in spite of having just sent his comrades off into battle against a seemingly-unkillable titan.

Of all of them, Daniel has seen Hekate take the most direct damage through sheer, unimaginable force and live to talk about it. If he didn’t know any better, he would guess that she’s protected by some sort of divine protection, given how powerfully invincible she seems to be.

That said, the Earthling also doesn’t subscribe to “invincible”. Hekate is tough. He’ll never deny her that fact. She could likely face off directly against things he can’t imagine. But, he always tries to recenter his focus; she’s a teenage girl who was denied a childhood and has a long life ahead of her.

Just because she probably could survive one of his anti-dragon bullets doesn’t mean he’s going to take potshots at her expecting her to survive. He would rather assume she’s more comparable to a teenage girl from Earth when factoring in his assumptions, rather than the demigoddess she probably is in actuality.

He sees the distinctive crests of the Mornistae kingdom scattered around the newcomers, while those who were already at the command post rush into the crowd of new arrivals to begin triage. The medical area is already flooded with wounded, but that doesn’t mean anyone is going to ignore new arrivals, as strange as their sudden appearance is.

Daniel spots Rikuto among the crowd first, and the Japanese man seems to have fallen back away from someone. His face is stricken with horror, and even from a fair distance, Daniel can tell the younger Japanese man is trembling.

Something has frightened him anew, even after the meteoric strike Sayrdarralouche became. The titanic dragon seems to be incapacitated at the very least for now, though it’s quite far away from the camp now, washed out by the glare of the bright light coming from the mana fire. But, the thing Rikuto is staring at in absolute shivering terror is rather innocuous and unassuming.

That ‘thing’ has big, black, triangular ears and a bushy black, fox-like tail, though the fur and hair of this being have all taken on a rather distinct blue glow, even in the apparent broad daylight of the morning fused with the light of the false inferno on the horizon.

That being is none other than the mighty Hekate fell lawson, First and Sovereign Empress of the Fievegal, Empress of Ruin, and one of the last of the feldroks.

The confusing part about Rikuto’s terror is that Hekate appears to be unconscious.

Yet, the otherworldly king looks like he just saw a sewer clown with knife-fingers wearing a hockey mask, given how pallid and fearful he looks at this moment.

Hekate is undeniably powerful, but she isn’t a source of horror. If anything, she’s generally a source of disbelief, because she can appear to be an idiot with her good-natured and quick-acting innocence. She blurts things out without a thought.

But, even when she speaks of more callous options regarding how to handle certain situations, she doesn’t go out of her way to kill anyone, and she’s generally even kinder than Daniel towards innocent people, even ones unrelated to her and the fledgling Empire she is the Sovereign of.

Yet, Rikuto is genuinely terrified of something, and his eyes are locked only on the fox-eared girl.

Of course, if Daniel could see what Rikuto saw moments before, it would all make sense.

***