1844 Brothers at War (Part 2)

At first, Orpal bonding with the Horseman had filled Trion with hope, thinking that his older brother would turn himself in and expose Night in order to defend their family.

Then, after Trion had realized Orpal's true intentions, hope had turned into a rage and hatred so powerful that they had kept him sane during all that time. For over one year Trion had been forced to helplessly watch his once esteemed older brother slaughter innocents just for the fun of it.

Now that he was close to Lith, however, he had clung to the thin chain between them and accepted the power that Lith unconsciously emitted along with his desire to slay Orpal.

A wish that Trion was willing to fulfill.

"Trion, baby, is it really you?" The fear from her current predicament disappeared from Elina's mind as the grief and pain from the death of her secondborn resurfaced.

"Yes, Mom. It's really me."

Trion threw the Nightwalker away like a rag, without looking his mother in the eye out of shame. "I'm so sorry for everything I've said and done. Please, forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive because I never resented you." Warm tears streamed down her eyes while puffs of black flames came from his.

Lith and Orpal were both so shocked that neither moved a muscle for a while.

"Thanks, Mom, but I don't deserve your kindness." Trion pointed an accusatory finger at his older brother. "But that piece of shit is much worse than me! He knows that Night killed me. He knew about her plans to hurt you and he still bonded with her!"

Orpal shrugged, opening his palms in surrender as he laughed heartily at those words.

"You knew?" Elina asked.

"Of course I did!" He replied with a snarl. "We fused our minds and bodies multiple times."

"How could you ally with the person who murdered your own brother?" Elina's fury grew to the level of Lith's and Trion's.

With every word she heard all traces of motherly love for Orpal disappeared, making her want to rip her womb out for giving birth to such a monster.

"How could I not?" He replied. "Also, I'm glad to have the opportunity to thank you, little brother. If it wasn't for your stupidity, I would have never gotten this chance. So much power would have been wasted in the hands of an idiot like you!"

Lith had never liked Trion, but he wasn't stupid enough to watch a gift horse in the mouth. He stood up, taking a deep breath of Invigoration as new energy flooded his newfound Demon, bringing his eyes up to six.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you! Everyone here is either my Thrall or my accomplice and they will all testify that you are Tiamat. You have no idea how even the most grateful of people can turn their coat once they get a little taste of immortality." Orpal said with a savage smile on his face.

"Refuse my order and I will destroy your life. I will turn you into a wanted criminal and our parents will lose everything they have. One wrong move and my soldiers will kill everyone in Lutia, including Zekell and Rena." At a snap of his fingers, several recording devices were brought in.

With Sealed Space active they couldn't broadcast, but they could still record and transmit the moment the spell was lifted.

'Keep calm, Lith.' Solus said. 'There's no way to know if Orpal is telling the truth. Some of the waiters look scared of him and most of the customers now are just frozen in terror.

'Killing Orpal and his soldiers is one thing, but if you slaughter innocents your reputation will be destroyed. He's goading you into making a massacre!'

Lith tried even to activate the Call of the Void, but he could feel that it wouldn't extend past the Sealed Space either.

'Solus, I can't blind people. I can't Warp away. There's only so much I can do. Orpal is right about one thing. I have no choice left.' He replied, his heart bleeding with pain.

"He's lying!" Trion said. "Most of the people here are just paralyzed by his spell. Orpal only bribed those guys and had them bring his soldiers in their hiding spots there, there, and there!"

The Demon pointed at the exact locations where more Nightwalkers lay in ambush and the walls behind which other kinds of Thralls waited for their master's orders.

"Rena is safe. Orpal failed to get past your Emperor Beasts and the Queen's Corps. He's just bluffing!"

"How do you know?" Orpal asked in surprise.

"I followed you around until now. I know everything!" Trion snarled.

'Then pass it to me via the mind link, you idiot!' Only then did Lith realize that the chain between them was so thin that Trion had access to barely a fraction of the power and knowledge of a regular Demon.

It took him but a thought to reinforce the chain and let his brother tell him everything he knew about Orpal's plans.

"I'd rather die than help you." Lith snarled. "Do you think I'm an idiot? Once you take Mom and Kami, they will be as good as dead. You'd use them to force me to obey, and even if I did, I have no guarantee you'd keep your filthy hands off them."

"Do your worst, because that's what I'm going to do."

Lith snapped his fingers and the several Sealed Space spells that covered the Heavenly Wolf restaurant shattered one after another. Solus and the Eyes had completed analyzing the spell, giving them the opportunity to counter it.

Even with their combined Domination they couldn't overtake so many spells, each one backed by a different willpower. What they could do, instead, was to use their power over the elements to break the delicate balance that Sealed Space required to work.

At the same time, Lith emitted a wave of power that destroyed the blinding arrays, making Life Vision and mana sense work again, and surrounded Orpal with a Sealed Space of his own.

Solus stood in front of Elina to protect her along with Trion while a six-eyed Locrias appeared behind the Thrall holding Kamila. The ex-captain killed the man and took out his blade, ready to fight whoever tried to approach her.

The Dead King tried to activate the other contingency measure he had created, but they were cut off from him and with them the signals that he was supposed to use to coordinate the actions of his Chosen.

'Who needs the Dragon Eyes when we have Menadion's?' Solus jumped up, proud to have learned a new tier five spell in the space of a single awful conversation.

In order to avoid the sensory overload from the Eyes' full capacity, she scanned the whole room with mana sense and kept them ready to analyze Orpal's next trick.

"Plan three!" Orpal yelled after his mental commands received no answer and Night remained still.

His body grew to gigantic proportions, reaching a height of 20 meters (66 feet). His colossal Vurdalak form spread its wings, covering Lutia with shadows.

"If I can't obtain your servitude, I'll gladly settle for your life!" Then, the titan threw his right fist at the restaurant.