Episode-239

Words : 1625 Updated : Oct 1st, 2025

Chapter : 477 The brothers Croft stared, their pathetic, terrified sobs catching in their throats. Their minds, which had already been shattered, now simply... ceased to function. The sheer, overwhelming, god-like power radiating from the spear, from the silent, white-masked figure who wielded it, was beyond their ability to process. They were no longer just afraid. They were in the presence of a god. A very, very, angry god. Lloyd held the spear aloft, its light casting his masked form in a stark, terrifying silhouette, his shadow a vast, monstrous thing that swallowed the entire cellar. He looked down at the two broken, whimpering men. “This,” the White Mask’s voice was no longer a whisper, but a calm, resonant, and utterly, terrifyingly, final, clap of thunder, “is my final question. Now... let us talk about Jager.” The Spear of Justice hovered in the air, a silent, incandescent god. Its light was a living, breathing entity, a pure, white-hot azure that pulsed with the rhythm of a contained thunderstorm. It consumed the greasy yellow of the oil lamps, banished the shadows, and painted the squalid cellar in the stark, unforgiving colors of divine judgment. The air was thick with the scent of ozone, so clean, so sharp, that it was a physical, searing pain in the lungs after the foulness that had preceded it. The low, cosmic hum of the spear vibrated through the stone floor, through the iron chains, through the very bones of the two men who knelt, broken and weeping, before it. This was power. Not the brutish, fleeting strength of a brawler like Joseph. Not the wheedling, back-alley cunning of a schemer like Jacob. Not even the dark, corrupting power of a Black Spirit, which now seemed like a child’s shadow play in comparison. This was absolute power. Primal. Elemental. The power to unmake worlds. And it was being held, with a calm, terrifying ease, in the hand of the silent, white-masked figure they had so foolishly, so catastrophically, underestimated. The brothers Croft were no longer thinking. They were no longer scheming, or defying, or bargaining. Their minds had been scoured clean of everything but a single, all-consuming, instinctual truth: survival. The fear of their mysterious benefactor, Jager, a fear that had been the cornerstone of their defiance, was now a pale, insignificant ghost in the face of this immediate, overwhelming, and utterly, comprehensively, apocalyptic reality. Jager might kill them tomorrow. This... this thing... could erase them from existence in the space of a single, silent heartbeat. Lloyd held the spear aloft for another long, agonizing moment, letting the sheer, terrifying weight of its presence do the work for him. He watched their last vestiges of resistance crumble, their minds dissolving into a puddle of pure, abject terror. He could feel their wills breaking, not with a snap, but with a slow, grinding, inexorable pressure, like a mountain being ground to dust. He had their fear. He had their absolute, undivided attention. Now, he would have their truth. He didn’t move the spear. He didn’t need to. He simply spoke, his voice a quiet, calm counterpoint to the spear’s resonant, cosmic hum. “Jager,” he said, the name a simple, final demand. “Tell me everything you know. His allegiances. His methods. His true purpose. His associates. Every whisper. Every meeting. Every coin that passed between you. Do not omit a single detail. Because,” he paused, letting his gaze, hidden behind the blank white mask, settle on Jacob, “I will know if you lie. And my patience,” he glanced at the incandescent spear, its light seeming to flare in response, “is at an end.” Jacob Croft broke. Completely. The dam of his fear burst, and the truth poured out in a frantic, desperate, and utterly pathetic, flood. “He’s a ghost! A shadow!” Jacob shrieked, his voice a high-pitched, ragged thing, his words tripping over each other in his haste to appease the storm god before him. “We don’t know who he works for! I swear on my worthless soul, we don’t! He never told us! He said... he said his clients valued anonymity above all else!” He scrambled for details, for anything that might placate the silent, spear-wielding demon. “He approached us in the Rusty Mug, just like Debala said! He knew everything about us! Our debts, our ambitions, our... our failures.” He shuddered. “It was like he had been watching us for years. He said he represented a... a ‘consortium of concerned merchants’ who felt the AURA brand was a threat to the traditional marketplace. He said they wanted to... ‘level the playing field’.” A lie, Lloyd’s mind noted instantly. A convenient, plausible cover story. But a lie nonetheless. Chapter : 478 “He gave us the formula,” Jacob babbled on, his eyes wide with a crazed, terrified light. “The basics of it. He provided the first twenty Gold for the setup, delivered in an unmarked pouch by a street urchin who vanished before we could even ask a question. He... he was our technical advisor!” The irony of the statement seemed to be lost on him. “He showed me how to refine the potash lye, how to stabilize the fish oil so it didn’t separate so quickly. He... he was the one who gave me the obsidian shard. The one for... for Azgoth.” His voice dropped to a terrified whisper at the mention of his destroyed Black Spirit. “He called it a ‘boon’. A gift from his master, to protect the operation. He said... he said it would grant me the power to deal with any... unforeseen complications.” He let out a short, hysterical laugh. “Some protection! It... it almost got me killed!” Lloyd listened, his mind absorbing, dissecting, filing away every detail. Jager. A Black Spirit user. An alchemical advisor. An agent for a powerful, anonymous client. The picture was becoming clearer, sharper, and infinitely more dangerous. This was not a simple commercial saboteur. This was an operative, a field agent in a much larger, much more sophisticated, war. “His associates, Jacob,” Lloyd’s voice was a low, insistent hum. “Did you ever see him with anyone else? Did he ever mention any other names?” “No! Never!” Jacob insisted, shaking his head violently. “He was always alone. Always in the shadows. He would meet us in different places every time—a disused warehouse, a back alley, once even in the crypt of an old, forgotten church. He was a ghost! He left no trail!” Jacob’s confession was a torrent of useful, but ultimately secondary, operational details. Lloyd knew he was telling the truth now, the truth as he knew it. But it wasn't the whole truth. It wasn't the piece that truly mattered. He still didn’t have the head of the snake. He turned his attention to the other brother. Joseph, who had been silent throughout Jacob’s frantic babbling, his face a mask of pale, dull shock. “Joseph,” Lloyd said, his voice quiet, almost gentle. “Your brother has been... cooperative. Now it is your turn.” Joseph looked up, his eyes, which had been vacant, slowly refocusing. He looked at the incandescent spear, at the terrifying figure who held it, and a final, shuddering tremor ran through his massive frame. “I... I have nothing to add,” he mumbled, his voice a hoarse, defeated rasp. “Jacob... he handled the dealings with... with him. I just... I handled the workers. The muscle.” “Are you certain, Joseph?” Lloyd purred, taking a slow step closer. “Nothing at all? No small detail your brother might have missed? No overheard whisper? No chance encounter?” The tip of the shimmering spear lowered almost imperceptibly, its brilliant light now just inches from Joseph’s face. “Think very, very carefully. Your life, and your brother’s, may depend on the quality of your memory.” The sheer, overwhelming pressure, the proximity of that terrifying, beautiful weapon, seemed to break something loose in the depths of Joseph’s simple, brutish mind. A memory. A small, insignificant detail he had dismissed at the time. “Wait...” he breathed, his eyes widening with a sudden, dawning recollection. “There... there was one time. A few weeks ago. We were meeting Jager in a cellar near the docks. I was standing guard outside. I saw someone leave, just before Jager himself emerged.” Lloyd’s entire being went still. “Someone?” he prompted, his voice a low, dangerous whisper. “Describe them.” “It... it was dark,” Joseph stammered, his mind straining to recall the fleeting image. “I didn’t get a good look. He was cloaked, like Jager. But... but there was something... a pin. On his cloak.” He frowned in concentration. “It caught the light from a streetlamp. It was... it was silver. Shaped like... like a coiled serpent. A snake, eating its own tail.” A coiled serpent. Eating its own tail. The world seemed to lurch, to tilt on its axis. Lloyd’s mind, the vast, eighty-year-old archive, exploded. A symbol. He knew that symbol. A memory, not from his first life in Riverio, not from his battles with Rubel, but from a different, colder, more modern war. A memory from Earth. A memory from a classified briefing file, projected on a holographic screen in a secure, underground bunker. A file on a rival organization. A shadowy, international syndicate of assassins and information brokers, known for their ruthlessness, their efficiency, and their utter, absolute secrecy. An organization he had clashed with, indirectly, a dozen times. An organization that had been a constant, irritating thorn in the side of his own military operations. An organization whose symbol, whose calling card, was a silver ouroboros.

Episode-239

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