It wasn't until a full five minutes later that it all sank in for Javier. He chuckled bitterly, tears of rage spilling down his cheeks.
Even if he was the only one awake, so what? Would they let him live?
Almost certainly not.
What good was his breakthrough now?
He had come all this way to die.
Javier grit his teeth so hard that blood seeped through his gums. He had never been so angry in his life.
He unleashed a roar, swearing to the depths of his soul that if he ever got the opportunity, he would make them all pay.
Sylas Grimblade. Professor Broussard. Cassarae Hale. Anyone responsible for this would suffer his wrath.
In his fury, he forgot everything, a blazing intent taking hold of his body.
His only chance was to make it to the very end. With everyone around him having lost their minds, this would be the best chance he would have at such a thing for a long while.
If he could use the fact that these people had lost their minds… maybe he just might be able to find a path out of here.
"Commander! The pressure has increased too much! Their morale has taken a complete reversal!"
A militiaman hurried to report to Olivia but was stopped by a man.
Veron, the Drill Sergeant.
The death of Gregory had obviously put the two remaining spawns back in line. When they saw that the village hardly reacted to the change, they felt their own mortality intimately.
But it had been two days now, and Sylas hadn't appeared, even given the distressing state of the situation. The village might be calm, but that was only because they had no idea the extent to which things had reached down here.
If they did, that façade of calm would vanish in a blink.
"Sergeant, sir!" The militiaman stood at attention.
"These are matters you should be reporting to me. Full status report, now."
The militiaman's eyes widened.
What was the meaning of this? In the last two days, everything had been reported to Olivia, and the Sergeant had never said a single word about it.
If he was forced to give a full status report now, then by the time he was finished and Veron was ready to hand out orders, the situation would be irreversible.
"Did you not hear me, soldier?!"
Veron found himself under a lot of pressure as well. His prestige had taken a silent hit over the last few days, but he felt like he could scrounge it back up so long as he played his cards right.
Plus… this was the best opportunity to throw a wrench in things. Even if it was dangerous, he couldn't afford to miss the chance.
Olivia, who had been waiting for the report from above, frowned. Veron had been so obedient over the last couple of days that she wasn't sure what to do all of a sudden.
Could she stop him? Not without exposing the internal strife too much. All things considered, only Veron was acting in an official capacity here, and she didn't have the same cache, strength, or nerve as Sylas to just kill him right here and now.
And, like Veron had said, his prestige might have taken a hit, but he had spent months building it up before this. If he played his cards right, he might even be able to play the role of hero to reverse everything.
Things hadn't been going particularly well until now, so it would be relatively easy to shove the blame onto Olivia and claim back his position.
Olivia grit her teeth.
She knew that these cancers had to be dealt with, but Sylas had left before they could be, disappearing for two days.
Sylas, of course, had expected to return with no time having passed at all. Plus, he had different plans for Veron and the alchemist, so he hadn't wanted to outright kill them like he had Gregory.
"Don't make me repeat myself again—!"
"Yessir! Right away, sir!" The militiaman snapped back to reality and opened his mouth to begin explaining things.
There was a shift in the atmosphere, and Olivia could feel a sigh of relief from the soldiers. They wanted someone to take command, someone that wasn't her.
She could feel the shift and knew it wasn't good. She needed to do something, but she wasn't sure what that could be.
But just when the militiaman was about to start getting into a rhythm with his report, there was a flash of lightning.
Sylas descended from the skies.
The first thing they sensed wasn't Sylas himself.
It was his suffocating presence.
All-encompassing, all-imposing. It didn't feel like he was a man at all, but rather a force of nature.
Runes continuously formed around him, with a far fiercer and stronger momentum. Compared to his unskilled appearance just minutes ago, he was practically an entirely new man.
The fatigue of Arcane Storm's constant activation didn't seem capable of hitting him at all. Veron froze, his head tilting up to the skies very, very slowly.
Sylas stood there, his feet bare, looking off into the distance as though Veron wasn't beneath him at all.
The sound of the battlefield seemed to dim somewhat, the man standing above it all feeling far more important than anything it could offer.
The underground space was like an endless catacomb, with tall, curving walls and natural pillar formations that fused into the ground and ceilings above.
There were crystals that lined everything, giving them the dull radiance needed to see anything at all.
Reverberations of battle soared through the arches, ducking beneath them and springing against the walls.
And then Sylas finally looked down.
Veron froze once again.
There was a flash of red in Sylas' eyes, and before anyone could react, the Sergeant drew out his own sword, impaling it through the bottom of his jaw and out through the top of his skull.
The subtle pitter-patter of dripping blood was smothered by the battle as the Sergeant's eyes dimmed of life.
He collapsed, falling into a heap.