Normally they were simply delicious.
Warriors and soldiers often had wonderful memories of anger, death, sorrow, pain, and anguish, sometimes mixed with victory and happiness, even love.
It indulged in all of them, because as soon as they were met with the Death Shrine, they all warped. That transformation as every memory and feeling was lacerated and fractured into twisted forms of their previous selves was so sadistically delectable.
But there were bigger issues now. To its immense chagrin, there were far more important things than soaking up the agony from the Shrine. It hated being denied its meal but the things they found made it willfully focus on business instead of pleasure.
The soldiers they had captured were the hallmarks of those they had been hunting for years. They were powerful for their Authority, sure, but what gave them away was the fact that they gave nothing away.
No marks, no icons, no symbols, nothing that would indicate where they came from, who they worked for, or what their purpose was. They were exactly like those who had been wreaking havoc across the Kingdom. They were ghosts. Most of the time, there were no signs that they ever existed besides the results of their work.
Now they had finally caught some. The Broodfather had been surprised when it had detected them. For a moment, it had wondered how they had never been caught when they were carrying a device that made them rather obvious.
They were entirely imperceptible, the Broodfather would admit that much. It had almost glanced over them, but the void that they carried with them gave them away. Whatever they held, it created a little protective shield around them that denied all manner of external influence, whether conceptual, supernatural, or demonic.
Unfortunately for them, especially after the Death Shrine had been planted, the entire facility had been saturated with that influence. So when they walked through it, they were like holes in the atmosphere. Pinholes, more like, but still gaps that could be sensed if one were acute enough. That the Despair King Blood had seen it only after the Broodfather did spoke volumes to the level of skill it required to pick it out.
But they had it, and the two had taken advantage of it. The soldiers couldn’t even put up a fight. As soon as they knew what to look for, it was over. They were powerful for their level, but still nowhere near theirs. It seemed that Iron Legion preferred to send lower Authority individuals for the lesser scale of influence they gave off, making them sneakier.
That worked so long as they couldn’t be detected, and it had finally failed them.
Now, they were finally able to extract their memories. As their bodies and minds were stimulated beyond the point of agony, as their very souls were lit aflame with torture they couldn’t fathom, their thoughts and knowledge poured through them. It was a technique exclusive to a Death Shrine, save perhaps the Kings. Either way, the knowledge was potent.
And that was the issue.
It exposed everything. They were soldiers from Iron Legion’s Sector 4, under the command of John Cooper. Nobody had ever known that Iron Legion ran a covert group of operatives. There were theories, of course, but never was there proof. A certain head agent from the Third Claw had brought them here to find just that.
Now they had, but the issues went far deeper than exposing Iron Legion’s dark side. It was what those agents were doing, or had done, that made the Broodfather tingle in concern.
The missions, the operations. The rigging of vaults all across the Kingdom with teleporters, the hits on various nobles, the very nobles that they had been trying and failing to protect, and then the raids on all those villages and towns, the ones that had completely razed Nephilim hotspots. They hadn’t necessarily dealt blows to the spread of the Nephilim, quite the opposite in fact. But that was the issue. They couldn’t move too fast, and those raids had forced them to.
It was everything that had been going wrong with their plans. Sure, the Church caused them issues too. The zealots simply refused to die, but they were more open with their opposition.
It was nothing like this. Iron Legion had annihilated the Scourge’s presence on the continent, and was currently in the process of heading to the land bridge where they’d likely be walled off for good. Millions upon millions of the vanguard had been slaughtered by machines of war they had never seen before, coming from the knowledge of a man from another world. And yet, on top of that, that same man ran covert missions to completely upend all of their carefully laid plans that had been in the works for entire centuries.
They were trying to take everything from them, from the amassed riches to their deep seeded influence on all but the highest level.
Perhaps it should’ve been obvious then that they’d also have a facility dedicated to making all the technology that made their work possible.
Wonderland, located between Kingdom and Whetted City territory. It was the brain behind their impossible tech. Unfortunately the soldiers didn’t know more than that. Even these soldiers, so trusted and in so deep with their Sector 4, didn’t know more than they had to. They didn’t know where the manufacturing or resource facilities were located, but that was fine.
Within just two hours, those memories had exposed everything they had needed and wanted to know, and then some. John Cooper had been an impossible case to crack for years. People barely knew about what went on with Iron Legion. Nobody knew what went on with its darkest sector.
Now all this data fell into their lap in one go, and it had to get into the right hands. The Broodfather therefore skipped the intermediaries, sending the data straight to the Sovereign who currently resided in the Kingdom, the true head of the Third Claw.
Then, it ordered the Shrine to continue extracting. It wanted everything that those soldiers had to give, not a drop left behind. Although it now knew that John Cooper had come to know that his soldiers had been captured within minutes of it happening, it would still stick around with the Shrine for as long as possible. They had a teleportation platform they could set up to get them out, and desiring to be more safe then sorry, the Broodfather sent orders to start building it.
It would take a handful of hours to complete it. Given how quickly Sector 4 could respond to a situation with their vehicles, it might only be a day before they were on their doorstep since they’d have to prepare Marshals at the least. The Broodfather also knew that Anarchy was supposed to be descending upon Iron Legion. That would take up much of their attention, if they weren’t annihilated completely. Either way, it would be enough time. Even if the facility was destroyed and looted, nothing within its confines was anywhere close to as valuable as the knowledge they had just extracted. Mere Dragon corpses meant nothing before the fall of Iron Legion and John Cooper.
Just as the Broodfather started to feel comfortable though, it suddenly got an alert on its Aerial.
Information flowed into its mind, making its eyes widen.
“Iron Legion is retreating? Wait, but if they’re not fighting Anarchy…”
Realization dawned, and then it was too late.
It looked up at the ceiling of the dungeon they were in, feeling a Conceptual power signature explode above their base.
Its blood ran cold and it felt the might of a Sovereign bear down on everything in the area. Earthquakes rocked the facility before suddenly, a hole was torn through the ground, straight into their chambers.
The light of day shone upon the Death Shrine and the corpses mounted upon it. And the last thing the Broodfather saw was the tangible power of nothingness shooting toward it, snuffing out its consciousness in one sweep of the blade.
……
…
Tagh Naughtson was one of the first to receive the data. Within the dark recesses of the Kingdom’s bowels, he let the data flow into his mind from an Orb which acted as the primary line between the Third Claw and the Death Shrine.
The alert that they had captured those ghostly soldiers brought him great shock. Then he learned they were from Iron Legion.
Everything that came after dealt him so many mental blows that it took him precious long seconds to process it.
The picture in his mind had been massive. He was one of those individuals heavily responsible for the Kingdom’s plans to destroy humanity from the inside. He had too many things to count on his plate that only he could handle because of his knowledge. He was the master behind the scenes.
So it didn’t take him long to slot everything into place. Everything that had been going wrong over the last few years suddenly made sense. Every stray dot had been connected. Every odd, debilitating, or outright crippling event now made sense.
John Cooper. Seeing that name at the head of it all almost made him cheer for joy. He had been right. He knew he was right to investigate the man so heavily. It was obvious that he couldn’t be left alone since he openly ran Iron Legion, but only Tahg had suspected him so thoroughly. He knew there had been something more.
He was the one who risked his life to call down a Broodfather from the Scourge Continent. It was the first Broodfather to step foot anywhere near humanity on this side of the world, and while there was obvious merit to his request since that was the only reason it was approved, if it turned up nothing, it would’ve been his spine on those metal branches.
He had been evading Phero, that sadistic bastard, ever since then. Sovereigns were always an arrogant bunch since nobody could touch them, but Phero was particularly bad. The man would get what he wanted or people would die for it. Tahg was lucky to avoid his whims for this long and it was only because he was perhaps the only person below the level of Sovereign who could actually engage him in discussion. All due to his responsibilities, of course, not that those couldn’t be stripped as fast as the whims came.
Staying as far as possible from that man was usually good for one’s health, and after seeing all the knowledge that was coming through, Tahg high tailed it out of the Capital as fast as his legs could carry him. He didn’t even take a helicopter, simply running to the teleporter platform with all the strength he could muster.
When he finally arrived at a Nephilim ruled city, he calmed down. And it was seconds later that he got a call, seeing Phero’s name at the top and feeling the dread washing over him. It was good that he was a thousand miles away. The dread might’ve actually killed him if he hadn’t been.
He accepted the call.
“...Sir?”
“Tahg. Please, explain this to me.”
Tahg’s blood ran cold as ice hearing that eerily smooth voice, but he calmed himself and started giving a report in as professional a manner as he could.
It was basically just summarizing everything, but with every word and sentence being so groundbreaking, and with Phero being so quiet, just recounting the facts made Tahg feel like choking.
When it was all out there, Tahg went quiet, a long silence pervading until only two words came from Phero’s mouth.
“I see…”
Tahg refused to say more, simply waiting, not daring to take the initiative and open his mouth. A word out of place may actually end in his horrific death, even though he had not only been correct in his assumptions, but had been the only reason any of this could be discovered in the first place. Phero didn’t care about what was right. He cared about… whatever he cared about.
Finally, the man spoke.
“It seems we have a lot of work to do. John Cooper has massively overstepped. We’ll… need to take some more drastic measures. Your next task will therefore be to mitigate the damage he can cause. Do whatever you need to, pull on whatever resources to help with your task. If our centuries of stockpiles are truly at risk, no expenditure will be too great to keep our hands on them.”
“I understand, sir. I’ll begin this instant.”
“Very good. I hope your performance is satisfactory. That all of the Third Claw’s specially designed security enchantments were rendered entirely useless is already a blunder of an incredible magnitude. I wouldn’t mind adding more people to the list of those who need to be punished for that mistake.”
“I understand, sir.”
The call cut a moment after, Tahg letting out a long breath, sweat already coating his forehead. Now that the worst was over, it was time for him to get to work.
And there was a lot to do. Tahg knew that if John Cooper were as smart as he knew he was, then those teleporters could be armed and activated remotely. At that point, it was just a matter of retrieving whatever was teleported.
Realistically though, it was impossible to stop the teleportations from happening. That meant they had to mobilize people to fight off whoever was coming to snatch up the loot, but the Third Claw didn’t have the people for that.
The nobles did, though. The vaults were already in their territories and they had personal guards that they could activate, so Tahg just needed to alert every single noble whose vaults would be looted.
Which was most of them, unfortunately. Tahg already felt a headache coming on. The only silver lining was that, as suddenly it was happening for them, it was just as sudden for John Cooper. Neither party had known that those soldiers would suddenly get their memories taken. So now, it was just a race against time. It was only unfortunate that John Cooper wasn’t ignorant about Death Shrines. If he just thought that his soldiers would be tortured, then he would likely drag his feet. How that man had gained knowledge about a Death Shrine, Tahg couldn’t guess, but since he did know then they just had to move faster.
Tahg would mobilize every noble and their people that he could, and in the background, he knew that Phero would likely activate the Royal Family. With this information in their hands now, they could weaponize it as they pleased. Both Tahg and Phero knew that John Cooper would deal incredible damage to the power of the nobility. Such an action went beyond the invisible lines they didn’t cross.
They had to extract every possible gain out of this horror show of a situation.
So Tahg started alerting everyone he could, activating the entirety of the Third Claw.
Soon after he did that, the entire Kingdom started to stir in a frenzy.