Linden had been watching the abandoned hideout from the shadows, never expecting him to appear.
When Chancellor Lazalit stepped onto the scene, silent and grim, Linden froze. He had never once heard that the chancellor could fight, much less that he would take to the field himself. The thought sent a ripple of unease through him.
Isn’t he just going to be a liability?
“We’re storming the hideout. Now,” Lazalit said flatly, already moving forward.
“Understood, but… the enemy is extremely powerful, sir. Perhaps if you stayed in the rear—” Linden ventured carefully, his voice tight with concern, eyes flicking toward the silent menace beside him.
“I will be joining the assault,” Lazalit said flatly, his tone devoid of emotion but heavy with authority: unyielding, final, and cold enough to freeze any further objection in Linden’s throat. There would be no further discussion.
Linden fell silent, swallowing his protest. Lazalit had brought several reinforcements, more of the special forces unit. Perhaps with those numbers, they stood a chance. Maybe it’ll be fine, he told himself.
The hideout was underground; of that there was no doubt. A few well-placed explosive charges blasted open the earth, and the team descended swiftly into the hollow below.
But what they found was… nothing.
Gone. Completely deserted.
“They’re… gone?” Linden stammered, eyes wide. “There must’ve been another exit…”
Panic twisted in his gut. This was a clear failure—his failure. He had been the one watching the place, and now it was empty. If punishment came, he couldn’t say he didn’t deserve it.
Oddly, Lazalit showed no anger. No scolding. He simply turned and said in that same deadpan tone, “Their destination is the Emperor Treant. We’re heading there.”
He offered no explanation. No evidence. No logic to support the claim. And yet he moved with absolute certainty, walking out of the hollow ruin like a man following a trail only he could see.
Linden wanted to ask why: How can he be so sure? What has he sensed?
But the words never left his mouth. Whether it was shame over his failure or the oppressive weight of the chancellor’s presence, Linden couldn’t bring himself to speak. Lazalit had always been unnerving, but now… now there was something deeper, something colder. Even without expression, he radiated a kind of quiet menace that made questioning him feel like a fatal mistake.
They moved out at once, heading toward the Emperor Treant’s domain at a relentless pace.
Lazalit didn’t just walk; he moved, swift and unyielding. The elite soldiers struggled to keep up, and Linden found himself gasping, barely managing to stay within sight. He glanced ahead and narrowed his eyes.
What is this? he thought, legs burning as he forced himself forward. Was the chancellor… always this fast?
Could it be… he isn’t just a strategist? Could he actually be strong?
Then, without warning, Lazalit stopped.
He stood motionless for a moment. Then, slowly, he closed his eyes and began to chant, softly, in a tongue that Linden didn’t recognize. The words were low, guttural, and strange, vibrating through the air like a curse uttered by the world itself.
Suddenly, a brilliant white circle of light spread across the ground at his feet, intricate, arcane, and pulsing with power.
From that circle, they came.
Dozens of strange, otherworldly creatures began to emerge, crawling, slithering, gliding, each one more grotesque than the last.
It was unmistakably magic. Only, not the kind anyone expected from him. The way the energy moved, the way it pulsed through the air… it was human magic, no question about it. And yet, Lazalit had wielded it like it was nothing. Linden stared, his mind reeling. He hadn’t even known Lazalit could use magic, let alone something so refined, so strategic. The sheer impossibility of it left him grasping at threads, trying and failing to make sense of what he’d just seen.
“We’ve located them. Moving out,” Lazalit announced without even glancing back.
Lazalit’s voice cut through the fog of confusion with its usual icy calm. His expression didn’t shift; not a flicker of emotion, not even satisfaction. Whatever mysterious creatures he had summoned moments ago, they hadn’t been meant to kill Mimi and her group. They were trackers. Hunters released into the wild, sniffing out their targets with ruthless precision.
Without waiting for acknowledgment, Lazalit broke into a run, even faster this time. Far faster. Linden’s legs were already aching from the previous sprint, and now the pace doubled. He glanced around. Some of the soldiers were already faltering, dropping off one by one as they failed to keep up. But Lazalit didn’t slow. He didn’t even look back. His focus was absolute, his path unwavering.
Linden gritted his teeth and pushed himself harder, lungs burning, feet pounding the dirt. He couldn’t afford to fall behind—not now. Not when the air around Lazalit still thrummed with that strange, impossible magic.
Then, without warning, Lazalit stopped. His eyes locked ahead. “There,” he said.
Up ahead, figures emerged: dwarves clustered together, humans on edge, goblins bristling with tension. The hunted had been found.