Demons couldn’t wear them even if they wanted to. Their bodies were made of pure energy and would dissipate under the aura-suppressing effects of such artifacts. The Nidhogg hissed in terror, feeling the full power of the seven-eyed Demon even though five of Locrias’ eyes were hidden under the human façade. "You shouldn’t be here. You can’t be here." His voice slurred as his tongue whipped in and out of his mouth in disbelief. "I didn’t hear you coming." "What can I say? I’m light on my feet. Now get back in there." Locrias channeled the power of his proto-Blade weapon and armor through his body to appear even more menacing. The Nidhogg swallowed hard as a cover for the river of acid that rose up from his stomach and hurled at the Demon from point-blank. Locrias tutted, blinking behind the Emperor Beast and hitting him in the throat with the pommel of the sword. The Nidhogg was still gasping for air when a golden cube-shaped construct trapped him. "Excellent work." Lith nodded. "Bring him inside. We’ll question him along with the others." "And how do you-" The sudden appearance of a dimensional door cut the Nidhogg short. "How did you do it?" "Warp Steps, son. It’s not so hard if you go to an academy." Locrias shrugged. "Not you. I was talking to him!" The Emperor Beast hissed in desperation. "Five Emperor Beasts can’t lose against one human. Not so quickly and inside a space too small for your precious magic." "Thanks for the compliment, but I’m the one asking the questions here." Lith replied. "Tell me, where did you get these?" Lith pointed at the exposed necks, pecs, and thighs where a modified version of Hatorne’s tattoo potions was visible through the ripped clothes of the Emperor Beasts. The Nidhogg replied by hurling more acid, but Locrias just needed to spend more mana to repair the construct. Then the Emperor Beast consumed most of his tattoo and expanded his body to break free from the construct but Lith opened a Warp Steps leading high in the sky, giving Locrias all the space he needed to enlarge the hard-light prison and detain the prisoner safely. "Do you have anything else you want to try or are you ready to talk?" Lith asked. "Just one more thing!" The Nidhogg roared with all the strength he had left and Lith prepared to counter whatever he was conjuring. Yet Life Vision detected to world energy answering the Nidhogg’s call and the other Emperor Beasts joined him in a savage cry. ’What does this mean? I removed their cloaking rings and can clearly see they are weaving no spell. Unless…’ "It’s a signal! Mute them!" Lith yelled for Solus to hear. The Hush Zone silenced the screaming Emperor Beasts but it was already too late. They had already joined their leader in their final act of defiance, injecting the lethal poison hidden in their tattoos and killing themselves. "Suicide?" Lith was still reeling in from the surprise when he realized it was more than that. The dead Emperor Beasts reverted to their real form, becoming much bigger than the office Lith was in. The expanding corpses slammed him against the wall and if not for a timely Steps bringing him back to Solus’ side, the corpses would have crushed him with their sheer weight. ’A suicidal trap.’ Lith thought. ’If I weren’t an Awakened with body casting, I would have died in there. As a Divine Beast, I would have survived the blast, but not what comes next.’ Like the Nidhogg, there was another Emperor Beast capable of producing and storing massive amounts of acid. When his corpse had exploded, the acid had flooded the room, turning it into a corrosive vat and destroying any evidence contained in the office. "I’m sorry." Solus’s face was a mask of confused disbelief. "I did my best to save our prisoners from the poison but somehow they died anyway." She had heard Lith’s warning and her instinct as a Healer had kicked in in time to use her best detoxification spells, but to no avail. "How is it possible?" Lith asked, ignoring the people fainting, screaming, and running from the river of acid that after corroding past the flesh dam formed by Emperor Beasts’ corpses was flooding the Roaring Lion. "My best bet is that they used darkness fusion to slow down my spells and light fusion to accelerate the venom’s effects." "Not to bother you, but are you going to let these people die?" Thaas and the other Knight Guard members used earth magic to create emergency exits in the walls and let the terrified patrons escape. "Of course not." A wave of Lith’s hand Warped the acid into the sewers. "We were just waiting to see if there were other Emperor Beasts hiding in the crowd. Thanks for ruining our improvised trap." "I’m sorry, I didn’t even think abou- We?" Thaas echoed while looking at Solus. "You were in on it?" "Yes. We agreed it was the most reasonable plan." She replied. "Without talking?" Despite having witnessed the events first-hand, the captain found it hard to believe. "When you work together with someone long enough, you need but a simple gesture to understand what the other is thinking and make a joint decision in a split second." Solus then rushed to change the topic. "You shouldn’t have let the witnesses go, Captain. We needed to interrogate them and then keep them isolated until the end of our investigation. They have seen me using Light Mastery and there’s only a handful of mages who can do that. "We have just lost the element of surprise." The reprimand hit Thaas like a punch to the gut but he didn’t flinch in his resolve. "I had no knowledge of your plan. All I knew was that dozens of civilian lives were at risk. I had to do something." He replied. "Also, what about your ’reinforcements’?" "They are not great at stealth." Lith said. "Especially while capturing and detaining people. If just one person looks out the window and sees my helpers, they’ll figure out who I am. Right now, our enemies may have a suspicion, but no certainty. "Let’s hand over the corpses to the local Constables and inform the Royals of the investigation’s development. We need to plan our next move quickly or the real mastermind will escape Kophar and it will be months before his organization rears its head again." *** Somewhere in Kophar, minutes after the raid at the Roaring Lion. "Boss, we are in trouble." A wizened old man with a long white beard pushed the massive wooden door open with so much strength that it now bore the print of his palm. "A Light Master has just attacked our gambling den at the Lion." The enchanted door was already self-repairing and the handprint faded at a discernible pace. "It’s worse than that." The man sitting behind the heavy hardwood desk had thick golden hair and black-slitted pupils. "Kashar and the warriors assigned to him are all dead." The man looked absolutely ordinary. He was of average height, build, and had an unremarkable face that rarely drew a second look in a crowd.