Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

Snow stalked the plain stone corridors of Seteste's battle arena. It was a decent distance underground and was dug out of a natural cave that existed on the outskirts of the actual city known as Seteste. The halls themselves were dimly lit with light crystals, though they were not enough to push back the dark thoughts within.

Ever since seeing Lucius had been taken away, the call from the mark in her hand grew stronger and stronger still. The word 'protect' echoed through her mind constantly. It encompassed the totality of her being.

Every step was for him. Every thought. Every action. She had to protect Lucius… No, that's not right…

'PROTECT'Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Once again, the words echoed in her mind. A searing, mind-melting pain forced Snow to the ground. The pain was so intense that her voice failed her, and it threatened to reduce her to a comatose state. However, that's not what it wanted. It needed her to stay awake, to stay alive. Otherwise, it could not complete its goal.

Snow found it odd that no one had intercepted her. Ever since she was told to protect Lucius, all she had done was walk right into the cave. For some reason, the guards at the door were gone when she walked inside. Similarly, the halls were devoid of life. Even several of the cells she walked past were completely cleared of people.

She also noticed this strange haze in the air. It was like dust, but when she tried to interact with it, it simply vanished as if it had never been there in the first place. A few seconds after vanishing, it would reappear again.

Snow could also feel an unsettling presence behind her at all times, but when she turned around to glance at it, nothing was there. What was the most interesting aspect of all this was that despite the strange haze and unsettling feeling, she did not feel like she was in danger. Rather, this strange place felt safe.

The elf decided to lean into this feeling and simply continued on her route to her goal of infiltrating Itorin's office. Lady Voltara al Famyn had given her and Lucius a map of the interior of the cave. According to the lady, it was fairly recently updated as she had several spies that monitored Seteste constantly.

At first, she was disgusted that the lady kept such retainers and even had some form of a working relationship with Itorin and other leaders in Seteste, but there was not much that she could really say. Lady al Famyn had asked her what it was that she should have done. Though Snow also despised slavers, she had done nothing to save anyone either. Her reason? She couldn't. What could she have done?

It was that realization that made her realize the errors of her ways. Seteste was well connected within the Elven nation. Many nobles and high-class merchants were customers of this place. In addition, the people who ran it had amassed quite a large number of powerful warriors.

The arena alone had almost thirty Master Rankers available on call at any moment. If one included the slave fighters forced to obey, then they had a small army of their own that was at their beck and call.

Essentially, Seteste proved too difficult to remove through either political or military means. Something that Snow had forgotten in the moment of her interaction with the lady of the Wisteria Concord.

The elf paused for a moment to check her map. Where she was at was very close to the arena itself. At this point, she should have heard the audience cheering for the fights or even the announcer proclaiming something exciting as commentary, but still, the world was filled with silence.

A nagging sensation tugged at her and so she decided to make sure everything was alright with Lucius. After all, what if something happened and the audience was stunned into silence? What if he died? She needed to know.

Snow quickly moved down the halls to take a look at the arena. One of the doors was wide open, and she stepped out into the stands. There was no need for her to hide now since she would be blending in with the crowd. It was unlikely that anyone would stop her and harass her in a public area of the cave system.

However, her plan fell apart when she entered the stands. Instead of a stunned audience, all Snow could see were rows and rows of empty seats. The stands themselves were completely empty with not a soul in sight.

"Where…?" She mumbled before her eyes caught sight of something down in the fighting pit.

Standing in the center of the actual battlefield were two entities. Both looked vaguely humanoid, but their skin was as black as night. One was much larger than the other. From this distance it was hard to assess how tall they might have been, but the smaller of the two had to be at least ten feet tall or more.

The smaller one was kneeling before the larger one with its head hung low. Despite an overwhelming amount of fear, Snow found herself unable to look away. The larger one began to turn in her direction, further freezing her in place, as if standing still would make her invisible to the creature.

It had to have been almost twice as large as the kneeling creature and had an extremely muscular body. Its face was very beastlike, with a nose that was pointed and shallow. Glowing, golden eyes stared directly at her as if penetrating her soul. Sharp fangs lined its entire mouth and massive clawed hands hung at its side.

Snow continued to stare at the creature and felt…

Before she could process the sensation, she blinked and found herself suddenly in front of the target she was sent to find. A massive blue crystal sat before her, pulsing with mana.

The same haze still filled the air and seemed to interact with the waves of mana coming off the crystal itself, mixing together and forming strange, wavelike patterns through the air. The sight was oddly beautiful in a way and threatened to put her into a trance.

Snow suddenly felt the weight of someone's hand on her shoulder. She looked slowly at the hand and saw massive fingers, each at least six to seven inches long, with massive claws at the tip of each finger. The claws themselves looked sharp enough to cut her if she so much as looked at it for too long.

The hand stayed on her shoulder, but the index finger of the hand raised to point at the crystal in front of her. Then she heard it, a voice unlike any other. It echoed from within the depths of her soul.

'Destroy'