Saturday, July 1st, 2045
Machairas Forest, Cyprus
A middle-aged man, wearing dark clothes, walked down the road in the middle of the night.
His name was Makarios, and he was one of the Vice-Commanders of Zero, the Mercenary Organisation headed by the Mortal God, Hades.
Even though it was the darkest hour of the night, and the night was even darker than usual, all thanks to the dark clouds in the sky, he was not paying much attention to the road. This place was his home, and he was very familiar with the route he was taking.
Makarios audibly sighed as he just could not keep his mind off all the dreadful thoughts.
Two weeks ago, their Lord successfully eliminated two of the strongest forces of Erra. A blow that shook the enemy to the core, and a significant victory for them in the ongoing war.
However, the very next day, they were mourning instead of celebrating as they had lost two of their organisation's Commanders and their battalions.
Makarios had known Seth and Kemoo personally, and the former had spent the last three years here in this place, training and becoming stronger. He was much closer to Kemoo, as he was not only his superior but also his brother-in-law, and that loss hit him and his family harder than anything else.
Under their Lord's orders, they ceased their operations in Iraq and went into hiding for a few weeks, but only three days later, one of their secret bases was destroyed by Erra, and they lost one more Commander and the entire battalion of 310 Mercenaries.
The news came out as a shock to the Zero as the location was not in Iraq but in Brazil, and it was one of their most secret bases in the South American Continent.
Only four days after that incident, another one of their secret bases, this time in Argentina, was attacked, and they lost one more Commander and 300 more soldiers of their Organisation.
But the biggest blow came yesterday when one of the Vampire Clans under their Organisation, based in Canada, was attacked by Nergal himself, leaving no survivors.
Now, even those who were asking their Lord to retaliate had tensed as their losses were too great. There were even suspicions that there was a traitor in their midst who had leaked the location of those three bases to the enemy.
Even their response operations, which were meant to target the bases of Erra in retaliation had all failed as the enemy was prepared for them. It only solidified the suspicions within their Organisation that there was a traitor in their ranks. And their Lord was forced to stay at Purgatory Island as a caution against Nergal attacking the base in his absence.
Makarios had a sinking feeling in his heart that his home could be Erra's next target.
Here in this forest, there were several settlements, and all of them secretly belonged to their organisation.
Everyone in the nearby village was associated with Purgatory Island, and their families were there too.
Yes, this place had been a secret base of their Organisation since the time of the former Hades, and on the surface, all of them were simple villagers and natives of this country, which meant that the chances of them being discovered were very low.
However, if there was indeed a traitor in Purgatory Island, and it was someone of a high rank, then they could be attacked by the enemy as eliminating them was going to hurt Purgatory Island the most. After all, this place was one of the Intelligence Headquarters of their Organisation.
And was something that their Lord realised too, and he was making arrangements for their evacuation.
"Just a day more..." Makarios prayed in his heart, but then he looked up, and his steps came to a halt. Cold chills went up his spine and a dreadful feeling that he had lost everything crashed into his heart, bringing tears to his eyes.
He was standing at a vantage point, and from here, he could see the village where his family lived.
It was dark, eerily quiet, and there was not a single lamp on in the village. There were always some lamps on at nighttime.
"No..." He whispered and then rushed forward.
Tears pooled out of his eyes when the stench of blood wafted out of the houses he passed by.
They were dead. They had all been killed.
Blasting open the door of his house, he rushed to the room of his child.
The lifeless face of his son made his mind go blank, and he felt dizzy as the stench of blood hit him.
For a man who had killed hundreds, survived on the battlefield, seen blood, and had been drowned in blood, it was strange to feel dizzy to the stench of blood now.
But he could not be blamed. Could he? It was the blood of his son, who was barely 10 years old.
"Mikaros..." He cried, but could not bring himself to look at his child again.
Mustering up all his remaining courage, he got up, and one by one, he checked all the rooms in his house, hoping to find at least one alive to save his heart from breaking and fine the will to live.
But they were all gone.
"Kill me!!!!" He screamed and cried over and over again, but no one listened to him, and eventually, his tears ran dry, and so did his throat.
Makarios desolately came out of his house and looked around, but he could not bring himself to enter those houses and check on the people who lived there. He no longer had the strength in him to bear those sights, but now he had a bubbling rage in his heart.
He rushed out of the village to return to the base he had come from. Everyone was there when he had left, and the enemy was undoubtedly going to target that place next and try to kill their Commander.
Makarios knew that his Commander, the old man Ziyech, was strong, perhaps the strongest in their Organisation after their Lord as he was someone who had entered the Realm of Primal Desolation. He would not go down easily, or so he prayed as he knew that the Realm of Primal Desolation meant days of utter weakness too.
He prayed it was not one of those days where a person could not even control their Aura, or worse, be unable to call on it.
His steps slowed down as he neared the base but heard no sounds of fighting, and a dreadful feeling crashed onto his heart again, making him tumble, but he continued forward.
The guards of the village were dead, and there were bodies littered all around. Their entire Battalion was dead.
When Makarios walked inside the compound in the middle of the base, he dropped to his knees again as he found more bodies and the body of his Commander among them.
Their men had their weapons out, which meant that there had been a fight, but there was no true harm done to the surroundings.
His fear had proven true. It was a day when the old man Ziyech could not even call on his Aura.
Makarios vacantly stared at the blood pooling on the ground. He was no longer angry, he just felt so hollow that he could not feel even his own existence.
The pain had numbed too, the tears had dried up, and his will to live had crumbled completely.
When the sky started brightening up, bringing some light to the world, he stood up and gingerly walked further inside the compound.
He arrived in the Control room and then slowly dialled a call to Purgatory Island.
"Yes?" A gruff voice sounded out, which belonged to Cerberus.
"They are all dead," Makarios whispered, and the man on the other end of the call felt cold when he sensed the desolation in his voice.
"Makarios..."
"Everyone is dead, Cerberus. My child is gone too." He said, and then ruefully smiled. "Ask our Lord if it was worth it."
"Tell me in detail about what happened, Makarios."
"And what good would that be..."
Makarios never got to finish his words as darkness suddenly embraced him, freeing him of all his burden and misery.
"Makarios?" Cerberus's voice sounded out from the receiver. "Makarios?"
"They are all dead now. You can come to pick up their bodies." A strange voice, which one could not determine whether it belonged to a person or something else entirely, spoke, and then the call ended.
There, in the room, behind Makarios' dead body, stood three figures wearing all black with their faces hidden behind some mysterious masks that prevented anyone from even guessing the shape of their heads.
And then the figures suddenly blurred as they left the place, not sparing it another glance.
An hour and a half later, inside a beautiful cottage in the Troodos Mountains, three figures sat at the table, having taken a shower, and calmly ate their breakfast.
Suddenly, the phone on the table rang, and the young man reached for it.
"Yes?" He asked and then silently listened to what the person on the other end had to say. "I see." He replied and then ended the call.
"Since Nergal has returned to Iraq, it means that he is now going to wait for Hades to come there to face him." The young girl who was sitting on his left smiled and said. "Are we going back too, Master?"
"We will stay here for a few days." He replied, and both the girls nodded their heads.
There was no rush now. It was not like Qin Feng was going to rush straight to Iraq to deal with Nergal.
After today, the Child of Destiny was going to be busy reflecting on his decisions and doubting the people surrounding him. His priority would be to bring stability to his shaken forces, not to exact revenge on his enemy. At least, not for the coming few weeks.
He had achieved what he had planned, earned more Fate Value, and now, the only thing left was to deal with Nergal and eliminate the Stepping-Stone that Destiny had planned for its favoured Child.
"Ying'er." He lightly called out to his Shadow before he entered the room, and she obediently followed him inside, falling into his eager hands which deftly discarded all her clothes before her sensuous and ecstatic moans resounded in the cottage.
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