The One Who Got Away

'Fools'

That was Azim's immediate, dismissive assessment, echoing in the silence of his own mind. Fools, the lot of them. The slaves, of course. Pathetic, predictable slaves, always clinging to some ridiculous notion of hope, some childish fantasy of survival. And Varakh, too, in his own way. Arrogant, yes, powerful, undeniably, but… sloppy. Careless. Relying on brute force and empty threats when subtlety and precision were called for. 

Fools, all of them, in their own unique and irritating ways.

He stood at the top of the descending stairs, the narrow passage leading into the deeper darkness of the ruin yawning before him like a hungry maw. 

Behind him, the chamber of the beast attack was a scene of predictable chaos, a messy, inconvenient tableau of slave incompetence and… well, acceptable losses. Kesta was gone, swallowed by the swarm, a minor casualty, easily replaced. Jorah and Sorken… they had fled. Like rats scurrying into a hole. Predictable, pathetic, ultimately… irrelevant.

What irked him was that he would not be able to use those weapons he had heard so much about but in that situation, there was no better alternative. He could have saved one of them, but there was a high chance of being injured. 

They were preparing those weapons for the unidentified predators that ambushed them suddenly. There was another unknown creature in between them that caused the real harm. 

Now that the swarm was here and the other team was already exploring the last passage, they would be able to kill that creature and thus, these slaves were barely needed now. 

In all honesty, he already knew that others were just making reasons to somehow bring these people into the ruins. First, Ted for his sadistic urges and now Tamara. They wanted these slaves gone as soon as possible. As their power grew, these people, their entire existence would force them of their earlier lives. It was better to kill them and if they can be used while doing that, all the better.

Well, whatever words he chose of minced. It was basically a fun sport as they forces these people without power into this horrific place.

'Tamara must have wanted to see sorken in despair too, that bloody women. Why did she went with Varakh then?... lets focus on the goal here. In the end, it will be clear.'

He almost sighed. Almost. Sighing was… beneath him. A sign of weakness, of vulnerability, of… humanity. And Azim was none of those things. Not anymore. Not since… well, not since he had truly embraced his inheritor destiny, his rightful place above the common rabble, above the weak, the useless, the slaves.

He spared a fleeting glance back at the chamber, his gaze sweeping clinically over the scene of carnage. The bobbing light orb, still obediently hovering in the center of the room, cast long, distorted shadows that danced and flickered across the blood-stained stone floor. Pathetic. Utterly pathetic. The slaves' blood, the lizard-rats' ichor, the lingering stench of fear and death… a messy, inconvenient stain on the otherwise pristine tapestry of his own inevitable triumph.

He saw, with a detached, almost clinical interest, the faint trails of blood leading towards the narrow tunnel, the path of the fleeing slaves, their desperate, futile escape route. Idiots. As if a rabbit could outrun a hawk. As if slaves could truly escape their fate. They would die in the tunnels, he knew it with a chilling certainty that was born not of malice, but of simple, cold, hard logic. 

They were untrained, unwounded, without magic, without weapons, without hope. The tunnels were dark, labyrinthine, undoubtedly filled with more horrors than they had yet encountered. Their escape was not escape at all. It was merely a slower, more protracted form of suicide.

He almost shrugged. Almost. Shrugging was… unnecessary. Pointless. Another display of unnecessary emotion. He simply turned his back on the chamber, on the blood and the bodies and the fading echoes of screams, and faced the descending stairs, the darkness that beckoned him downwards, towards the true objective of this expedition. The chest. The artifact. His prize.

He descended the crumbling stairs, his boots crunching on the unseen debris, each step deliberate, measured, confident. No fear for Azim. No hesitation. No doubt. He was inheritor-born, inheritor-trained, inheritor-destined. 

He was magic made flesh, a force of nature, a living embodiment of Zartan's will. Vermin, wraiths, slaves, ruins, darkness… none of it posed a true threat to him. Just… obstacles. Inconveniences. Minor… annoyances on the path to his inevitable triumph.

He reached the bottom of the stairs, the air growing heavier, damper, the scent of decay and rot intensifying, clinging to the back of his throat like a physical weight. The vast, subterranean chamber stretched before him, swallowed by shadow, the unseen ceiling lost in the oppressive gloom above. 

He traced a gloved hand casually over the cold, damp stonework of the far wall, muttering the activation words under his breath, channeling a sliver of his vast inheritor mana into the ancient, waiting mechanism. The stone hummed faintly beneath his touch, a subtle vibration that resonated through his fingertips and up his arm, a whisper of ancient power responding to his will, to his command.

And then, with a low, grinding groan that echoed through the vast chamber, a sound that spoke of ancient secrets and forgotten ages, another gate, hidden seamlessly within the stone wall, slid open, revealing the darkness beyond, the path to the chest, to the artifact, to his… glory.

He paused at the threshold, his gaze sweeping over the yawning darkness ahead, assessing the unseen dangers, calculating the potential threats, formulating his next move with cold, clinical precision. 

No fear for Azim. No hesitation. No doubt. Only cold, calculating confidence. Only a single, unwavering focus on the prize that awaited him in the depths of the ruin. The chest. The artifact. His destiny. And the rest of them? Well… they were just… footnotes. Irrelevant details in the grand, glorious, inevitable narrative of his own magnificent ascent. And frankly, he couldn't care less if they lived or died. They were, after all, just… slaves. And Azim, Inheritor of Zartan, was destined for so much more.