"Sir, if I may? You should recognize Feyat, leave him and the black hooded figure with the short blade alive for interrogation. The rest, deal with as you please." Lydia said with a small bow towards Ezekiel.
Slightly looking back over his shoulder, Ezekiel nodded back to her. Without any indication of his movements, Ezekiel's right hand shot forward and a burst of lightning flew out and enveloped the closest mercenary before chaining amongst the remainder of them.
In one attack, all of the mercenaries aside from Feyat, the torturer, and another slightly older looking human were turned into nothing but ash. Even the giant man called Xi Lun was turned to ashes. The only reason a third was alive was because Ezekiel recognized him as a Carnet Empire counselor and the current ambassador to the Inmortuae Empire.
"You think you can capture me so easily General?" Feyat sneered, but his expression and the shaking of his hands around the hilt of his sword betrayed his words.
"Yes, I do. Now sit down." Without any warning another lightning bolt shot from his hand and encompassed the three that were still alive. However, it only caused them to fall to the floor, paralyzing them and blocking their hearing and vision since their nerves were overloaded and the signals cut off from the brain.
All three lost control over their bladders and a foul stench began to come from the old man, indicating that his bowels had released as well.
"Lydia, we can talk about what happened later, for now tell me, is my son alive?" Ezekiel asked as concern etched his face looking at his unmoving son in her arms.
"Sir, your son is more than alive. I can't explain how, but he, he-" her sentence began to veer off as she started to stutter.
"He what!?" Ezekiel had been enraged ever since his son went missing. While Lydia had confirmed he was alive, her not being able to finish her sentence made him feel uneasy and all the more angered.
"He formed a mana core!" Lydia almost dropped to the floor at the pressure Ezekiel was radiating, but after half shouting this, the pressure vanished.
Ezekiel stared at the small boy in Lydia's arms in astonishment.
'Is this what Zerana meant about him?' Ezekiel couldn't help but ask himself.
After blinking for a few seconds in confusion, his calm came back as he quickly withdrew a robe from his dimensional ring. His ring didn't have a ton of room, only 10 cubic meters or so. And they were beyond rare as it was actually given to him by Zerana. Apparently, it had belonged to her family and was one of the few items she should could save before escaping.
"Cover up Kayn please. I'm going to have a nice chat with these fellows over here. Once you finish dressing him, ensure his health and then collect anything from this building that you can. I doubt you'll find anything from the remains of these people, I was a little bit angry as you can see."
Ezekiel couldn't help but shake his head a bit since when he looked at where the mercenaries had been, there was nothing left. No weapons, no bags, no bodies, nothing. He had turned everything into ash since he didn't hold back at all and low-level mages and items stood no chance against his lightning.
However, he was sure that this small mercenary base would have some kind of a treasury. He wouldn't pass up the opportunity for free money. He served the Empire and was paid well, but extra funds were always appreciated, especially if his family ever needed to escape again.
Before Lydia could leave the room, something occurred to Ezekiel and he decided to ask Lydia about it.
"Actually Lydia, why did you ask me to keep the hooded one alive, did you want something with them?" Ezekiel asked with an inquisitive gaze.
Lydia lowered her head and clenched her fist so tight that blood began to drip from where her nails penetrated the skin of her palm.
"No sir, but you do. They tortured your son to get me to cooperate." Lydia somberly said this as she walked out of the room before her tears began to stream again at the memories of disciple being tortured to control her.
Ezekiel immediately turned back to the masked hooded figured and appeared beside it in the blink of an eye. Lifting up the figure by the neck, he removing the hearing and sight paralysis spell he had active. Then he removed the hood and mask only to see a familiar face.
Yonoa was a well-known figure in the counselor's circle for being his personal torturer. Horrors were spread about what she had done to anyone she had interrogated, but she was loyal to the Empire to his knowledge.
"You disgust me." Ezekiel said with a frown. "I won't kill you, but you will be tortured every day for the rest of your life. I don't know the best ways to do that personally, but I can start with this." Ezekiel continued to stare at her while taking her forearm into his hand and snapping it in half with ease.
He continued to do this for her other arm and lower legs as well. She didn't scream as she couldn't move, but tears came out of her eyes since Ezekiel left the pain receptors active. Paralyzing her senses again, Ezekiel tossed her to the side and moved on to his next target.
These three would truly experience how terrifying his control over lightning and electricity were. His ability to manipulate electrical impulses inside of the body was something even Lydia would find hard to understand. Ezekiel himself only felt how to do it intuitively without knowing the underlying process.
As Ezekiel approached Feyat, he undid his paralysis and sense blocks, then stepped onto his right thigh, slowly crushing it under his foot.
"Please General, I'll give you everything I own! Money, women, enchanted items, all of it!" Feyat begged as he could feel and hear his femur being crushed under Ezekiel's foot. Ezekiel just shook his head while looking at the pitiful bug in front of his eyes.
"It's sad that you think any of that would sway me with what you've done. Not to mention even the lowest person that was once a part of the army has surely heard rumors of my loyalty to my wife. This will not be quick, but it will be painful."
Ezekiel placed his hand on Feyat's foot and began to send electrical shocks throughout his body while at the same time beginning a slow destruction starting with his toes.
Since Feyat had an evolved body belonging to a peak stage 4 swordsman, it took roughly 10 minutes before his screaming stopped as everything below his neck had turned into ash.
"As for you Counselor Niskew, first you will tell me everything about this situation and why you orchestrated it. Then I will throw you in front of Emperor Carnet without limbs and watch as he kills you."
"I only wanted to achieve immortality without becoming undead since I can't reach higher than my current core stage! By replacing my organs with Lydia's new replacement spell and incorporating the magics I've learned as an ambassador, I would be able to keep replacing my organs forever! I would even eventually obtain my youthful appearance back!" Counselor Niskew yelled before Ezekiel could start to remove his limbs.
"Organs? Immortality without becoming undead? What?" A hint of disgust began to creep up on Ezekiel as he couldn't imagine this going anywhere nice. Mistaking Ezekiel's questions for interest in his immortality operation, Counselor Niskew continued on excitedly.
"Yes! Immortality! No rotting flesh, no becoming a cursed race, nothing! I only require organ transplants from freshly killed specimens of the human race below the age of 10! I thought about incorporating other races into my body as well, but I didn't think they would harmonize together. But with this, age cannot affect us anymore!"
Before he could continue shouting blasphemy, Ezekiel ripped off both of Counselor Niskew's legs and cauterized the wounds with fire before doing the same to his arms.
"You sicken me. Not only were you planning on using a forbidden type magic, you were even going to use innocent children. This is why the Empire has banned the use of certain magics, such as extending your life by sacrifice others. A practice such as that is an abomination.
"I understand your human race is short lived compared to some others, but a higher stage mana core alone can still extend your lifetime by a few hundred years once you reach the 3rd stage. You've already lived longer than most humans, and yet you try to overstep your measly talent like this?"
Unfortunately, Counselor Niskew passed out and began frothing from the mouth before Ezekiel even finished his words.
It was then that Lydia entered the room dragging a large chest along with having a few bags filled with weapons slung over her shoulders. It didn't end there though as shortly after she entered the room, 13 children that appeared between the age of 5 and 10 entered the room in tattered clothing with collars around their necks.
"Sir, I have found the treasury as well as the prisoners. Unfortunately, I'm unable to remove the slave collars, it's not in my area of expertise nor inside the scope of my power." Lydia shook her head as she neared Ezekiel.
The children all stopped at the entrance and looked in horror at the man who had a limbless torso in front him and a head with no body to his side.
"We will bring them to the capital with us. There, someone with knowledge about slave collars can remove them. I would do it myself, but recently slavers have become crafty and have implemented instant kill fail-safe enchantments, and neither enchanting nor inscribing are my forte.
"Once the collars are off, we will determine whether they were kidnapped or slaves before they arrived here. After that is solved, they will be taken care of accordingly by going back to their families or an orphanage."
Ezekiel had a cold expression as this all brought a bad taste to his mouth. He approached Kayn and picked him up as gently as he could and brushed the hair away from his face. There were too many emotions going through his head to formulate the words he wanted his son to hear.
How proud of Kayn he was. How sorry he was for not arriving faster. How he felt he had never spent the time with his son or daughter he should have.
'With Kayn forming a mana core, he will need to be taught how to train and use his mana and magic appropriately. I can't let the Empire know about him as they would take him straight to be taught by some royal tutor. Zerana would never allow that. I'll ask for a few years of leave from my duties to take care of my family.' Ezekiel thought before he started to walk to the chest and weapons Lydia set down.
"Lydia, gather the children and let's leave this place." Ezekiel stated in a plain voice before waving his hand and taking the treasures into his ring while still holding Kayn.