Lucian had never really understood it.
Maidens not only helped in battle with incantations and items like Holy Water Pots, but could also turn Runes into strength for the Tarnished. They were indispensable companions.
Yet these Bloody Fingers fell for the nonsense peddled by the likes of White Mask Varré, became obsessed with cursed blood, and killed their own Maidens as a pledge of allegiance to join the Blood Dynasty.
Cutting off their own path to greater strength like that was simply idiotic.
Even if joining the Blood Dynasty earned them equipment and combat skills, how could those compare to a body strengthened countless times by Runes? Strength was what made a lord!
Take Lucian right now. He had not even used a weapon. With nothing but his overwhelming physical strength, he had brought Nerijus to his knees with a single punch.
Nerijus was curled up like a shrimp, tears and drool pouring from his face.
Lucian planted a foot on Nerijus's head, pressing his face intimately against the wetland mud.
With his face buried in the mud, Nerijus could not breathe. He instinctively struggled to rise, but under Lucian's foot, he could do nothing.
His struggles only splattered muddy water all over him, soiling his gold-embroidered black robe and the lavish golden patterns on his mantle.
Grinding those clothes, symbols of the Blood Dynasty's noble glory, beneath his foot gave Lucian an odd sense of pleasure.
So you're the bastard who likes picking on weaklings?
It was not as though Lucian had never met the Tarnished this man had attacked. Even when grace healed their physical wounds, the scars on their minds were not so easily erased.
With Fia's healing, some had begun to recover mentally and had found errand work to start living again.
But others still hid