After shutting off the communicator, Kaoreish had just begun to rise when he suddenly heard a voice behind him and froze where he stood.
"That won't help you, Kaoreish... The Blood God's great power is about to manifest. Even you should be able to see that."
He looked up and saw Churton—his most trusted subordinate—standing amid the shattered vault, facing him. In one hand, he held that gleaming longsword; in the other, a shard of glass.
With a cold sneer, he raised the shard and drew its sharp edge across his cheek. Blood streamed out and dripped onto the ground.
"Churton."
Kaoreish rose to his feet and walked into the vault, stopping before the swordsman.
"I thought you were dead."
Bright sunlight filled the shattered vault, and Kaoreish saw corpses strewn across the ground.
They were not Blood Army soldiers, but members of his own covert unit. Churton had been their commander.
Kaoreish could tell that none of them had died from gunshot wounds. Without exception, they had fallen beneath a powerful blade, hacked to pieces. A dreadful suspicion immediately arose in his heart.
"Dead?"
Churton said with a chilling smile:
"I'd die? Do you remember what the instructor said after I took him down at the death training camp?"
Growing wary, Kaoreish nodded.
"Everyone will eventually be defeated."
"Then do you remember what I said?"
"Yes—"
Kaoreish's hand slid down to the hilt of the broadsword at his waist.
"You said, 'Not in this lifetime,' didn't you?"
"You remember well."
Churton tossed the bloodstained shard onto the ground.
"Who was that newest scar for? I recall that leaving battle scars on one's face was... a custom among the Blood-Worship Cult's chosen warriors."
Churton laughed again, but there was no warmth in his smile.
"For you, my commander."
"You betrayed