"Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap!"
Crisp applause echoed through the great hall, unhurried and measured, carrying the ease and amusement of someone enjoying a spectacular performance.
Unasis slowly rose from the Throne, a meaningful smile curling across its lips. Its gaze swept back and forth between Perturabo and Calliphone in his arms, like an artist examining its own creation.
Its body churned faintly in the darkness, black mist swirling around it and casting eerie patterns of light and shadow beneath the dim lamps.
Perturabo snapped his head up, his gaze shooting toward Unasis like a pair of blades.
He immediately swept Calliphone behind him, his towering figure becoming an almost impenetrable wall that completely shielded his sister.
His other hand gripped his warhammer, every muscle in his body tensing in an instant as he went on full combat alert.
"Dammekos?" A trace of uncertainty and wariness crept into Perturabo's voice, but after studying Unasis for a moment, his brow furrowed even deeper.
"No—you're not Dammekos. Who are you?"
He could sense that the being before him was certainly not his adoptive father, Dammekos.
The body belonged to Dammekos, but the power and presence within it were entirely different.
It radiated corruption and distortion, a power that did not belong to the material world.
Dammekos was merely an ordinary mortal, while the being before him was a monster wearing a mortal's skin.
"Who am I?" Unasis let out a low chuckle, its voice filled with the contempt and arrogance of someone mocking an ignorant child.
"You don't need to know who I am—you only need to know that you're about to die."
The instant Unasis finished speaking, its body dissolved into a cloud of black smoke.
Like a viper slithering through the air, the black smoke surged toward Perturabo at an astonishing