Nothing would have betrayed his non-human nature if not for the slitted pupils and the claws at the end of the fingers holding a communication amulet.
"Dead?" The creature looking like an old man echoed in disbelief. "All of them?"
"And at the same time." The man behind the desk could hardly contain the grief in his voice. "Do you know what this means?"
"Either they were rounded up and slaughtered or they killed themselves." The old man pondered. "Since there’s been no rumor about a sudden mobilization of the army, it must be suicide."
"Which means they faced an enemy they knew they couldn’t defeat or even escape from." The ordinary-looking man flipped the communicator in his fingers, counting the missing runes.
"Could it be another of those weird elite soldiers the Mage Association sent after us in the past months?" The old man asked, unknowingly referring to the members of the Queen’s Corpse.
"No." The man behind the desk shook his head. "Those guys were strong but not this much. Our brothers and sisters couldn’t beat them but always managed to escape thanks to their tattoos and teamwork.
"Whoever our new enemy is, he must have overpowered them quickly and left our brothers and sisters with no hope if they chose to kill themselves. Investigate what happened at the Roaring Lion tonight, but be discreet. I don’t want to lose anyone else."
***
"Emperor Beasts?" King Meron said in surprise. "All of them? Not just one or two?"
"All of them." Yerna nodded. "We have brought the corpses to the coroner for the autopsy. Maybe we can learn something about this poison they used and how to neutralize it."
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"Good thinking, Major." Sylpha nodded. "Leave the room. We need to confer with Supreme Magus Verhen and his associate alone."
"As you command." Yerna gave the Royals a deep bow and did as ordered.
"There’s something you should know, Magus Verhen." The King said. "Before you came to us, we had already sent a couple of members of the Corpse to deal with this criminal organization. Useless to say, they failed."
"Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?" Lith asked, knowing part of the answer already.
"Because there was no reason to." Sylpha replied. "We still told you everything the Corpse’s members discovered, like the tattoos and the inhuman strength of the criminals. With no breathing technique, our operatives failed to spot the cloaking devices.
"They also failed to capture these criminals because of what now we know is a gap in mass. Back then, we suspected it was due to new and improved tattoo potions."
"It makes sense." Lith nodded. "The only advantages your fake Awakened have over Emperor Beasts are Life Vision and body refining. Yet the cloaking devices neutralize the former and the mass gap compensates the latter."
"Indeed." Meron sighed. "On top of that, Emperor Beasts are usually skilled at shapeshifting. They can turn into smaller animals or change their human appearance at will.
"It’s no wonder every time we identified a criminal and failed to arrest them, they seemed to disappear from the face of Mogar. They just shapeshifted into someone else and resumed their business as usual. Unlike us, beasts recognize each other through smell, not sight."
"Has there been any case of a criminal empire of Emperor Beasts in the past?" Solus asked.
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