She made a powerful forward leap that sent her crashing headfirst into one of the soldiers. The man in bck armor with red details fell onto his back. And what did Briar do?

  The only thing she knows how to do.

  “Stalk! Kill! Eat!”

  With the blood bdes that burst from her wrists, cutting with flowing motions from top to bottom, she shredded the man’s armor, producing the cssic screech of grinding metal while the sharp edges sliced through the man’s skin.

  Blood spttered across her face, and she ughed while sticking out her tongue to lick her lips.

  The other soldiers were shocked by the brutality of this monster, but they immediately regained their composure, shouting war cries that echoed through the walls of the commercial district. Within seconds they surrounded Briar, making the adorable abomination gnce in every direction.

  “Hehehe. You’re not trapping me… you’re trapped with me!”

  Pcing her hands on the ground like a four-legged animal, she leapt toward the nearest soldier.

  However, the tip of a spear pierced through her abdomen.

  Blood spttered in small droplets as she colpsed to the ground. For a moment Briar remained on her knees while blood poured from her wound. But she lifted her gaze, and her eyes still burned with fury and hunger.

  And so—

  “AAAHHGH!”

  Briar released a deafening, shrill scream, unleashing a massive shockwave the color of blood that bsted the soldiers in front of her away. Six of them were thrown back, smming into the walls and losing consciousness. Two of them died from the impact.

  With that manic act, Briar rose from the ground—only for another soldier to appear above her, swinging a heavy sword down.

  His intention was obvious. He wanted to split Briar in half.

  But he failed.

  Briar crossed her bdes in front of her face to block the attack. The weight of the sword was not a problem. Despite being small compared to the two-meter-tall soldier, she was extremely strong and agile.

  With that movement she avoided immediate danger, but her abdomen continued bleeding without stopping, spilling blood across the dirt ground that quickly turned red.

  The other soldiers saw the opportunity and joined the fight, firing arrows that lodged themselves into Briar’s torso.

  She groaned horrifically, her voice hoarse and deep, yet still carrying that wild feminine edge that defined her. Once again she nearly colpsed—but then she began to ugh, spitting blood from her mouth.

  Pressing both bdes against the soldier’s heavy sword, she snapped it in two.

  For a moment the man was stunned.

  By the time he tried to react, Briar had already bitten into his neck.

  Briar licked all the blood that filled the soldier’s armor, and thanks to hemomancy and the magic infused within her body, her wounds began to close. Her skin forced the arrows out, and her abdomen stopped bleeding.

  As an unstoppable, nearly immortal monster who could heal simply by drinking a drop of blood, Briar held a complete advantage over such weak beings as the remaining soldiers.

  She herself had once told Midas that the best strategy was to send the strongest warrior against the biggest enemy.

  But at that moment, these bags of blood were nothing more than walking food—not enemies worth fighting.

  Drenched in blood, Briar now wanted to finish eating her lunch.

  “Friend… where’s my friend? Oh, right. First I’ll eat all of you, and then I’ll go back to my friend.”

  Briar wiped the blood from her face with the palm of her hand and then licked it clean.

  “Or maybe I should eat him too? Juhehehe. AAHHGH!”

  The battle resumed after a brief one-second pause.

  The soldiers were relentless and never surrendered. They cut, struck, and fired with every ounce of strength in their bodies—but none of it was enough to stop the monster before them.

  She was just as relentless.

  A being created for sughter with the strangest magic in the world.

  When the battle finally ended, the only things left behind were an empty street and a pile of dead soldiers.

  Among them stood Briar, staring silently at the blue sky.

  The hemolith floated over her shoulders, and the pillory closed again. Her gaze returned to white and violet, and her breathing, once frantic, softened.

  “Thanks for the meal! You were all very kind.”

  With those cruel words directed at the corpses scattered across the ground—staining the earth crimson red—Briar turned around and caught Midas’s scent in the air.

  She smiled when she sensed he was moving away at a turtle’s pace.

  “I’m going to catch up to you…”

  ***

  His breathing was ragged and constant.

  His legs ached, and his bare feet had stepped on many sharp stones that cut into him. Even so, he kept running.

  He was running like never before, because his freedom was close.

  ‘That girl stayed behind. With luck, I’ll never see her again… but I still feel guilty.’

  The guilt came from leaving his savior behind. He could already imagine Briar fighting the Noxian soldiers, but that was no longer his problem.

  Midas understood he was being selfish. But before the life of a creature who killed in such a brutal way, his own life came first.

  Now, with this map, Midas needed to find a safe route to escape Noxus and return to Zaun—the pce where he grew up.

  His story was still buried deep within his mind, and the origin of his power waited to be revealed. In the meantime, Midas would keep moving forward until he reached his destination.

  ‘I wanted to die…’

  Midas had wanted to end the torture of being locked in that cell. But now that he was free, he realized he had been acting like a coward.

  Death would have taken away every possible opportunity.

  But now—outside that cell, running beneath the blue sky—he had finally made his decision.

  ‘I will go home.’

  To the pce where he had once felt safe.

  Now the most important problem was finding a refuge where he could hide and read the map.

  Midas was still running through the commercial district, since not much time had passed since he fled like a slippery rat. Besides, his ragged appearance attracted far too much attention.

  Even so, he still looked like a normal adult man. That was an advantage.

  On the verge of colpsing, Midas finally left the commercial district.

  He decided to run in the opposite direction from the massive buildings rising in the distance. Heading toward the heart of Noxus would have been obvious stupidity. It made more sense to go as far away as possible while avoiding security.

  Since the commercial district had small buildings the color of desert sand, once he left the area he found himself in a stretch of dark stone houses—somber and sturdy—where people looked around curiously after hearing the screams and seeing the crowds fleeing from the chaos in the market.

  Midas took advantage of this and hid among the people.

  Since his clothes were practically trash, he decided it was time to behave badly.

  As he moved between the houses and the people, he noticed that someone had hung clothes on a line nearby. Among them was a clean and pleasant cloak with a hood the color of night—perfect for hiding his appearance to some degree.

  Although… well… it’s not easy for a man carrying a map in his mouth while wearing a box-shaped inhibitor trapping his hands to do many things.

  So, with great dexterity, he maneuvered the map between his teeth and slipped it inside his shirt.

  Once ready, Midas slightly hid his prisoner’s hands and grabbed the cloak with his teeth. Then he ran off like a shameless thief.

  ‘I did it… I did it again…’

  Even if it didn’t seem like it, in the past Midas had stolen many things from people.

  That was when he was a child living in Zaun with his older sister.

  Now everything was different.

  Stealing to survive—that was how harsh childhood could be for some children in Zaun.

  Midas kept running for several more minutes.

  His heart pounded violently in his chest, and hot sweat ran down his forehead. His breathing was difficult since he still held the cloak between his teeth.

  The only good thing about all this was that the cloak hid the inhibitor.

  Now people wouldn’t suspect him.

  ‘Did anyone see me?’

  He wondered this while trying to pull the hood over his head.

  The darkness of the hood hid his thin, gaunt face, while his hair also helped conceal his features. Now he looked more like a shadow of death—thin and ominous, but without any identity to show others.

  He rested for a few minutes, leaning his back against a wall behind some crates so no one could see him.

  He breathed deeply and realized how dehydrated he was. He felt thirsty, but even that hardly mattered.

  All Midas could do was escape.

  In fact, during these brief minutes everything felt very calm—almost peaceful compared to the cells full of experiments screaming and pounding against the walls while suffering from insatiable hunger.

  “Aah… I’m tired.”

  To distract himself while resting, he cracked his fingers inside the inhibitor. Now that his hands were covered in golden metal, they made a metallic sound every time they moved.

  It was something Midas had done often while he was imprisoned.

  He closed his eyes to release his worries—

  But at that very moment he heard an authoritative voice giving orders to the Noxian soldiers.

  Midas peeked from the edge of the crates to look.

  He noticed it was a tall, robust man with a severe gaze and a gigantic axe hanging from his back. He looked young—perhaps around the same age as Midas. His thick, heavy armor seemed surprisingly light when he moved.

  “And the traces?” the man asked.

  One of the soldiers responded respectfully.

  “There are blood marks on the ground. It can’t be far away. If you give us a little time, we’ll be able to find the killer.”

  “Then do it.”

  “Yes, Captain Darius.”

  A man guided by the will of his strength. To him, power was everything, and in recent years he had been rising from the lowest ranks.

  Recently appointed captain of a rge squad—and the spearhead of the endless battle to expand the Noxian Empire.