Chapter Fifty Three: Cost Effective

The Forsaken Alchemist that had maneuvered Liliana to her service watched as her most recent warrior addition slaughtered her way through a dozen innocent families, laughing all the while.

War, one of her greatest experiments, stood by, tears streaming non stop down his face.

Her master had warned her that not even he had been able to find a way to eliminate the mind from the device he'd taught her to build.

In addition to being flawed, in the Alchemist's opinion, the device had been god- awful irritating to create. Even a single one had taken dozens of sacrifices and overwhelming quantities of the energy that all alchemists used, though most of them rarely realized they were actually tapping into something much larger than themselves.

Frankly, alchemy itself was a tiring thing to master, time consuming and resource heavy, to the point of being simply impractical to research. Despite that, the Alchemist had pursued mastery and upon reaching it, she'd met, seemingly by chance, the man who would become her master. 

The first thing he'd taught her was that not only was her understanding of alchemy as a science horrifically flawed, her understanding of Aether was infinitesimal compared to what he had to teach her, a conundrum she'd thought she'd circumvented by learning and pursuing the mastery of alchemy in the first place.

Researchers like the Unclaimed could, and would, spend the length and breadth of their lives learning things about Aether she'd been taught in a single afternoon by her master.

Aether was more than a mere element or resource, it was more than a tool, no, Aether was the very stuff of reality itself.

With enough of it and the right information, Aether could be made to bend space and time themselves as though the two were playthings.

Though time travel was dubious at best, the Alchemist had taken great pleasure in viewing the history of her world and many of the things upon it.

With her impossible knowledge, she'd made a name for herself, crafted a whole form and identity that put her in the strongest position anyone in the city could take for themselves, but in the end it wasn't enough.

What drove the Alchemist was knowledge and power, the desire for more, the need to understand what made them up in others.

Her master was thrilled to know she wasn't interested in his petty pursuits of vengeance or destruction, ecstatic that she took to his teachings despite his dark intentions.

To prove her loyalty, she'd been asked to kill everyone she'd known, her family, her few friends, a task she did with little to no effort.

With the barest hints of his power and knowledge, she'd been able get the job done in a matter of days, the only qualm she had was the time sink it'd been.

It wouldn't simply be enough to kill, anyone with strong enough dedication to a cause could kill their friends and family, no she'd been asked to torture them to death, take them and the people who followed them to a nightmarish realm of pain of her own creation.

Effortless really, but damned time consuming.

Liliana carved her way through the next group, killing them individually, even though she'd been given the means to do such a task in massive groups of hundreds of people.

Rolling her eyes, the Alchemist frowned and looked at War, who stood with all of the deep interest of a tragic statue.

The matter of a remaining mind and morals really was a problem she'd need to get around to finding a solution for.

Ultimately the actions taken were the relevant things, but there was something to say for presentation.

War, the breathing end of what would be, hopefully, millions of lives, slaughtering as he sobbed about his worthless values was tedious and boring, not terrifying.

Jevah had been very specific that what he'd commissioned needed to strike a terrifying image, their faces and words the face of an incoming apocalypse.

War begging people to run and save themselves even as he killed them was a poignant concept, it truly was, but terrifying? Not in the slightest...at least not to the Alchemist.

Her master had suggested silencing his mind by removing his soul, and while that would be the terrifying image Jevah was going for, the Alchemist herself had standards and a reputation to uphold, damn it.

This device she'd built, the revolver that Trigger had 'found', was supposed to function in a certain way, and it didn't.

A boy with bright red eyes pushed back against Liliana's sword with little effort as the Alchemist sat in thought, watching passively as the red eyed boy, screaming and crying, disappeared in a pillar of black flame.

Making a mental note to mention that to her master, the Alchemist looked at War and said, "I may have proven my loyalty already, but making old friends suffer is just fun at this point."

War looked down at her as her irises flickered white and Liliana continued killing, covered in the blood of the sacrifices needed for the Alchemist's next experiment...well the Alchemist and her master's next project that is.