Hystar was both the Headmaster of the Golden Griffon academy and the cursed object that controlled the lost city down to its slightest detail. He turned the labyrinth into a straight path that allowed Thrud to quickly reach Huryole's power core.
"It seems that you've done wonders with Arthan's Madness. The power exuding from your body exceeds the King's wildest dreams, yet if not for the Sword of Arthan, I would have never recognized you." He said.
"That would have been your problem, not mine." She sat on the Headmaster's seat, to give her swollen feet some relief. "When I'm in a good mood, I Dominate stuff. When I'm in a bad mood, I beat them into submission."
A simple burst of her mana made the entire office quake.
Along with growing pains, the child in Thrud's belly also gave her more power as its body and mana core developed. Between the Griffon-Dragon hybrid and Arthan's set, a living legacy or a toy castle were the same to her.
"Of course, my liege. How can I serve you?" Hystar asked.
"First, update this shithole to more comfortable standards." Thrud gave him the blueprint of modern bathrooms and everything she thought that a happy army might need.
"It can be done, but the academy's resources-"
Thrud emptied one of the dimensional amulets she had brought along, cutting Sevenus short and giving him more than he hoped for.
"Alas, the arrays keep me from draining enough energy from the mana geyser to-"
A snap of Thrud's fingers made the magical formations outside lose much of their power, giving the Golden Griffon all of the world energy that it needed and making Sevenus Hystar revert to the appearance of a twenty years old.
"Yes. Yes! You really are the fated heir I've been waiting for all this time. I knew that sending Jakra to find you was the right choice. What are your orders, My Queen?" Hystar asked.
"I have brought with me plenty of resources and the secret of Awakening. I need you to share them both with those who are already immortal while my army receives the academy's blessing.
"I want all of them to survive the process." Thrud replied.
"It might take a while to make my students regain their sanity, but consider it done." Hystar nodded. "As for your army, in a few hours the Unwavering Loyalty array will make them incapable of both die and refuse your orders."
Thrud was puzzled by his words, but according to Jakra, Sevenus was her greatest ally so she just nodded.
"Just one warning, my Liege. Dragons have such a strong vitality that even my slave spell doesn't last long on them. You should have come here sooner. Jakra is close to regaining his freedom, but it's nothing that I can't-"
"What did you do to him?" Thrud jumped up, staring at Sevenus with a hatred that made that she felt for Tyris look like a candle.
"What was necessary, my Queen. I knew of your existence so I sent him to you to inform you of the legacies that your father has left behind. To give you what you needed the most. A family." Hystar had the warm smile of a puppy waiting for its master's praise.
"Are you telling me that my husband has been enslaved all along? That everything between us was a lie? That my father didn't leave behind loyal servants but only the unwilling victims of his experiments?"
"Why are you angry, my Queen? You needed a companion capable of giving Arthan's bloodline an heir and I-"
A burst of Life Maelstrom sent Hystar flying against the wall, his body writhing in pain.
"How dare you trick me?" Thrud yelled at the top of her lungs. "How dare you make me believe to have finally found someone who loves me for who I am, that shares my same dream, just to take him away from me?"
With each word, her control over the Golden Griffon's power core grew, causing Hystar a pain like he had never felt before. Thrud was his master and she only needed a thought to have his whole body, mind, and core torn apart.
"I apologize! My Queen, have mercy. I just wanted to hasten your return." Immortality was indeed a curse, allowing Thrud to kill him over and over without ever making his pain stop.
"He's still by your side. There's no reason to be angry. Just like your father wanted, betrayal is impossible for the students of this academy as well. There cannot be Lost Magi." His voice cracked along with his body, yet death gave him no relief, only more agony.
"Do you think I couldn't force myself on a man if I wanted? That I couldn't just pretend to be some noble maiden if all I wanted was a child?" His words didn't quell Thrud's anger, they only made her grow more furious.
"What you gave me was a lie! What you did was to make me unwittingly stoop lower than I've ever done! I have no qualms killing people, but I always do it for a reason. I do it to restore the Arthan's bloodline on the throne and make the Griffon Kingdom a better place!
"What I did to Jakra because of you is monstrous. You made my child be born out of an act of unforgivable violence! They will grow without a father because there's no way Jakra can look at either of us without remembering what I did to him."
"But, Your Majesty, he cannot leave your side-"
"He can and he will." Thrud stopped the torture and looked at the Emerald Dragon. "Jakra, this is my final command. Awaken."
The Emerald Dragon did as instructed, following the Wyvern's bloodline Awakening technique. Violent waves of mana originated from his bright blue core with each breath he took, turning his body into shreds over and over.
Safely awakening a bright blue-cored individual was something that only a few could do because the damage that such a powerful core caused exceeded the regenerative abilities that Invigoration had.
Yet just like Sevenus, Jakra couldn't die. The Academy kept putting him back together over and over, fixing his body in a way that complemented the body refining and making him stronger for it.
After a few minutes of agony, Jakra had still a bright blue core, but now his body was full of vortexes and he was Awakened.
"You're free now." Thrud removed the slave spell from him, also taking away his immortality.
Jakra felt the shackles that restrained his mind disappearing. After almost six months, he wasn't a prisoner of his own body any longer.
Yet he didn't move nor did he cry because he didn't know what to do with his life.
After being enslaved for so long, after spending so much time with Thrud, the feelings that the slave spell had forced upon him had almost become reality.
Almost.
He now felt a strong affection for both Thrud and the baby, yet his body also experienced a strong revulsion every time that he looked at the Mad Queen. He was torn between the need to hold her and to run away screaming from her.
On top of that, the realization that she had never been aware of his enslavement together with the memories of the tenderness and affection Thrud had showered Jakra with, made his Stockholm syndrome even worse.
