*Gasp*
When Nox had gone to collect her believers, she had knocked out the prison guards keeping watch over the prisoners by filling the rooms they were in with sleeping gas before having her makeshift golems carry the sleeping cultists to this dining hall through a secret passage. Had this been during a normal period of the frost palace, the escaped prisoners would not have been noticed until morning when the next guard shift began, but due to some newly acquired information suggesting that something was going down tonight, the warden had been more alert than usual.
He had ordered someone to report the situation in the different parts of the frost palace every couple of hours, just to be safe. However, when several sections of the prison had gone silent, he went to see for himself, only to find rooms full of gas and unconscious guards and none believing prisoners on the floor. Recalling the rest of the tip he had been given, he eventually found himself leading his soldiers to the guards' dining hall, that would usually be empty of people at this time. However, it was now filled to the brim with the dirty, and sickly prisoners who were missing.
"CAPTURE THE-!"
As his men finished surrounding the prisoners, he was about to give the command to cease them, when his slit pupiled eyes went wide at the sight of the people at Nox's table. Though he had expected to see the two relatively quiet cult leaders he had spared after executing the other cult leaders to catastrophic results, there were some people he did not expect to see. First of all, was Nox, the flavor savior goddess he had thought was some sort of hoax figurehead by the prisoners to rally behind and not an actual person, and secondly were the four prisoners that should not be here. The first two being dead spirits he thought were unable to survive in the land of his ancestor's tomb, and the others being the two demonic creatures he had locked up in solitary confinement.
*Gulp*
"Hexel, and Tian Hao!" Warden Lei said in an uneasy tone with caution written all over his expression.
Solitary confinement is a term used for the people locked inside the most secure cells in this prison. While most of the prisoners here can be subdued or killed with relative ease, there are a handful of prisoners that for whatever reason would prove too much for the prison guards to handle on their own. That is why they are often isolated in the highest security cells that often are tailored to counter their specific set of skills in order to keep them contained. In the event of one escaping their holding cell, it is advised that the warden be informed immediately, as he is the only person who can handle most of these monsters should it come down to it, and right now, two of such individuals are seated at the far end of Nox's table.
Tian Hao, a half-demon and the dark lord's half-brother, who in addition to being an indigo stage fire cultivator, is also a wielder of numerous demonic arts and curses. Before being captured, he had engraved a powerful chain-curse that would have catastrophic results should someone shatter his cultivation core, which also applies to his physical death as well, since once the cultivation core no longer has a living vessel that can support it, the core will slowly decay and shatter on its own over time.
Upon entering the frost palace he had broken free of his restraints while being transported to his containment cell, before going on what would have otherwise been seen as a suicidal rampage through the palace. He slaughtered the guards who tried to stop him, confident no one would dare to fatally wound him for fear of his curse being activated.
Even though warden Lei is a heavenly immortal, he still struggled to capture Hao without killing him, as he would not hesitate to do the most reckless of actions in his struggle to escape. However, what worried the warden the most was the man seated next to him. Hexel, the bull-headed arch-demon.
Though the cultists may be many, Nox may be mysterious, and Hao may be troublesome, none of them would be able to pose any threat to Lei beyond the collateral damage the frost palace would incur should they all rampage at once, but Hexel was different. Hexel is an arch demon, from the final days of the divine era, who had been left behind after the demon's retreated into the demon world. Exactly how he had come to be imprisoned here, is something not even the warden himself knew, as he along with one other, had already been sealed away here before the frost palace was even fully constructed.
Arch-demons are only below the demon lords and the demon king in both power and status. That means he ranks amongst the highest echelons of demon-kind, being a threat to even heavenly immortals such as himself.
"THOSE OF YOU WHO VALUE YOUR LIVES! SURRENDER YOURSELVES QUIETLY, AND LAY DOWN ON THE GROUND WITH YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEADS! THOSE WHO COMPLY MAY BE EXCUSED FROM PUNISHMENT!"
Now that Hexel was free, even if the warden went all out, there is no guarantee he would be able to defeat him, much less capture him alive, and that is before taking Hao, and Nox's army of fanatics into consideration. Should he make the wrong move here, there is no guarantee even he would make it out of this alive. However, if he showed weakness by backing down, he feared it might embolden the prisoners, which could have even more disastrous results. Hence, instead of just capturing and killing at will as they usually would have done, he chose to discourage resistance by offering a pardon to those who surrendered without a fuss. However, …
"LIKE HELL WE WILL!"
Unfortunately, the warden's words only served to aggravate the crowd. Exactly what was the reason behind it was anyone's guess. Many of the prisoners have been lied to before and have grown distrustful of any words hinting at mercy from these peoples' mouths. Most of the people here also hold a grudge against the authorities for the executions of the cult's faction leaders, as well as many of their other fellow cultists. There is also the fact that the whole purpose of this prison is to inflict suffering on those captured within its walls. Regardless of why, the moment those words of angry refusal left that prisoner's mouth, any words the warden would speak to try and quell the rioting masses would only fall on deaf ears.
"COMPLY WITH THIS ASSHOLE!"
"THIS IS FOR SAINTESS LUNA!!!"
"WITH OUR GODDESS AT OUR BACKING US UP, WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR!"
"THAT'S RIGHT! FOR EVEN IF WE DIE, OUR GODDESS WILL SURELY CARE FOR OUR SOULS IN THE AFTERLIFE!"
The angry prisoners screamed and shouted while throwing their food at the prison guards while using their eating utensils as weapons, as a chaotic food war began.
*Splat*
The warden, a little caught off guard by how quickly this escalated, as he had greatly underestimated how much resentment and distrust these prisoners held for him and his men, had failed to dodge the mashed peas that came flying into his face shortly after the brawl began. A bit shocked and disoriented, he stumbled a couple steps.
*Thud*
Unfortunately, a woman in the crowd of rioting prisoners wearing a smiley mask had thrown a bunch of banana peels at his feet the moment his face got covered in peas, and he slipped on one of them.
"HAHA! THE WARDEN IS ALREADY ON THE FLOOR!"
"LET'S KICK EM WHILE HE'S DOWN!"
"IT'S REVENGE TIME ASSHOLE!"
*BOOM*
*Splatter**Splatter**Splatter*
Unfortunately for the rioting cultists, though they were winning this brawl through share numbers, they had taken the warden far too lightly. As a trio of cultists rushed to stomp, punch, and stab the immortal with a fork, they failed to consider the fact that the person who they were trying to bully was an ancient and powerful heavenly immortal who could turn half the people in this room into red stains on the floor with his qi pressure alone.
"Ugh! Damn it!" Warden Lei grumbled as he wiped the peas of his face to see the collapsed army of people outside the bloodstained section of the dining hall he stood in.
Warden Lei is a heavenly immortal, the highest rank of immortal there is. If he fully unleashed his qi pressure, nothing short of another immortal would be able to survive being near him. If he wanted to, he could kill nearly every person in this room just by releasing his qi into his surroundings. However, the reason why he tends to avoid doing so is because it would not just crush the prisoners.
"*Wheeze* S-Sir! *Gasp* Please! *Cough*"
While it is possible for him to adjust and selectively choose who gets affected by his qi pressure, Lei has never been very good at it, resulting in his allies often getting hit by his pressure as well as his enemies. If he is not careful, he might accidently kill someone he merely wanted to incapacitate or harm his own men while trying to suppress a riot, which makes it rather tricky to use. He had actively held back this time, but it wasn't quite enough as is evident by the bloodstains and flattened bodies in his vicinity. The bloodstains had likely been prisoners whose cultivation had been crippled, while the crushed corpses appeared to be his men who were misfortunate enough to be standing a little too close. Fortunately, they were still nascent souls, so their spirit bodies kept them from suffering the special quirk of this land.
Aside from the people at Nox's table, warden Lei's pressure had killed about a tenth of the people in the room, while pinning the rest to the ground. After seeing his qi pressure was being blocked from intruding on the VIP table, Lei tried to adjust his output a bit so that he didn't suffocate those still alive.
"TELL YOUR FOLLOWERS TO STOP RESISTING AND SURRENDER YOURSELVES, OR I SHALL KILL EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM HERE AND NOW!"
"UGH! D-DON'T! *COUGH**Splatt*" One of the cultists forced out, before exploding into mush.
"Silence!" Warden Lei uttered after killing the person who dared to speak up from the floor.
Nox lifted her teacup, adjusted the mask a bit to let her take a sip, before adjusting it back before saying.
"You're up moo-cow! Show em your bull!"
Then, as if he had been waiting for those words, the arch-demon Hexel, made his move, disappearing from his seat so fast one might have thought he teleported, as he had tackled the heavenly immortal faster than what their eyes could track, smashing him through the walls of the frost palace until they reached the freezing cold outdoors.
Once the two had left the building, the pressure Lei had been exuding disappeared for a moment, only to return even stronger as he released it in full across this entire chaos plane. However, the distance from the frost palace at which they fought allowed them to avoid any instant deaths. However, if this were to continue or the two monsters were to stray too close to the frost palace during their battle, that might change. Seeing this, Nox simply snapped her fingers and the pressure exuded by the two demigods vanished from the entirety of the frost palace. Though, this was more due to a barrier she had set up around the building in advance in anticipation of such a scenario, the cultists mistook it as some sort of divine power, deepening their faith. And shortly after, the food brawl continued. Though it was unnecessary as their numbers alone were enough to overwhelm the remaining prison guards, Douglas as well as many of the various people at her table had chosen to aid in the battle. However, Nox had ordered that they try to capture as many as they could without killing them. Of course, the mob of angry cultists were a little to riled up by the time she ordered this, so about half of the guards were beaten to death regardless.
"ALL HAIL THE FLAVOR SAVIOR!" They all chanted in reverence of Nox as they were victorious.
Unfortunately.
"ALL HAIL THE FLAVOR SAVIOR!"
They all seemed to have forgotten.
"ALL HAIL THE FLAVOR SAVIOR!"
The prophecy.
"ALL HAIL THE-!"
*Gasp*
While they were busy chanting, former commander Wang, the barer of the mark of Gemini, had snuck up behind Nox while the majority of her subordinates were busy chanting down below, and grabbed her by the hair as he put a dagger to her throat.
"NOBODY MOVE!"
Fortunately for the warden, his preparations in case things went south paid off.