Cruel, abusive - reveling in cruelty. They believe that giving in to the basest passions grants them greater strength. And they will say they are breaking chains, but astoundingly they only ever forge new ones for others, in turn.

Juhani's words rang in his head like a faint echo. Tech felt like he was frozen in place, watching some forbidden event that no one would otherwise have been allowed to witness. He knew he wasn't, and yet he couldn't make himself move to look away, almost as though the thought of doing so would somehow bring the Dark Lord's ire upon him as well, an irrational thought that he for the moment could not quite quelch.

Even as a soldier who's witnessed and been in many battles, never had the clone seen such heartless brutality. Tech wondered that others on this battlefield had their attention drawn to the ongoing. It was no longer a battle here. The fight was over for Silhara.

Tech wrenched his gaze away from them as he heard the weak screams abruptly silenced, and for a precious span of seconds it seemed like that quiet spread in their vicinity, a tense hush as the Sylphid forces registered that one of their heavy hitters had just been defeated.