Stallus twisted her lips. "That all sounds interesting, we should do it?"

"Do it?" Alex asked, looking at Stallus weirdly.

"Yes. It would be nice to join the ranking and scale up the ladder. I’m sure that was what Catena was thinking about." Stallus continued, looking at Kael Hound.

Azaroth nodded mentally. That was exactly what he was thinking about, fighting through ranks and knowing who was powerful.

"That’s the real test of the powerful! Where you will always be cautious of your surroundings!" Catena said.

"Isn’t that against what you were saying?" Azaroth raised his brows.

"About?" Catena grunted giving Azaroth a look under his eyelashes.

Azaroth shrugged. "You were talking about how one should prepare before duels and how it’s different from wars."

"From what Kael said once you got numbered you should always be on guard and ready for challenge and challenging," Catena said.

Azaroth narrowed his eyes, that was right. He hadn’t felt such before where he would always be on edge, waiting for danger to appear.

"I understand," Azaroth said.

Kael Hound turned to face them. "That won’t be possible."

"Why?" Stallus asked, frowning at Kael.

"You belong to the Inferno Legion and the Bounty Hunters Association is a neutral party. You can’t join them unless their policies has changed of course." Kael said, his voice saying he doubted that.

"Does their neutrality stop them from doing work in outposts?" Stallus asked.

"All the leading powers in the continent have a form of treaty with the association. They can do their work in as much as it did not interfere with any local or international political affairs." Kael Hound said.

"Does that mean they kind of...police the continent?" Stallus looked at Kael.

"In a way. They are easy to access. The normal humans and even Awakeners can employ them maybe for guarding, transferring things, or even for crimes."

Azaroth wasn’t interested in all that. Crime? He didn’t care about that, the only thing that interested him was the rank climbing.

He smiled mentally, the Inferno Legion would stop him from joining the Hunters? That would be something to see.

Azaroth clenched his hand where it rested on his knees, he wanted to jump up and start training immediately. Energy flooded him and all he wanted was to put his sword on his right hand and start swinging.

He could almost taste it, him at the top of the numbered. The Zero. Azaroth sighed softly. Not now, he thought. He still had a lot to do. Things to burn.

"Enough about the Hunters. Let’s talk about...." Kael started but Stallus interrupted him.

Kael turned to her sharply and she gave him a small smile and a pleading look. "Sorry, Captain Kael. But what if you were to leave?"

"Leave where?" Kael snapped.

Stallus gestured to the whole room. "The Inferno Legion? What if you leave it? What if you have no ties to them."

Kael went still, he looked at the whole room as if it represented the Inferno Legion and shook his head slowly. "Impossible."

Everyone had been listening intently, it was Alex who asked. "How is it impossible?"

Kael just shook his head. "Once in the Inferno Legion and the Hound gets his teeth on you there’s no going back. You’ve been hooked."

"What if you did a great service for the Hounds? Or something happened and they gave you your freedom?" Stallus asked, her voice was low and her face devoid of any emotion. She seems to have caught on the Kael’s voice. It was that of cold flat certainty.

"It’s hopeless. If you did something great for the Inferno Legion maybe you’d get a promotion. You should forget about it. Once..... you know you haven’t become real Hounds now? Once you do, there’s no going back. Unless you were dead." Kael’s voice wasn’t cruel, he just said it as a fact.

Azaroth wondered what Kael Hound did to get a promotion.

There was silence then as they all digested what Kael said. Stallus narrowed her eyes and was looking at a point in the far wall her gaze unfocused before she swung her eyes to Azaroth and nodded to herself.

Azaroth didn’t understand her and he didn’t try to.

Surprisingly Alex looked bored, then again Azaroth remembered that what Alex wanted to do was become a Hound of his own free will. His outpost wasn’t destroyed or his families killed.

It surprised Azaroth that he didn’t hate Alex, no he gave him the same flat interest as any other humans and that’s all. But, shouldn’t he be angry that Alex came from a free outpost while his own family was killed?

All Azaroth knew was that if his Father had been wise, he should have brought his outpost under the Inferno Legion. That was the only thing for the weak in the face of overwhelming power.

His father who lacked power of his own should borrowed the strength of the powerful.

And Kael Hound, was he subtly warning them against the Hound mask? Telling them that they weren’t Hounds yet. That they could run away.

Azaroth gave it a serious thought. Running away before the mask was to be put on them was a wise thing to do but run to where? He didn’t currently possess the power to survive on his own outside the outpost.

All he could do for now was borrow the strength of the Inferno Legion to survive. Like the weakling that he was. Azaroth accepted that he wasn’t strong enough yet to matter in the world.

Running away was the most stupid thing to do though, first as much as it pained him to admit he had no first-hand experience on the outside. He didn’t even know about the Bounty Hunters Association!

He wouldn’t survive a day out there. Not to talk of monsters and Awakeners. From all he knew Awakeners were the most dangerous things about the apocalypse after the monsters.

Azaroth saw it firsthand when his outpost was attacked. The strong prey on the weak. The first rule. The only rule that existed.

The rule that the world now demanded.