The Duke's wrath brought dire consequences to the culprits' agenda. What should have been a formality and earned them a rich reward, or at least a reprieve, had turned into a disaster.
After diligently investigating and listening to the testimonies of every survivor except for the absent Jake and Ruby, Duke Gole had gained a clear idea of the course of events and his ire was immediately vented on the Factions he believed to be guilty, whether they were directly or indirectly involved.
Without hesitation, the leader of the Thorugh demon clan was sentenced to death along with the leader of the Thrajah vampire clan, the leader of the Avians and the chief Lich of the Undeads. Abbikesh may have been part of the conspiracy, but the fact that he and his men did not intervene until after his son's death saved them from the gallows.
These kinds of chapters are the ones I find the most painful to write. Writing down and remembering all those alliance deals is pretty hard and it always feels like you're missing something.
If I wasn't constrained by the format of the Ordeals, I could surely have developed this whole phase over several dozens of chapters while focusing on the other characters, but for obvious reasons this is not possible and not that interesting here.