บท 23: Iron-fist
"I assume you are the chief?"
"…"
"Come with me" continued Merlin as he tossed the deadly explosive weapon to the scurrying Sam behind him.
…
Inside a meeting room, the chief was sitting across the table to a monster of a man covered in the blood of his victims.
"Let me clear about something. I did not come here to harm any of you'll. But if you try to kill me once more, I will ensure that every single one of you is dead and turned into a zombies, before I kill you once more…"
Merlin's sharp words and cold gaze seemed to have an effect on the chief as he stammered to say,
"Yes, we are sorry. I will promptly punish the offenders-"
"No need. I do not care. Also, you were the one who gives orders, and so it is your fault."
Cold-sweat began running down the chief's back. He had initially planned on forcing the blame onto one of his subordinates and try to lengthen the time he could stay alive. But now all those plans went up in flames as this monster in front of him saw through him completely.
"I-"
"Zip it! Now, here is what you will do. You will sign a soul pact with me, preventing you from doing any sort of harm to me or my people, conspiring against them or even in general having thoughts about doing this."
With this, Merlin reached his hand to towards the chief, and pulled at the air. Suddenly, a sharp pain assaulted the chief's entire body as a faint white mist slowly flew out and went into Merlin's hand.
Beings that have a huge advantage in the soul stat could form soul pacts with weaker beings that have intelligence. This was an assurance. If the being whose soul segment was taken, tried to move against any of the stronger being's orders, or even thought of that, they would experience incredible pain. And the graver the crime against the stronger being, the harsher the pain would be, and ultimately could result in death.
This was a method used by all large forces to control their armies. The head would take the soul segments of his direct subordinated, and in turn, they would take control over their direct subordinates, giving the leader full control over his entire force. Naturally there were some skills that could prevent this pact from being formed, like soul barriers, but once it was formed, only the stronger being could cancel it.
Back at the house, he had explained to Sean and the other 3 what it was, and they willingly gave it to Merlin, without any pain, unlike this chief of headquarters.
And although he had their souls in his hand, he still needed to rule his army with an iron fist. In the Apocalypse, many different groups of survivors popped up. But most were short lived.
The ones with weak leader in terms of strength. They did not last long and the zombies killed them off rather early. The next to follow were the ones with mentally weak leaders who allowed for a system similar to a democracy were the first to be killed off by internal fighting and strive.
The only ones who survived where the strong and ruthless leaders, who never thought twice about beheading a traitor and threatening his troops. With a soft leader, the troops would also slowly grow incompetent and become soft on the inside.
Only if the troops were continuously reminded of the harsh truth would forge the minds of the troops into battle-hardened soldiers!
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