[Suzerain of Sheol]

It is a testament to the Executor's self-control that he betrays nothing of the incredulity the young man's words elicit. A lesser man might laugh in dismay.

"You are aware, yes, that you've entered the Holy. Grail. War? Where more fitting to exercise the tyranny of God on Earth than here? A curious man might wonder what you were expecting."

The effort of communicating is almost painful for the old priest. If he were prone to fits of rash judgment, he'd burn through St. Peter's Shroud here and now, shatter Ruler's Command Spell and rip the quivering brain from the degenerate's skull, crush it in his hand before invalidated eyes, and send his useless soul to the agony it was due. It would be so insultingly easy. Does the mage take him for some thug of the Inquisition, sent out to round up petty sinners for extermination? Heinrich Antonius Rosenbach was annihilating Dead Apostle Ancients decades before that small, squalid mind had ever first apprehended this wretched world. The arrogance of mages never ceases to rival Satan's own. How do they ever get so far in life bloated on such self-aggrandizing delusions?

And that is precisely why the other man, the quiet one with the gifts, is by far the most dangerous of his enemies in this room. A mage cured of the hubris of power is at their most fatal. As much as Heinrich already despises the blond one, it would be nothing less than a mistake to target him first. Let him parade about in self-satisfied impotence. More likely, one of the others will stamp him out like the ant he is long before Heinrich will ever have to deal with him.

That leaves only the question of the other three Masters yet to arrive...