The standoff lasted for a few seconds, stretching itself out and becoming amplified somewhat by the silence that descended around the entrance of the cavern once more; the only ones remaining outside were the three of us, and right now that placed Erdene in a precarious position as she lingered on a precipice of her own making.
She could have just stayed back inside and accepted her fate as a captive, taking the more guaranteed route and praying that she would prove entertaining enough and captivating enough to remain 'free'.
It wouldn't be anywhere near as enjoyable as the life she had been living, but it would have been a life nonetheless; I couldn't blame her, however, for not wanting to just give up and accept that that would be her new future.
That it would be her only future would be a foolish decision to make; it was just the 'safest' future she had had available for herself, and now it was gone... although if she surrendered again she might get 'lucky' depending on Aethisia's mood.
As such I was simply standing above Altan's body looking between the two, wondering what might happen and if I was about to see a new 'member' of the family be welcomed back or if my daughter was going to make a tough decision...
Either way I was rather alright with the outcome, so I just slowly evened out my breathing while I waited for something to occur, which took those long seconds before Erdene took a step back and shook her head.
"Y-You... How..? Altan destroyed villages... How did you..?"
"Something people rarely seem to think about is how to fight against someone of a similar skill level, at least after they reach a certain threshold. Altan was formidable, and maybe if I had been just a little weaker, just a little more inexperienced, she might have actually proven to be a threat.
Sadly she wasn't accustomed to fighting against someone as deadly as herself, and that made her weak. These hammers, those flames, her muscles... all of it was just a show for me, nothing more. She lacked conviction and confidence in herself, at least in the right things. Does that make sense, Erdene?"
Tilting my head and sheathing the dagger I had used to kill her leader, I watched - with mild interest and amusement - her eyes flick down towards the weapon before returning to my face, fear beginning to dawn on it as she then measured the distance between us.
"Also - and to no offense of the villagers behind me - fighting against a commoner is barely considered an achievement after a certain point. If anything hearing that she actually took on villages and believed it to be worthy of mention as a feat of strength is quite... pathetic, honestly."
The woman paled at that before taking another step back, making me raise a brow before I looked back at my white haired daughter, who remained motionless even now; her eyes were locked on the minx and her hands were gripping her spear, yet she made no move to either attack or retrieve Erdene.
"I... T-This won't be the end of this! I will avenge her! I will..! I will kill both of you, I swear it!"
With that she flooded herself with mana and spun on her heel, taking advantage of the distance between us and bolting away in a blur of green light, disappearing from view in a second or two as she entered the forest... and effectively became a needle within a very large haystack.
"Well, that's nice. Look at that, you lost your oral comfort and instead gained a nemesis! How quaint!"
Since she was gone and the rest of the mercenaries had already fled, I turned back towards the cavern and began to march inside, happy with everything as I beckoned for them to come out and start reclaiming everything slowly but surely.
Aethisia just wordlessly stared at the forest before turning towards me when she noticed that Sarnai was still here, the towering Leopardkin making her way over to me with a slightly strained smile.
"So... um... I-"
Rolling my eyes and just reaching up to pat her on the head, I silenced my new woman and began guiding everyone else to start dragging the bodies into a confined area, making sure we took note of their gear before we stripped them down and claimed our due rewards.
All the while my daughter just sort of... stood there, shocked by her minx fleeing yet also clearly still battling with what she had done now that all of her kills were being piled up beside one another.
That older Dogkin woman came out to murmur some things to Aethisia, patting her arm and hopefully imparting some wisdom learned over her many years of life instead of just promising to drain her balls some more...
The other villagers all started coming out as well, tentatively picking at the corpses and taking what we needed from them, all while leaving the corpse of Altan to me... and by extension, Sarnai as well.
It was a nice demonstration of my prowess as well since I could show the Leopardkin how I had wounded her previous leader not once, not twice, but thrice, and that each wound was progressively more lethal then when compared to the last.
Her armor and all of the available trinkets and weapons were nice, but honestly I wasn't looking forward to lugging these hammers back home... until I remembered that Sarnai was really strong and capable of moving heavy weight without breaking a sweat, so that made things easier.
All in all it was funny how we went back to a calm, quiet atmosphere around the place after being thrust into a life or death situation, and honestly I had to admit that I was kinda a little irritated that Altan died as easily as she did... but that leftover energy definitely had one place it was going to go...
Sarnai knew that as well, and it was extremely amusing to me to see just how more pliable and submissive she was now that she knew just how much higher on the 'food chain' I was compared to her previous 'owner'.