Chapter 485 Emperor's Grief
Alex returned to the Human Continent once the continental teleportation was off cooldown, and there he met with his guardians and the two captured cult Elders.
The entire mission, from planning to executing, went smoothly, maybe too smoothly, seeing they needed to capture three high-profile targets, but it seems Lady Luck never left their side during the entire ordeal.
The plan to capture the three targets began with locating and confirming the identities of the targets, which took them less than two days to complete.
Following that, they just needed to come up with the best way to capture the three targets by creating as little chaos as possible and execute it in a short span of time, and like the lady luck was smiling on them, the group did not need to make any effort, and instead, they just needed to wait a few days and capture the God-given opportunity.
The Cult Elder belonging to Everflow Sanctum was out on a mission, away from the civilization, making it easy to set a trap and capture him, while the second Elder managed the biggest brothel district of the Human Continent, and she had a kink for strong elves, so taking her to a private place was a piece of cake for Lady Araneth.
It only left Voragor, who had a gang of Dragon Elders keeping watch over him at all times, but luckily for Alex, the champion was planned to make his appearance in the Arena against the challenger.
After his victory, Voragor would always allow anyone below the Elemental ruler Rank to challenge him, and while not a set-in-stone thing, it was the way of the champion. Alex just needed to get close to Voragor, and the teleportation was going to take a few seconds, and the arena presented the perfect opportunity, so it was decided that he would kidnap that bastard right there without the elders needing to reveal their presence.
Everything went as planned, Alex successfully kidnapped Voragor, Draknar took care of the first Elder, and Lady Araneth took care of the second Elder, all in the span of Six hours.
Alex met with the Elders and, shortly after that, returned to the Domain with them and the captured Cult Elder.
The Chaos Generals were going to be used as the vessel for the essence conduit crystals, something that the Elders already suspected, and now it was confirmed. The memory extraction process was going to take just a few hours even though they were dealing with Elemental Rulers and the ones that stood close to the Apex because the one dealing with them was the greatest researcher the world had to offer.
The good luck continued as they received not only information about the location of one of the areas keeping a Chaos General and some details about their plan but also solid clues about Calista Usinlyn, the Sin Champion of Lust.
The Chaos Generals were going to be used as the vessel for the essence conduit crystals, something that the Elders already suspected, and now it was confirmed. But more than that, they discovered that the Cult higher-ups were ordered to stay prepared and begin gathering the cult members on the Human continent after three months.
If the demons successfully opened the portal connecting the two continents, then they would not need any human help, so gathering strong members in the thousands just before the portal opening could only mean they were needed for something important.
There were already many unanswered questions and now a new one was added to the list, but even the Cult Elders knew nothing about such matters, leaving Alex and the rest with nothing but speculations of their own.
After getting the information, they returned to the human continent, and with the help of Alex's guardians and Royal guard teams, they raided the place, securing the Chaos General, the second essence crystal, and another Cult Elder.
Alex was happy with the success but also anxious about the time left because only four or so months were left, and they needed to find another six crystals. Besides the two Sin champions, who could very well know nothing about the location of other crystals like their counterparts, they had no real leads.
Still, Alex stayed on the human continent, hoping to continue the lucky streak and hopefully capture the second Sin Champion, but he was hoping for too much because, after his recent stunt, any person of value went into the shadows, knowing they were getting hunted.
Another two weeks passed, and even with the Royal guards searching tirelessly for the two Sin Champions or any other leads, there were no solid results.
But one day, the Human Emperor, who had gone ghost for the past weeks, contacted them, and a few hours later, Alex, the guardians, Elders, and the Emperor were seated around a table waiting to hear what the Emperor deemed of extreme importance.
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Alex sat across from the Emperor, whose once lively and handsome face appeared to have aged by a few decades, his hair having lost its shine, and his eyes, which once burned like stars, now seemed dull, an unusual sight for someone of his strength, but Alex ignored it thinking it was a result of the stress of the matter at hand.
"An Essence Conduit Crystal," Alex said aloud, seeing King Melvin toos a dark gem-like crystal on the table.
"This is a present from the Demon King for the Domain Ruler,"
"He says he will not be playing the small game anymore, seeing a few unexpected complications have emerged, like a traitor among his trusted circle, an entity who took an Essence Conduit Crystal and could be a threat to his plan,"
"So the victor of our game will be decided on the final battlefield, where I will give you a final chance to stop the incoming apocalypse, but I am warning you that I will be using all my might to make my plan a success," King Melvin said, his voice slow and clear, yet the heaviness in every word after the first sentence was clear.
"The Human Empire has fallen," Emperor Melvin spoke after a few seconds of heavy silence, dropping another bombshell.
"The Guardians who swore to protect the Human Empire had betrayed it."
"They are all working for the demons, and my foolish son, not seeing their true faces, is dancing in their palm, thinking that he is some hero."
"A HERO who willingly gave the keys to the enemy, that he will use to invade his empire with legions of death."
"A HERO who made a deal with a bigger power he does not understand to become their slave by offering more than half the lives of the Human continent as price."
"A HERO who thinks he has chosen right, a selfless act for the people of his Empire, because if he does not make the hard choice, then just like the world, the entire Human Continent will suffer, and all subjects he swore to serve and protect will die,"
"NOT A HERO, NOTHING BUT AN INCOMPETENT FOOL," King Melvin roared as he slammed his fiery fist on the table, sending waves of flames across the room.
"No, No, I am an incompetent fool,"
"An King who has failed his people," "I am the one who is incompetent," King Melvin spoke as tears began rolling down his face, his fist crashing onto the table, each successive strike weaker and slower than the last.
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