CHAPTER 136

  THE MESS

  The crowd went mad. The Eclipse had shown themselves. The organisation which even its parent nation was hunting. And they had the galls to show up in the centre where all of the powers were present.

  Swoosh!

  A javelin-like projectile hit with massive weight in a flash. The speed was something else. And the potential which Hans never tapped into. It came for his head and he couldn’t even react.

  Clang!

  A sword deflected it swiftly. The sound wave even cracked the protective runes of the colosseum. The wall where the projectile hit crumbled like wet paper. The very walls that stood firm when Rudolf and Dijkstra ran crazy were now dust.

  “It’s not the way you greet your fellow citizen, Commander Homar.” The man who had deflected his arrow, and the man who invited Theodred to the Eclipse came forward, pulling Hans behind him.

  The movement was swift and effortless; that huge and fast thing had no effect on Adrian’s grip. The fourth rank fire knight was entirely a different story compared to Martys. The presence itself was different. He moved like he owned the place.

  While Homar was ready to shoot in any moment, Hans could inherently feel the next arrow wouldn’t be deflected or blocked. It was a death sentence.

  Another voice came from behind. “Let’s meet some other time, Homar—the commander is waiting for the youngest to join.”

  Swoosh!

  Another beam fell, sucking Theodred along with the traveller who had just come.

  It was the day the Eclipse had turned another high-rank knight to the dark side. And it was the day Reina got branded as a fool who was played like a banjo in the high seat.

  “That was way out of my calculations.” She mumbled. Since she couldn’t disclose a fracture between elven families, she had to bite hard on it and accept the scenario Hans had made.

  Meanwhile, Arat was chewing his incompetent subordinates. One lost to a greenhorn while his best failed to assassinate.

  “Why couldn’t you just shoot through him?” He pressed Homar, but Homar bit back instantly.

  “Did your senile mind betray you, old man, or don’t you know Adrian? That fool is very good at what he does. It’s not easy for someone to even lay a hand on the boy if he is protecting him. The battle above rank five is carried on in a different place for a reason.”

  “TSK!” Arat contemplated hard. Theodred wasn’t just a problem now. There was a chance that it might have become an Eclipse-level problem. A situationship that he had been suffering from almost two decades.

  Disturbing him, someone came running to him. With a document in hand. That made his face even grimmer.

  Arat had ordered a tracking on INGRESS. Now they had an accurate idea of where these rats were holed up.

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures. Arrange a meeting with Clandor.” He ordered, and the one who had brought him those documents disappeared following those orders.

  Reina was constantly rejecting the invitations of other nations and was even planning to eject herself from Indu. But Parv’s sudden invitation halted her.

  “Eastern province of Elven Federation.” The documents he had sent contained the words she was interested in. Since the defected nobles were now trying to rebuild the trust with her, Clandor was right back at her hand; all she desired was to make it whole again.

  After a brief meeting, it was arranged in Indu’s temple grounds. The differences and enmity were banned under the watchful eyes of the gods. And even if Parv was a devout follower of Osiris, they also followed the doctrines of Yudwin. The origin of their own religion.

  Since Clandor hadn’t brought their heavy hitters like Homar. It was quite concerning to meet them alone. The ban hardly convinced him, yet Reina was a gambler and was sure that Arat had some hunt to do, and without her co-operation it wasn’t possible.

  “So, what do your words mean? Prime Minister of Parv.” She asked, still worry-free.

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  “Before I share something, I have a question for you, Queen Reina— did you shake hands with Eclipse? I mean, there is no forever enmity. Look at us, we are eating cookies discussing things after we tore each other several times.”

  “Yes.” Reina nodded. “There are no forever enemies—but I don’t make my bed with those radical fools.”

  “Then what about your disciple— he —killed your biggest competitor for the throne—I mean, an usurper candidate. Since I received the alliance request from him, I know you had no power to defeat him, and since proxy isn’t allowed, Eleanor couldn’t fight for you. —A full-on war would throw Clandor into another civil war—And no one in their right mind would dare assassinate the eighth rank. So you manipulated that kid into killing Martys, and goddamn you succeeded. You mean to say. You have no hand in it? You aren’t a fool not to get a hint that he was working for Eclipse.”

  “It happens, we get fooled too.” Reina mused. “The new generations are climbing far faster—didn’t you also get fooled into selling Eclipse Parvian weapons?”

  “You seriously going to use that against me?”

  “Or are you saying you willingly sold them to make my nation suffer more—reducing our power—inserting yourself in Clandorian soil.”

  That made Arat shut for a while.

  “So instead of trying to test me on what I do or do not know. Tell me why did you call me here? There has to be something in it for me to accept your hand in the hunt for Eclipse. As far as I know, they didn’t hit us yet. And for my traitorous disciple—you are right, I’m not so eager to hunt someone who did me a huge favour. There is no profit for Clandor to go after them—”

  “Don’t you want your nation whole?” Arat asked, trying to sell her a dream she wanted.

  “Well, I can listen.” She sipped the tea elegantly, her eyes telling him to continue.

  “We share a border—As long as Eclipse stands in your way—you can’t claim your lands.” Arat reasoned. “I have the accurate location of them, locked in to track them live. With a bit of preparation, we could strike them down—permanently.”

  “Well, that sure does sound like music to me— but your goddess has warned not to start a fight.” She stood, offering her hand. “Fix this and I shall see us finalise this over the line. Now, I must correct the mess my ex-disciple made.”

  After the Clandorians left. The neutral party agreed between both sides—Concordia Deans were ready to leave too. But Arat’s mumbling halted Rudolf’s step.

  “Just how did he know?” Arat pulled another document hidden in his left pocket. He read the words:

  “You’ve told me that apart from me, you have something to track everyone if they call INGRESS before you—make sure to bring that out.”

  “How did our SATR fail, yet Prince had this information?” Arat asked his fellow Parvians. The night before, he had received this message from an unknown source, written in old cipher. Delivered by a stranger for a coin.

  Rudolf couldn’t help but snicker at those words.

  “What are you mocking?” Arat squinted.

  “Nothing,” Rudolf comically shook his head. “It’s just you are a bunch of sore morons. Come on, Sierra, let’s leave these idiots to their delusions.”

  “You are leaving after handing over that win this easily?” Homar doubted. “Your astrape could level a city and it was blocked by a green horn who couldn’t even sense my arrow coming at him—you know something, don’t you?”

  Rudolf panicked a bit, he wasn’t something of a scheming guy, just plain and simple. “Easy—that fucking owl or whatever they called that scary thing—the moment he summoned it. It was decided. I would have been toast—god knows where he took that fool Martys. And frankly—I don’t want to know.”

  Rudolf turned, “and you.” He pointed at the man, a grown man sulking in the corner. “Grow up. You only lost once, Dijkstra.”

  “Lost? That was humiliating, Alastor. Those hidden strikes crippled my Deepsteps at every corner. That punk even had wings, and god knows how, he regenerated everything like time was reversed. Like a god was favouring him.”

  “If you had ended it early rather than enjoying it. You could have won easily—”

  “Then why did you let him win? I pointed out his pattern, told you his weaknesses. There was nothing new he used while fighting you. So why, Alastor? Why didn’t you use the Thunder god? You had fought Kansas with it. Pommeled that sonofabitch in the past. That punk was not on that level to beat either of us.”

  “Yet you lost Dijkstra, and I didn’t feel like winning.”

  With those words, Rudolf left, and Homar belatedly spoke. “Ah, old man. I forgot to tell you this: that the new eighth rank is playing both sides, serving only his needs.”

  “And this is a goddamn fucking time for our commander to start speaking.” Arat cursed, but as Homar relayed the whole conversation,

  Arat’s mind started to form stratagems. “Will he deliver on those words?” he asked him.

  Homar shrugged.“Well, he did kill Martys as he said he would.”

  “Let’s see then.” Arat agreed. “This could serve as a backup if we fail—Is there any other news of Prince? Why are we failing in intelligence that we boast about?”

  “Yes, sire,” the servant whom Arat was ordering around since the morning spoke up. “I received another letter after the duel. It was a scheduled delivery.”

  It was a sensitive matter, so he was silent in front of their guests. So, Arat didn’t fume this time. “What does it say?” he asked.

  The servant spoke as he read: “I enjoyed the whole knight convention. I hope you at least got a lock in on Eclipse’s location. Do what you see fit with the information. I’ll be at the graduation test.”

  “What must I do to keep your bloodline alive, Sam? He is starting to resemble you, not just by face but in your habit of taking everything on by yourself and not listening.”

  With those thoughts, he folded the letter and ordered Parvians to get ready for home. Parv was waiting to finally clash with the tumour called Eclipse.