Amos frowned.“What do you think Harvey did to cause all this? He turned me into his pawn?“These are all complicated plans…“Judging from Harvey’s behavior, he wouldn’t waste all this effort in the first place. Every time he took action, it’d always make a huge impact, despite how casual he is.The figure played around with a chess piece for a long time.“If I guess correctly, Harvey must’ve given Stefan the Smalt Sect’s badge.”Amos shivered, then let out a long sigh.“Thank you, Lord Roue. I didn’t realize that at all!“I only saw the benefits that come with the badge, but I didn’t think Harvey wouldn’t even care for such things in the first place.“He gave Stefan the badge so he could stab me in the back at the most crucial moment!“What a move!“It’s a shame Vaati ruined his mighty plan just by visiting him. Harvey must be furious by now.”“Probably not. After all, since Vaati didn’t go against Harvey, it must mean that he needs the badge as well.“After all, from a c
Roue chuckled.“Not exactly. The difficulty depends on your resolution.”“What do you mean by that?” Amos asked, still frowning. “If, say… Someone Vaati deeply cares about dies in Harvey’s hands… Would the Aenar Temple remain friends with him?” Roue said, smiling mysteriously.“Someone Vaati cares about…? Does he have a woman or something?”Amos showed a curious expression.“Let’s think outside the box, Young Master.”Roue seemed quite relaxed.“Why can’t a man be the person he cares about the most? Everyone says that Stefan is his child. If he dies, do you think Vaati would remain this calm?”Amos scowled. “There’s a huge risk in that. If he finds out that I started this… He’ll fight me with everything he’s got. This plan won’t do. Let’s think of something safer.”“There’s no time, Young Master.“I can only tell you this. You need to be ruthless to stand your ground. The outskirts’ situation isn’t good for you right now.“If you’re still going to be this paranoid… You’d b
Harvey froze, then smiled. “You’re too humble. As a consul, your schemes and combat prowess should be no less than outstanding. Without any proper defenses, even Amos wouldn’t be a match against you, right?”Stefan shook his head.“You know me, Sir York.“I don’t want to hear things like this. I want to win without a shadow of a doubt! I can only go all out if I have better odds at winning against Amos!“I know that with your strength, I’ll definitely achieve that.“Besides, you don’t have anything to lose in the situation, right?”Harvey was impressed by Stefan’s honesty. It’d be better to show his sincerity by not hiding anything.Harvey pondered for a moment, looking at Stefan with narrowed eyes. Stefan was holding his emotions back despite his wild ambition.“Since we’re here already…” he said with a smile. “Let me give you something.”Harvey scribbled on a piece of paper for a long time before handing it over.“These are Amos’s weak spots. Simply put, they’re what’s ke
An hour later, Stefan arrived at the Mandrake Residence.This was one of the most important strongholds of the Aenar Temple. Not only was the place very safe, but it was tightly secured as well.After waving at the people behind to dismiss them, Stefan came to the sun room at the edge of the cliff. He’d usually come here when he needed to think things through.He showed a playful expression after taking a look at the paper Harvey gave him.“Rumors say that Amos is trained under both the Kronen Temple and the Adenar Temple’s martial arts. His strength rose exponentially, but there’s also a huge trouble.“Judging from the current situation, he probably asked for Sir York’s help as well. And from what Sir York said, Amos is probably having a hard time controlling the energies in his body.“If that’s the case, it’d be better for me to stall a few more days.“Maybe, if I go back to the Aenar Temple right now and announce that I have the Smalt Sect’s badge, Amos will be pressured even
Stefan took a deep breath. “Pretty good. I like it a lot.”“Heh, heh! Good. You’d be letting me down if you didn’t. I put a lot of effort into preparing it.”Stefan instantly cut off the person. “Who are you? What do you want?”“Who am I?”The person lightly chuckled.“I’m just an ordinary person. The Smalt Sect wanted you dead—Amos was supposed to make the call… But he’s probably scared witless because of Harvey at this point.“If that’s the case, then I’ll have to force him to do the dirty work.“I’m giving you two choices. Either you end your own life here… Or I come to you and finish the job myself.“Would you be willing to save me some energy?”Stefan was dead silent for a moment. “You’re from Evermore?”“Smart man!”The person burst out laughing, holding his hands together.“You must be intelligent enough to figure out my identity. It’s always refreshing to talk to someone of your caliber.”Stefan took another deep breath. “No matter what Amos promised you, I can dou
“What should we do now?” one of the guards asked. “Evermore’s near-invincible, Consul. Maybe we should agree to their conditions.”“Their conditions?” Stefan glared coldly. “They want me to either kill myself, or they kill me themselves. How am I supposed to agree to that?”The guard shivered; he couldn’t say another word at this point.Stefan casually sat down, and took a sip of his cold tea.“Since Evermore has already announced my death, they’ll surely take action soon after.“They’re probably using me to make an example. They want Amos to understand he has no right to negotiate with Evermore, despite being the young master of the Smalt Sect.“Or, they’re forcing Amos into a corner to ensure he continues Evermore’s plan.“Either that, or this might be some plot to shift blame towards Sir York. If that’s the case, my master would fight him to the death if he doesn’t know about the situation.“They’ve planned everything…”Stefan revealed a gloomy expression.“Should we conta
Elaine froze. She looked confused.“I didn’t agree to kill off Stefan…“This probably doesn’t align with Evermore’s benefits. That was why they planned to kill him themselves.“They might just blame us for his death, too.Elaine frowned. “What? Isn’t Evermore working with us right now? If anything, they should be shifting the blame to Harvey instead! What’s the point of throwing all that mess to us?”“Evermore would naturally do that if they could. After all, they could pit him against Great Wall Vaati. However, Harvey might have backup plans against that,” Amos said. “For so long, Evermore is a rat hiding in the shadows of history. No matter how long they’ve been in this world—no matter how powerful they are, they simply can’t put themselves in the public.”Amos showed a horrible expression. Disdain could be heard in his words.After all, Evermore was essentially threatening him with this move; he was being utterly disrespected.For a prideful man like him, it was already ba
“If our men show up right now… Not only would we fail in killing Stefan, we’d be forced to flee while also leaving tracks for him to find.”Amos showed a scheming gaze.“Besides, Evermore must’ve leaked the information to us intentionally. The more they want us to take action, the more we should opt to do nothing. If not, we’d be the ones suffering!”Murderous intent was evident in Amos’s eyes.Other than his hatred towards Stefan, who dared to fight him… He started to despise Roue as well, who had been constantly forcing him to do things.‘I told him to give me a few days! Stalling is a legitimate tactic! Why would he force my hand like this?!’“If we don’t take action, Evermore would use the sect’s name anyway,” Serval said.“That alone would show a huge hole in our plan. Evermore might even tell Stefan you were the one who started all this after keeping him alive.”“Sigh…” Amos sighed, his face grim.“You didn’t think of all this yourself, did you?” he asked after a long