Worth It?

Many soldiers barricaded a house in Ecrin town's residential neighbourhood, forbidding to let anyone near it. Three men were inside the house, two of whom were dressed in white robes and the other in a green robe.

One of the white-robed man looked at the green-robed man and said

"Alkis, you do know the consequences of lying to the cult, particularly about the Nirvana clan, don't you?"

Alkis was flustered; he had never anticipated the twins to flee. But he didn't have time to ponder about it as he looked the white-robed man in the eyes and answered honestly.

"No, Senior Arthur, by the name of Mother Riona, I can promise you that I am not lying. My son really does have the Eye of Nirvana, without a doubt. My wife died from his eyes 5 years ago, but I had no idea what the Eye of Nirvana was at the time. I told you about it when I found out about it yesterday."

Elias who was beside Arthur had a contemplating expression on his face.

"Alkis was chosen as an envoy-in-training just two days ago, so he can't actually be lying to the cult now, can he? And the fact that he is also a core worshipper should only add to our belief in him. Isn't he, however, far too lucky? He recently discovered a four-layered law treasure, and now he claims to have two Nirvana Clan descendants as his own children, both of whom have gone missing."

Elias contemplated this, and the more he pondered about it, the more suspicious he became of Alkis. A soldier stepped in just as he was about to detain Alkis and said

"Sir envoys, a man has claimed to have seen the twins riding in a carriage heading towards the town's commercial district. He stated that he noticed them because they stood out from the crowd, and when we tracked down the reported driver, he said that he dropped them off in front of the town's library."

Both the envoys and Alkis were taken aback and perplexed, but for different reasons. Arthur and Elias were shocked because they had begun to suspect that Alkis was lying. Alkis, on the other hand, was puzzled as to why his kids went to the library.

They headed towards the town's library with the troops without wasting any time. The commoners were surprised seeing the soldiers, but they immediately withdrew when they saw the cult's emblem.

When they arrived at the library, Arthur ordered the soldiers to encircle it from all sides. The envoys then entered the library, where they discovered three terrified commoners kneeling on the ground, fearful and crying. Further inside, there was a woman sitting behind the center table, who looked surprised seeing them. She immediately stood up, bowed, and said

"It's a pleasure to have the envoys-"

Before Sophie could even complete her sentence, Arthur interrupted her.

"Let's cut through the bullshit and get to the point. We had received information from our spies that you had been spotted moving the twins out of the area, so our spies chased them; they should now be in our custody. So, how would you like to be punished now?"

Arthur knew Sophie wouldn't easily reveal their location, so he decided to bluff his way into knowing about the twins. And as he had expected, when he bluffed Sophie's eyes widened for a second before going back to normal . But Arthur immediately knew then and there that she had indeed dropped the twins somewhere. Without giving her time to think he started speaking playfully

"We heard that your husband was killed in a confrontation with a high-level force-user. And, by coincidence, that opponent was one of our people, and now the children you adored are about to be killed by us. Don't you hate us? Aren't you angry? Don't you seek revenge?"

Arthur used the information he had received about Sophie to try to throw her mind into chaos. Sophie's body shook as expected, and her eyes reddened with hatred, but she shortly calmed down and began laughing

"You almost had me; if I wasn't a scholar studying strategies, you would have thrown my thoughts into disarray by now. I suppose you've already deduced that I left them somewhere and are now trying to extract that information from me.

But, as you mentioned, do you truly believe I would help my husband's killers? I would rather die-"

"Tch, then die."

Before she could complete her sentence, she heard a voice originating beside her. As she began to look around for a clearer understanding of the situation, she noticed a hand piercing her chest and holding her heart. She identified the person's face to be of Arthur; her eyes widened as she looked at him.

Arthur chuckled looking at her expressions and said

"Don't look at me like that. Though you are smart and perceptive, you are just at the third level of the Force manifestation realm; do you really think you can see the moves of someone in Force Elementalization realm?"

Sophie's eyes widened even further as she realised the opponent's strength; she wanted to say 'Impossible,' but all she could do was spit blood. As she was thinking about how someone this powerful could be here, Arthur continued

"Did you really believe the Cult would send some weaklings to one of the empire's most populated cities? These are the best places to earn people's trust and manipulate them; would we truly be worthy of being considered as one of the eight superpowers among the higher worlds if we didn't exploit these places to our advantage?"

Before Sophie could think, Arthur continued

"However, I have a question. Was it really worth it? How do people as foolish as you exist? Giving their lives for someone whom they don't even know. Now that you are about to die, don't you feel that if you hadn't helped them and reported us, you would have been rewarded instead of being killed?"

Sophie simply smiled in response to Arthur's question, which was a little unsightly due to the blood surrounding it. She then began to recollect all of her past memories, including how she grew up, fell in love, married, and witnessed her husband's death. She then remembered the twins, which brought a smile to her face.

Seeing the smile on her face, Arthur became annoyed and crushed her heart, which killed her on the spot as she had already lost a lot of blood.

"Tch, these so called 'kind people' are so annoying."

Elias had a frown on his face and asked Arthur

"Shouldn't we have extracted more information from her instead of killing her on the spot?"

Arthur sighed and looked at Elias as if he were looking at an idiot, and said

"This is why you can't beat me at anything; do you truly think she would have revealed something with all that hatred for the cult she had?"

"We could have tortured her."

Elias retorted almost immediately, seemingly annoyed by Arthur's first comment.

"She would have killed herself before it, idiot. Even though she was weak, she wasn't foolish enough to just reveal their information. I am pretty sure she had her ways to commit suicide even before we had shown up."

Elias' eyes widened listening to this, but he soon regained his composure and asked the most important question

"What should we do now? How are we going to find the descendants of the clan?"

Arthur also thought for a moment before saying

"We should report it to the head envoy first, I believe he has a solution for this."

After saying this he looked at Alkis and said

"It seems that you weren't lying to us, but don't hold your breath for a reward. You will only be rewarded once we have captured the descendants, as they were only able to escape thanks to your own stupidity."

Alkis, who was standing behind Elias, had his mind blown. He had never even beat someone mortally before, and today seeing the envoys killing someone so casually had shocked and terrified him. His legs were trembling and he was barely able to hold himself from throwing up seeing all the blood and gore. Only when Arthur began talking to him did he come out of his reverie and replied

"Yes, senior."

Alkis was both disappointed and relieved to hear this; even though he knew he wouldn't be rewarded today, it was a big relief to be proven correct. He was well aware that if the twins' traces had not been found, he would have been detained and possibly killed.

As they were on their way to leave, Elias noticed three commoners who had witnessed everything; they were shocked and horrified; they had never expected that the people they looked up to to were the ones whom they had to be wary of.

Elias sighed as he glanced at the soldiers' captain and stated

"Kill them and declare that the librarian was a spy of the Shadow race, who killed these three people. Also spread a rumor that the envoys were seriously injured while killing the spy."

The captain's eyes widened at the mention of the shadow race, but he nodded nevertheless and began executing the trio.

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Inside the core area of a building of Cult of Riona, two people were kneeling in front of an elderly man, who was sitting on a sofa facing the duo.

This elderly man was none other than the Head Envoy, Argiris, and the two kneeling people were Arthur and Elias.

"I see, well, the mission had already failed the moment Alkis left the children alone, but now is not the time to be regretful for your mistakes. Since this century's 'Gathering of Champions' tournament will begin in seven years, let us start by declaring that we have executed the two descendants. We don't want the other powers making fun of us due to this. I will talk to the knights of headquarters regarding this.

As for the location of the twins, given her intelligence, that librarian must have figured that we would search the town thoroughly. To maintain secrecy, all we can do is send some spies inside the surrounding five towns and wait for the twins to be spotted, also send some trainees inside the forest to check the routes....*sigh*..... It'll take a while.

Keep a watch on Alkis as well; even if he appears to be a fool, you can't overlook someone who is willing to sacrifice his own children for power. It's also possible that this was all his scheme, and the kids were a part of this act, *sigh*..... I didn't come to this commoner's town for stuff like this."

Both of the envoys looked at Argiris with a dumbfounded look. Even if they knew that Argiris was one of the battle-schemers belonging to the third main branch of the Cult's headquarters, they hadn't expected him to be this cautious and perceptive.

Argiris then looked at the duo and said

"Since you two are my prime-disciples, I will forgive this failure of yours. Alright, you may leave now and arrange the spies."

"Yes teacher"

The duo came out of their trance and responded respectfully, they then headed towards the trainee area to assign the tasks.

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A/N :

Let me give name of the first five realms

1. Force Detection Realm

2. Force Strengthening Realm

3. Force Manifestation Realm

4. Force Condensation Realm

5. Force Elementalization Realm

Since I want to keep it kinda mysterious, I will not add their details for now. You may know more about it as you read further.