Threatening to go to war

Adam's final gain from this incredible fight was a parchment. A City Building Permit, something one needed to lawfully construct a city. Moreover, it was a Superior one, from the Coldlands Empire.

This meant that the city Adam could create using this permit wouldn't be under the jurisdiction of any Kingdom, but directly under the Empire. This also meant this city had the potential to one day turn into a kingdom.

Even the Basic City Building Permits were considered expensive, and something that only a strong Gold Rank would be able to acquire. As for a Superior City Building Permit, if one wasn't a Hero Rank, then one could only count on luck to get one.

However, even though he had the City Building Permit, he couldn't build one just yet. First, one needed literally millions of gold coins to first build the city. Even if he had the gold, he also needed to find the workers needed for this, which includes many, many people. Finally, he also needs to make his guild bigger and more powerful, so that they will be able to protect the city.

Still, despite not being able to use it for now, this was going to be very useful for the future. Putting the City Building Permit in his inventory filled to the brim, Adam felt lucky he had emptied his inventory before coming, or he would have been forced to leave many great things behind.

Since he had already picked up everything, Adam had Neith quickly leave the area to head to the Coldlands Empire directly.

Although Adam had killed nearly all witnesses, and the only one left was now his presumed ally, he knew the dragons would easily be able to determine he was the one who did it. That's also why he didn't hide, as it would have been useless.

When the dragons realized all their children, as well as the princess of the Water Tribe, died, they would use fate magic to find out who the killer was, and Adam had no way to hide from this.

But for now he should be okay. By the time the dragons realized what happened, he would already be far, and when they started searching for him he would be with King Slayer in the Land of Eternal Night.

Now that Neith was capable of flight, although she couldn't fly for too long, it still allowed them to bypass many natural obstacles they would originally need to walk around, and so the three days trip turned into a two days one.

When Adam reached the first city in Coldlands, he felt everything was different. Most probably because he was on top of a 50 meters tall spider. If Neith and him worked together, they would most probably be able to kill most people in the city, were he to ever need to do that.

It wasn't because he was able to take Neith in the city though that he would do it. It would just cause a mess, with her size. So he took her back in his Pet Space as he entered the city.

Adam also knew that there was another reason as to why people were staring at him, and that was because news of what he did to the dragons already spread, and the one who spread the information was the Dragon Clan itself.

They had spread around that Adam had killed many of their dragons, including one of the princesses of their tribe, and abducted the prince of another tribe. One had to know that the Dragon Clan was split in several tribes, and each tribe had a Prince or Princess, which were eligible to succeed as the next Dragon King.

So Adam killing one and abducting the other was a big matter. Moreover, the Dragon King had demanded, not asked, but DEMANDED the Coldlands Empire to deliver Adam to him or he would attack the Empire. And until now, the Empire still hadn't answered. So people were indeed looking at Adam weirdly.

Adam quickly walked to the teleportation array, and when the woman in charge of it saw his identity, she didn't even ask any payment as she immediately set up the array to Fjora.

When Adam appeared in Fjora, barely a second passed when a space portal appeared in front of him, and a majestic voice said from within "Come in." Adam, as well as the surrounding people, recognized this voice as the Emperor's.

While the people around him were prostrating toward the portal, Adam walked into it. The next moment, he appeared in a big room, at the center of which was a long table.

Adam felt stifled when he first appeared, because of the immense pressure he felt. Around the table sat 9 people, of which three he recognized. One was the Emperor, another was Conan Clearwater the King of the North, and the final one was Henry, who was now a Legend!

Although Adam wanted to congratulate him, he recognized this was neither the time nor the place to do so, moreover looking at his face, he was more troubled than happy right now.

Of all the people in the room, the weakest was Henry, who was a Legend, meaning this was a room full of Legends. Having 9 Legend Rank stare at him at the same time, as brave as Adam was, he still felt a little stifled.

After a moment, the Emperor said "Valiant Heart… You have in front of you all the Legend Ranks of our Empire, and we all gathered just for you. For your information, the last time this happened was when I became the new Emperor, not even the start of the war against the Goblin Kingdom needed us to reunite."

Adam froze for a second, was he trying to pressure him? He knew what he did was a little inconsiderate, but he didn't have to destroy the mood as soon as he came in…

The Emperor continued "News of what you did came to us, but the dragons can't really be trusted for this matter. Tell us your own version."

Adam nodded and began saying everything that happened, including the fact that he was going there to gather Reverse Scales for his promotion quest. His pride wouldn't allow him to lie about his true intention and push all the blames on the dragons, that was a cowardly move.

When he finished saying his story, the Emperor sighed "Is that how hard the Promotion Quest of a Sovereign is? Killing dragons really is a hard quest."

However, Adam coughed as he said "Killing the dragons and getting their scales is only a fourth of the quest, actually…"

The Emperor froze and all the Legends around the table looked at Adam weirdly, and with some pity. After a moment, the Emperor said "Before we take any decision, since this problem was caused by you, what do you think we should do?"

Adam thought about it for a moment, before saying "I don't really need your protection, personally, as long as they don't send in any Heroes or higher, but since they are in the middle of a civil war I don't think they can afford to send Heroes or Legends."

Everyone around the table looked at him even more weirdly, but he continued "I am confident no Gold Rank is capable of killing me, and if it's just me being overconfident, that's my problem. That's why, you can simply tell the Dragon Clan that I can defend myself. They won't have any reason to attack you, and will only go after me."

Adam saw the faces of a few Legends change as he said that, so he added "To keep the Empire's face, it's not that hard. I will first challenge publicly the Dragon Clan, and slander them publicly, and say something like 'I don't need the Empire's help to deal with you', so you will have a justification to not help me."

One of the Legends Adam didn't know said "People aren't dumb, they will guess the reason you said that was to protect the Empire."

Adam replied "That's why you will also say that all my close ones, including my guild, will be under the Empire's protection, unlike me, and that if they dare to touch any of them then you will declare war against them. As such, I won't have to worry about them, and the only way for the Dragon Clan to attack me is by an upfront attack."

The Legends looked at each other, and began thinking about his words. Actually, those weren't exactly his words. He had already learned of the fact the dragons had spread the information and challenged the Coldlands Empire while he was traveling, and when he was offline he had asked his brother for advice. This was what he had concluded was the best solution.