23 The Council's Preparations

While Hokuto was training hard to achieve full completion of the <Primordial Orchid Body Art>, the Council did not neglect to keep their production of dark matter energy in full swing. Black Deer was poring over his historical records while occasionally getting useless counsel from Blood Lotus, and he inwardly sighed as he realized that the records on the Dust of Gaea were indeed minimal. He hoped that White Tiger or any of the leading operatives on the surface could send him some crucial information on the matter.

In fact, White Tiger had actually gotten a breakthrough in terms of checking the status of Hokuto as well as the North Blossom Kingdom in general. One night, White Tiger, wrapped in a thick black cloak was concealed in an alley between two inconspicuous houses in the Sunset Hamlet. He heard the sound of space being torn behind him as a figure also wearing a black cloak concealing their entire body stepped forth.

The cloaked figure spoke with a distorted voice towards White Tiger. "Hokuto is currently undergoing a closed door training," they spoke simply and succinctly. "She is going to undergo a fair spike in power, but I feel like the Dust of Gaea would not be so simple to negate as in accordance to your master's wishes."

"Surely you've found something?" White Tiger asked curtly.

"I did discover one crucial point," the cloaked person nodded. It was impossible to tell their expression and their distorted voice hid any emotion they might have otherwise had. "Exposure to enough negative or void energy would allow the Dust of Gaea to be severely weakened. There aren't any easy ways to totally disable it but to weaken it enough would be much easier."

"Excellent news," White Tiger laughed. "So how will we accomplish this?"

"You'd have to capture Hokuto directly and then force the energy into her body. Since she is still young, it would be much more efficient to do it that way than if she were older and already had time to stabilize her core."

"Does that mean we need to invade the kingdom early?"

"Don't ask me. I'm not going to help you with that. Remember, the only reason why I'm even telling you this is because I owe you."

White Tiger nodded solemnly in deep understanding. "I realize this. I was being too greedy for asking you for more help than this. I apologize. I won't take up any more of your time!"

"Consider my debt to you repaid. Next time we meet, we will likely be on opposing sides."

White Tiger simply nodded once again and quietly left into the night, leaving the cloaked figure alone.

"I apologize for everything." The figure muttered to nobody in particular before opening a portal into the void and walking into it, going god knows where.

Eventually, a few days after that clandestine meeting, Black Deer received a hand-written letter from White Tiger which was sealed in a special envelope. He immediately began to read it as his expression began to change in numerous ways. Beside him, Blood Lotus stood there watching his expressions and was trying to stop the urge to laugh.

"What's so funny? Who knew that the dark matter energy we were producing just coincidentally happened to weaken that physique? We need to launch an attack on North Blossom Kingdom earlier than anticipated. Our aim won't be to destroy it or raze it to the ground. Our aim would be to launch a sneak attack directly in the castle and kidnap the princess." Black Deer stated clearly.

"That's a tall order. Numerous reports from Green Lion and Blue Frog have indicated that security has increased hugely since King Ren has found proof of our movements." Blood Lotus sighed.

"We need to hasten the production of the Single Route Teleporter," Black Deer teethed out. "Red Crane is already working overtime. I need to assist her personally, otherwise, we'll be too late. The Princess would have already received a huge power boost. In that case we'd have to port in our strongest operatives."

"What about the [Rose Sword Saint]?"

"You can battle her to a stand-still with your Disrupting Seals, right?"

"I think so."

"That's all we need. If we succeed, or if we manage to take down the royalty while we're there, I'll install Red Crane as the new leader. Best case scenario, we kill the entire family except for the Princess, while installing Red Crane as the leader, giving us a huge base and territory on the surface. The Clockwork Kingdom will sever their ties from us and the North Blossom Kingdom will no longer be a bastion of goodness."

Black Deer cackled.

But their preparations needed to be completed quickly, lest they miss the perfect opportunity to strike. As Black Deer declared, he quickly started to help Red Crane with the construction of a giant contraption which looked like a huge upright donut propped on a kind of landing dock-like structure. Black energy was being channeled into it like electricity.

Black Deer appeared to be tinkering with the internals of the donut object as he was muttering highly scientific terms which Red Crane did not understand very well. Her only role was to assist in the actual construction, leaving the sensitive tasks to Black Deer, as he was smarter despite Red Crane being better with her hands.

While the two of them were working on the teleporter, the surface operative leaders consisting of Green Lion, Blue Frog and White Tiger were busy making their preparations to set the Sunset Hamlet on lock down when the Councilmen underground would make their hidden assault on the castle. They were given specific instructions NOT to cause chaos in the hamlet, nor to actually try to destroy anything.

The Council were rapidly working towards the completion of their preparations. Even though this time was much earlier than anticipated, Black Deer was confident they could hit the North Blossom Kingdom very hard.