Change of Plans

Deon and Shi immediately engaged in a rapid conversation.

Deon knew that Shi was still mistrusting of him and that he needed to reveal some things in order to gain her trust. As such, he made it known that he couldn't care less about the royal dispute, but he wanted to continue on with this mountain war for as long as possible due to the immense profits he was continually reaping.

Shi was stunned when Deon revealed his guess that the false king planned to deliberately lose the war to the Fan Kingdom in exchange for their assistance in giving him the throne. As it turned out, Deon was spot on.

This entire war was a conspiracy between the Fan Kingdom and Remi's uncle. It was something that the false king convinced Remi's father to embark upon in order to pressure him into secluded training. As the war built up and reached its current peak, the old king began to feel the immense pressure. Right at this critical moment, the Fan Kingdom deliberately revealed some shocking news to Remi's father…

The king of the Fan Kingdom had become a 3-Star shaman!

3-Star was the peak level of power in mortal nations, but there were no 3-Star shamans in the Kingdom of Restari! This was the breaking point for the king, he knew that when the war reached its true climax, the Kingdom of Restari would suffer heavily under the might of a 3-Star powerhouse. As such, he made the decision to finally attempt the 3-Star breakthrough.

This was all news to Deon, but it didn't change the fact that he wanted to keep this war going for as long as possible.

Soon enough, they arrived at their deal. Deon knew that Shi had only revealed these details because she knew that she could easily finish her job and capture Deon if she needed to. As such, he needed to provide her with enough incentive if he wanted to avoid this pitiful ending.

For incentive, he first needed to know what she had been offered.

"The 2-Star platinum ladder spirit?" Deon frowned. "Why do you want to use such a useless spirit that reduces your lifespan in the first place?"

Shi looked shocked that he had actually heard of this spirit. Indeed, it wasn't exactly a well known spirit in this kingdom, but the books left behind by Blood God discussed a few hundred spirits that Blood God considered essential knowledge…around one quarter of which were related to lifespan.

Blood God put extreme emphasis on lifespan, driving home the point that this was a shaman's most important asset. He wanted his inheritor to make their own way in the world, but he also wanted them to seize any possible opportunity to increase their lifespan, whilst avoiding any potential reductions.

"How could you call a platinum class spirit useless?" Shi shook her head. "This spirit might reduce a shaman's lifespan by 3 years, but it can cause a 1-Star or 2-Star shaman to increase their rank by 1 stage in an instant! Not only that, but even after being used, it won't disappear but will instead revert to the 2-Star gold ladder spirit, which has the same effect only with a 10 year lifespan reduction."

"Which then reverts to the silver class version, a spirit that reduces your lifespan by 30 years, I'm well aware." Deon finished for her.

"Indeed." Shi nodded. "Whilst I wouldn't use the gold or silver class versions casually, the platinum ladder spirit can be considered a life saving treasure if kept until you find yourself in an inescapable fatal situation. Not only that, but even if I didn't use the spirit, its value is near the peak of all platinum class 2-Star spirits!"

Deon thought about it and supposed that she was correct. Even if he still considered it something useless, its value was indeed quite high. As he thought about this, Shi watched his expression and couldn't help but say:

"I will receive my payment so long as that guy remains on the throne for another 6 months. You say that you don't care about the royal dispute, but if I begin to disobey my employer's instructions by not bringing you in, I could end up being charged a fee for not doing my job properly."

She didn't say it explicitly, but she was clearly asking Deon…just what can you give me exactly?

Whilst his offer of having them work together to refine as many high value spirits as possible using the kingdom's resources and recipes was indeed tempting, it wasn't enough to sway her. Siding with Deon could potentially risk her payment that she had been working towards for 2 and a half years.

"Miss Shi, given your nature and your job, would I be correct in assuming that you have some connection to the shaman assassins alliance?"

Seeing her expression change drastically, Deon chuckled and knew that he was spot on. He started sweating slightly when her expression changed again and she revealed her killing intent though.

"You, how do you know about my identity as an assassin in the alliance?!"

"It was a guess…the way you work sounds a lot like an assassin, whilst the assassin alliance hires 80% of assassins on the continent."

"It does?" She muttered, having not even known this herself. She was again shocked at Deon's bizarre knowledge…

Again, this was thanks to Blood God. Blood God didn't describe every organisation across the spirit continent, that would be ridiculous and could fill an entire library just with the list of names. He did, however, mention 12 major organisations that Deon should be aware of, one of which was the shaman assassins alliance.

An organisation that spanned loosely across the entire continent, there were very few organisations on this sort of scale, which was why it qualified to be mentioned in the list of 12.

Or at least, this was true during Blood God's time. It was unknown how long had passed since that time though, but at least Deon could confirm that the alliance still existed.

As Shi's mind raced and she once again tried to figure out Deon's background, a smile slowly spread across his lips. Until now, he had been limited to dealing with the Kingdom of Restari and its people, a mortal nation with ignorant shamans. However, Shi was different.

There was something that Deon had been planning to do once he eventually left this nation, but with Shi here, and considering her connection to the shaman assassins alliance, then maybe he could push forward this plan!

"Miss Shi, do you know much about the trade of origin souls?" Deon suddenly asked. She was startled and looked at him weirdly, then chose her words very cautiously when she spoke.

"It's an extremely demonic practise where shamans capture and store origin souls from other shamans using special types of spirits….why ask?"

Deon's eyes lit up. With this, he could confirm that Shi should at least have the knowhow to engage in this business venture! What Deon was about to reveal was a risk, but if it paid off, then the profits would be enormous!

"Miss Shi, one of my bound spirits has the ability to extract and store origin souls." He started to say slowly.

"Huh?" Shi was startled. She didn't expect him to possess such a spirit! However, she frowned in the next moment.

"I'm familiar with one or two such spirits, but they only have one of the functions, either extracting or storing origin souls, not both…also, these spirits are certainly not mythril class ones like yours…"

"Well, my spirit is able to extract the origin soul from a dying 1-Star shaman without causing any damage to the origin soul. It can also store origin souls indefinitely without any significant deterioration over time."

She stared blankly at Deon for a moment, taking in his faint smile and that sparkling gleam in his deep dark eyes. Finally, it hit her, the extremity of this claim he was making, and why he was telling her this.

She suddenly stood up and stared at Deon in shock.

"You, you, are you telling the truth? Your spirit is honestly capable of such a miraculous thing?! Show me, prove it or else I refuse to believe it's true!"

"Hmm…" Deon didn't immediately reply, but his smile widened further. With this, is was clear that her desire had finally been triggered.

Deon was clear on this matter…compared to a mere 2-Star platinum ladder spirit, the possibility to engage in the trade of undamaged origin souls was a thousand times more enticing!

A few minutes later, both Deon and Lieutenant Shi emerged from Deon's private tent, both of them looking extremely pleased. They glanced at one another and shared a smile, before quickly returning to Lieutenant Reana, who was still busy dealing with the captured rebel spies.

After Reana returned from her 'work' on the spies, Deon casually made up a lie about having completely removed the spying spirit from Shi's body, allowing Lieutenant Reana to relax slightly. She could not help feel tense when she thought that they were being targeted by a 2-Star shaman!

Lieutenant Reana had interrogated the rebels quite thoroughly. She found that like Deon guessed, all of the commanders and captains under her, aside from those in Yaan's 37th unit, were spies under the new king.

"Commander, with this new information, I think that our original plan to sneak into my camps with a small group is inadequate." Lieutenant Reana sighed.

"Oh, I never intended to head out with a small group." Deon unexpectedly just nodded and agreed with her. The lieutenant was startled for a moment, until she understood.

At this moment, everyone realised that Deon had deliberately fed the spies a false plan to mislead their opponent!

"Lieutenant, there are also spies in my own unit, I noticed this some time ago. I'm sure that they have been in constant communication with General Li and the false king, whilst manipulating us into following their plans. I couldn't casually reveal my true intentions, since I had no way of knowing who exactly might have been a spy."

Deon had been suspicious of General Li for some time, that man seemed to be a bit too greedy at times. After General Li sent spies into his camp, Deon could more or less confirm his guess. With General Li's recent 'hold-up', it became obvious. It was too convenient, whilst he had hardly suffered any losses, despite battling for 3 days and 3 nights.

Lieutenant Reana's eyes lit up and she hopefully asked:

"Then Commander Deon, could it be that you already have an alternative plan in mind?"

Deon was her last hope. They had almost no time remaining, whilst her other 9 units would soon be attacked by the 5,000 rebel soldiers…not only that, but the rebels were also planted within her own units, occupying the majority of the positions of command!

As for Deon's camp…

Remi wasn't lying before when she said that she overheard her uncle talking about his plans to attack Deon's camp personally. It made sense on the surface…

However, how could Deon not see through this? It was ridiculous to think that Remi, this girl who was a mere late stage 1-Star shaman, could escape from the clutches of her uncle, a mid stage 2-Star shaman!

She was clearly fed some lies and allowed to return to Deon to mislead him, thereby forcing him to act. Combined with Lieutenant Shi's efforts, they hoped to lead Deon out from the camp and towards Lieutenant Reana's own camps.

They didn't expect that Deon had actually already noticed the plan to attack Lieutenant Reana's camps, but it was even less expected that despite knowing this, he would still choose to assist her anyway!

The end result was the same though. Lieutenant Shi reported earlier to the false king that Deon, Remi, herself and a few others would be leaving this camp in the early evening.

Deon was supposed to be captured en route to Lieutenant Reana's camps by a group laying in wait for an ambush. Lieutenant Shi would escape elsewhere, whilst the 37th unit would be smoothly handed over to General Li after Deon and Lieutenant Reana pitifully 'died in battle'.

It was now half an hour past the time they were supposed to depart, if they didn't do something soon, their ambushers might start to get suspicious.

"Lieutenant Reana, there's really no need to worry so much." Deon actually laughed despite the situation, making herself and many others feel stunned.

"Don't we have a huge advantage right now? We know our enemy's intentions, we know their exact battle plan, yet they actually still believe that we're in the dark, that they have spies secretly planted within this camp that we don't know of…spies they have been communicating with regularly."

Lieutenant Reana was the first to understand and gasped. Some of Deon's Captains' eyes shone and their expressions gradually became much brighter.

"It seems you all understand." Deon laughed again, then slowly turned towards the various spies with a bright smile. "How about we send our rebel friends a little message detailing a last second change in plans? Hahaha…"

His casual laugh sent shivers down the captured spies' spines. Even Deon's own allies felt extremely glad to be standing with him rather than against him…