Ch-16: Behind the Scenes

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Just when Aino was healed and the curse had been removed. In an unknown underground labyrinthine palace, on a small hidden floating Island, a loud sound was heard from one of the rooms.

*Urphh*

*Urk*

*cough…cough*

With such sounds, a woman wearing a revealing set of clothing which accentuated her curves and added to her charm could be seen.

It would be a beautiful sight if not for her coughing up large mouthfuls of blood and her skin becoming wrinkled by the seconds as if drying wood.

She grabbed something which resembled a human head and soon it was sucked dry looking like dried skin attached to a skeleton.

She continued with this action till she regained some colour on her face and around her were sprawled shriveled up corpses of naked men.

"Haah haaah… The…curse…was…resolved…haah" muttered the woman while gasping for breath as her life almost slipped by if not for the lifeforce of the now dead men.

She barely stabilized herself and almost fainted from shock as her mana pathways were messed up as she absorbed the life force without proper preparation.

She did not have enough time to think for herself as she was brought out of her stupor by a series of loud footsteps.

Tak-Tak-Tak

A man who was wearing a mask-type artifact disguising his identity with blonde hair and hazel green eyes was walking alone in this large hall and stopped right in front of her place.

She felt shivers just by him looking at her, as no one ever dared to even look up at him no matter how strong they were as consequences of that were known by all.

No one spoke as he observed the chamber the woman was in and seeing her trembling made him maintain his silence longer as if seemingly enjoying this sight.

"So?" The man said, sending shivers down the woman's spine.

"The…the curse was reversed, Sir" stuttered the woman but completed in a terrified voice.

"And?" the man said in a frosty voice.

"The target became impervious to soul attacks below S-rank and my mana pathways got entangled. I cannot use my ability until they get fixed using elixirs or a secret method which would require many virgin females and males to perform a ritual..." answered the girl monotonously unaware of getting bewitched by the man in front of her to speak the truth.

"Stop" said the man and she came back to her senses to see his face close to hers lifted by his finger under her chin causing her to hold even her breath.

"If not for your unique ability still having some use for me, you should know what fate awaits you. Make yourself usable again" ordered the man without waiting for any response and left.

The girl hearing the man's voice felt a mix of emotions like relief, rage, frustration but her fear of the fate awaiting her if she loses her use clouded the rest and she started preparing for the ritual.

For anyone who saw this place from afar, the first thing that would come to anyone's mind would be that this is a prison.

Yes, this place was a prison. A prison that bound everyone without any contracts or chains or even bars yet no one dared to escape as that fate was worse than death itself.

For those who committed suicide, their souls were trapped and tormented for all to see the consequences of trying to escape.

…

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…

After leaving, the man went to the top floor of the castle and sat in his room looking at the mission progress.

"Tsk, these elite families call themselves righteous." *Ptui* spat the man remembering the conversation from a few days back.

======

"Get rid of that commoner b*tch" said a youth from a dark room trying to hide his identity.

"Alright. The payment?" said the man as if killing was something casual he did every day.

"Hmph. You think I would not be able to pay the price. Name it. Let me show you the might of..." The youth was slapped on the back of his head when he was about to reveal his identity but he dared not retort.

"1 billion RPD. 100 virgin men. 100 virgin women. Better if they are awakened." stated the man ignoring their charade.

"What? Are you craz-..." this time the youth was knocked out and a middle-aged male voice could be heard.

"That's too high. Only 500 million RPD" said the client.

"No deal." the masked man calmly said.

"Alright. 1 billion and nothing else" negotiated the client.

"1.5 billion and we will take care of the 200 people needed from your region" finished the masked-men.

"... Alright" agreed the client as he knew testing the patience of the person in front of him was not a good idea.

The knocked-out youth heard that the deal was finalized and mumbled to himself "Just you wait Evelyn, I'll have you soon. No one will be able to stand up to you in this world and you will soon beg…"

The youth turned out to be harbouring a twisted love towards Evelyn Dawner.

The masked man heard it and recognised the client instantly as he was the head of such a big organization, having information about almost everything was obvious for him.

But hearing this mumble, the man on the other side hurriedly cut the call and beat the shit out of the youth.

The masked man just chuckled to himself as he did not care about any of their lives.

======

The man did not care about them trying to find trouble with him as even SSS rank Hunters had no clue about his location nor his true name, identity or anything related to him.

"Soon...the world will change... let's see how long these trash can act as rulers" said the man in a tone filled with hatred.

He was not even interested in knowing how that girl was cured as he never guaranteed her demise but just dealt a curse to her and hence the mana contract would not trigger even if he takes no further action.

He was much more interested about the other task that came in recently.

[Find Jarien Dawner and kill him

Reward: 10 billion RPD]

He wondered what a talentless child could even do but he needed money for their main goal, so he accepted it.

If not for his need of money he would not bother to deal with these hypocrites. Just remembering them made his face burn with seething rage at the world itself.

He hurriedly calmed himself down and called his subordinates to ask them about their progress regarding the main task.

"Did you discover any news regarding the 'fragments'?" asked the man to his subordinates who were located across the Cuzlades continent.

"No, sir. It is difficult to procure any solid evidence regarding them whilst hiding ourselves" said a burly man who had met Richard in Ignus city.

"Sir, the spies have confirmed that no 'fragment' has appeared in any continent as of yet so we can only wait" said Amy, one of the branch leaders.

"But Sir, I have heard news that a healer group named Arkas were the ones who saved Jarien Dawner as well as Aino Aalto. Should we take any action regarding them?" asked Amy but she shivered seeing the cold reaction.

"Do you not understand your position?" asked the masked man.

"I apologise. I misspoke Sir" said Amy hurriedly while getting on her knees and bowing down.

"Ignore that girl, she will be protected by S ranks since reverting the curse means increasing her potential, so it is not worth it. Find Jarien Dawner and send some trash to take care of it. None of you will reveal themselves until our goal is completed" said the man to which all of them replied in unison.

"Yes Lord Azazel"

"But is it not riskier going after a child of these families now?" asked a curious soul which made the others mark him so as not to associate with this guy anymore lest they die due to his mistakes.

"Use your brain for once" said Azazel in an irked tone.

After racking their brains, they realized that if a child of such a family dies, the prime suspect would be their competitors which will cause chaos hence making their actions easier. They again realized how terrifying this guy was.

After the meeting, the man connected with his superior and 4 others working in each continent, the strongest group being in Iteron as it meant being right under the nose of the entire World Association.

"I believe none of you have found any 'fragment'" resounded a thundering voice that seemed to destroy the soul itself of the listeners.

This person was someone who had been waiting for this for centuries, so he could not tolerate the incompetent people who were unable to complete even a simple task.

"With all due respect, Sir. They were sealed by the first emperor. We cannot find them without them appearing themselves" said Azazel

"I know. The thing is none of you found any information about them which is just as important as the 'fragments' themselves." said the man with a thundering voice again.

"We will not disappoint you next time. Please give us some time as it is not easy to get access to the elite family's historical records that they have been hiding since the past 300 years" said one woman and the others agreed with her.

The man cut the call after just nodding, the others looked at each other warily then cut the call without any comments.

The man thought to himself 'Damn that b*stard. My plan would have succeeded if that guy had not noticed it and rallied the rebellion to the point of even defeating the imperial family.

Damn imperial family. They could not even defend against a rebellion...'

The man kept cursing the past while Azazel, who knew everything, stayed quiet as he did not actually care about anything related to them.

Rather he was planning to betray that man and do things his way as he believed that old man had gone senile and treated the people of this age as nothing while not even knowing that all of them were crouching tigers and coiled dragons.

Azazel had stolen information from other continents via his spies, so he knew that all of them found something or the other but chose to stay quiet.

He pieced together the entire information along with what he found in the mage association as he was once an elder there so he had read multiple books.

He has even been in important positions in all the associations and even the academies across all the continents yet no one knew this, so they had no idea what kind of danger was unseen by them.

No one knew his real face as he was a cautious man, not trusting anyone but himself. He was one of the few who knew about this era of chaos more than even SSS rank Hunters as he himself had been alive for a few centuries.

After walking to his room, he took off his mask yet the disguise did not get off. He then lied down on his bed while looking at a table full of photos of a girl from the age of 4 to 27 and a deep emptiness came back to him.

To shut off his feelings, he started combining the information he had received till now. According to his calculations there were 72 fragments with 9 cores per 8 fragments to bind them.

It was easy to know that they would be out soon as the first Emperor's seal would weaken after 1000 years as stated in the records. He knew that that shrewd and crafty man would have definitely stored at least one entire set for his future generations or for coming back to life.

Azazel went to another corner of the room and entered a hidden space to find hundreds of thousands of jars filled with blood. He reached out to one of them and used it to search for the descendants of the imperial family.

It was said that the imperial bloodline was severed and all descendants slaughtered but he was not naïve enough to believe it and he was soon proven to be right as he detected the direct descendants but all of them were of too low an aptitude which meant even if he combined all of them it would be less than the blood essence in front of him.

These blood essences were from all kinds of species, monsters, noble families as he had all of them inside his body. He was an experimental product made from combining so many different genes to the point he gained sentience and slaughtered everyone related to the experiment.

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…

…

In a cold region, a boy with a spear tied to him could be seen walking across the cold blizzard which did not seem to impede him at all.

Suddenly, his amulet attached to his necklace vibrated and he was covered in a golden shield rendering him unable to move. It was the first time for him to see this necklace do something but he was immobilized so he could only wait.

This shield prevented Azazel from scanning the imperial bloodline flowing through his body else he would have come here and kidnapped this boy.

The shield faded away and the boy was left confused yet walked away as he could sense a calling for him from far away.

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…

In a ruin, a slumbering soul was startled awake when Azazel was searching for imperial descendants. The soul sensed the search and felt that the being who was searching was ridiculous and should not exist.

"Ridiculous…a soulless shell dare– Wait this…isn't this?... HAHAAHAHAH, this changes things' " said the soul then went back to wait as he could not be detected by such low-level bloodline searching techniques.

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1 Rupendeous(RPD) = 10 USD