Chapter 292: Baiting The Elite Part 1

Arias, highly reactive to the knocking on the door, looked in that direction, with Harley showing a pout as she moved to sit on the edge of her bed. "Aww~ just when it was about to get good." 

Arias gave her a side glance and sighed before proceeding toward the door, using his telepathy to raise the towel from the ground and wrap it around himself. 

Upon opening the door, he found an impatient Mercy waiting for him, with her arms crossed and her leg tapping the floor at intervals.

"Something the matter?" Arias asked, prompting her to frown as she tried to peek into the room. But before she could even get a clear view, Harley's voice rang loudly from inside, "Who is it Mr. M?" 

Hearing Harley's voice, Mercy's usual amount of frown turned into a look of absolute fury. "Are you fucking kidding me, that stupid clown whore? really?" 

Arias shrugged his shoulders, responding, "Well, you were busy." 

"Because you gave me work to do! and here you are fucking a walking STD." 

"Would you rather I fuck you?" Arias answered back, causing Mercy to form an even deeper frown. Remembering the reason she actually came there, Mercy soon reached into her pocket and took out a small cell phone before handing it over to Arias. "Here, it's for you, see if I fucking care," she added before storming off down the hallway.

As she did so, Harley sneaked over to the door and propped her head out before making a face with her hands atop her head. "Nenaneh~, Nananeh~," Arias ignored Harley's shenanigans and simply answered the call while beginning to walk toward the balcony. 

"Hello?" 

"Hello Arias Markovich?"

"President Ross?" Arias questioned with his brow slightly raised in interest.

"Yes."

"To what do I while the pleasure of this call," Arias inquired while walking over to the stony balcony railing, leaning on it. 

"The reason I should be calling is obvious, as things stand, the world is at risk of another world war, and no one will benefit from that, so I want us to negotiate terms." 

For a moment, Arias decided to feign ignorance. "And why contact me? Shouldn't you be contacting Queen Tara Markov instead?"

President Ross's tone grew a bit more serious following that answer from Arias. "Please, don't take the US government for fools, Arias Markovich. We know you're the one running the show over there, and we even have hard evidence. And it were to be made public, although it wouldn't change the hold of power you likely have there, it would certainly disrupt the smoothness of whatever operations you run and cause people to really wonder what it is your're really planning."

Arias couldn't help but scoff at this. "Is that a threat, President Ross?"

"No, it's simply sharing the intelligence we have and what possible consequences it could have if released." 

Arias was unmoved by the tactics of President Ross; given the current circumstances, it wasn't like they had many options when it came to offensive power. 

Arias's stunt of attacking the bases had proven that he was the one who held the stronger side, whether it was alien technology or superhumans, the other nations didn't know, but they were sure they had no safeguards against it, so they countered by using nothing to lose tactics and threatening to expose Arias and many of the things he had done, or at least lay accusations and provide some proof of the possibility of said acts accusations. 

And like President Ross said, although it wouldn't affect the hold he had on power, it would certainly make things more difficult for him if people began to protest and overthink everything he did. 

In other words, if the other nations went down, they would do so while making as much damage as they could to Arias's reputation. Given how he had carried himself so far, it wasn't hard for them to deduce that he obviously cared for his reputation, and he had deeper plans in mind.

For if his plan were something along the lines of global domination by force, he would've done so already, as presented with numerous opportunities. 

Though given how rapidly he was now growing, the strongest suspicions in the minds of the various governments was that his ultimate goal was the slow societal takeover of the world.

With so many resources and organizations gathered collectively to now be against him,Arias didn't find it odd that they managed to dig up some things on him or connect certain events toward him in some way. And sure enough, the revelation of these facts would indeed lead to a disruption in the subtlety and smoothness of his rise thus far.

"True," Arias responded, taking a moment's pause before further adding, "That's some interesting information you've shared, President Ross, and though I don't agree with your claims, I've always being an advocate of peace, so I'm curious as to what your proposal toward it may be. Who knows, if it's reasonable enough, I may be able to convince my daughter that stripping you of your military power may not be the answer," Arias calmly added, indicating a threat of his own. 

The president remained unmoved by the threat and answered as if it was a normal response from Arias. "I propose we convene a summit at a neutral ground to discuss once and for all how this situation may best be tackled. I do not believe that over a course of a week in negotiations we will not reach an at least agreeable form of understanding between us nations." 

"I see," Arias added flatly before letting out a yawn. "Well, it's getting rather late over here; any further discussions will need to be made with the Queen herself, so I will pass on over your words to her once she is done with her duties for the day. After that, I'm afraid it's out of my hands. Good night, President Ross," giving President Ross no time to respond, Arias cut the call. 

The reason he had chosen to speak carefully was he knew that he was likely being recorded; even with what he said just now, he was sure that if negotiations did fall through, forgery could be generated of the call to make him look bad. 

When it came to total warfare, nations would use all sorts of schemes and tactics to get whatever little upper-hand they could on their opponents, but Arias wasn't about to make it so easy for them. 

After cutting the call, he turned and walked back into the bedroom, where he found Harley had returned to the bed, lying in a suggestive and enticing manner. 

"Ready for another round, Mr. M?" Arias merely smirked at this and began to walk over. "Why not?"