Chapter 73

Chapter 73.1: Means of a King (1)

...

After Fei heard everything the mage said, he had some ideas about what was going on.

The so called Mythical Ruins was similar to a pirate's buried treasure. If anyone was lucky enough to find an unexplored Mythical Ruins, they would obtain magic devices, training scrolls, and more from the gods' and demons' era. And if those items were utilized properly, even if the so called Eindhoven Empire tried to wage war against Chambord, Chambord wouldn't be scared.

"Alright, you've spoken enough. Now give me that map!" Fei reached out his hand and smiled, "Sir Elvis, you're right. It looks like we will have many opportunities to cooperate... Eh, but before that, give me the map so I can inspect it. What if the map and what you said were all fake?"

"Haha...Cough, cough... Hehehe, young man, do you think I'm an idiot?" The mage coughed up mouthfuls of blood as he spoke with a ridiculing expression on his face. "I'm afraid that as soon as I hand over the map, I'll be turned into a corpse."

Fei didn't get mad at all. He squatted down and tapped the mage's shoulder and winked as he said: "How could I? Sir Elvis, I've already swore an oath to the God of War with my honour as a King; how could I trick you? Plus, to explore the Mythical Ruin at Chambord, I will need powerful mages and warriors to help me. You are exactly what I need. Hahaha, we have a common interest and need each other's help. Why would I kill you now?"

After hearing Fei's words, the mage started hesitating.

Throughout the ages, there were two things on Azeroth Continent that people weren't allowed to tarnish; the first one was the Principles of Knights, and the second on was the Honour of a King, especially the kind of oath that Fei did in honour of the King to the God of War. Originally, Elvis would have believed Fei, but for some reason he felt that the king in front of him was kind of sketchy and slimy and not very dependable.

Fei's expression turned cold after he saw Elvis' hesitation.

He 'humphed' as he stood up and suddenly switched to Necromancer Mode. A cloud of cold and dark death energy surrounded him. Fei raised his hand and pointed at a location. "Crash!" Something incredible happened; the mage's eyes opened wide and his eyeballs almost fell out of his head.

In the splashing blood, a vicious skeleton holding a bone shield and bone blade climbed out of a dead mercenary's corpse. The skeleton made "cracking" sounds every time it moved; it was the sound of bones grinding on each other. With two black holes in its eye sockets and white bones, it looked like the demons from hell.

Necromancer– [Raise Skeleton].

"Ah? You..." The mage started trembling as if he was freezing. "You're... A.... Actually an evil undead mage? I... I... I..."

Fei slightly frowned.

He surprisingly sensed a familiar energy from the mage. It was also a dark death energy. Although it was weak and pretty well hidden inside the mage's body, it couldn't stay undetected in front of Fei who had the power of a level 6 Necromancer.

"Haha, this is pretty unexpected. Sir Elvis, you actually know undead magic. I won't say anything more. If you hand over that map peacefully, we can still cooperate friendly and explore the ruins together.... otherwise, you know that to a Necromancer like myself, even if you die, your soul can't escape from my palms. I have many ways to "refine" and torture your soul. You'll give me the map sooner or later, so why would you want to go through all the pain and trouble?"

The white cloud of death energy spun crazily in Fei's palm. Fei tried to put on an evil and sinister look as he threatened the mage.

Fei honestly felt like he was a super villain in the superhero movies and was torturing a sidekick to get some secret about the superhero. "You don't have to go through all of this...". Fortunately, he wasn't the Joker and the mage wasn't Robin.

The mage looked at the ferocious skeleton and hesitated a little. He eventually handed over the map to Fei. Although he was tortured quite a bit, he still had enough magic power to open up his own storage ring. Fei's incentives and threats made the mage dubious, but he ended up making the hard decision. He raised his hand and a folded map made of a mysterious material appeared in his hand. "Young man, this is the map. You have to be a man of your words. Without a four star mage, you won't ever be able to open and explore the Mythical Ruin. You won't get anything from killing me."

Fei grabbed the map and opened it to inspect it.

The map wasn't small; it was a square map about 3 yards (m) on each side. It was made from an unknown yellow material and felt weightless. The map itself had a weak floating force; Fei shook the map, causing it to completely open itself in the air. Mountains, hills, rivers, lakes, forests... Numerous terrains were recorded on it. It contained a wide area and many various colored circles and dots marked a lot of areas. The notes on the map were in strange characters. Fei felt like those characters were familiar, but he couldn't figure out where they were from.

Although it was the first time that Fei had seen this map, his intuition told him that Elvis didn't give him a fake map to trick him.

Fei waved his hand; "Crack!" the skeleton warrior shattered into a pile of bone fragments. He also switched from Necromancer Mode back to Barbarian Mode. The thick death energy that surrounded him disappeared as if it never appeared.

This change made the mage's eyes shine in greed.

His wasn't a talented mage; he followed and studied under the moon ranked master Ferdinand for more than twenty years, yet he was only able to reach the power of a four star mage. He was once mocked by everyone in the Manchester Empire. However, due to his greed for power, he wasn't able to resist studying undead magic which could advance and give him power quickly. As a result, he was shunned and prohibited by the "Overlord" on the Continent– The Holy Church. Due to the fear of other people finding out about it and sending him into a pit of fire, he hid his undead magic powers in his body carefully and no one had found out about it yet. The main reason that he left Manchester Empire and traveled the Continent was to hide from the higher ups and powerful priests at the Capital of the Empire. Fei's method of hiding his undead magic power in the body gave him a huge hope. If he could learn the method, he could then train and study undead magic to the limit and wouldn't have to worry about the priests finding out about it.

After seeing the bones fragments on the ground, Elvis was a little relieved.

It looked like that young man in front of him didn't have any intention to kill him; he was needed for the exploration of the Ruin. "This is great. After I recover and restore my powers, I'll pretend to cooperate with this king and slowly take control of Chambord in secret, as well as figure out how he's hiding his undead magic powers. By that time, I'll sneak attack and kill him with a surprise... Hehehe, I can monopolize the resources in the Ruins and no one will know."

"Young man, I have already given you the map, please heal me quickly. I can't hold any longer..." The four star mage Elvis reminded Fei.

"Ah? Okokok. I'm a man of my words..." Fei folded the map back into a small square and put it into the storage space in his belt. He then took out a bottle of [Healing Potion], squatted down and said, "Sir Elvis, it's my pleasure to cooperate with you. After we join forces, we can keep the Ruins all to ourselves. Hahaha..."

"Haha, young man, you made the right decision." Elvis was finally relieved. He smiled, but an undetectable viciousness flashed through his eyes.

"Unfortunately, you made a not-so-right decision..." Fei's expression suddenly turned cold and his hands instantly grabbed the mage by his neck. With some force, "Crack!" Elvis' upper spinal cord and throat were cracked into pieces.

"You..."

The sign of life slowly disappeared from Elvis' eyes. His was stunned up until his death and the smile on his face still hadn't faded away. Never in his wildest dreams would he have understood why the young king in front of him dared to kill him. He knew that the king needed a powerful mage to open and explore a Mythical Ruin. How and where could the little Chambord Kingdom recruit a suitable mage?

Of course, if he knew that Fei had the confidence and ability to advance to a four star mage in the Diablo World, he wouldn't have given up that map so easily. Also, Fei didn't swear to God of War under the name and soul of Alexander, but how could Elvis had known that the real Alexander and his soul was already gone.

"With a snake like you, how could I attempt such an impossible cooperation?" Fei shook his head and whispered.

This mage named Elvis had devastating power and had a strong background. Also, with his vicious mind, Fei didn't dare heal him back to full health. If he became careless for a moment, he would lose the whole game and get bitten by the poisonous snake. By that time, the fall of the kingdom and the slaughtering of civilians would occur in seconds. The story of the farmer and the snake was told by Aesop thousands of years ago. Fei wasn't dumb enough to use his warm body to save a vicious poisonous snake.

...

Chapter 73.2 – Means of a King (2)

...

The secret about the Mythical Ruins, the history of Chambord and the death of the Prince Mateja-Kezman of Eindhoven Empire would be forever buried in this Iron Prison– Water Dungeon. No one would know except for Fei. No one could blame Fei's ruthlessness. On Azeroth Continent which followed the "rule of the jungle", Fei couldn't allow himself to be negligent, not even once.

"We maybe similar, but luck just wasn't on your side."

Fei took out a bottle of [Mana Potion] and sipped some down his throat. He had to replenish the mana that was depleted when he used [Find Potion]. Then, he pressed his palm on Mage Elvis' corpse and lightly roared and used the ability [Find Potion] again.

"Plump!"

A sound from heaven rung in Fei's ear.

"Yes!"

Fei was stoked. Another bottle of green [Hulk Potion] appeared in mid-air; it shined a mysterious light. The weak newborn-like spirit energy surrounded the bottle and gave Fei a feeling of intimacy.

Fei put this precious bottle of [Hulk Potion] back in his storage space in the belt and thought for a second. He switched to Sorcerer Mode and shot a few [Fire Bolts] onto the corpse lying on the ground and the bone fragments left by the skeleton warrior. The remains burned into ashes, destroying the last bit of evidence.

After the corpses were burnt, Fei's eyes landed on the magic armour and a few magic weapons and devices that belonged to the silver masked knight. Except for that, in the ashes, Elvis' storage ring wasn't destroyed by the fire; it was still shiny, giving Fei an unspeakable temptation.

Fei knew that with Elvis' power and background, there must've been a lot of treasures and valuables in his storage ring. Moreover, the silver masked knight was royalty from a level 4 Empire, so his amour and items had to be valuable. If he rewarded them to the leaders in Chambord, the strength of Chambord would increase. Even if he didn't distribute them to the others and sold them off on the black market, he could get a lot of useful resources in return.

"But... it's too dangerous."

Elvis and the prince had a ton of status. Their items would attract a lot of attention. If someone found out about them and traced their origins back to Chambord, many incidents would be instantly exposed. Neither Fei nor Chambord would be able to bear this level of risk and danger. Fei had to take out any kind of dangers right off the bat and do all he could do to give more time for Chambord to grow stronger. Fei wasn't powerful enough to take on the Level 4 Eindhoven Empire.

Fei felt his heart breaking.

But finally, he made up his mind and shot out a ton of [Fire Bolts] at the ring, armour and items. He burned them in the fire and tried to destroy these valuable items into a pile of junk to eliminate any possibilities.

However–

"Eh? Not afraid of fire?"

Fei surprisingly found out that although the fire covered and buried the ring, armour and items in it, after a few minutes had passed, there were no signs of them melting or being destroyed. The blue magic power was still surrounding the armour, and the ring was still shining a white light. No matter how the fire burned, they were still maintained their form.

"Looks like treasures are truly treasures, but what should I do? These things will be the causes of disasters..." Fei tried [Ice Bolts] and [Charged Bolts]; he even switched back to Necromancer Mode and tried to destroy the items using his death energy, but it was no use. He also wanted to try to crush them into small pieces, but after thinking about the different situations that might occur if the magic items were shattered into pieces and the magic power in them were released, he didn't want to do that anymore. After a while, he ended up putting all of them into his storage belt and decided to destroy them later when he became more powerful.

At this time, there were only a few iron chains left in the concealed room. Fei calculated the time and realized that he had stayed at the Iron Prison– Water Dungeon for more than three hours. It was probably dark outside already; it was time to leave.

But before he left, there was one more thing that he had to do– test Warden Oleg.

"Oleg, come on in!" Fei shouted.

Warden Oleg rushed in a couple of steps. As soon as he arrived, he surprisingly found out that all the prisoners had disappeared. What was left were three sets of iron chains and five piles of black ashes. He knew that the three mercenaries and the mage were all killed, and their corpses were burnt alongside the silver masked man's corpse. He suddenly felt devastated and was even more scared of the young king's ruthless heart. He didn't even dare to take a long breath as he stood behind Fei timidly.

"Oleg, tell me, when you rushed in earlier, what did you see?" Fei asked causally.

But Oleg on the other hand was shocked by the question and started to sweat like crazy. He thought that Fei wanted to kill him, so he kneeled down and begged, "Your Majesty, please forgive me. I beg for your mercy! I didn't see anything. I only... Only saw Your Majesty studying the carvings and lines on the stone wall... Please pardon me!"

Fei looked at Oleg who was shaking as if he was having a seizure and smiled. "Get up, when did I say that I was going to kill you?"

"Thank you, Your Majesty!" Oleg didn't dare resist Fei's command. He stood up as his body shook in fear.

"His highness– the God of War created a miracle and restored my intelligence four days ago. In these four days, too many situations occurred. I've gained a rough understanding of the situation in Chambord the past three years. The evil conspirator Bazzer abused his power and threw the kingdom into chaos and persecuted my citizens. The former Military Judge Conca also assisted him in his conspiracies. Bazzer fled and is now getting chased, and the latter was executed by me. You, Oleg, helped Bazzer in executing a few of his evil plans in the past three years. Even if you die a thousand times, it's not enough to quell the public anger..."

Oleg started shivering more and more as he heard Fei's words. As if he was walking on a tightrope between skyscrapers, he felt his heart was about to burst out of his chest while his body was being kept in a freezer. As he heard the last sentence, he kneeled down to the ground and started to beg for mercy again.

Fei looked at him and continued, "I'm not a brutal killer. You followed me to the stone bridge that day to battle our enemies; you killed forty-five enemies and injured yourself while saving four of your companions' lives. All of these things were clearly observed by me. That counts as you redeeming yourself, so I didn't punish you for what you did before... Merits shall be rewarded and wrongs shall be punished. This is my governing principle of the kingdom. Your companions such as Brook, Pierce, Drogba have all received great rewards, and you were the only one who remained at the same position without obtaining any rewards. Have you ever complained about it?"

"Your Majesty, Oleg wouldn't dare do so... I understood that Your Majesty was pardoning me on purpose, so you sent Mr. Brook to the Prison this morning to give me a heads up and allow me some time to prepare and get rid of all the bad things in the prison to make up for all the mistakes I've committed. Your Majesty is gracious and I'm very grateful of it. I'm willing to give up everything I have to assist Your Majesty, even if I have to bleed to death!"

"Eh, as long as you understand." Fei said lightly, "Right now in Chambord, Brook is intelligent, but due to his integrity, he lacks the necessary roundness. People such as Pierce and Drogba are all great warriors on the battlefield, but their heads aren't that good. Uncle Lampard hates political affairs and Uncle Bast is tied down by other duties. Chambord is only lacking someone like you who is shameless, slimy, deceitful that can do the dirty work for me. I have the intention to use and depend on you, but..."

Fei paused deliberately for a few seconds here.

Oleg knew that Fei wanted. He patted his chest and swore, "To the God of War, I, Oleg am willing to become the most loyal hyena of His Majesty Alexander. I shall be on the front line wherever he points. If my words and deeds don't match, I shall go to hell when I die and face torture for an eternity."

"I'm not a huge believer in oaths..." Fei continued, "I emphasize practical actions. There are a few things that I need you to do for me as soon as you can. I will wait for your performance."

"Please order me, Your Majesty. I will do my best!"