CHAPTER 273: THE DOTRUU NOBLES’ LUCKY MENTALITY

Sword Saint Levi’s words hit the fleeing nobles like a sledgehammer to the gut.

The relief vanished from their faces as they all hung their heads in shame, practically in unison.

"Call in the Supreme Council and drag these bastards in chains!"

Sword Saint Levi let out a heavy sigh and finally decided to call for backup.

At those words, several nobles exchanged worried glances before speaking up hesitantly:

"Lord Levi, we’ve already caught the Shadow Twins. Do we really need to drag the Supreme Council’s big shots into this mess?"

The rest stayed quiet, but their silence spoke volumes—nobody was jumping to disagree.

Truth was, Levi didn’t want to involve the Supreme Council any more than they did.

Sure, once word got out, someone would deal with the Shadow Twins, but it would also air the Dotruu Kingdom’s dirty laundry for everyone to see.

But that wasn’t even the real reason these nobles were sweating bullets. The real kicker was that calling in the Supreme Council would give them a perfect excuse to stick their noses into Dotruu Kingdom business.

While the Supreme Council technically held the reins over all of humanity, the Sacred Fire Compact made sure the major city-states, kingdoms, tribes, and islands kept their independence.

For generations, the four territories had handled their own problems whenever possible, only dragging the Human Supreme Council into things when they had no other choice.

Besides, asking the Human Supreme Council for help was basically admitting you couldn’t handle your own backyard. They’d send in their specialists to clean house, then probably set up a Disciplinary Office to keep an eye on things.

Once that happened, those stone-faced bureaucrats would hold all the cards, and the Dotruu Kingdom nobles would get knocked down from the big leagues to the minor leagues—losing most of their clout in the process. No wonder they were fighting tooth and nail against it.

Levi glanced toward the distant battle—one gold against two black, dead even—then swept his gaze over the tight-lipped nobles around him. He mulled it over for a moment.

"Alright, we’ll give it a little more time."

If this ended with the Shadow Twins six feet under or at least beaten senseless, they could sweep the whole mess under the rug.

But if things went sideways, the Dotruu Kingdom would be backed into a corner with no way out except making that call.

The nobles practically melted with relief. The last thing they wanted was some cold-blooded Disciplinary Office breathing down their necks.

Word on the street was that Disciplinary Office agents were ruthless hardasses who played strictly by the book—zero tolerance for screw-ups.

With those watchdogs around, even royalty had to walk on eggshells, let alone regular nobles.

After all, most of the Dotruu Kingdom nobles—hell, probably all of them—had some skeletons in their closets.

Unless things went completely to hell and became a matter of life or death, they absolutely didn’t want that sword hanging over their heads, especially one that could drop at any second.

"My lord, that warrior’s got serious chops. I’m betting he’ll come out on top!"

Right now, the Dotruu Kingdom nobles were genuinely rooting for that foreign golden knight to kick ass...

...

Ginya’s sudden power surge caught everyone’s attention as they watched the palace drama unfold.

...

In the clock tower’s highest room, the palace’s crown jewel.

Princess Taff gazed up at the sky, half withered yellow and half pitch black, split down the middle like a line drawn in sand—a perfect symbol of the brutal clash between the two forces.

Her eyes narrowed to slits.

"Well, well... didn’t see that coming..."

That kind of raw power—no wonder this foreign messenger had told her to shove her offer where the sun don’t shine.

She swirled her wine goblet thoughtfully, something crossing her mind that made her smile as her eyes slowly turned blood red.

"Everything returns to the great Blood Mother in the end..."

In the palace’s inner sanctum.

The prince shot his right-hand man a look, and immediately one of his ministers stepped forward to suggest that with the old king on death’s door, the prince should take charge of the kingdom.

The other ministers glanced around nervously.

With the second prince missing in action and only the prince present, they didn’t have much choice in the matter.

Whether from fear or genuine support, all the ministers present nodded their agreement.

With the decision made, the prince couldn’t wait to plant his ass on the inner court’s throne. The cold stone represented the ultimate power of the Dotruu Kingdom!

Just then, one of his lackeys rushed in, whispering news from outside that made the prince’s face turn stormy.

The good news: The Shadow Realm powerhouses were scary as hell. Even the King’s Right Hand and all the nobles got their asses handed to them—everyone was beaten bloody and couldn’t fight back.

The bad news: Something had gone completely off script.

That Ember City noble’s messenger could actually go toe-to-toe with the Shadow Realm powerhouses and, for reasons nobody could figure out, had swooped in to save the nobles from getting slaughtered—totally screwing up his plan to wipe out his father’s loyal supporters.

’Damn it all, I should’ve given him whatever he wanted that day!’

No point crying over spilled milk now—the prince had to figure out how to salvage this mess.

Originally, he’d planned to let the old man hang on for a while so he could take over the kingdom legitimately.

But now... murder flashed in his eyes.

...

In Ember City, at the Valois estate.

Iris carefully read through her brother’s letter and fired up the recording crystals.

She saw a basic ice valley fortress with countless "Lulu" creatures huffing and puffing as they hauled massive ice blocks, building what looked like an incredible ice plains wall.

The Psionic forces she’d sent earlier were acting as supervisors, looking pretty relaxed for people supposedly stuck in the hellishly dangerous first dark mist layer.

Just what she could see on the surface was like something out of a fever dream.

Taming monsters and actually building human fortresses in the nightmare zone of the first dark mist layer.

Something human leadership had tried over and over but never pulled off—her brother, Carlos Valois, had actually done it.

This meant Carlos really did have the power to dominate the first dark mist layer, just like he’d claimed in his last letter.

That massive wall spanning the entire ice plains he’d mentioned before wasn’t just pie-in-the-sky dreaming but a real, doable plan.

How could this not blow Iris away? Though she felt a weird pang of sadness creeping in.

Her little brother was really growing up...

The "First Dark Mist Layer: Human Fortress" scheme laid out in this letter showed Carlos understood people like a book.

Future threats were always tomorrow’s problem—only cold, hard benefits right here, right now could get the major families to throw their weight behind something.

By skipping all the doom and gloom and focusing on the sweet rewards once the ice valley fortress was finished, nobody could ignore what he was offering.

Plus, there was already a real ice valley castle standing there. Sure, it was just bare bones for now, but anyone with half a brain knew the rest would fall into place naturally—it would just cost a pretty penny.

Getting the framework up was the hardest and most crucial part. After that came the magical reinforcements, bringing in specialists, and stationing Psionic guards.

That was also why Carlos wanted other families in on the action.

The Valois family alone, even with the High Priest backing them, could barely manage to throw up the ice plains wall’s basic structure. As for the heavy-duty reinforcement and manning the whole line? That was way more than they could handle.

Iris needed to think long and hard about how to work this plan and which players to bring to the table...