CHAPTER 121: CHAPTER: 121 THE CONFERENCE.[5]

"Thank you."

Vivian slightly bowed as he expressed his gratitude, and with a calm expression he walked toward the corpse of the fanatic priest.

He passed by his father and grandfather as they both nodded at him with warm smiles.

Vivian returned a small nod and kept walking.

Soon he reached the place where the corpse lay.

The whole area around it was filled with blood, and the body was still twitching a little, as if the soul had not fully left yet.

"Good...," Vivian muttered, a small smile growing on his face.

He bent his waist and touched the blood-soaked ground with his fingertips.

"This ability can make anyone with mana into a servant who is extremely obedient to me," he said softly.

After speaking, he closed his eyes and began to concentrate.

The officials’ eyes narrowed as they focused on him.

Some showed clear anticipation, while others showed fear, but all of them kept watching without blinking.

"Xi Realm: Revenant."

The moment he said the words, the wiggly shadows around him began to stretch out from his hand.

They crawled slowly across the floor and started to spread all around the corpse, moving like dark threads reaching toward it.

The shadows grew thicker, covering more of the ground, and the air around the body seemed to turn colder as they wrapped themselves around it bit by bit.

Soon the wiggly shadows gathered together and covered the whole place.

Not even the blood was spared.

Everything on the floor was swallowed by those moving shadows.

Bit by bit, the corpse was wrapped, and then the whole body slowly sank into the ground, as if the earth had opened its mouth and taken it.

The instant the corpse disappeared, all the shadows vanished at once.

Vivian opened his eyes and stood back up.

"Now he is an obedient servant," he announced.

He looked around the hall once more, then said calmly, "Come out."

When the words left his mouth, the shadows appeared again, but this time they stayed close to his feet.

The darkness thickened and grew, taking shape until a figure rose from the floor.

The figure had no head.

Its whole body was made of moving shadows, just like the one Vivian had summoned earlier in the speaker’s seat.

Shadowy flames wrapped around its arms and shoulders, flickering like quiet fire.

But the most eye-catching thing was in its right hand.

It held a skull, and the skull burned with the same shadow fire, making it look alive even though it was not.

"So you were a healing priest, huh?"

Vivian muttered as he looked at the figure.

He did not need to ask anyone.

After turning someone into a Revenant, he could know almost everything about them, their nature before death, their memories, even the emotions they carried at their last moment.

The headless shadow knelt down.

"I greet the master," a voice said.

But the voice did not come from the shadowy body.

The voice came from the skull it was holding.

Vivian gave a small nod. He did not look surprised at all.

"State your name," he ordered.

The figure did not move. Only the skull spoke again.

"I do not have a name."

Vivian thought for a short moment.

Then he said, "From today onward, you shall be called Blabbermouth."

"As you wish, master," the skull replied in an obedient tone.

Hearing the new name, Vined suddenly burst into loud laughter.

But his laughter stopped at once when his father-in-law smacked him on the back of the head.

"Behave yourself," the older man said with a stern voice.

"Yes, Father," Vined muttered, lowering his head as everyone turned to look at him.

Vivian chuckled.

His father really had bad luck when it came to getting hit.

His wife had beaten him a few days ago, and now his father-in-law hit him too.

He looked so pitiful that Vivian almost

felt sorry for him, almost.

Nevertheless, Vivian straightened his back as he spoke.

"As you can see, this is one of the abilities of my intuition. Through this, I can gain all the memories of everyone I turn into a Revenant."

As he said this, his eyes shifted toward a few officials.

There was a small hint of mockery in his gaze when he looked at them.

Those officials quickly moved their eyes away, pretending they had not been looking at him at all.

Vivian did not bother to look at them again.

He simply turned his head forward and continued,

"So this is how I came to know that our empire is in danger."

He walked a few steps forward, and the Revenant he had just created sank quietly into his shadow, vanishing as if it had never been there.

Now that Vivian had revealed these things, the hall grew strangely silent.

Some people looked pale, as if their hearts had dropped.

Some people kept the same expression as before, but their eyes showed they were thinking very hard.

Even with all this tension, Vivian did not stop.

He walked toward the speaker’s seat, where the first Revenant was still kneeling, waiting without moving.

Slowly, the hall returned to its earlier calm, though a cold feeling still floated in the air.

Vivian reached the kneeling figure and gently placed his hand on its head, where the shadowy fire burned quietly.

"This little guy is called Heartless," Vivian said with a small smile.

"Pretty cool, right?"

He had named this Revenant Heartless because the professor had always shown very little emotion when he was alive.

And when Vivian learned the reason behind that cold behavior, he felt that this name fit him perfectly.

"Heartless was created from Professor Garhard," Vivian said.

The moment those words left his mouth, everyone in the hall drew a sharp breath.

They had not recognized the death knight at all.

Most of them thought it was Kafrik Tramplin’s death knight, because the aura it released was at the level of a 5th-star warrior.

No one expected Vivian to turn the professor into a death knight.

It wasn’t that such a thing was impossible.

From what he had shown, everyone assumed that Vivian needed to kill someone before turning them.

But Vivian had purposely hidden the other abilities of his intuition so that if any spies were present, they wouldn’t understand his true power.

Vivian raised his hand slightly.

"Now I will prove how the empire is in danger," he said.

He then gestured toward the death knight.

"Heartless, speak."

"As you command, master."

Heartless rose from his kneeling position and turned toward the hall.

His voice was cold and calm.

"Before I died, I worked for an organisation called Dawn."

The hall instantly exploded into whispers.

"Dawn? What is that?"

"Did you ever hear about it?"

"No, never. What kind of group is it?"

The officials leaned toward each other, talking in low voices, confusion spreading across the hall.

Vivian tapped the speaker’s desk lightly, and his voice cut through the noise.

"Ladies and gentlemen, all your questions will be answered if you allow Heartless to explain."

The murmurs faded as everyone focused on the death knight again, waiting for the truth that was about to unfold.

Vivian gave a small nod, letting Heartless continue.

Heartless raised his head slightly, his voice steady and flat.

"I do not have the memories of how I came to be."

A wave of gasps moved through the hall.

The words were simple, but the meaning behind them was heavy.

People wanted to ask questions, but nobody dared to break the silence.

It felt like the whole room was holding its breath.

"I had one job," Heartless said.

"To rise through the ranks of the empire and report everything I saw."

He spoke slowly, giving everyone time to follow.

He told them how he had trained from a three-star warrior, how he worked hard until he became a Swordmaster, and how he finally earned a place as a professor at Akron Academy.

Every step he took was part of the mission he had been given long ago.

"I was then sent to help Duke Tramplin," Heartless continued.

"And Duke Tramplin’s first order was to kill my master."

The hall trembled with shock.

People stared at each other with wide eyes, unable to believe what they were hearing.

A Swordmaster who had fought in many battles, trusted by so many, had been a spy the entire time.

The truth felt like a cold wind running through the room.

As the whispering grew louder, Vivian stepped in.

His voice cut through the noise.

"Heartless... on whose orders were you spying?"

Everyone fell silent again.

This was the question that mattered most. The answer could change everything.

It could reveal the hidden hand behind the chaos, the reason their empire was in danger.

Heartless did not take long to answer.

There was no fear, no rush, only calm acceptance.

He slowly turned his head toward the hall.

"Before I died," he said, "my master was someone called... Clown."