Einder Bloodline

Chapter 9: Impending Danger

In the Royal Capital, a man wearing the same heavy armor that he used back then to report to the emperor about the mysterious light was once again nervously walking back along with one of the many hallways of the Royal Castle. His back was drenched and his forehead showing no signs of forming cold sweat from stopping.

He had just received a report. The eastern continent is now in chaos after being surprised with a rebellion that had the intention to usurp their control over the area by attacking almost all of the important points all at once. The Empire has almost little to no control over the situation. The leader of the rebellion was called Ye Chen, The clan head of the Chen Clan. His whole clan apparently went missing 100 years ago back when sudden purges were occurring throughout the empire. They too must've felt the danger of them being next. In fact, they were supposed to have been exterminated as they were on the termination list.

After a long time, nobody really thought of them too much as they ran with their tails tucked between their legs, the problem now was with them suddenly coming out from hiding and breaching the Eastern Capital’s defenses within a single day. But if that was the only issue, then they wouldn't be much of a problem as the empire could just send a massive army to quell the rebellion. The problem was that it was not only the Eastern Continent who had a problem with rebellions, in fact, even the Northern Continent territories were also showing signs of a revolution, combining it together with the increase of monster activity on the Western Continent, it was also only a matter of time before the empire is once again plunged into chaos.

And right now, this very man was tasked to report all these to the emperor. Not to mention the failure of the previous assignment regarding the pillar of light, and to think that even the previously exterminated Shadow Lurkers were actually hiding a descendant!

As the man slowly walked into the large and luxurious throne room, he saw the emperor in deep thought. He then slowly knelt and made a knightly salute. "LeBran Hanz Brintin Emperor, Son of the Heavens, Almighty Monarch, Ruler of the Five Continents, Liberator of th-" Brian was again stopped by the emperor's hand midway. "By the look on your face, I can tell that you're about to tell me bad news, am I wrong?"

"Y-you aren't wrong Emperor." Brian then nervously told the emperor of the previous incidents. As he was doing so he seemed to notice the emperor getting impatient as if he was expecting something from what he was saying. When he finished, the emperor told him to leave. Just right after he left the room, his whole body suddenly went soft. He could still remember the pressure that he felt as the emperor was emitting tremendous killing intent. He knew that the killing intent wasn't pointed at him. Still, he couldn't help but feel the shivers as he remembers the emperor's smile. His smile was not of a human, he would always think of it as a monster's every time.

He still remembered the time back when the emperor was still the crown prince. At a young age, the young prince had achieved tremendous merits. He had led a mere 100 men army into a monster horde outbreak in the south. You might think it foolish but, hell no! If you, for once ever looked down on the young prince, then you'd be digging your own grave. At that time Brian was one of the soldiers that the prince had managed to rescue.

Back then, he had secretly vowed himself that one day he would return the favor. How could he not do it after he saw the terrifying power that the emperor showed? His single strike had managed to wipe off more than a hundred monsters.

On the Western Continent, however, Cray was still unconscious. This time he was now wearing proper clothes. He was lying down on a neat looking bed and was actually sleeping peacefully. He had overworked his body back when he had to run for his own life, and now that he was unconscious all the fatigue made him enter a state of deep sleep. Stan, on the other hand, was sitting vigilantly across Cray while constantly looking at the window he was playing around with his black colored dagger engraved with some silver linings that seemed to form some kind of unintelligible characters.

When Stan carried Cray around, he first stole some garments that came from the various merchants that sold them for Cray to have at least something decent to wear before eventually entering another district by manipulating the shadows as he tried to mix in along with the citizens only to enter an inn on the edges of Zone 3. Right now, they were disguised as travelers and went with the setting of being drunkards that had to stay for the night.

With that, Stan had fooled the owner of the inn as he played his role well and told him that Cray was so drunk that he passed out before paying the owner well. Stan had already bought food for two people that are good for at most 7 days of continuous traveling. He bought this much even if the trip should only take them about three days if he used the normal means currently available. However, since he was not that sure of any possible hold-ups that might occur, he at least had to be prepared. Considering that they should have enemies looking for their trails.

Stan was looking at Cray and he whispered under his breath. "You better make this worth it..." He then changed his line of sight towards the shadows that seemed to be monitoring them the moment they had entered the building. He didn't think that they were affiliated with the empire because if they are then they would've already been surrounded by a ton of enemy soldiers. He also took various deception techniques to change Cray's and his own facial features. He even copied the look of well-known rank 2 citizens when he and Cray entered the zone.

After all, the guards wouldn't have let them in peacefully if they didn't show any badge to prove their citizens rank. They also wouldn't be even let inside if the guard noticed that those badges were fake. But since they managed to get so far then it would only make sense that the empire still has no clues about their current whereabouts. Then by the process of elimination, the only possible reason that they were monitored was probably because of how they disguised themselves. "Thieves, huh? I haven't encountered them since the old days. This feels so nostalgic!"

Stan then decided to wait for the movement of the thieves. If they were to come here, then he would strike them. But if they were to make too much noise then the guards might be alerted and decide to come here. "Hmmm. Should I just assassinate them? But if I do so, I would have to leave this boy here all alone. Explaining to him might also be hard if he woke up when I'm still not back, and it would also be bad if he were to see me stabbing away at the enemy when they come here by themselves.

When he was facing the agony between doing his duty, Cray woke up. The first thing that he had noticed was that he was so tired. His body, despite being trained hard, had been aching nonstop. So, the moment that he realized how comfortable it was to remain lying down on the bed, he unconsciously kept his eyes closed as he engrossed himself at the softness of the bed that was still inviting him to dreamland. Then he noticed it, this bed was too soft! He never had a bed like this, in fact, this was his first time sleeping on a bed this soft that instead of making him relaxed, he became weary and tense. He was not used to this kind of luxury as lower-ranked citizens could never have had access to these kinds of goods. So, this sudden transformation made him all the more worried.

All of a sudden, the memories of what happened before he passed out flashed on his mind as the release of all the stress began to make him sweat bullets. His thoughts have, by now, already been settled, and taking into account the sheer strength of the woman who had abducted him, he began mentally preparing himself.

The last thing that he remembered was that he passed out when he turned around when he showed his back to the enemy. With these thoughts, he immediately thought about what he would do the moment he opened his eyes. However, merely using his sense of touch to cop a feel about the length and width of the mattress that he was lying on was not enough. He had to at least use his eyes to get a clue about his surroundings. That is when he decided to make a small slit on his right eye to take a look around.

He then saw a guard who was watching over him! He had also noticed the surroundings, the place looked too lavish to be a prison. This was clearly the overuse of the wealth that the nobles had! He was unsure whether to laugh or to cry at the difference of values that the nobles had. He thought that he surely might have been placed on a dark cellar with chains to tie him down or something.

When Cray opened his right eye, Stan, who had his senses heightened due to the fact that he was vigilant against the thieves that intended on coming over, had also noticed Cray waking up. His awkward sleeping position also gave away the fact that Cray must have been trying to pretend to be asleep while using this unique body position to take a glance at the surroundings. Stan was now wondering if he should say something so that he could explain things so that he could solve the current misunderstanding that Cray must have.

Cray, on the other hand, after noticing that he was only guarded by a single person, he felt that whoever decided to abduct him must have been either arrogant to use only one person for the job or confident enough that they could neglect the guard duties to just one person. He also took note of the fact that his body had seemed to be taken care off, with his clothing all the way to his bedsheets, it appeared that the person who intended to capture him did not have any intention to cause him immediate danger and this fact gave him a boost in confidence to make his escape plans.

After weighing in all of his possible choices, he had finally decided on a game plan and the moment when Stan made his way towards Cray was the chance that he was looking for.

"PUUUUNCH!" Cray shouted out while kicking at the direction of Stan’s groin. He tried to distract his opponent by shouting and doing different things at the same time, aside from that, he would also be kicking at one of the most vulnerable parts of the human body. Stan was, of course, able to block this sneak attack, but it had left him stupefied as he totally didn't expect Cray to be this aggressive, especially with his current situation. Cray then ran towards the door leaving Stan.

"Oh, young man it's dangerous to head out this late in the night. You're not going anywhere y'know?" There were voices of men that looked horrendous. With scars on their faces, they looked at Cray.