Legacy of the Dark Sage

After Filren reported to Aran, he was severely punished for his failure.

Filren was sent to the torture chamber to receive his punishment. However, before receiving his punishment, he was forced to summon and surrender his Divine Armament. Doing this ensured that he could not use his magic energy to endure the punishment.

It should be noted that Divine Armaments allowed a complete being to generate magic energy naturally. With a natural magic energy replenishing ability, complete beings could strengthen their defenses and healing abilities in dire situations.

Regarding the rest of the knights that also escaped, they also received punishment similar to Filren. They were not as severe as the latter. Instead, after being whipped a hundred times, they would be sent to the palace courtyard in the morning completely naked to endure the heat of the blazing sun.

Aran sat on his throne with a dark expression. He tapped his finger impatiently on the side arm of the high back chair, the sound amplifying the tense atmosphere inside the Throne Room.

Kneeling before him in an orderly manner were the rest of the Royal Family members, including most of the Heir candidates. There were a few who were not there because they were outside the capital. But like everyone else, they received Aran's summon and were on their way back.

A middle-aged man in a red and blue suit, whose appearance bore the same features as Achim, except he looked older, was at the forefront.

This man was Achim and Kesiah's father, Ravan.

Unlike the tense expression that most of the family members behind him wore, Ravan remained calm.

They were already aware of Achim and Kesiah's rebellion and felt indignant. They were not even involved; why did King Aran have to summon them?

The Heir candidates, in particular, felt wronged because King Aran withdrew every Knight assigned to them in case some of them decided to use them to rebel against him as well.

After an unnervingly long silence, Aran finally spoke.

"Have you talked to your son and daughter recently?"

Obviously, his question was not meant to check if Ravan knew about Achim and Kesiah's ploy but a satirical one.

"I haven't," Ravan responded calmly. Not one bit fazed about the question's real intention.

Everyone inside felt their breaths caught in their throat at Ravan's blatant feigned innocence. They could not help but curse at him inwardly for trying to provoke Aran.

The tapping sound that echoed through the throne room abruptly stopped, resulting in a deafening silence. A silence that would make anyone hear a pin drop

Each family member immediately controlled their breathing in fear of breaking the silence and causing Aran's silent wrath to explode on them. 

The silence stretched, resulting in everyone— except Ravan, to feel agitated.

Just when everyone was about to go insane from the silence, someone let out an exasperated sigh.

All of them paled because it did not come from the King. Instead, it was Ravan!

"What is the point of calling everyone here?" Ravan asked while raising his head to look at Aran. "To show young dominance?"

Aran looked at Ravan from where he sat. But since the curtains were only slightly drawn, no one could clearly see his expression.

Ravan stood up, which made the two Knights standing on each side of the bottom of the platform where the high back chair was to look at him.

"I do not want to go along with your powerplay. As for the matter with my son and daughter, do what you deem fit. I will not get in your way."

After saying his piece, Ravan turned to leave. He did not even bother to wait for Aran to speak and directly exited the throne room.

The moment the two massive doors to the throne room closed, the whole room rumbled as an immensely ominous pressure fell down on each family member inside.

Their faces paled further as their bodies almost hit the floor.

*Cough* *Cough*

However, before the pressure could reach its highest point, Aran coughed, and the pressure abruptly stopped.

Because of the embarrassment of showing his weakness, Aran's temper escalated further as he bellowed, "Gather all your forces! I don't care how you do it, but I want Achim and the rest of the rebels in that fort dead as soon as possible!"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"GO!"

All of the family members stood up and left in a hurry.

"Mo!"

The knight on the right below the platform turned at once and knelt before Aran.

"Give me your order, My King."

"Take a battalion and go to the Armakea border. Kill everyone there and take over jurisdiction."

"I will not fail you."

Mo left at once.

As another knight replaced Mo's position, Aran slammed his hand on the side arm of the chair, and the air around him crackled with his rising energy.

Frankly, Aran's anger was triggered by Ravan rather than Achim and Kesiah's rebellion or Filren's failure. As much as he wanted to subdue Ravan, he could not touch him. It was not because he held a small filial affection toward Ravan because they were brothers, but because, at the moment, the latter had the strength to kill him.

Nevertheless, with Ravan's righteous character, he would defy Aran's unreasonable excursions and orders but would never lay a hand on him. Because to Ravan, subduing a sick person was wrong.

"Ravan... Ravan... I'll have my way with you soon!"

In the next couple of days, Kesiah and her group arrived at the fort. She was already aware of the situation and also agreed to retreat back to the border. However, instead of taking everyone, she suggested leaving a few behind to operate the traps and reduce the King's forces.

Since the Servants knew that Kyran wanted to turn every Armakean Knight into his subordinate, Gael suggested letting his Shadow Minions stay. At least they had the ability to blend into the shadows and escape when the worst-case scenario happened.

Now, the only problem was how they could take their prisoners back to the border while preventing them from suddenly turning against them.

Noir initially suggested using a transmission array to transport all of them to the border. This suggestion was welcomed by Malek, Nahir, Sigma, and most of the fort leaders since it would reduce their time travel.

However, Achim, Gael, and Kesiah rejected this simply because the time it would take to create a transmission array would take some time. Apart from this, the materials required and resupplying the magic energy to activate the array again took up a lot of resources. Although Noir was willing to provide most of the materials, as well as the spirit stones still in their possession, Achim, Gael, and Kesiah believed those resources could be used in another way.

The others agreed with their line of thought, which left them again with no option.

But then Layla reminded them that her mark was still inside the prisoners' bodies, which meant she could easily command them to move and follow them to the border.

There were pros and cons to allowing Layla to use her mark, but with little to no option left, they could only compromise.

Layla would be allowed to command the prisoners, but she would have to keep her restraints, with Malek keeping a close eye on her. She agreed readily to their terms. But she told them it was not really necessary because she really wanted to talk to Kyran.

With nothing else keeping them from moving out of the fort, they gathered everything and left immediately.

While this happened, Nachum returned from his seclusion and finished his preparation to ascend.

However, because Ames and True Void were occupied with expediting Kyran's recovery, Nachum could only wait until they were done before he could attempt the ascension.

In the afternoon, however, one of Gael's Shadow Minions, he left near the border, arrived to report what happened in the fort.

Now that Nachum had left his seclusion, he took over the decision-making and had everyone who remained in both Armakea and Eidum HQs to prepare.

Nachum's decision to have them prepare was prompted by a bad inkling he had. He might not know the King of Armakea personally, but one thing he was sure of was the latter hated failure.

If Nachum's bad inkling were right, the King of Armakea would not target the fort alone but also the Armakea border because it was under Kesiah's jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, Nachum checked back on Cyneah, whose complexion showed she had fully recovered. Her assistants no longer gave her the blood-replenishing pill because it was no longer needed, but they continued to use their magic energies to replenish her weak energy.

Nachum dismissed Oded, currently looking after Cyneah, before closing the door. He stood by her bedside and sighed before saying, "I do not know what happened between you and Nar, but avoiding him is not the answer."

Silence ensued before a tear slowly fell from the corner of Cyneah's eyes.

Slowly, her eyes opened as she said, "I'm scared to face him, Abbot... especially after he saw the ugly side of myself."