William arrived outside the imperial palace of the Eternal Sun Empire late into the night after the eting with Duke Rizwell had finally co to an end.
By the ti everyone had finished discussing the final details and future arrangents, the moon had already climbed high into the dark sky. Both sides had agreed to hold another eting a few weeks later, giving each party enough ti to prepare properly.
Until then, there was a lot of work to be done.
The Draconis family needed to arrange the infrastructure and organizational requirents from their side, while the cult needed to begin planning matters related to production, branding, and pricing for the products they intended to introduce into the market.
The next eting would be even more important than today’s.
That discussion would determine everything left over to finally get into action.
William stretched his arms lazily as he walked through the palace corridors. He took a deep breath and allowed himself to relax.
A faint smile appeared on his face as he thought back to Emily’s performance during the negotiations. He had been genuinely impressed.
If he had been sitting in her place, he would probably have accepted twenty-five percent and considered it a reasonable result.
However, Emily had shown absolutely no rcy during the discussion. She had slowly cornered Rizwell until the poor duke looked as if he had fought an exhausting war.
William almost felt a little sympathy for the man.
Still, sympathy only went so far.
If he was going to retain eighty-five percent of the profits, there was absolutely nothing for him to complain about.
"Such a productive day," William murmured to himself.
As he continued walking through the palace halls, he began noticing several unfamiliar faces among the servants and maids moving around.
So of them walked nervously while carrying supplies. Others quietly cleaned and organized the palace surroundings.
William observed them. Many of them seed new additions to his slaves as he sensed a mark of a slave on them. Others seed to be ordinary individuals.
He smiled faintly. It looked like their plans were progressing smoothly.
Now that Maris had departed to assist Emily with matters related to the guild, Grimlock had apparently taken over the interrogation duties of the spies. As for who was handling recruitnt and integrating new personnel into the palace, William honestly had no idea.
But since the Dawn Legion worked properly, it was fine.
He was quite exhausted right now. William’s first intention was to sleep and worry about everything else tomorrow.
Soon, he arrived outside his chamber.
The mont he stepped inside, he imdiately noticed the changes. His eyes slowly moved across the room.
Everything had been renovated.
The old bedsheets had been replaced by soft silk fabrics that looked far more luxurious than before. The curtains hanging beside the windows had changed completely, and even the wall decorations and furniture arrangent felt different.
The room felt much cozier than before.
A small smile appeared on his face.
The atmosphere felt strangely pleasant.
Walking toward his bed, William loosened the tight robes he had been wearing throughout the day and changed into soft blue night robes.
The comfortable fabric imdiately felt refreshing against his skin.
Afterward, he casually clapped his hands twice.
Within only a few seconds, the door of the bathroom opened up, and a maid walked out. She was wearing a black and white maid uniform.
William did not even look toward her.
"Once you are done with the cleaning, you should leave the room," he said casually. "Do not invade my privacy or try to peek."
The maid visibly trembled. She looked young and beautiful, and her voice carried a slight nervousness as she spoke.
"My lord... the empress instructed to attend to your nightly needs..."
William’s expression remained completely unchanged.
"Tell my mother that if she wants my nightly needs to be taken care of, she should send in Tamasya wearing a maid uniform."
The maid’s face imdiately froze. William simply continued speaking.
"You may leave now."
Then his eyes narrowed slightly.
"And do not lurk around my room longer than necessary from tomorrow; do your duties and leave."
His voice remained calm. "I can kill you, and nobody would know."
The maid’s face imdiately turned pale. She hurriedly bowed and quickly turned around, her breathing becoming noticeably uneven.
Just before she reached the exit, William spoke again.
"Light the candles and turn off the lamps before you leave."
Without daring to say another word, she hurriedly obeyed.
anwhile, William slowly walked toward the wide balcony beside his bed. His eyes imdiately noticed the transparent array covering the opening.
It was a barrier that prevented vision from the outside and blocked external objects from entering. Without such protection, having a balcony this large would practically destroy any sense of privacy.
William quietly looked outside.
The scenery beyond the palace appeared calm and peaceful beneath the moonlight. For so reason, strange thoughts started appearing in his mind while he looked at the silent night.
As the room gradually dimd and the lamps were extinguished one after another by the panicked maid, William simply stood there quietly and enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere.
The moonlight mixed with the flickering candlelight, creating a strangely comforting scene. For several monts, there was complete silence, and William remained lost in the serene atmosphere.
Suddenly, a cold wind passed through the room, and the candles flickered. Their flas swayed violently.
His eyes opened, but there was no change of expression on his face.
Suddenly, one by one, the candles were extinguished, and darkness swallowed everything in silence; there was nothing visible to normal eyes.
Then several sparks suddenly appeared within the darkness.
Tiny flashes created by tal striking together. Suddenly, a massive burst of light exploded within the room.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Several heavy sounds echoed at equal intervals before silence returned.
Click.
William calmly opened the lamp cover and reignited the candles one by one.
The room slowly beca illuminated again.
Sowhere nearby, a quiet dripping sound echoed repeatedly.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
But the slow dripping sounds were interrupted by a loud bang.
Bang!
The chamber doors burst open violently.
Anastasia, Samantha, and Tamasya rushed inside imdiately. All three of them had tense expressions.
A few minutes earlier, they had sensed multiple unknown presences entering William’s chambers and had imdiately rushed toward his location.
But what they saw here froze them.
While William stood peacefully beside the candles, calmly lighting them one after another.
He remained entirely unhard. Not even his robes possessed a single scratch.
The only problem was that the room behind had beco a complete slaughterhouse.
Blood covered the floor and walls. Pieces of flesh were scattered everywhere.
Several mutilated bodies lay across the room in horrifying conditions.
The atmosphere imdiately beca heavy.
"William!"
Anastasia rushed forward first. As a mother, relief instantly washed over her after seeing him unhard.
Yet concern remained on her face.
"It’s my fault," she said imdiately. "I should never have told you to accept spies among us. I severely underestimated their boldness."
William looked at her and let out a small sigh.
"Mom, this wasn’t done by the spies. I already have them under control."
His expression beca slightly serious.
"This was a completely external intervention."
Then he flicked his finger.
A bloodied dagger suddenly appeared in his hand.
"Soone sent these people here on a mission."
He examined the weapon briefly.
"They managed to infiltrate the palace because we currently lack personnel and sufficient security asures."
With another wave of his hand, several blood-stained storage rings appeared on the nearby table.
"I’ve already checked their possessions. They belonged to a private assassin organization and were supposedly commissioned to kill ."
"Or at least..."
"...that is what they want us to believe."
Anastasia stared at him before she gradually realized what he wanted to say.
"At this point," she said slowly, "everyone on Aris knows that you possess powerful backing and considerable strength to protect yourself from such assassins."
Her brows furrowed.
"Organizations operating at lower levels should never dare target you."
Suddenly, Tamasya spoke.
"This is a trap."
Everyone looked at her and nodded.
"But I still don’t understand," Samantha said while frowning. "What exactly are they trying to do?"
William looked down at the dagger he had been holding.
He casually dropped it onto the floor before snapping his fingers.
Stellar flas suddenly ignited.
Within monts, the scattered flesh and corpses and weapons disappeared into oblivion.
At the sa ti, blood scattered across the floor slowly began floating upward.
The crimson liquid gathered together and ford a wolf-shaped symbol in midair.
William looked at it calmly as he controlled the blood using blood affinity.
"The organization supposedly responsible for this assassination attempt calls itself the Crimson Wolves."
As he spoke, he took out a dallion from one of the storage rings.
Then he manipulated the floating blood once again, changing it into symbols representing four races.
"According to docunts found within their leader’s storage ring, this organization operates across the Riverdale Empire, Sky Break Empire, Klembred Empire, and Drakemore Empire."
He looked at everyone.
"They possess mbers from various races, but they are not a demonic organization. Their activities mainly involve assassinations and information exchange."
He paused briefly.
Then he shook his head.
"However..."
William narrowed his eyes.
"That is the information they want us to believe in."
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