Once the silver-haired prankster felt that her throat was again in a serviceable condition, she spoke up while observing Iris and Abudha. "So, none of you have any way to contact Devil or Ambition?"
"I do not."
"Same."
"I see… Well, not that I don't believe you, but just in case you do have a way, please let both of them know that they have also passed the second round."
Neither of them knew how to exactly react to this strange request.
"… I would let them know if I had a way, but alas, I don't have one." Abudha replied after a bit of back and forth with his master through their telepathic connection.
"That's all that I ask for." Vex nodded cheerily.
What none of them were aware of was that Black Fang and her disciples knew a lot about Devil and his team already. Black Fang with her acute observations which were built upon centuries of gathering knowledge as well as experience recognized that he was much more than a shitty hybrid build while she was watching him fight in the first round.
They didn't know any exact details about him besides his supposed name, mostly because they halted their investigations, not wishing to awaken the hornet's nest - meaning they didn't want to spook him. He was a man that not even the ancient Black Fang understood. Just the fact that the age-measuring artifact said him to be 7 weeks old was something entirely unexpected, thus they couldn't anticipate what sorts of tricks he had up his sleeve.
Black Fang wanted to recruit him on good terms, not by force.
These high opinions of theirs regarding Quinlan were why Vex and Orianna found the fact that it was exactly this inexplicable man and his ally who were the ones that 'mysteriously' vanished from the face of Thalorind to be very suspicious.
However, they couldn't do much about it now without capturing these two and torturing them for information, something that was exactly in the 'awakening the hornet's nest' category of actions they didn't wish to take.
The original plan of Black Fang was to send all three disciples of hers on this mission with Vex being the examiner, Raika being the backup muscle, and Orianna being the observer who never let Devil get out of her sight. She had a similar amount of knowledge and experience to Black Fang, so the Obsidian Circle Member trusted Orianna to notice any small acute details she herself would, but Vex and Raika could potentially miss.
Soren's betrayal threw an ugly wrench into this plan of theirs. The truth was that they were just incredibly unlucky. Black Fang couldn't care less about other candidates, so she just randomly selected a few teams to acpany Devil on this mission (she threw Selene and Cedric into the mix because she found it funny since they almost killed each other in the first round. The ancient woman craved drama.) and the traitor just happened to be randomly selected, which resulted in three extreme heavy hitters descending on the team, which in turn forced not only Raika but Orianna as well to take the center stage, leaving Quinlan out of sight.
At the end of the day, it might be said that they came out of this endeavor empty-handed, but Orianna would vehemently disagree with that claim. They learned that Devil was truly the real deal; a man who could disappear in an abrupt manner without leaving even a semblance of a trail for them to follow.
Although Raika's short investigation time might make one think that her results should be considered inconclusive at best, but she was an amazing tracker in reality. Therefore, if she said with so much confidence that there were no signs of him, then both Orianna and Vex knew that he did something beyond simply running away swiftly. This finding of theirs only served to add another reason for them to give him space and wait to see what he would elect to do next.
…
- PoV: Quinlan -
My vision blurred momentarily as I got back to my reality when I ended the [Overlord's Eyes] spell.
Your next chapter awaits on empire
I gotta admit, this spell was so potent, so realistic that it almost gave me PTSD. I could feel everything Abudha's physical senses did. The only thing separating this from giving off the exact feeling as to what I had while being in the Iris childhood simulation - hence my PTSD - was that I didn't hear his thoughts, and thankfully, I could quit at any moment.
As for my observations regarding the conversation, I found it to be bittersweet, with both pros and cons.
I was happy to see Iris not betraying me as soon as she had the opportunity. While she was aware of my enslaving of Abudha, she didn't know that I was literally watching and listening to her every word, thus she could've snitched without my presumed knowledge as soon as the three strong disciples arrived. It seemed she was at the very least neutral toward me.
I was also glad to know that I was not knocked out of the Trials for this disappearance of mine and that I had an estimated two months to focus on other things. However, the way Vex acted didn't sit well with me. Why would she assume that either Abudha or Iris would have a way to municate with me? She had no reason to think they did.
Well, all she really did was give me an ominous feeling, and frankly, that woman was certainly a curious mental study so maybe I shouldn't be reading into this situation too much. After all, she waved hello at Soren's decapitated head… No normal person does that.
Once Selene and Cedric were healed I would send them back to the Consortium to sniff around as much as they could. Of course, first I would have a bit of fun with Selene, for no one gets off with simply being my eternal slave in exchange for almost killing me which would've likely seen my entire team be overrun and eliminated as well. No, she had to suffer a bit more for my heart to settle down, finally feeling that justice had been meted out.
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