Chapter 165: 165. Vicious Scheme

“I think our goals of revenge seem to be aligning,” Maximus spoke, his voice came out steadily.

Ethan’s eyes narrowed immediately. He leaned forward slightly and studied Maximus’s face with renewed intensity.

“How?” Ethan asked.

Maximus did not answer immediately. His serious eyes glimmered faintly as he searched for the right way to phrase his thoughts, then he asked instead, “Do you know about the seven-eyed demon lord?”

Ethan’s brows furrowed. His gaze shifted slightly to the left and became unfocused, as a memory he had tried to bury clawed its way back to the surface.

The day of the Bloody Tears incident in the opera town.

The air had been covered with smoke and blood. Several demons had appeared that day, viciously tearing through people.

Among them had been one who stood apart, that demon was issuing commands calmly until his master clashed with him eventually.

That demon had called himself a general of Demon Lord Kylark. Ethan remembered leaving a scar on his master’s face, which had taken days to fade.

Ethan remembered the armor that the demon wore clearly. He had forced himself to remember it. Etched into the dark metal had been a symbol that haunted him even now.

Seven eyes.

Ethan’s jaw tightened as the memory burned fresh again.

“Demon Lord Kylark,” Ethan muttered, the name tasting bitter on his tongue.

“Yes, Demon Lord Kylark,” Maximus nodded.

Ethan’s attention snapped back to him, sharper than before.

“In his letter, the Eternal Sovereign asked me to prove my worth,” Maximus continued. Ethan listened with complete, unwavering focus now, his earlier anger was replaced by a cold, grim expression.

“He wanted me to bring the heads of those who killed my mother as a sacrifice,” Maximus said. His eyes burned as he spoke, his calm that he had maintained till now was finally cracking.

“And it turns out Duchess Sinclair has been colluding with Demon Lord Kylark’s cult in the shadows,” Maximus added.

“Wait a minute !!!” Ethan voiced sharply, alarm flashed across his face as realization slammed into him like a storm.

“Yes,” Maximus let out a strained, almost hysterical laugh. “It seems the Kylark cult contacting me was not a coincidence.”

Ethan’s hands began to shake slightly. He clenched them into fists, then loosened them again, trying to steady himself as the pieces fell into place.

“It seems the duchess prepared a very deep scheme to ruin my life completely, once and for all,” Maximus said. His lips trembled despite his effort to remain composed. Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes, threatening to spill.

His voice cracked and pitch elevated as the weight of everything he had endured finally broke through. “What the hell have I done to deserve all this?”

The question escaped him in a raw, broken cry, one he had been holding back ever since he received the letter from the Eternal Sovereign, which made him realize that he was just a pawn on the duchess’s board.

His shoulders shook as the restraint he had forced upon himself collapsed, and the unflinching calm facade he had been putting on faded.

Ethan shivered.

The scale of the conspiracy sent a chill through his spine. He ran both hands roughly through his hair and sank into a chair beside the table.

“How can someone be so evil?” Ethan murmured, more to himself than to Maximus.

His heart pounded as his mind raced through the sequence of events, lining them up one by one with grim clarity.

First, Duke Sinclair took in a wife of common birth, something completely against his known values. The man was infamous for his obsession with noble blood, he even openly showed disdain for those of common blood, he deemed them inferior.

Then that commoner woman gave birth to Maximus.

Almost a decade later, Maximus’s mother was killed by the duchess using some mysterious poison. Maximus grew up under her roof, exploited, abused, stripped of dignity, and deprived of any form of protection.

Then eventually, when Maximus fell in love with the daughter of his maid.

The duchess killed the maid and sent men after Lia, breaking Maximus’s mind and pushing him toward desperation. And then, at his lowest point, the Kylark cult appeared, offering revenge in exchange for loyalty to the demon lord.

Ethan felt sick. At this point, he thought that everything had been planned by the duchess, Maximus’s whole life would be just a puppet show for that crazy woman.

He could hardly believe the depth of the scheme, how carefully every step had been laid out.

He could only imagine what would have happened to Maximus if not for the letter from the Eternal Sovereign.

“I am sure she wanted to frame me as someone colluding with the Kylark cult and ruin my mother’s image,” Maximus said, his voice was quieter now, hollow as if his life had been sucked out completely.

“How can someone fall so far just for the sake of power?”

“No,” Ethan replied firmly. His gaze shifted from the space ahead and locked onto Maximus. “I think her intentions were much worse.”

Maximus looked up slowly.

“The duchess already has Duke Sinclair in her hands,” Ethan continued. “Edward is almost guaranteed to be the heir of the house. I think her real intention behind this scheme was far more sinister.”

He leaned forward, and his expression turned dark. “I think she planned to make you commit horrible acts while dangling the promise of revenge in front of you. And that is just one possibility. There are countless ways she could have exploited the situation.”

Ethan felt another chill crawl up his spine as the potential outcomes formed in his mind.

Maximus’s expression worsened further. He clenched his hands tightly on his knees and stared at the floor, as if searching for some escape from the situation.

The silence stretched between them and was heavy and suffocating for both of them.

“Sure,” Ethan finally said, “I will help you.”

Maximus looked up instantly, his eyes wide and wet. “Really?”

Ethan nodded.

“But,” Ethan added, raising a hand slightly.

Maximus stiffened. “What?”

“We need to take William’s help, no matter what,” Ethan said.

The color drained from Maximus’s face.

“No matter how much I hate saying this,” Ethan continued, “when it comes to going against demon cults, William has far more experience than I do. He has a mysterious and powerful master, and he has entered the Abyss before.”

Ethan took a breath, steadying himself. “And since your talent involves enslaving, it is best to enslave demons. The degree of hatred I have seen in William’s eyes for demons, he will not refuse to help you.”

“William did what?” Maximus shouted, shock breaking through his despair.

“Shh,” Ethan immediately hushed him, “don’t tell this to anyone.”

“William made a bet with my master, and he won,” Ethan said quietly.

“With the Sword Saint?” Maximus’s shock doubled. “And he won?”

Ethan’s face twitched, he had deliberately left out the humiliating part of him challenging William for a duel.

“Yes,” Ethan replied, exhaling slowly. “He asked for a lot of potions, healing items, and an Abyssal Node entry pass from my master.”

He continued, “William may not have told anyone, but whenever that pass is used, the issuer is notified.”

“A few days before the academy trials,” Ethan said, “my master was informed that his entry pass had been used at the Abyssal entry node.”

Maximus stared at him in disbelief.

“William entered the Abyss and came out alive,” Ethan said.

“And he dealt with an Ascension-ranked half-demon himself,” he added, his teeth ground together in frustration.

“That bastard is running too deep,” Ethan muttered in frustration. “So no matter how grim the whole situation might be, having his help will never be a waste.”

Maximus swallowed hard. “And how are we supposed to talk to him?” he asked tensely. “If even you, someone this calm, flared up and punched me, won’t William just gut me the moment he hears I almost swallowed a demonic seed?”

The fear in Maximus’s voice was unmistakable now.

Ethan looked at him and said, “Just stay behind me the whole time, I guess.” His face twitched, looking at the fearful Maximus.

He himself didn’t fear William since he had done nothing to antagonize him, but clearly Maximus had seen William torture Voring during the trials, and his fear was not unreasonable.

He had no idea how William would take all this, he just hoped that things remained peaceful between them.

***

Meanwhile, the Celestial Army, along with the leaders of the various races, arrived at the location Duke Rizwell had shared.

High above the ground, the group hovered in the air, their gazes fixed on the underground complex below. From this height, the base looked disturbingly similar to an ant colony, its tunnels and chambers sprawling in an unnatural pattern beneath the surface.

Rizwell stepped forward and began explaining what had transpired to everyone.

He spoke calmly and methodically, recounting the discovery of the base and the involvement of the Eternal Sovereign.

His tone betrayed no hesitation. The years of experience had made him adept at controlling both his words and his face.

He deliberately omitted his elder son’s betrayal from the account. He also left out the oath he had sworn to the Eternal Sovereign.

Revealing a shift in his allegiance would have been suicide for him and his house. He also didn’t reveal the existence of Viridian, aka Green Raven, to these people.

“So you are saying the Eternal Sovereign demanded a thousand heads of cultists as a sacrifice in exchange for your son’s life,” Marcus asked carefully, his eyes never left Rizwell’s as if trying to peer deep into his soul.

Rizwell nodded.

Damian stepped in, his expression tightened as he processed the implications.

“That number matches the exact count of cultists that had been stationed across these bases,” he said. “It is almost as if the Eternal Sovereign already knew the precise distribution. That suggests that the eternal sovereign and his organization had insider-level intelligence about the Clayman cult.”

A wave of unease passed through the gathered leaders.

“So it seems someone has a clear advantage over us and everyone when it comes to intelligence,” Andrea said lowly.

“And more than that,” she continued, “the Eternal Sovereign’s most significant actions so far have involved sharing intelligence so precise that it never came out to be false. That alone suggests the presence of a fully established organization working under him at a scale we must not underestimate.”

“Not just an organization,” Xaeroth, the Dragon Emperor, interjected grimly. Sweat gathered faintly at his temples as a memory surfaced. “The people under him are powerful.”

He paused, recalling the sensation of being frozen midair. “That White Raven used a space element to restrain me earlier when I challenged him. I could not even move an inch.”

The admission drew sharp looks from the others.

“A space user of that level serving under someone else,” Xaeroth continued, “means this faction is anything but weak.”

Rominus exhaled slowly, his expression darkening. “Then we can safely assume this is not a minor force operating in the shadows,” he said.

“From this point on, their existence will influence every major decision we make.”

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