Chapter 244: Look Into Her?

I frowned slightly, realizing I had no idea where Dante had gone after entering. There were no spare seats left, so where did he sit? Or maybe he was just standing in the middle of the hall, completely invisible to all of us, like some smug ghost enjoying the awkward silence.

The Emperor’s fingers finally stopped tapping.

“Thank you all for coming,” he said, his voice deep and composed, slicing clean through the heavy air. “I know the hour is early, but the situation demands urgency.”

Everyone straightened a little. Even those who looked calm a moment ago were now tense and alert. You could hear the subtle rustling of robes and armor as everyone adjusted themselves for what was coming.

“The shadows are moving again,” the Emperor continued. “Our intelligence have confirmed that forces from the World of Peanu have been active in our territories. Not openly—but they’re here.”

Murmurs broke out. A few of the grandmasters exchanged glances. No one asked how he knew. If the Emperor said it, it was as good as truth.

“And that’s not all,” he added, letting the silence return before continuing. “We’ve now confirmed the existence of three teleportation anchors tied to the realm young Ironhart mentioned in his report.”

That caught everyone’s attention. My eyes narrowed. So the Holts had gone that far already.

“One of those anchors lies just outside the Eastern Continent, hidden under the guise of an abandoned mining site,” the Emperor went on. “Another has been traced to a merchant compound in the Western Continent—legally owned by a Holt subsidiary. The third… is within the Central Continent.”

That last sentence hit like a slap.

I looked around. Everyone else did too, but no one spoke. The silence became suspicious. Accusations floated in the air unspoken. Someone in this room was sleeping while the enemy built gates right under our nose.

The Emperor’s gaze scanned across the room slowly. “We will act. The Holts have gone too far.”

And just like that, I knew this meeting would decide whether this Empire still had a spine left… or not.

The Emperor continued speaking.

“We were expecting more intelligence from that young man, Billion, but he hasn’t contacted us since. We can only hope he is safe.”

Even I was worried about Billion. I had told him the communicator could be used multiple times, but we’d only heard from him once.

“He’s alive.”

A raspy voice echoed through the hall. It was Dante. I turned to look at the Emperor, who simply nodded.

“That’s good to hear, Dante. What about the Contractors?”

A few seconds of silence passed before the same hoarse voice spoke again.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t found any sign that the Contractors have arrived in Vaythos. We don’t even know which world or organization they belong to. Maybe they’re just pretending to be the Contractors.”

The Emperor nodded slowly.

“I understand.”

He paused, then spoke again.

“I’ve called this meeting to inform you that we only have three weeks before the Ferans arrive. I’m sure you all understand how important this is.”

I was shocked to hear that. I quickly asked, “But Emperor, weren’t they supposed to come in two months? That was the date I negotiated with them. How could they just change it—and why wasn’t I informed?”

Lucien Rayleigh looked straight at me and answered, “One of the clan leaders contacted me directly.”

I was stunned—and I wasn’t the only one.

The Emperor went on, “She said, for some reason, they need to bring the meeting forward.”

He tilted his head and added, “And she said she doesn’t understand your way of talking, so she reached out to me directly.”

My mouth dropped open, then I awkwardly coughed to cover it. I knew exactly who that clan leader was. I’d tried flirting with her once, even wrote a poem. Apparently, I was rejected—brutally.

I managed to say.

“There must be some misunderstanding, Emperor. I’ll look into it.”

Suddenly, Dante’s hoarse voice cut through the room.

“Look into it—or look into her?”

I gritted my teeth, wishing I could see the hateful man’s face.

The Emperor ignored the comment and continued, “I’m sure the Ferans have a good reason to speed up the schedule. They must know something we don’t.”

He turned toward the grandmaster in charge of intelligence and said, “Gabriel, I’ll leave this task to you. Inform me immediately if you find anything.”

Gabriel Rocks was a thin, old man who always dressed like a scholar, but he was one of the most cunning people I’d ever met. I didn’t like him personally, but he was good at what he did.

He nodded respectfully. “Yes, Emperor.”

Then the Emperor turned his gaze toward the Military General.

“Cassian, what’s the situation with the Abominations and Phantoms? Anything unusual?”

Cassian Dorey—the General of the entire Imperial Army—sat up straighter. The man was old, yes, but built like a beast. He looked more like a mountain of muscle than a human being. His presence always filled the room with a strange kind of pressure. Even his Law-based techniques were brutal and designed for large-scale slaughter.

He spoke in a rough, gravelly voice that seemed to shake the air.

“Everything is unusual, Emperor. As I mentioned in my last report, the number of Abominations and the frequency of their attacks have risen sharply. And the Phantoms… they’re more active than ever.”

He paused, his face tightening.

“Especially in the Western Continent. They’ve been hitting our bases nonstop. We had to pull troops from the Central Continent just to hold the line there.”

Everyone in the hall leaned in slightly. We all knew the Western Continent had always been unstable, but if even Cassian was this tense, then it was worse than usual.

“But that’s not the worst part,” he continued. “The real problem is the Holt family. Their attitude has been openly provocative—reckless, even. It’s like they want us to act against them. Like they’re trying to force the Empire’s hand.”

My brows furrowed as I listened.

“And if what that young soldier said is true,” Cassian added, “if the Holts really are experimenting on Abominations, then this new wave of attacks… may have their fingerprints all over it.”

A heavy silence fell over the room.

I looked at the Emperor. He hadn’t spoken, but I could read the turmoil in his eyes. Calm on the outside, but I knew he was weighing every word, every possibility, like a blade in his mind.

The last time we went to war, we lost two entire continents. Not figuratively—literally. Those lands were gone and the people there lost forever. And now… this time… it felt even worse.

Every war we fought only made the Eternals stronger. Every death on the battlefield was another soul for them to harvest—another drop of power feeding those monsters hiding beyond our world.

But if we didn’t fight… we’d lose our freedom. We’d become nothing more than puppets, strung up and controlled by the same dark forces that were guiding the Holts from behind the scenes.

The Emperor finally broke the silence.

“Their provocations don’t matter. We’ll strike them when it suits us, not when they demand it. Until then, have our soldiers hold discipline. No unnecessary fights. No major escalations.”

His voice was calm, measured. But there was steel in every word.

Then he turned slightly toward General Cassian and asked, “What about our preparations for the secret realm? Are we ready?”

Cassian gave a firm nod.

“Yes, Emperor. Everything’s in place. The moment we locate the realm or find a portal that leads to it, we can launch the invasion.”

The Emperor looked ahead again, this time directing his words to the seemingly empty space that housed one very specific presence.

“Dante, can you retrieve any one of the three teleportation circles we’ve identified?”

The hall was silent for a moment, then the familiar hoarse voice echoed through the space, dry and distant.

“I believe it would be wiser to wait. We should hear from the boy again before making a move and alerting the Holts that we know.”

The Emperor leaned slightly forward.

“Why?”

There was no hesitation in Dante’s reply.

“Because he has evolved to Master rank.”

The air went still. No one said a word.

Dante hadn’t really answered the Emperor’s question—at least not directly. But he had just told us something even more important.

Billion was alive and not just surviving… but thriving.

He’d become a Master-ranked warrior. Already.

Not even half a year had passed since he began his probation, and he had climbed that high. That fast.

I looked toward the Emperor and saw a flicker of something rare—something we almost never saw from him. A subtle smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

He nodded slowly and said, “I understand. Then we’ll wait for his reply.”

And just like that, the conversation moved on—but in my heart, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a while.

Hope.

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