Risa and Ariana circulated some of their mana to the bottom of their feet and let it pass into the ground.
Nero and Kerwin, both of whom had been planning to go unnoticed underground, felt the mana approaching them steadily.
Both of them immediately snapped to attention as they knew that their plan had been foiled.
"Damn it… Its her." Kerwin muttered under his breath while glaring at the ground above him.
Nero looked up simultaneously as well since both of them were quite familiar with the mana. Both Nero and Kerwin had felt the same mana in the past few years.
"Risa…" Nero mumbled before exchanging a glance with Kerwin. "I don't think staying under the ground is a good idea anymore."
"Oh you think?!" Kerwin exclaimed sarcastically. "It's the worst thing we could be doing right now!"
"You could have said that without that tone." Nero commented, his lips curling up slightly. "Well, good luck trying to escape on your own."
Kerwin blinked in confusion for a few seconds before realizing what Nero meant but by then, it had been too late.
Nero's body flickered right in front of Kerwin as the demon commander vanished and appeared right inside the secret glass box again.
Nero had already anticipated that something like this would happen so he had set an escape route for himself. He knew that the demi-human prince would be overconfident and had left him behind as a bait.
Kerwin was left baffled by this as he felt two pressures suddenly weighing him down. Only one of them belonged to Risa while the other was unknown to Kerwin.
"Kerwin, I thought that cursing one of your children would've made you understand that its useless to do anything against my family but I guess… I was wrong." Risa's voice whispered inside Kerwin's mind.
The demi-human prince felt his body slowly freezing up as he started rising towards the surface. Risa was looking at him with a cold expression above ground.
However, no sooner had Nero's head popped out of the ground that his body got stuck in the ground. He looked at Risa with a slightly terrified expression but she wasn't looking at him.
"Ariana…" Risa's eyes met with Ariana's as the two women came to a silent understanding.
The head of the Feuer family wrapped her mana around Kerwin and instead of yanking him to the surface, she created multiple magic circles around him.
Kerwin felt his consciousness slipping away as the magic circles seemed to suck his mana.
Ariana was deliberately doing that so she could conserve her own mana while making sure that Kerwin had no way of counterattacking them.
Zilan watched this from the sky with an emotionless expression on his face.
The prime minister knew that neither of the two women would pull the demi-human prince out in front of the public eye. He would be taken somewhere else, a place which Zilan had to know no matter what.
"Now after a short thirty minutes break, we will start the award ceremony followed by the senior competition!" Zilan suddenly announced as the crowd started to disperse.
Since there was an enormous crowd in the arena, some chaos had issued all around which Zilan decided to use as a perfect distraction to slip away.
Zilan hurriedly landed on the ground and whispered a few words inside Risa's ear.
"Teleport him to the hall used to enter the royal pavilion." Zilan muttered before taking off again and making his way to the room from earlier.
Nero would also be present in that room to discuss what they were going to do now. Zilan knew that if he didn't talk to the demon commander soon, things would be going wrong.
'Ugh brother, why did you have to force me into such a task?!' he cursed while slipping into an corner of the arena and directly teleporting inside the room.
Zilan saw Nero comfortably sitting on a couch with a bored expression.
'He knew that this would happen,' Zilan sighed mentally. He had already taken this into consideration long ago so he wasn't surprised by it.
"Looks like they managed to sense your presence quite easily. I don't think we will be successful in catching that child again," Nero commented, his eyes directly staring into Zilan's eyes. "Unless you have another plan."
"There is a plan that I had kept in backup in case anything went wrong." Zilan informed as he slowly approached Nero. "That plan is quite easy and has a hundred percent success rate."
"Oh?" Nero cocked an eyebrow in surprise. "Then why don't you reveal it?"
"The plan is to capture you." Zilan snapped his fingers while staring straight at Nero.
The demon commander didn't look the least bit surprised as a a silver magic circle appeared around his hands as well as his feet.
He silently stared at Zilan and watched the prime minister approach him. The hints of a smile were visible on Nero's face.
"My suggestion to you is that you should release me and let me go back home. Nothing would happen then and I will never mention that this incident happened." Nero suggested with a small smile.
"No, you are not getting out of this city. For the time being, I will send you to the royal palace." Zilan replied as he raised his right hand in front of Nero's face.
He touched the demon's forehead with his index finger whilst chanting something under his breath.
Nero continued to look at him with an amused look as though he didn't care one bit about himself getting captured.
'Humans never learn. His majesty told me so much however he was wrong about one thing,' Nero silently observed. 'This man is far too dangerous to be left alive.'
During the time Nero had spent with Zilan, he had realized how smart the prime minister was. He also felt that Zilan was being forced to do what he was doing.
If it was left upon him, he would've never allowed Nero or Kerwin to pass into the human territory.
Nero couldn't help but wonder what position the Vancouver kingdom would be in if Zilan was the king.
"Zilan, be prepared for the future." Nero suddenly declared at the last second before his body flickered rapidly.
The demon commander was then sent off to the royal palace situated in Troy, just in time for Risa and Ariana to arrive in the hall leading to royal pavilion alongside Kerwin.
Jason and Amber were also present with them, both of them having recovered completely.
"Where are we?" Amber questioned immediately after taking a glance at their new surroundings.
"We are in an area behind the pavilion created for the royal family." Ariana replied patiently, her eyes permanently fixed on Kerwin.
"What is he doing here, grandma?" Jason's eyes were also focused on Kerwin, being curious as to what the demi-human prince was doing there.
"We are wondering the same thing though I'm sure that he was here to capture Nora." Risa informed.
Jason had also thought of the same thing when he had first seen Kerwin appear beside the quartet just for a split second before all of them had vanished. But there was still something that didn't seem right.
How had Kerwin managed to get inside the arena and sneak underground without anyone noticing?
'System, do you think that it was an insider work?' Jason questioned curiously, knowing well that the system would agree with him.
However, the reply never came.
< The system voice can't answer the host until the upgrade is complete. >
< Time remaining: 25 minutes >
Seeing the system screens appear in front of him, Jason sighed audibly. Jason had never noticed the system's absence before as he did now.
The two of them had almost grown up together, talking and figuring things out together. Its absence seemed a bit unsettling to Jason at a time when he needed someone to talk with.
'Oh well…' Jason's eyes shifted away to Amber who chose the exact same moment to do it as well.
"How are you feeling?" she mouthed.
"Slightly bored," he replied honestly. "I wish something happens quickly."
"Me too."
That was the end of their conversation as Zilan finally arrived. The prime minister's eyes immediately shifted to Kerwin before looking at the two women warily.
"Follow me." He declared while turning around and walking away without looking back once.
Jason and Amber followed him on their grandmothers orders, the two women trailing behind them with Kerwin in between them.
The demi-human prince had his mouth shut close as he stared at Zilan's back with hatred.
'Did Zilan help him enter this place?' Jason couldn't help but wonder as Zilan suddenly stopped in front of an open black door.
"Come inside." He spoke once again before entering the room beyond the door, followed by Jason and Amber.
Risa and Ariana also entered the room with Kerwin as the door shut behind them. Kerwin opened his mouth simultaneously and shouted in rage.
"Zilan planned it all!"
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