A green Aura enveloped Riya's soft and warm fingers. Suddenly her touch became even more comfortable. Making Aditya feel sleepy. As her fingers smoothly circled and ran over his right eye, gradually Aditya was able to move his eyelids.
After a few seconds, when Riya moved her fingers, a second later, Aditya opened his right eye and was able to with his right eye. It took Aditya a few seconds to get adjusted to the light that entered his eye. He looked around the room with his right eye. His vision had been restored. "Thank you." Aditya sincerely expressed his gratitude to Riya from the bottom of his heart.
"Darling, there is no need to thank me. I would do anything to save you." Alicia on the other hand took a deep breath and felt relieved. She felt burdened this whole time. Whenever she looked into his face and saw that scar over his right eye, she felt guilty and couldn't help but blame herself. If he hadn't protected her, Aditya wouldn't have lost his right eye.
"Thank you, Riya." Alicia slightly lowered her head to express her gratitude to Riya.
"As I said before, there is no need to thank me."
"Milady, I think we should go back." Aditya noticed that Riya's personal maid has been hostile toward him. Ever since he entered the room, this maid has been glaring at him. And every time, Riya hugged him or had any form of physical contact, the maid acted like a fierce cat who wants to keep humans away from her children. In short, the maid is too overprotective of Riya.
Hearing her maid's words, a sad look appeared on Riya's face. Riya reluctantly stood up. Aditya also stood up following her. While Alicia couldn't help but feel a little happy inside. Riya's presence was kind of threatening her.
"Unfortunately, darling I will have to take my leave early. I apologize for not being able to spend any time with you. When Alicia contacted me, I left some urgent work in my hand to come here and see you. If I don't return, the injured Elves will only continue to suffer. Some of them might even lose their life." Being the Goddess of Nature, Riya's heart was very kind. She loved nature and people equally. Riya wouldn't have come here if it wasn't for Aditya who always has been her top priority.
"When I have time, I will come to The Celestial Terrain and meet you." Riya was a part of Aditya's childhood. Even if he currently did not have any romantic feelings for her, Aditya still considered her a very important friend. If Riya had time, Aditya would have loved to spend a few hours to know her story and to know what she has been doing all these years.
"Darling, do not worry, soon we will be seeing each other again."
"What did you mean by that?"
"You will know when the time comes." Seeing Riya refusing to explain, Aditya started to feel that Riya was going to visit him in the Istarin Empire.
Alicia led Riya and her maid to another room where there was a teleportation array. Standing in the middle of the teleportation array, Riya said goodbye to Aditya and Alicia. While her maid kept glaring at Aditya as if Aditya was her biggest enemy. It was as if this maid hated his very presence. Aditya couldn't understand what he has done to make this maid hate him this much.
After Riya and her maid left, it was only Aditya and Alicia in the living room. For a moment both of them remained silent. As the silence grew with each passing second, Alicia also started to feel awkward. She had no idea what she should say in this situation. If it was a normal situation, the goddess of wealth could have just started some random discussion. But right now, her mind was replaying the embarrassing things that she have said in the heat of the moment.
"Alicia, I have some important things which I want to tell your family." This wasn't what Alicia was expecting Aditya to say. Deep down, Alicia was expecting Aditya to respond to the things she had said before. Somewhere in her heart, the goddess of wealth felt a trace of disappointment.
Alicia noticed Aditya's serious expression. "What do you want to talk about?"
"Before the mutant fire ant queen passed away, she left a diary that had very important information about The League of Black Tomb. I still haven't read the diary yet but I can tell that this diary has very important pieces of information about The League of Black Tomb. I want to share this information with you all."
"Alright."
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Timeskip!
Aditya spent the entire afternoon reading the whole diary. While he was reading, Alicia did not disturb him. She went to the head office of the White Lotus guild to meet Sylvie. Both Alicia and Sylvie discussed what measures they should take to keep the neighboring Empires from attacking the Ethereal Empire.
Just as the sky turned black after the sunset, Aditya, Alicia, Noah, Ronnie, and Sylvie, all returned home. Since Sylvie was an ally and close friend of Alicia, she decided to bring Sylvie to this meeting.
Learning that there is going to be an important meeting, the whole royal family gathered. While the ladies of the family worked hard to make a delicious feast.
"Aditya, I am relieved to see you in perfect health." Just when Aditya entered the house, Olivia, Alicia's grandmother was the first one to greet Aditya. Behind Olivia, there was Bianca, Alicia's biological mother, and her other stepmothers Flora, and Norah. There was also Ronnie's brother, Duke Tomas, and his wife Nia who was carrying her newborn child.
"Aditya, I can't thank you enough for saving my daughter's life." By now the whole family had completely ignored or forgotten about the fact that Aditya was originally Alicia's fake boyfriend. Everyone was treating Aditya as their son-in-law. After returning home, Noah informed his family about the ongoing chemistry between Aditya and Alicia.
"Aunty, there is no need to thank me." The whole family gathered in the backyard where a big dining table was placed. The whole backyard was lit with solar stones. The dining table had all kinds of popular dishes that existed in the Westnia continent.
Olivia, as the head of the family, took the head chair of the dining table. She made Aditya and Alicia sit on her right side. While Ronnie sat on the left side. Sylvie was sitting on Aditya's left. While the rest of the family occupied the other seats.
"Let's start eating." The whole family started eating. Aditya especially looked very hungry.
Not even a whole minute had passed, and Ronnie had urged Aditya to start telling them about The League of Black Tomb. It's understandable. As the Emperor of the Ethereal Empire, what The League of Black Tomb has done has made Ronnie feel threatened. Right now Ronnie was more concerned about The League of Black Tomb than the other Empires who were eyeing to attack their Empire. "Aditya, you can start now." Everyone can feel Ronnie's desperation when he said these 5 words.
"Uncle, I bet you would be shocked to know that the murderer of the Rose family's 3rd daughter is also an inner member of The League of Black Tomb." Hearing what the Dragon King just said, the steel chopsticks from Ronnie's fell on the table. Never this Ronnie expect that the first sentence to come out of Aditya's mouth would mess with his emotions this much.
"Aditya, what are you saying? It was clearly mentioned that Ivan was only a low-rank cultivator. How is it possible for him to be a member of The League of Black Tomb?"
"Sylvie, I am not lying. In the mutant fire ant queen's diary, it was mentioned that Ivan has been hiding his cultivation with some powerful 5-star artifact. As for what kind of artifact it was, there was no information on it." When Aditya met Ivan for the first time, the hate that Ivan have shown for the Ethereal Empire made Aditya doubt Ivan a little. It was clear that the elf had a deep hatred for the Ethereal Empire.
"It was mentioned that Ivan had a deep hatred for the Ethereal empire. His hate has something to do with his parent and his relatives' deaths. On the day when we went with the expedition team, Alicia and I happened to go to Kyra's restaurant. From what he was saying, I can tell that Ivan had some deep grudges for the Ethereal Empire." Aditya paused and looked at Ronnie to see if Ronnie knew anything about this matter.
"I don't have any idea who this Ivan was till I heard the news of Kyra's death. I will deeply look into his matter tomorrow." Even though Ronnie appears to be cold and ruthless in front of the people, those who knew him well would know that Ronnie wasn't a ruthless man. But it was possible that some noble has used Ronnie's name to commit these crimes and now Ivan was mistakenly thinking that Ronnie is the one who killed his parents and relatives.
"Other than Ronnie, in Scarlet's diary she has mentioned some other members. The League of Black Tomb is divided into three parts. There are the outer members who mostly work as intelligent agents and give information to the organization. The outer members are the weakest in the organization. As for their numbers, Scarlet has mentioned in her diary that the number of outer members is simply too many to count. She was sure that there are outer members in every Kingdom, Empire, and Dynasty, of this continent."
"That means there is a very high possibility that some of our nobles are also working as outer members of The League of Black Tomb." The news had shaken not just Ronnie, but also Alicia, Sylvie, and the former Empress, Olivia.
"It is very possible. In fact, I would go on to say that some maids or servants working in the royal palace are also part of the organization. Not just the maids and servants, but also the royal officials and the royal advisers. It's difficult to know who are the traitors." If what Aditya said was true then the organization already knew Ethereal Empire's every single secret. The organization already knew where the royal family lived.
"So this is how the organization was able to know about the key." Ever since the day when The League of Black Tomb took the key from the treasury, Ronnie has always felt that someone from the royal palace had leaked classified information. Now Aditya's words had made him sure that someone indeed have betrayed him.
"Uncle, to prevent this kind of situation from ever happening, I have placed soul-binding contracts to all my servants, maids, and even all the royal officials. If any servant or any noble of my Empire tried to leak classified information about the Istarin Empire or the Istarin King, even before they can utter a single word, their souls would be destroyed." This rule applied not only to the nobles and royal officials, it also applied to the guards who were in charge of protecting the Azure city and the Royal palace.
"It looks like I will have to take similar measures. Within tomorrow, everyone in the royal palace and all the nobles of the Empire will be placed under a soul-binding contract." Ronnie did not care if the nobles were dissatisfied with his decision. He has to do this for the security of the Ethereal Empire.
"From what was written in the diary, Scarlet and Tate were also outer members of the organization. Tate had recently joined the organization in hope of gaining power. Every inner member of the organization is very powerful. According to Scarlet, every inner member that she has met was a Peak 5th-order. Beside Ivan who is one of the inner members, there was Ashley whom I killed. From the diary, I know currently the organization has four other inner members. One of them is called Tommy who is a half-orc and half-human. Before Scarlet died, she told me that one of the inner members named Jay had killed her. As for the names of other members, Scarlet never meet them."
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