Chapter 368: *You gave them hope*
Axel said nothing, but the golden gleam that had appeared in his eyes and had frightened his men was gone.
And so Mathias continued his story, relieved to see that their boss’s husband really cared about him and that their boss seemed to be able to calm him down easily, which was rather a good thing, "For once they did a good job because we were totally powerless to stop them, and we really didn’t see it coming. They played the image of your dead body on all the news channels with the headline ’The King of Shadows is dead, and all his assassins will soon follow him; peace will finally be restored.’ When I think about it, what an asshole! I’m still shaking with rage."
After taking a long breath to calm himself, he continued, "Except for the shadows, nobody knew your real face, so when I saw that it was really you and that they had tied you to the pillar of the central square of the Capital and that your corpse was being eaten by raptors, we decided to immediately counterattack."
Kevin was surprised to see that his men had been so affected by what had happened to him because their bond had always been strictly professional.
Most of the shadows were men he had saved who wanted to stay and fight by his side; some were civilians, and others were like Mathias—former soldiers who should have been executed because they had refused to throw a bomb on a civilian population or had simply disobeyed an order that went against their principles.
Apart from training them and giving them missions that always corresponded to their field of competence, he had never been friends with them.
His relationship with his shadows was completely different from the relationships he had with Alan and Erik or Liam and Ian. And Axel, who, thanks to their link, had followed his thoughts, said to him, feeling a deep respect for the men in front of him, "You don’t understand, Babe. To these men, you are their hero, the example to follow. You not only saved them; you trained them and made them feel useful, doing things that mattered to them. You didn’t just give them a new home and a new purpose; you gave them hope."
When Kevin looked at him, completely dazed because he had never imagined that his shadows could see him like this, Mathias, who was very sensitive, then asked him curiously, "Are you by any chance communicating with your husband right now?"
Kevin looked at him again and said, showing him his mark of the Union, "This mark is the symbol of my union with Axel, and thanks to it, a psychic link has been created between us. We don’t need to speak; we can directly feel and sometimes hear each other’s thoughts."
All his men widened their eyes in astonishment, and he then said to them, making five communication stones appear in his hands and holding them out to them, "These are communication stones. Keep them with you, and you will only have to think of the person you want to communicate with to send them a message. Everything happens directly with the mind here; it is like hearing a voice in your head, and you only have to think of this person to respond to them. Of course, for a connection to be made, the person you want to contact must also have one of these stones."
Mathias took the stones, thanking him, and after giving one to each of them, Theo then said, still amazed, "At least you don’t need an earpiece now; this world is really too fascinating."
Kevin nodded and said, "Indeed, this world is really fascinating, and you haven’t tried the dungeons yet. Wait until tomorrow."
He saw the excitement in their eyes, and he understood them perfectly because he had felt exactly the same as them. After this little interruption, he turned his attention back to Mathias and said to him, getting serious again, "You can continue, Mathias; what happened next?"
Mathias focused back and continued his explanation where he had left off, "Since you were on the run and throughout these five years, we have worked more and more with hackers from all over the world. So as soon as we saw the news, we contacted them, and with their help, we hacked all the communication networks, all the broadcasting channels, the internet, and even the radio. Everything came under our control, and we brought the truth to light. In every country, we publicly exposed all the dirty laundry of the government in power, and we told your story—your whole story—and the story of our organization."
Kevin went from surprise to surprise, and he said to him, "You shouldn’t have! You all put yourselves in danger by doing this..."
But he stopped dead when he saw his men smiling, and Mathias continued, "When we gave this information to the hackers, we just wanted to clear your name and show that rather than being treated as the worst criminal in the history of mankind, you should be treated as a hero. Only we didn’t expect them to take certain liberties. They did relay your story, and although most of them were already used to working with us to assist us when our missions required it, they were still shocked to learn that it was you who had stopped the last three nuclear attacks that would have decimated our world."
He added, "They were also surprised to learn that with the money you earned on certain contracts and thanks to the investments you made, which were always very successful, you opened detoxification centers, homes for young people, reopened schools that had closed, and provided medicine to hospitals that were lacking..."
Mathias said with a look of emotion in his eyes, because all this was still fresh in his memory, "They translated your story, our story, into the 14 languages of our world and broadcast it in a loop on all the networks, calling the population to follow our example and to rise up against the dictators who controlled our lives."
