Naturally Armando was careful enough to not inform any of his subordinates about this meeting, since it regarded the safety of his daughter, so the first thing he did right now was summon all of them at once.
Surprisingly no one doubted about why Porter city was practically empty, apparently this is a normal thing when the "council" mentioned by Shirel gathers, so the members of the council thought they were the reason of why the citizens left temporarily.
While Daimon and the others looked at the arriving people from behind an illusion created by Aurora, something interesting about this council is that though they are all technically subordinated to Armando, there is a representative from Horroclaw's family.
Daimon wanted to see how much have the enemies infiltrated the Bone Sea and this was an easy way to do so, Armando has been isolated from public matters for a really long time, to the point that he didn't know about Black Wave's existence.
In Aurora's case it is understandable that she wasn't informed, since the head of the intelligence department in other words Bell, purposedly hid it from her as she needed the organization to continue with her plan.
But there is no reason for Armando to not know about the threat that Black Wave represented, so that made one of his subordinates a direct suspect of treason, the question is besides that, how many other aspects of the Bone Sea have been interfered with.
The door of the meeting room opened and five people with different dispositions entered, three belonged to the Flesh lineage and two were members of he Bone lineage, in other words three mages and two knights.
The first one to sit was one of the mages, a slim man that seemed to be in his fifties, and the sole high stage Stellar ranked of the group, the others followed quickly, for a total of two early-stage Stellar rank mages and two middle stage Stellar rank knights.
It might sound amazing, since a high stage is included in the group, but when you put into account the fact that these five elders are the strongest among the families that are subordinated to a Maximum Stellar rank like Armando, they don't amount to much.
For example, the Elemental Sea is also divided between two major forces, the Light Palace and the Black Fortress, and Aurora has five ten early stage and two middle stage Stellar ranks, at her direct disposition, not to mention she is sure Sylvie can compete against high stage Stellars, and that is without including Bell who has always been her ally.
In comparison, out of the five people that just arrived, one of the middle stages is a representative from Horroclaw's family, that being said, it's not like there aren't more Stellar ranks within the families that are subordinated to Armando, but they aren't his direct subordinates, the same applies to Aurora and to the Mermen Sea as well, factions existed everywhere after all.
"It's been a while since we met, chief Spokel, I wonder why have we been summoned all of a sudden?", said one of the members of the Bone lineage, more accurately the one from Horroclaw's family, an Skelefiend since Daimon decided to leave that race name to the Bone lineage and call Shirel and those who were like here as White Walkers, since now they knew the truth, called Bandor.
The high stage Stellar which is also Armando's right hand, a White Walker called Remi, frowned.
"Bandor, we all know why you are here and we don't care, but don't forget to keep up appearances unless you want to get thrown out of this place".
Everyone knew Bandor was the eyes and ears of Horrorclaw in the council, so he and Remi have always been in conflict, that being said they normally don't show it to Armando, but now that Horroclaw had Armando "at his disposition", due to Shirel being imprisoned, Bandor has become unrestrained, Remi is also reacting more violently than normal.
Armando inwardly sighed, he previously felt a bit guilty that he called these five here so that they are forced into submission but he now realized that his subordinates had stopped respecting him.
"That's enough you two, I called you here because I have an important matter to discuss", said Armando.
"Heh, if it's about lady Shirel's case, once again allow me to represent Lord Horrorclaw to say that we are making out best to negotiate with the White family, as soon as we get an answer, we'll inform chief Armando about it", Bandor's voice tone was rather disrespectful, sine he has been told about Shirel by Armando many times and the answer has been the same.
On the surface Armando didn't have any reaction, but on the inside, he was furious, Daimon had explained him who are their allies who are their enemies, and the possible allies as well as possible enemies.
Needless to say, but the White family are confirmed enemies due to what their ancestor did to Mellie's mother, he also mentioned that they weren't involved in Shirel's imprisonment at all, in other words Armando was being lied to the face.
Restraining himself from giving Bandor a beating on the spot, Armando shook his head and then said with a calm voice.
"That is a separate matter, I summoned you all here to discuss a threat that has been hiding from us in the shadows", as Armado spoke, the door of the room opened and a battered figure was brought in on a cloud of green fire.
That is Armando's family element, but we can leave that for latter, what's important right now, is the battered old man that was laying on top of the fire cloud, it was none other than Tadeus the old assassin that used to be Bell's subordinate.
The five members of the council had different reactions the moment they saw Tadeus, who was clearly a member of the Elemental races, with which they were at war, being brought in by Armando.
"Chief why is there a human here, the laws state that he must be executed on the spot!", said Remi with a serious voice.
"Forget about that, he must be brought to Lord Horroclaw for interrogation, who knows we might be able to get valuable information that could be used to save Lady Shirel", Bandor also gave his opinion.
As for the other three, they remained silent since those their opinions aligned with what those two said.
Armando raised his hand to tell the members of the council to make silence.
"I know the rules Remi, in case you have forgotten I was present when your father as well as Horroclaw's grandfather were alive and voted to make that ridiculous law, but I accidentally caught this human trying to sneak in into the continent earlier when I was meditating in the nature".
"And after capturing him a question was born in my mind, why would a human come all the way to the Bone Sea, considering we are openly at war right now, so I interrogated him a bit and listened to an interesting story…".
Armando made a small pause and the atmosphere on the room tensed up as Armando turned to see one of the two early-stage Stellar ranked mages.
"Apparently, he came to join an organization called Black Wave, which focuses in information gathering and assassination, do you know anything about it, Josue?".
Josue is the one in charge of intelligence in the Skalia continent, at least from Armando's side, since Horroclaw's domains are out of Armando's jurisdiction.
The White Walker Josue gulped down, he has never seen Armando being serious ever before, but that is normal since everyone in this room is around three or more generations younger than him, he is even at leas one generation older than Vincent and Aurora which makes him be technically on par with the White's ancestor, and that is in part why Daimon made all the effort to bring Shirel here.
"Chief, this is the first time I have heard of such a thing, we have been putting all of our resources to find the heretics that burned the sacred statue… could it be dangerous organization that has been hiding in Lord Horrorclaw's territory?", said Josue.
The focus of all the presents changed to Bandor, the moment Josue finished speaking, his words made sense, it was hard for the intelligence on his side to not notice anything about Black Wave, unless they were either being covered up by someone in this room, or outside of the reach of the ones in this room.
And in this case, there is a person that can grant both benefits, in other words Horrorclaw's representative, Bandor.
"Humph, Josue don't try to divert the attention to me, I have no clue about what this Black Wave might be, in fact why are you sure they aren't related to the crazy bunch that has been burning statues and making people disappear, why haven't we heard of any update regarding your investigation?".
Naturally Bandor wouldn't let Josue turn him into his scapegoat, the same applied to the others, the five elders started discussing with each other and pointing at each other, the only one who maintained the same stance was Remi, who asked Armando to execute Tadeus.
"Enough", a single word from Armando followed by the pressure of a Maximum Stellar ranked, made the five elders stop their quarrel, Armando still had that calm expression as always, but the aura around him had undergone a 180° change.
"I don't to hear excuses, it appears to be that we have failed in our duties, so we'll all be put to trial right now", the moment Armando finished speaking, he snapped his fingers and a barrier was casted around the room.
The word "surprise" was written all over the faces of the five elders, they never expected the calm and pacifist Armando to become so aggressive all of a sudden.
'Damn this old man has gone crazy due to his daughter being captured, this is bad I must inform Lord Horrorclaw', thought Bandor.
But as he tried to sent a message through a mirror plate to Horrorclaw, he was surprised to see that the connection failed, and he was even more surprised when he heard Armando saying.
"Don't bother in trying to inform whoever you are loyal to, Bandor, Jouse and you too… Remi, this barrier has spatial properties so your messages won't be able to leave".
Armando's expression was calm, but the anger hidden in his voice was obvious, he practically raised these five, including Bandor, as he never discriminated between the two lineages, and now he came to know that there were at least three traitors hiding in his own faction, visiting his house, eating and conversating with him, he was furious.
There is a reason as to why nobody seems to know or care about Armando, despite he being a Maximum Stellar rank, the days in which he participated in the battlefield are too in the past, even Aurora doesn't remember having seen him fight before.
The representative of Snakele is prohibited from fighting, unless his homeland, family or close ones are in danger, not to mention Armando doesn't like war, as he lost his wife due to that, but the old man decided to wield a sword again, not only because he was now in an alliance, but in the memory of his wife that died protecting this same peninsula from the invasion of pirates, the same ones with whom Horrorclaw is now working with.
"I'm not your subordinate Armando, only Lord Horrorclaw can interrogate me, if you want to process me for treason or whatever, you have to follow the proper process!", shouted Bandor as he smacked his hand on the table.
Armando simply glared at Bandor, and the body of the latter was sent flying backwards, crashing against the wall breaking it on the process, the only reason as to why he didn't end up a few kilometers into the sea is because the barrier stopped him, but the impact was the same.
"Aghhh!", being smacked against a barrier that didn't break, made Bandor vomit blood, as he slowly fell to the ground.
"Distract him!", Remi was quick to act, he grabbed Josue and threw him towards Armando, while he became a flash that took the battered Tadeus.
Remi took out a black scroll out of his pocket and the thing lit up on flames as a portal appeared, it was an escape method which actually ignored the spatial restriction of the barrier that was set up in the meeting room.
But just as Remi jumped into the portal, a black Spear pierced it, the porta became unstable and black lightning escaped from it, before a pained scream came from the portal.
"Aghhrr!", a pair of burned figured were expulsed from the portal, Remi and Tadeus heavily landed on the ground with patches of their skins in horrible conditions.
The portal crumbled apart and the black spear returned to what seemed to be an empty space, that waved before Daimon and the others came out of it, the spear naturally belonged to Thea, whose darkness was of space orientation, that's what allowed her to ignore spatial restrictions, manipulate and interfere with portals, along other useful abilities.
Josue which knew he was being sacrificed by Remi, didn't even try to distract Armando, he was on his knees begging for forgiveness.
"C-Chief, it was all Remi's idea, I was forced to cooperate I swear, he has a monstrous guy backing him, he promised to grant us the power of the goddess since you were abandoned by her!", he shouted, the image of Armando casually destroying Bandor played in his mind all over again.
If Armando had decided to make war against Horrorclaw, what will he possibly do to him, that's what he was thinking right now.
Unfortunately for Josue, Armando ignored him and just walked towards Daimon, the remaining two members of the council were in a loss right now, everything happened too fast, so they were unable to react, that also made them look innocent but they still needed to pass Horals's test later.
For now, Daimon was rather happy of the results he got here, first of all, it was easy to tell there were at least two different sides involved here, Bandor was obviously on Horrorclaw's side which made him undirectedly connected to the scheming guy.
That could explain why Bandor wanted Tadeus to be handed over to Horrorclaw under the excuse of interrogation, since the moment he heard the name "Black Wave" from Armando, Daimon set up the bait and Bandor fell for it, Horrorclaw is working with the scheming guy and the latter wanted Black Wave to be under its wing.
At this point it wasn't a matter of whether Black Wave is useful or not, the scheming guy has been frustrated three times about taking Black Wave over, twice by Daimon and a third time by Olivia and Bell joining hands, so it wanted to capture the remaining branches out of spite.
What Daimon didn't expect was that he could capture some of Marcus's subordinates with the same bait, that black scroll had a familiar aura, it was an item from the store of a system, one which he didn't have by the way, but it could be an exclusive thing of his system, Daimon has noticed that those two have many ways to nope the hell out of disadvantageous situations, just like how Adam escaped the encirclement of the pirates and Skelefiends back at the beast hunt.
Also, he got to hear something quite interesting, if what Josue said was true then, Marcus was following an interesting pattern, which is the same as the first knight, in other words, he tricked some new idiots using the deity they adored as an excuse to make them follow him.
'Is it a coincidence or…', while Daimon was lost in his thoughts, a green flame portal appeared next to him, from which the black armored bone general came out.
The plan was previously discussed, and his young master has given him permission to interrogate the prisoners, so as the diligent first general of Daimon's conquest, he took out his treasured notebook and grabbed Remi and Bandor by their necks to drag them out of the room.
Maybe Horals enjoys torturing his young master's enemies, but he also pays attention to the reactions of his young master's mistresses.
'The young misses don't seem to enjoy interrogation, whatever, they only need the results, I'm here for the rest, thought the bone general as he happily left the room.
Unfortunately, the room next to this one was also within the range of the barrier, so they weren't isolated from each other.
"Aghhhhh!", the horrible lung-tearing screams could soon be heard coming from the next room, which made Josue and the other two elders pale, imagining what sort of horror could make a high stage Stellar rank scream like that.
Daimon approached Josue and then said.
"You are just a little fish in the big scheme, anything that you can tell us will be better explained by that Remi guy, so give me a reason to keep you alive".
Josue nearly peed himself, judging by the calm voice of the other party he will really be killed if he doesn't have anything to offer.
"W-Wait, esteemed one, I-I have information that Remi doesn't know, just today I discovered one of the gathering points of that organization called Black Wave I can guide you there!", Josue tried to calm down and answer but his voice was still filled with fear.
Daimon nodded.
"Very well, sign a contract and you are in", he said as he looked at Thea, this coward guy was rather cunning, he didn't immediately inform Remi who seemed to be his superior in Marcus's organization, so there must be more than what meets the eyes, but that could wait for when Horals's finished his interrogation.
This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦