Though Eleazar didn't complain as he believed his wife was innocent, some of the other clan leaders did.
"Empress, aren't you too biased towards the new general, I remember that to accuse a clan leader, there is a process, such were the previous Emperor's rules…", before the clan leader, who was only an early-stage Stellar rank could finish speaking, his face froze.
He looked downwards just to see a black spear piercing his stomach, surprisingly he didn't feel any pain and there was no blood also, it was as if the spear wasn't shoved into his flesh.
"My father had his rules I have mine, and Gabriel has the authority to question anyone in this room, such is the role I granted him in my army, but if you want an explanation, I can give it to you too", Thea's voice was cold like winter as her left pupil turned orange.
"I recently unlocked another eye ability, so I can now see certain things, like curses for example", said Thea as she glared at the clan leader who had her spear piercing his stomach.
Naturally the guy's face paled, he tried to grab the spear to take it out, but to his horror his hands passed through the spear, it was a terrifying sensation to have a strange object ready to destroy your organs, and not even being able to touch it.
Olander snapped his fingers and the whole room was covered in a light brown barrier, while he moved the woman he had suppressed to the center, so that everyone could see her, her body and mouth were restrained with chains of mana.
"Previously my contracts couldn't resist against curses, but now they can, so I'll have you sign a new contract Jina, the only difference with the previous contract which is the same every clan leader has with me is that you won't be able to lie for the next five minutes, or you'll lose a random limb, if you don't answer my question in thirty seconds, you'll lose two", said Thea.
She elaborated the contract and showed the conditions to all the presents, then she sent it to the restrained woman, who was now looking at her husband desperate, just to see Eleazar frown.
"Accept it Jina, let's put an end to this and then leave, apparently the Ryner clan is destined to decline in this generation", said the leader of the Eel Shark clan.
"…", a sepulchral silence fell on the room, as they saw that Jina wasn't accepting the contract, Olander even removed the restrains on her mouth and the first words that came from her were.
"Hurry up and bring me out of here you stupid fool, can't you notice what I'm trying to tell you!!!".
Eleazar froze for a moment, never in his wildest imaginations he thought that the accusation made against his wife was right, and now he had to make a choice, well, his options weren't that many though.
Previously he wasn't worried, as he didn't do anything wrong, if Thea or Olander tried to suppress him simply because they could, the other clan leaders will take his side for sure, because they will be next, but now with the exception of the guy who was pierced by Thea's spear and couldn't move, all the others had distanced from him.
Eleazar clenched his fists and then to everyone's surprise he kneeled down, in battle between equals a millisecond can be the difference between winning or dying, a kneeling down position meant he was lowering his guard on purpose, so if he were to try anything, the other party will have the advantage, in other words he wasn't planning to fight.
"I beg the Empress to have mercy… I'm willing to change my subordinate contract to an enslaving one in exchange for my wife's life, please!", he said as he lowered his body even more, smacking his forehead against the ground.
Jina felt her blood pressure raising, the stupid man was begging instead of directly rescuing her.
"What are you doing you spineless idiot, she is going to kill me… aghhh!", her shouts were interrupted by a scream, caused by her body which was covered in white flames.
Eleazar was about to move and use a spell to dispel the flames, but Oleander's mana pressure fell like a hammer from above forcing him to remain quiet.
"I doubt you'll want her as she is right now", Daimon's voice drew the attention of all the clan leaders.
Eleazar gritted his teeth, his impression of Daimon wasn't good from the very beginning, but the moment he used till the last bit of strength in his body to raise his head and answer, his eyes widened when he saw what laid there where his wife was supposed to be.
While Jina kept her human shape, her previous shark characteristics that gave her an exotic charm, such as the small elegant scales on her neck and the fin on her back, had been replaced by mouths with spiked teeth, she now had three extra mouths, two on her neck and one on her back, giving her a bizarre appearance.
"Let me explain you the fruits of some little tests on Nethereals we have captured, only those who are members of that race have a black core which makes them almost immune to pain, other people can be turn into Nethereals, and their appearances become bizarre the more twisted the person is, the weirder their appearances will be, as they represent the negative emotions that drove them to become Nethereals themselves".
"Mouth-like characteristics represent ambition that has turned into greediness, also the number means how much twisted they had become, one is dissatisfaction, two are betrayal and three are complete indifference towards what tied them to their previous identity", said a purple haired masked woman, who was none other than bell, this was information that Roger had gotten out of Fabio, apparently thought the guy had decided to become a Nethereal for power, he despised the bizarre appearances, so he asked what the rules for their "ascended" form were, and got a small explanation from that Garrius guy, only for that information to end in Daimon's hand.
Turns out that past a certain point of accumulation of "Nether" they can always start their transformation to Nethereals, but the more they perfectionate themselves first the better the initial result would be, some indulge in the power and skip that which results in the most bizarre appearances, in exchange for quick empowering, naturally this only applies to those that weren't Nethereals to begin with, in other words those without a black core in their bodies.
Also, just as Daimon thought, Nethereals who resembled humans the most were also the most dangerous, and so far, the ones that had more human-like appearances, were Reed and Byron, who supposedly had that perfect human form with a crown instead of a face.
The next one would be that Garrius guy, who according to Roger has asymmetric arms and a long neck.
Eleazar was pale, what was Jina's identity, his wife, the Matriarch of the Eel Shark race and his companion, so those three extra mouths meant that his wife was dissatisfied with him, betrayed him and she was now indifferent towards him.
"Y-You are lying!", exclaimed Eleazar, only to see Daimon signing a contract that didn't let him lie for the next thirty seconds in front of everyone, to then say.
"Everything I said earlier was completely true", the clan leaders saw it and they had no other choice but to accept Daimon's words as an absolute truth, that being said he wasn't affected by contracts, so he could have lied if he wanted or needed to.
A portal suddenly opened in front of the clan leader that was immobilized by Thea, and a ray of white light impacted him, making him scream, his "skin" melted away to reveal he was also corrupted past the point of the black mist stage, that guy's case was even more extreme compared to Jina, as his body became a mass of bloody muscles, his shape was related to the fact that he desired power, a pretty common and one of the most pathetic transformations according to Fabio's information.
Eleazar was at a loss right now, but after a moment of contemplation he gazed at Thea and then said.
"My request remains the same… she is the mother of my children, and this is the last shred of goodwill I have for her, before cutting her from my life, I don't care if she is used as a soldier or a slave, just allow her to live and I'll become the most loyal servant for the Empress".
"Deal", Daimon answered in Thea's stead, the clan leaders only saw their Empress smiling, meaning she didn't take any offense and instead was happy for the actions of the masked young man.
Daimon wasn't going to kill Jina anyway, every different Nethereal is first of all a good practice for him to cure Sarah and Bell, and second a candidate for a terror contract, as entering the path to become a Nethereal nullified the impossibility he had to contract Neptune's natives, for a change he was actually happy that more idiots succumbed to the temptation of Nethereal's powers, so for him it was a 2x1 kind of deal where he got two Stellar ranked servants, well one of them belonged to Thea, but that was still fine, since she is part of the alliance.
Also, she and the other guy that was just impacted by Aurora's light spell a moment ago, revealing his true appearance, were converted not too long ago according to Rita, meaning that an original Nethereal who is at least on the middle stage Stellar rank, or a high stage artificial one, should have been near this area.
And while it is highly possible that the bastard isn't here anymore, because Olander should have scared it away, those related to it, must be hiding, and they'll be captured with those two used as bait, but that is a matter for later.
Right now, the new prisoners were suppressed by Olander's mana, given poison to restrict their powers, and then taken away by one of Thea's portals, which of course led to the Flying Citadel, where Aurora guided them to their new home, a warm and cozy cell.
"I restructured the contracts, sign them again, and you'll be free to go, but you have a lot of work to do, general Olander will accompany you to do a throughout cleaning, anyone that is signaled by this enemy detection crystal has to be killed on the spot, unless it is an Stellar ranked, in which case it needs to be suppressed and captured, work as a group and advance in secret from one clan to another", Thea gave her orders and the clan leaders who were clean, which were all of them besides that guy and Jina nodded.
The so called "enemy detection crystals" were just dark mana crystals, that contained one of Rita's shadow clones, she could expand the range of her insanely sharp and undetectable detection ability, like this, the shadow clones won't drain her mana but the one of the crystals, as if it is a remote battery.
It's an ability she developed so that she can help her young master's subordinates, without leaving her rightful place, which is Daimon's shadow.
"Ah damn, and I just returned, whatever we'll be finished in an hour or so, since the ones that have developed proper reasoning aren't that many anyway", said the fish-headed general.
Becoming a Nethereal had its requirements too, like being able to think, so magic beasts without self-awareness were unable to be turned into them, that meant that only from the middle stage of the Arch rank and above needed to be checked, lower ranked spirit beasts only followed their leader's orders, so if the leaders were loyal so were they.
That's how it worked for magic beasts, similar to what happened with Ulkrear's subordinates that were absorbed into Karmandi's army after his betrayal, with the exception of the sea fleas that were self-aware and decided to betray Thea too, just to end up being used as test subjects by Daimon.
"We'll be back in an hour or so… I want to have a small conversation with you lass, so don't leave until that", said Olander before he waved his hand to open a breach on the space, apparently, he was proficient in using space shift, just like Vincent.
Thea nodded, they still had another thing to do here, so they won't be leaving so soon, and she also wanted to ask a few things to Olander, with Daimon present.
"I'll be at the basement, just go meet us when you return", said Thea, Olander nodded and then he and the other clan leaders, including Eleazar entered through the portal, ready to make a purge of any traitor within their files.
As for Thea, she turned to see Daimon and then jumped out of her seat.
"The entrance to the inner area of the Maelstrom Sea is at the basement of the castle of my family, you can come but I don't think is a good idea for everyone to follow, the aura that is exuded by that thing is quite detrimental for others, for those who aren't Stellar ranks, I think that only Aisha and Jasmine can resist due to their affinities, well, maybe Sarah can too, as she should be immune to poison".
Tessa and Cassy whose affinities are related to nature might be fine too, but they will be put under more pressure compared to Aisha and Jasmine whose affinities are completely incompatible with darkness, Leslie and Yvonne will be able to resist too, but only if they use their wings, as they haven't reached the Lord rank yet, in comparison the crazy girl is not only a middle stage Lord rank, but also a dual poison and darkness affinity knight, which makes her less susceptible to corrosion and quite sturdy too.
"You stay behind", said Daimon to Remi, because Bell wanted to go too, they were only going to take a peek to the entrance to the inner area, to see if they could get something out of it, if the others really wanted to go, Thea could always protect them with her mana, but they weren't that interested into it.
"As the young master wishes", said Remi, the other girls sat on one of the many empty seats, while Thea made a portal in which Daimon and the selected group entered, disappearing from the room.
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