Chapter 412 C412. Deal or Not
The entire throne room went dead silent once more as everyone could barely fathom the words that had just come out of their Demon Lord's mouth, it took them quite some time to actually comprehend it.
After another painful minute, some of the elders finally broke the silence, snapping the others out of their dumbfounded daze.
"Huh?... WHATTTT!!!"
The eyes of the nobles immediately lit up was various emotions as the room was thrown into an uproar.
"Your Grace, you can't be serious. The Jaxith Family's secret has been locked away since the death of the Demon King more than a thousand years ago, not even we the elders have been permitted to know it. You can't just so easily reveal it to a mere emissary!"
One of the Elders voiced his opinion loudly, his words had gradually gotten higher as he spoke, something one should never do in the presence of their liege, yet no one had attempted to chastise him. Instead, more began to speak up.
"Indeed! If you would permit your servant to be direct, Your Grace. This is ridiculous. We cannot reveal the family's most treasured secret for generations to just any random family. If not, we should've already done so with the Great Five in the past."
"I concur with the Elders your Grace. We may be in an unprecedented situation currently, but that shouldn't affect our pride as the Ancient Jaxith family."
The room slowly got more noisy as the nobles continuously voiced their disapproval of the idea when.
"SILENCE!"
A resounding male voice echoed throughout the throne room, accompanied by an encompassing aura that even silenced the Elders themselves.
The voice originated from the Demon that stood behind the throne. The Demon Lord's personal knight, the captain of the Royal Guards. He looked relatively tall and was clad in a full-plate Black and gold armor with a helm that covered the majority of his face.
With broad shoulders and an imposing build, he welded a massive great sword that emanated a bone chilling aura.
After stepping forward to silence the noise, he stepped back into position as the Demon Lord smiled and resumed her talk with the emissary.
"Please do not mind my courtiers. Now then, let's get back on topic. What do you think of my offer."
Rain's face became serious. Despite her usual cheerful appearance, her expression was strangely intimidating, or perhaps, frightening was the correct adjective.
"...Hehehe, I'm curious, are you simply hoping to restart our simple trade negotiations with that offer, Demon Lord Keyrille Mayz Jaxith?"
Rain's eyes sharpened, her gaze seemingly shifted to the Elders, and then the 5th Princess before glancing at the 2nd prince for a moment, and then, before anyone could even blink, she had taken a single step and appeared right before the Demon Lord.
For someone who was a known assassin, she should've never been allowed to take a single step in the direction of their leader, yet even the famed captain of the Guards had failed to register any of her movements.
His slow attempt to draw his weapon a moment later was immediately halted by a casual wave from the Demon Lord. The entire hall was stumped completely speechless by the rapid change in the atmosphere of the room.
Despite the appearance of the emissary right before her eyes, Keyrille did not flinch or move, rather, she smiled and answered.
"As expected, you did figure out my true intentions. While I do not mind offering you our most treasured secrets as it is not something just anyone would be able to touch, much less use. I would be remiss if I didn't at least attempt to reopen the talks of Vassalage for such an offer."
Reynald almost tripped on nothing at the sound of the word vassalage coming out of his mother's mouth. He could feel the jaws of the elders drop as well as the rest of the courtiers, no one could believe what they had just heard.
He was sure he had even heard a strange sound coming from beside him, where his sister and her retainer had been standing but couldn't afford to take a glance at her current expression.
Reynald felt the gaze of the emissary stop on him before returning to his mother, he had expected the room to explode into chaos at those words yet no one had even said a word and he could figure out why.
Due to how sudden and peculiar the presence of Rain had been, no one had noticed it at first. She had completely forgone the etiquette expected of an envoy during an audience with the Demon Lord of a region.
Even if she was a highly respected guest from a Great Family, this was not how one addressed a ruling class Demon Lord in a public setting.
However, such rules could not be enforced on a superior entity such as a Demigod. It was a miracle she had even shown any of them respect in the first place and any demon would only deem this as the natural hierarchy of power.
They were no longer dealing with the emissary from another region, but the General of a family capable of rivaling the Five Greats. A being capable of reducing their entire region to dust with the blink of an eye.
Perhaps that was why. They all felt an invisible pressure emanating from the Lightning General, that stopped everyone from voicing their displeasure.
Seeing the elders struggle to restrain the words in their throats, Rain sighed disappointedly, and smiled seamlessly as though nothing had just happened.
"I'm afraid I'll have to decline your offer, there shall no longer be any talks of trade nor vassalage with the Jaxith family."
The elders that seemed to be fuming with anger from the progression so far were all immediately dumbstruck. It seemed they had never even entertained the thoughts of the Darknar family withdrawing their interest in their family despite their current predicament with the war.
For some reason, they had been under the assumption that their family was too enticing to pass out on. Perhaps this was in combination due to their family's secret and Athena's proposal with regards to using the shelters as an orphanage and in turn, using the orphanage as a way of finding kids with high magic potential just as she had done with Bam.
Hence why they were all currently at a loss for words. Even the Demon Lord herself had not expected such a reply but Reynald felt like there was more to this.
Rain surveyed the courtiers who were standing on opposite sides of the aisle and proclaimed loudly as she retired to her previous position.
"This is a formal decree from the Great Demon King of the Darknar family. For the grave sin of daring to lay your hands on one of my Generals, there shall be no forgiveness. However—"
"That's bullshit! This must be your plans from the very beginn— eh"
"Hold On!"
"Be quiet."
One of the Elder's face had gone pale and he could not stop himself from shouting in the spur of the moment, interrupting the words of the Lightning General.
However, before the beautifully curved arc of the Shadow rogue's daggers could fall his head, Keyrille interfered and the blades were stopped in mid-air, only drawing a drop of the blood from the so-called powerful Elder of the Jaxith family.
" ...Let this be the last time any of you gizzards will interrupt the words of my master."
The lovely voice of the rogue was left lingering in the air as she had already appeared in her previous position behind Rain. The ghastly undertone in her voice sending chills down the Elder's spine as he couldn't even bring himself to gulp much less make any notable movements.
To think a single undead had nearly snuff the life of an Elder. Almost nobody in this room could believe what their eyes had just witnessed. They hadn't even noticed when the emissary had stopped referring to her Lord as a Great Demon Lord and had begin to refer to him as the Demon King directly.
Such a statement would've been considered blasphemous if she had said it during their first meeting, yet now, none of them could even pay attention to such small detail.
"Do forgive the eagerness of my Elders, I would also appreciate it if you do not threaten their lives any further. Please continue."
While Keyrille was being deathly serious, her expression remained the same as she calmly waited for Rain to continue. Rain smiled cheekily before resuming her master's decree loudly.
"However, as I am not so cruel as to punish the innocent for the sins they did not commit. I shall only eliminate the corrupted nobles according to the list gotten from the crime organization known as Numbers."
At the mention of the crime syndicate, the Shadow rogue behind Rain pulled out a parchment from thin air and handed it over to Keyrille personally.
Normally, any documents exchanged between the Demon Lord and any emissary would have to pass through the court's representative but at this moment, no one present in this room could focus on anything other than the words coming out of Rain's mouth.
"This list contains the names of any nobles that had dealings with the crime syndicate in one form or the other. Any attempt to stop this Purge will be deemed a declaration of war and the Floato region would be immediately removed from the face of this continent, there will be no formalities."
At this point, even Reynald eyes shot wide open. He could even feel the sudden shift of his sister's aura and a glance showed her expression to be unlike anything she had ever shown him before. This situation, was clearly beyond even her expectations.
If even she had failed to predict this outcome, then how was he supposed to do the same? If the Darknar family had truly abandoned them then they wouldn't even survive the next few months and Reynald could not see the Jaxith Family's depleted forces, defeating the immortal undead of the Darknar family.
This could even be worse if any of the Darknar family's Demigods were to come alone. He didn't think any of the family's high-tiered scrolls, secret weapons, or even artifacts could stop a true Demigod for long.
Especially now that they had the evidence to justify a war. It wouldn't even be a Contest.
Just as Reynald was slowly drifting into despair, the Lightning General spoke again.
"Once the purge of the corruption rooted within this family is complete, our original offer of Vassalage with the same conditions will be presented once more. You may choose to accept or decline. You have a day to decide."
After hearing all that, Reynald could finally understand the stance the Darknar family was taking in this incident. If they didn't take any action when someone as important as a General was. attacked, the Great Five would see it as a sign of weakness and use it as a reason to turn the entire continent against them.
On the other hand, if they had opted to slaughter everybody or simply blow up the entire region as he feared, the Great Five could spin it as an unethical show of aggression against weaker opponents.
Which was why he couldn't help but find their solution to this as nothing other than pure genius. If the reason that Rogue was here was to record the event that occurred here today, then they would have proven they had offered to settle this as amicably as they could.
On the other hand, they would be eliminating all the bad eggs, including spies and corrupted nobles in a potential vassal family. A sort of killing two bears with one spell. Or was it two birds with one arrow? Whatever.
For a family like the Darknar family that had only just recently been founded, it was important that they approached their expansion as cautiously as possible else they destroyed themselves from the inside out.
"Well then, we shall take our leave now. There's no need to escort us. We will be back at the same time tomorrow to hear your answer."
After Rain exhibited the attitude that told them that she had said all that she had wanted to, she turned her back on the rest of them and was about to walk away, trailed by the Shadow rogue when.
"There is no need for that. As the Demon Lord of the Jaxith family, I accept your terms and offer. If you'd like, we can sign the necessary documents immediately."
"Uh!? WHATTTT!!!!"
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