Chapter 189:Seed Of Distrust
Inside the stadium, everything was chaotic, absurd and crazy.
The effect of the purge hadn't subsided while several people were apprehended by elite knights, plunging the place into deep silence.
However, this was just the peace before the huge storm.
Everyone was petrified while many servants and guards were shivering after undergoing the aftermath of the incident.
Though the casualties were low according to them, still 200 people lost their lives.
But that's not the main thing.
Most of the nobles' expressions were green with anger thinking about the events that had transpired recently. Their servants ran crazily trying to detonate themselves, had now planted a seed of suspicion and engraved a deep fear in their hearts, making them unable to stop themselves from suspecting the few people around them.
'Are there more spies?'
'How many of my people are spies here?'
'What information did they pass?'
Those thoughts were ringing repeatedly in their minds.
Few nobles, who were able to compose themselves, started to talk about the matter.
"I can't believe this. Those bastards had planted spies among us and on their command, they even committed suicide as if this was just a simple matter."
A noble wiped out his cold sweat.
"Something is wrong. Aren't the spies valuable? And it would take a great effort to train and transplant them so why were they ordered to kill themselves?"
"I am also wondering about that. Isn't this a waste of the other side's effort?"
"Those filthy commoners. We should never have mercy on them"
"Bastards."
"Shut up! I have been restraining myself for so long and didn't want to worsen my mood but now things are going over the top. Why the hell are you always blaming commoners?"Marquis Seyfried slammed his palm on the railing and shouted, making the nobles' lips close.
"Even if the commoner had some situations where they were forced to do this or for some other reason, then what about the nobles?"Duke Holmes spoke while raising his fist to calm everyone.
Though he was cursing those dirty filths inwardly, he didn't lose his sense of reason in a fit of anger. There is more than what meets the eye and the Duke who has seen many things believed that the things were quite serious in the background.
No matter how much they demean the commoners, in the end, the society was built over their efforts.
Though it may not look significant, if these commoners push hard into the corner they will bite back fiercely causing irreparable damage.
Thinking about it carefully, he concluded that this event may cause a rift between commoners and nobles.
"We shouldn't blame the commoner this time as not only many barons were among the fray there were even two Viscounts."Duke Holmes raised his chin and stared at the VIP room where other Dukes were present before and then turned towards the nobles around.
His eyes flashed with a hint of weariness and caution wondering if someone might take this opportunity to blow up and kill them, so he secretly prepared himself for every possible situation.
Not only him but everyone had a seed of distrust planted inside them after this incident.
Who knows if the person standing beside them was a traitor that might blow up at any moment?
While things were getting worse, their expressions were drawn over the battle on the screen.
Even though they looked at it, they still maintained guard while preparing to activate the safety devices upon feeling the slightest fluctuations in mana.
The screen played and the battle turned into a full-scale onslaught.
"Damn, that commoner bastard survived till now when one-third of the participants had already been eliminated."
"Tsk...Tsk..."
"Did he just assume the position of the leader?"
"No, this can't be. How can he be a leader? Maybe they are talking about something else."
"No matter what, this commoner's strength is quite good. First, he pushed Ezekiel singlehandedly and then managed to pierce the Ice Witch's defence."
The more they saw, the more shocked they were.
In the beginning, they kept on cursing him but now seeing the way things turned out, they dumped their previous belief and started thinking about ways to recruit him.
'A person like this will become a good dog and might be quite useful for me in future.'
The same thought rang in everyone's mind.
"They even managed to take down that menace Ice Witch. I can't believe they managed to do that."
"You need to either overpower it or find its weakness. That is if someone managed to see through the attack pattern."
"I remember that assault. My year was unlucky to fight against it. Those cold blasts kill without any mercy."
Soon the Ice Witch was taken down and Battle Royal was going to be resumed.
"Hmm! My son survived."Duke Holmes patted his chest and then burst into laughter.
"Hahahaha!"
Duke Holmes observed the contestants' situation and was sure that all of them were exhausted. Those who took part in the last strike were frozen and needed time to recover meanwhile his son's condition was quite good compared to the others.
"My son will win this tournament. He is going to make me pro...."Duke Holmes's words struck his chest.
While everyone was nonchalantly discussing the events, Duke Holmes witnessed a scene that made his face pale.
"Sonnnnnnnnn!"
On the screen, he caught the sight of his son getting pierced through the chest.
Duke Holme's scream drew everyone's attention.
Most of the people present in the arena rose on their seats seeing the scene of David Art stabbing Ezekiel from the back.
But soon their focus changed to another scene.
Though David stabbing Ezekiel was shocking, that wasn't what surprised them and many even ignored that scene as their eyes were stuck on a certain bloodied girl which almost blew their minds into tatters.
Their eyes stained with disbelief stared at Sabrina who tore her chest open and took out a bloody chalice.
Their mouths were hung open and they stood petrified in spots with their eyes glued onto the screen and before they could understand the situation, the display screen was cut off letting the nobles spit curses one after another.
"What the fuck is going on there?"
.......
"Fuck…Fuck….''
"Damn you son of a bitch!'
BOOM!
The entire underground jolted in shock sending tremors similar to the onslaught of an earthquake.
The ground cracked and a fist ruptured through the wall destroying several rooms in quick succession and turning everything into dust.
The table and all the furniture in the room were smashed into dust by Josh's mighty aura and were swept away by the wind erupting from their body.
Josh screamed angrily and stomped the ground, making the entire ground sink.
"I knew it."
"I fucking told them...I fucking told those sons of bitches.."
"But those shitheads didn't listen to me!!"
When the noble families of those kidnapped children came for re-admission, Josh refused them straightly.
He had an ample amount of experience and just with a glance could see that something was wrong with those children. Their hollow sunken eyes devoid of any emotions didn't look humane at all.
Moreover, admitting them directly into the Tournament wasn't a good thing from his perspective.
So, he asked them to go through recuperation and come back later. He wanted to delay their entry as much as possible and if possible make them enroll once again with a special quota.
However, those fucking assholes took the matter to the assembly creating big trouble.
The Emperor agreed with him and asked them to rehabilitate a bit more but who knew that the Bastard Holmes and Duke White would use the veto power given to the Duke during the founding of the Empire and interfere with the situation?
Only God knows what sort of benefit the noble house offered the Dukes to use their veto power.
Veto power can directly interfere with the Emperor's decision. To prevent further misuses, it was decided that a person could use veto power once during their reign of Dukedom.
With no way to stop the event, he could only prepare for the worst.
And Josh kept a strict eye on these students and even scanned them but he had underestimated their ruthlessness.
"How…Just how can you guard against people like them? Such methods. Using such a despicable method."
"Is there even a way to prevent these people whose minds are 24 hours a day for a whole year filled with thoughts of creating chaos?"
Placing a legendary-grade artifact in the body at a place where the mana was concentrated the most by surgery to bypass the security check was something he nor anyone had ever expected.
The mana stored in the heart overlapped with the artifact that passed through a mana detection.
And since that chalice was made of blood with some other materials that weren't metal, it even passed through the metal detector.
All of this made him pull his hair in frustration.
''This is certainly the work of that organization.''
'Only those groups of psychos could do that.'
The more he thought of this, the more his expression worsened.
Herman just stood there with a pale expression as if he had seen one of the worst scenes in all his lifetimes, and opened his lips.
His mind for a moment froze and his memory short circuited, unable to process the events that happened within a span of a moment.
"Vice-Principal, what...just what the hell happened that cut off our access to the tower?"Herman's lips trembled as he pointed at the blank screen feeling that a tragedy might take place.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢