Three flashes of bright light intruded in the battlefield as Mist, Shadow, and Darkness appeared amidst the confusion. Patriarch Warren felt their arrival and stared at them with a pleading look in his eyes and saying.
"Mist, Shadow and Darkness?! The three Imperial Protectors...Did you come here to help me?!"
Darkness swept his gaze over the slaughterfest occurring inside the barriers. As a Divine Soul Cultivator, he possessed Divine Sense which could see through deceit.
"Their minds are affected by devilish energy. How strange...The devilish energy isn"t so aggressive yet it turned them into these mindless monsters..." Darkness mumbled and he glanced at Shadow and Mist who both nodded their heads.
Unsheathing their weapons, Mist and Shadow transformed into intangible apparitions that seamlessly entered the barrier and started their slaughter. Miserable shrieks reverberated and heads rolled fell from shoulders, Patriarch Warren stared wide-eyed at their actions.
His throat throbbed, but no words came out. Eventually, he hung his head low in despondence and sorrow. Thoroughly accepting his destiny and the fate of his clan.
He wasn"t a fool, seeing that Mist and Shadow slaughtered his clan members. He understood that these three didn"t come here to help him as a bitter laugh came out of his mouth.
Ever since the establishment of his clan, they followed the Emperor like a loyal dog, doing anything that they could do to please him and pave his way towards his throne. But when his clan declined, the Emperor forgot what the Luzon Clan did for him and decisively burned the bridge after using it.
Such indignance couldn"t be described by words alone. Lifting his head to stare towards the skies, tears streamed down his cheeks as Warren made a sidelong glance at Natalie before saying. "Ancestors, forgive me for my mistake. The legacy of the Luzon Clan ended in the hands of the foolish me..."
He bit his tongue and destroyed his heart veins, effectively ending his life as his body slumped on the ground. In a mere span of several days, one of the strongest expert of the Empire of Eternal Faith, turned into a cripple and eventually died under his own hands.
Darkness, the one that the Emperor tasked on pursuing the Luzon Clan didn"t even glance at his corpse. Instead, his s.h.i.+ning eyes swept over the Artifacts that littered the ground. These Artifacts drenched with blood all gave off cold sheens that expressed their might.
The Luzon Clan lasted for decades and when the Emperor dissolved their clan in the Empire, They brought with them their acc.u.mulated wealth including all of their treasures. In other words, the Luzon Clan was a fat sheep that anyone wanted a piece from.
Dan and Natalie shrugged from their stupor and observed the actions of the three with narrowed eyes. These three were so arrogant that they didn"t even bother to glance at the two.
"The three of you, intruding is quite inappropriate but to think that you would even collect the spoils of war that should rightfully be ours..." Dan said in a cold voice. Darkness finally glanced at him and replied.
"Anything that the Luzon Clan possessed came from the Empire. Thus, they should all return to the Empire..." He explained and Natalie knitted her eyebrows, "Came from the Empire? So what? They bought those items using their money, it is their rightful possession and once they die, those items should be without an owner."
"Why are the Imperial Protectors collecting them?" Dan supported her statement and Darkness lightly laughed, "That"s right, these items doesn"t have an owner. That"s the reason why we"re collecting them..."
Natalie"s killing intent surged and Darkness lifted an eyebrow, using his Divine Sense to pressure her soul, "Young miss, just because you succeeded on injuring us last time with a sneak attack doesn"t mean that we"re people that you can casually offend..."
He touched his chest and said with a solemn voice, "The injuries that the two of you inflicted is still throbbing, making me remember the humiliation that I suffered...If not for the fact that the two of you are related to that old geezer, Mathias from the Paradyne Academy, I would"ve slapped you two to death..."
His Divine Sense swept past Dan and Natalie"s body and both of their knees gave out. The difference of their realms became evident, even with the System"s help. Dan couldn"t manage to break free from their suppression.
Natalie went pale and her eyes turned sober. The negative energies that overwhelmed her mind with killing intent, receeded due to the intense pain that she felt from Darkness"s direct suppression.
Dan saw the blood that dripped from Natalie"s seven orifices and realized that she was in the brink of an energy overdraft. Using his left hand, he signalled for Grace to retreat before forcing his body to stand in front of Natalie, enduring the brunt of Darkness"s pressure by his own.
"Old man...You may have won today, but remember that this is merely a tactical retreat...Someday, I will return the humiliation that we suffered by a hundred times...Mark my words..." Dan"s eyes flashed with an icy light as he decisively declared.
Darkness increased the pressure that he exuded as retaliation.
"Ughhh..." Dan"s bones cracked under the immense pressure. Taking a small jadeslip from his Virtual Inventory, Dan crushed it as the power of Spatial Transfer enveloped his body and Natalie.
Darkness merely stared at them with an amused expression: "You"re quite an interesting brat, last time, the two of you managed to severely injure me in a sneak attack. That wouldn"t happen again and if both of you dared to try. That would be your deaths..."
Dan and Natalie"s figure disappeared from the battlefield as another fluctuations of Spatial Transfer reverberated at the distance. Darkness merely glanced at Grace"s location before joining the slaughterfest inside the barrier.
Arriving inside Natalie"s residence at the Fragrant Peak Pavilion were three figures covered in blood. If a third party was present and saw the gruesome appearance of these two, they would run and cower in fear.
Grace immediately dragged them towards the bathroom and washed the blood that drenched their bodies. After giving them several medicinal pills. Natalie and Dan regained their consciousness but the former remained in a stupor.
"Sis..." Grace mumbled in concern and Dan glanced at her and shook his head. Even though Natalie"s past in the hands of the Luzon Clan was tragic, she still had their bloodline and seeing her fellow clan members disappear from the face of the earth made her feel complicated.
Dragging Grace outside of the room, the former asked with a horrified and worried expression, "Dan, who were the three experts earlier, to think that they easily subdued the two of you without even moving..."
Dan revealed a bitter expression, even if he used everything that he had and fought with those three, there"s no way that he could win, for he knew that the difference between realms were absolute and was close to impossible to surpa.s.s.
"Those three were at the peak of the Divine Soul Realm. Divine Soul Cultivators can condense soul attacks that directly a.s.saults their enemies mind, causing them to lose all of their power and will. Earlier, the reason why we weren"t able to stand up before that b.a.s.t.a.r.d was also because of that..." He explained and Grace nodded her head in confirmation.
"Right now, Natalie is in a complicated state, the three of us should be with her and hope that she can recover from the backlash of absorbing too much negative energies and the complicated emotions from her completed wish..."
Grace nodded their head once again, and Dan swept his gaze over her body and said, "You also absorbed quite a substantial amount of negative energies, you go ahead and absorb them first. I"ll go and take care of Natalie..."
Grace begrudgingly followed and suppressed the worries that she had for Natalie before moving towards her room and consolidating the energies that she managed to absorb. Dan walked towards the kitchen and prepared a congee for Natalie.
Entering Natalie"s room, Dan saw that the former was still in a lifeless stupor. Nevertheless, the alluring scent of vegetables, meat and spices that Dan combined together in a single dish awakened her hunger.
Dan lifted a small smile and carried the tray at the tableside before sitting beside Natalie and saying, "Dear, everything that happened is in the past, your revenge is successful and the Luzon Clan is no more..."
Natalie stared at him and said, "Dear, tell me. Tell me, what am I supposed to feel? Why do I feel so empty? I should be filled with joy since the clan that I despised the most is already history..."
Dan shook his head and replied in a gentle voice, "I understand what you feel, Dear. But think about how Juliet would react seeing you being so depressed, she would undoubtedly ask for explanations and how else should we explain the situation to her? Telling her that her mother annihilated her entire family for revenge?"
Natalie"s figure trembled and clarity appeared in her eyes. No matter what, he didn"t want Juliet to know the truth. Nodding her head, she revealed a small smile, took the bowl from the tray and ate with gusto.
Her instant recovery astonished Dan as the latter revealed a small smile. Sighing in his heart, he remembered the figures of Shadow, Darkness and Mist as a foreboding feeling that they would soon meet each other again appeared in his mind.