The King of Lanthanor"s jaw dropped as he viewed the two figures standing in the air and looking at him as if he were an insect.
Their emotions were quite clear in their eyes and their expressions. It was apparent that both of them thought that they were highly superior to him, and that it was quite a boon for him to even look at them.
The one on the left was a tall, thin man wearing very tight-fitting black clothes with a robe underneath. His eyes had an additional aspect of rabid craziness, almost as if he were a mad dog that had been released from its leash. He reminded Daneel vaguely of the Mad Doctor, but that man"s madness couldn"t even come close to what he was seeing here.
As for the other figure, he was quite strange.
He was very short. According to Daneel"s estimation, he was definitely not taller than 3 feet.
He wore a top hat as if to add more height to his figure, and he was wearing a very old-fas.h.i.+oned three-piece suit complete with a monocle.
All in all, he seemed to be some high-cla.s.s n.o.ble that had mistakenly walked into this scene.
The thin man"s lips curled as he observed the King of Lanthanor viewing him, following which a loud sound appeared greeted Daneel"s ears.
Boom!
Crack!
The first was a sonic boom, as the thin man had just shot toward Daneel at a blinding speed.
As for the other, it was the sound of the many gla.s.s windows in the Palace breaking at once due to the vibrations of the man"s movement.
Actually, he wasn"t moving that fast, and if Daneel activated the Basilisk"s Breath, he was pretty confident that he could hope to dodge the blow.
Of course, Daneel did no such thing, as no one could know that he was in possession of such a high-grade inheritance.
Boom!
A foot landed squarely in the middle of his chest, making him fly back due to the momentum and crash through the throne before exiting the palace itself.
Instead of landing the kick and stepping back, the thin man had followed along with Daneel while the latter flew, keeping his foot in contact with Daneel"s chest.
Only when the King lost momentum and was about to fall to the ground did he finally move a little bit back, before launching another kick from above that shot Daneel to the ground, instead of letting him fall freely.
Thankfully, they were still in the area of the Palace, which meant that there was only soft ground below Daneel.
With another loud sound, he landed in a large crater and coughed out blood.
Daneel wasn"t even faking it. He really was pretty injured, as he had neglected the system"s warning which had been given right before impact. If he wanted, he could have asked the system to deploy multiple levels of barriers which would have easily decreased the amount of damage he would take, but again, it would expose that he was in possession of so many more tricks up his sleeve than he let on to the outside world.
So, he took the full brunt of this attack and was a little surprised when the system told him that it was merely at the Amateur Champion level.
Wasn"t this man a hero?
"AAAAAHHHHH!"
As soon as this question appeared in Daneel"s mind, he felt that same foot on his chest again, which seemed to be the favorite spot of this man. He pressed down right above his heart, making Daneel scream out with pain while trying to use both his hands to get that foot off the top of his chest.
"h.e.l.lo, King. Am I addressing you with enough respect?", he asked sarcastically, while pressing down more and more and making Daneel continuously cough up the blood that had appeared in his throat due to his internal organs getting severely damaged.
It was nothing life-threatening as he was, after all, a Peak Exalted Warrior, but it was definitely tremendously painful.
Again and again, Daneel was tempted to just use everything he had and escape. He was definitely capable of that, even if there was a Hero level formation here which was negating teleportation.
However, where would he run to? These two would simply redirect their wrath towards Lanthanor, which was something that Daneel couldn"t afford.
So, hoping that this man would get to the point after this "activity" which was clearly just a show of force in order to make him understand that he was beneath them, Daneel continuously screamed with pain, acting as if he was too distracted in order to cast a spell to put up resistance.
He had already told the system to let him know if he needed to do anything to make it appear as if he was just a normal, hapless Peak Exalted warrior, but it seemed that he was already acting quite well.
Crack!
After 10 seconds, the constant pressure made his ribs crack even though they were quite strong due to his Fighter body, which resulted in him starting to wonder whether this guy really wanted to kill him and wasn"t just playing with him for fun.
Anger kept trying to rise up inside him, yet Daneel kept squas.h.i.+ng it down.
He knew that this was definitely not the time or place to give in to his emotions, as he was in a very precarious position. He didn"t even know what these two Heroes were here for, so he had to be as careful as possible in order to not give away any secrets that would definitely put him in trouble.
That anger kept roaring that he was a King who should never let anyone step down on him like this, yet he reigned it in. He didn"t try to completely abolish it. Instead, he only kept telling it that he would have his chance, but until then, it would have to control itself.
By this point, a b.l.o.o.d.y imprint of that foot had already appeared on his chest, and he had already screamed himself hoa.r.s.e. That d.a.m.n foot would soon make contact with his heart, after which things would start getting serious.
Typically, the pain should have been the hardest thing to endure, but this wasn"t that much of a problem for Daneel who had gone through so much more in his prior experiences. His repeated fights in the Hidden Kill Sect, themselves, had been more painful than this.
Besides, he could even ask the system right now to switch off the sensations, but he didn"t do this for two reasons: one, he couldn"t guarantee that his acting would be genuine enough, and two, he wanted to feel it all so that he could inflict so much more when it was his time to take revenge.
So, the King of Lanthanor held on, right until the point where that short man appeared floating above him and tapped on the other man"s shoulder before saying, "Enough. We can"t kill him yet."
With a snarl, the thin man stepped back and angrily threw something into the open, b.l.o.o.d.y cavity on Daneel"s chest.
All this time, he had been reveling in the screams of pain and the expression of agony on the King of Lanthanor"s face. Each scream seemed like it was music to his ears, and Daneel had even gotten the feeling that he was trying hard not to break out into joyous laughter.
If it hadn"t been established before that this man was mad, then there were no more doubts now.
That something was a green ball of goo, and just as Daneel was about to suspect that this might be another torture device, he was told by the system that it was some sort of freezing agent that would more or less freeze the wound and make it become harmless. Healing spells could heal that injury at their own pace, while not fearing that the injury would obstruct the remaining process of the body, as this green goo also seemed to be able to mimic the anatomy of a human and replace whatever was broken temporarily.
Whatever this was, it was definitely so much more advanced than all of the healing techniques in the Central Continent and even in the d.a.m.n Sect of Hedon. However, when Daneel asked, he was told by the system that the Mad Doctor had written down something about this vaguely in the data that he had collected from his house. Apparently, it was a signature technique of a different member of the Big Four.
Regretfully, he had neglected to mention the name.
Right now, only a few vestiges of that pain was left, which made Daneel understand that it was finally time for words and not screams.
Staggering to his feet, he clutched at his chest where the green goo had become rock hard. Raising a shaking finger, he asked, "W-Who are you?"
His dignity as a King was still present, but it was apparent that it was quite shaken.
As he saw the reactions of the two Heroes, he understood that this had been their objective in the first place.
"Not so regal and grand now, are we? Now that we"ve established that you"re just a fly that I can stamp on whenever I wish, let"s have a discussion, shall we?"
Once again, the thin man spoke. His voice was raspy, almost as if it was being forced out of someone who was very sick. Flicking his finger, he bound Daneel"s hands and legs with invisible cords before making him float up into the air and follow them as they flew back to the Palace.
The scene at the Palace was very strange. At least 30 seconds had pa.s.sed since the attack, and usually, one would expect that there would be panic or at least some action being taken by all of these premier elves of the Kingdom of Eldinor.
Yet, they were all frozen, as if time itself had stopped.
"Young kKng, this is the formation which freezes the bodies of those below the Champion level. It was typically used when high-level beings wanted to have a chat at a place where those of lower power also present. To them, after this is lifted, it will seem as if no time has pa.s.sed, when in reality, they have been made to stand like puppets who are at the whim of whoever activated the formation."
So that was what this was.
Well, it was definitely much less impressive than something which might really stop time, but it was still pretty marvelous.
Of course, Daneel made himself look astonished, as if he couldn"t comprehend at all what was going on.
"These primitive monkeys always think that we stop time. Hey, puny King. They"ve just been frozen solid. Look."
Saying so, the thin man walked up to one of the elves and pushed him at his forehead with his finger.
The elf fell back, causing a domino effect where all of those behind and around him also started to fall, looking as if they were just stone statues.
This made the thin man chuckle, before he walked forward and stamped his foot down on the face of the elf that he had pushed first.
Squis.h.!.+
Only a blurry mess was left, which made Daneel understand just how much this man had been holding back before when he had had his foot on his chest.
Turning around and seeing the round eyes of the King of Lanthanor, the thin man said, "Don"t be so shocked. He is actually the reason we are here. One of them, at least."
With another flick of his finger, 15 elves suddenly un-froze and looked around with stupefied expressions on their faces.
As Daneel viewed them, he finally understood what was going on.
These were the 15 who had had very disapproving expressions back when the alliance had been proposed.
Clearly, in an attempt to stop it, they had contacted the Big Four, which had brought these two down here.
But if so, why the h.e.l.l had they attacked Daneel? To stop the alliance?
The next second, Daneel got the answer to this question, as the short man seemed to have lost his patience.
Adjusting his monocle, he spoke in an impatient tone.
"Cut the bulls.h.i.+t, Kojak. You know we don"t have much time. We"re just here using the alliance as an excuse. Just make him hand over his inheritance, and we can leave. I"m very curious about how he went from being a normal Human to an Exalted Warrior in a matter of years."