Chapter 210: 4th Elder

Armori wiped the sweat from his temple, looked around. The bodies scattered about, guts and faeces wafted the surrounding with stench. Blood pooled all over, painting an ugly painting. The wounded whined and dead laid without twitching. Weapons and limbs littered giving a gloomy and sorrowful appearance to the hill. 

Though they had won the battle, no one had a smile on their faces. After all, war always brings blood and chaos with it—in which both sides suffer. Although they lost far less compared to their enemies. Nonetheless they still lost many of their brethren. When Del disappeared most of the people didn't even realise and continued to fight, slaughtering each other. 

When Armori and Alexander joined, it became a one sided slaughter, but they had only four hands after all. They could not kill thousands of the people in the blink, and that time was enough to slaughter hundreds of people, and they lost over 500 people in that time.

Alexander, who had a stern face stood up and eyed the gloomy faces before speaking: "Don't waste the sacrifices of your companions! They gave their lives for the betterment of the future. Now it is your duty, to take their legacy further, and pull the Heavenly Palace from its root!"

"Pull from the root!!"

"Pull from the root!!"

"Pull from the root!!"

Hearing his words, everyone shouted in unison. Alexander observed their faces and continued in a serious tone. "Now we need to bury our companions who left us, however…" he paused and looked towards the mountain of corpses. "We also need to bury those who didn't fight from our side."

"That isn't proper leader!" someone from the crowd objected.

"They killed our brethren. I would let vultures eat their flesh!" another man voiced his opinion, and one by one many more objected. Alexander heard and didn't interrupt until all of them fell silent.

"Do you think they were fighting because they love to do such things?" Alexander sneered. "There might be many in them who really loved to slaughter, but I can assure that most of them were forced and threatened to fight for the Heavenly Palace. By capturing their family and children and by any other means. They were as much victims of the palace as you people. So tell me, don't they deserve better treatment?"

All of them fell silent after hearing his words and exchanged glances with each other. "It's your choice if you want to bury them or let animals eat their bodies. Decide, and whatever you do, I won't blame anyone."

Speaking nothing the people turned and went to dig the graves. Alexander smiled when he saw they were burying their enemies together with their lost companions. "And more things—" he shouted, attracting everyone's attention once more. "Spread the news that we have defeated the force of Heavenly Palace. Not only we defeated but crushed them under our feet. Let everyone know that their ninth elder—" he halted suddenly, and looked in a certain direction. His eyes lightened and lips curled. "Let everyone know that the ninth elder have been slayed!"

——

Noor clutched Del by his throat and smiled cruelly. "Do you know what is going to happen with you?"

"Gurgagg," the man struggled and tried to speak something. Maybe some kind of threat, but only gagging noise came from his strangled throat.

"That's enough," said Isobel. "We need to get out of here. No one should know that the leader of rebellions is our father—father of Ayaan's woman, or it would cause trouble we won't be able to avoid."

Del who was hanging by his neck, opened his bulging eyes even more after hearing her words. He could not believe what he had just now heard. If they knew this truth, maybe the third elder himself would have come here. After all they could use Alexander's life to threaten Ayaan to give them the secret of the tower.

"Slap!"

"Keep silence, you worm." Noor slapped Del's face and looked down at him disdainfully. "Slaves like you don't deserve to speak in front of a master."

Del felt the urge to slaughter this cunt, but he continued to hang helplessly. The strength of the girl shocked him. What kind of cultivation level did this girl reach? He had no idea, even thinking made his heart clenched in horror.

The duo looked towards the hill and sighed. "I want to meet father." Noor said.

"Me too," Isobel replied. "We always had the wrong idea about him. He had so many things going on inside his head." She sighed.

"I must have hurt him many times." Noor lowered her head, in sorrow.

"Don't worry," Isobel comforted her sister. "You did nothing intentionally. Now don't overthink, and let's go. We have a gift for sister Rebecca." She said and ogled at Del with an evil grin that made the man shudder.

Afterward both sisters jumped from the tree and headed into the woods, disappearing with no trace, as if there was no one present just a few seconds before.

——

"What, Del has been killed and his army was slaughtered?!" Third Elder sprang over his feet, peering at the messenger with a deep gaze.

"Yes… mi-milord." The poor guy tried to control the shaking of his body but he failed. The fear came from deep within his heart, he could not explain the source of his fear.

"Where is the 7th and 8th elder? Send both of them to hunt that bastard who dared to kill the elder of the Heavenly Palace!"

"But the 8th, 7th, 6th, and 5th elders went to find the traces of Ayaan. They are waiting for him to make a mistake and would catch him unprepared." The man felt tired and fatigue clutched his body after saying only these words. He was about to go limp and fall, but in fear he was holding himself.

"Go ask the 4th elder." He said after some deliberation. "He needs to solve the problem of Alexander as soon as possible and then join others to hunt Ayaan. We need to get our hands on the secrets of the tower, no matter what. Now get lost!"