…

Outside when the people saw the light emerged, they were all momentarily stunned by it, the light had even shattered the red barrier. After a few moments the people resumed their battle not letting their opponent get the upper hand.

When the light disappeared, Barren Convo, his unit and Coco were the last standing. The four generals who were looking for the stone were also present.

Outside the red barrier’s area, the fight between Augustus and the Black Cloud also came to a halt, with one member of black Cloud dead and the other three injured. Augustus himself was also injured but was still in a better condition.

“Seems like our client’s mission has failed, we’ll take our leave old man but this isn’t over.” One of the Black Cloud members said as he quickly activated a cube teleporting his group away.

‘And the next time will also be the same.’ Augustus thought as he looked in the distance where the light came from.

Clare who was fighting with one of the Black Cloud members also came to a stop when he suddenly teleported away. The people who were maintaining the barrier had also escaped when the barrier went down.

…

Damian and Aeolus were still going at it. They both were about to deal each other an attack, when suddenly both of them were blocked by Augustus when he suddenly appeared between them.

“Now, now gentlemen, enough fighting, I’ll take over from here.” Augustus said. Both of them halted suddenly at the sight of Augustus.

A few minutes later Merissa emerged from the building supporting Alex to walk and Rose came out carrying Nina.

Merissa when walking towards Augustus asked Rose “Say how did you know where to find us?”

Rose gave her a short explanation about how she continued to trace the mana signals from the teleportation left behind in school and reached here and got in just before the barrier formed.

‘She has raised a good disciple.’ Merissa thought, impressed.

When they reached Alex stood on his own and looked at three before him.

He then asked “which one of you is Augustus?”

Everyone except for Augustus were staggered as Alex had not used any honorable words and had even mentioned his name casually. Though he wasn’t from here, any normal person saying that alone was extremely inappropriate.

“That would be me.” Augustus replied in a normal manner. But what Alex said next gave them an even bigger shock.

“I want to make a deal with you.”

“Oh, what would that be?”

“Release Blake and remove all charges upon him and give full support to his sister.”

Augustus recalled the name Blake. “The Black Cloud boy?”

Alex nodded.

“And what are you willing to give me in return?”

 “A chance to erase a great misunderstanding of your Kingdom.”

The people were getting confused and couldn’t make sense of what Alex was on about.

“I can just take that thing away from you by force.” Augustus said as he gave a slight smile. Alex opened his right fist and in there floating was a small tiny ball of light. Everyone recognized what it was. A memory fragment, it can be used to view the memory of a person.

“I believe you can but I don’t think it’ll hold if you take it forcefully, it’ll denotate itself, surely you can try if you think I am bluffing. Although I don’t think such forceful methods will look good on a person of your status.”

What Alex was telling was indeed true, such a thing was truly possible. Alex only had a feeling this’ll happen he didn’t know for sure. He intended to help Blake from a long time back. With the help of the stone, he had accidently performed something called a soul gazing.

Alex didn’t know the details but he understood that one could look at other person’s memory with this. When he got the fragment from Xerxes, he thought of using it as a bargaining chip. As Alex and Xerxes both could read each other’s thought due to the bond, Xerxes understood Alex’s intentions and had made the fragment that way.

Still Alex held a doubt, because this involved Xerxes innocence, he might not risk it on Alex’s bargain. After a little pause Augustus gave a small laugh.

“Hahah… I like you kid. We have a deal on the condition that Blake discloses everything he knows about the Black Cloud.”

“State that to him and if he rejects then you can do whatever you like with him.” Alex said as he handed the fragment to Augustus. In actuality Augustus had studied Blake’s case and had gotten information from Azmiel after his interrogation that Blake’s sister had some disease. Blake worked for Black Cloud to obtain the resources which can help in saving his sister. He had approached the hospitals before but being poor, he was denied help. This was something Augustus was against.

He had planned to already help him, he just wanted to test Alex.

“I would also like you to come to the Council headquarters, I’d like to hear about what happened from your end, I hope you can cooperate.” Augustus said.

“Alright, but I’ll have something human edible, I am starving.” Alex said as he shrugged.

“Hoho… don’t worry you’ll be served well.” Augustus said with a smile.