"Why did you suddenly decide to tell me all these?" Kyran asked after a moment's pause.
True Void looked at Kyran in silence.
Kyran returned his gaze with raised brows, "What?"
"A new Soul Emperor has appeared, even if she is still a novitiate or as you say, only half complete. She will come after you. It is high time you learn truth and understand the legacy master has left you."
"Legacy, huh," Kyran repeated with a bitter smile. "It's more like a burden, to be honest."
True Void responded by patting Kyran's head while saying, "There. There."
Kyran glared at him but did not shove his small robotic hand, "Were you keeping things from me because the Soul Emperor has not awakened yet?"
"Partly," True Void admitted. "You know what they say, if you unnecessarily talk about things that has not come to pass, you might end up inviting the Fates to make it happen."
"That's partly the reason, what's the other?"
"You were not ready to learn the truth. If you learned the truth back then, could you have stayed rational? I don't think so. You would have went on a suicidal charge to save your clan."
Kyran did not refute because True Void was right. If not for his training in the Tower of Tribulation and encounters with other Sovereigns, he would not learn how to control his emotions and stay calm even in the face of death.
In any case, the reason Kyran could remain calm after finding the truth was that acting recklessly would only get his clan killed. When that happened, they would turn into the very beings he was trying to prevent them from becoming— undying souls under the Soul Emperor.
Kyran suddenly thought of something, and he laughed in disdain.
"Oi, don't go mental on me, Void Halfling," True Void remarked after hearing him.
"I'm not. I just realized I've got everything wrong."
"Hm? What do you mean?"
Kyran took this chance to tell True Void what happened while he was asleep. He also shared his previous theories of what the Anima Novitiate might be plotting.
After a few minutes, he said, "I had thought the Anima Novitiate's reason for arranging the joint military exercise was to stealthily find a way to mark and control the Conclave members while they are still 'alive.' But now, I think her real objective is to sow discord amongst all factions and have them kill each other. Then she could start building her new army from their dead."
With a wry smile, he added, "She is even using Tyr to build up the tension between the Lumley Family and the Conclave."
"That is definitely something the Soul Emperor would do. The previous one also sowed discord between my master and the Dragon Lord. That was how they almost ended up killing each other."
"Are you going to tell me their story too?"
"No. Forget I said anything just now."
"..."
Kyran sat a couple of meters in front of the flowering tree and sighed, "I thought you said it's high time I understand the truth."
"The truth of what the Soul Emperor could do, yes. Not everything that happened in the past. Anyway, knowing the past will not help you. It will only confuse you."
He needed to understand the bigger picture. Eventually, the whole truth would be revealed, so there was no rush. What mattered was to know as much information about his opponent.
While he thought this, another disturbing idea crossed his mind, and a cold chill suddenly gripped his heart.
It was a thought of why the Royal Family decided not to reveal the appearance of a mage possessing the forbidden Void magic to the public. Knowing the Soul Emperor's modus operandi was to sow discord, she could have revealed a new Dark Sage was on the rise and sent the whole empire into a state of panic. But she did not because, in her incomplete state, the number of dead souls she could control was limited.
But if Ruin succeeded in finding Cyneah. If the Anima Novitiate became complete. The first ones to become her new army of undying souls would definitely be the Regis Clan.
Kyran shook his head and pushed the disturbing thought to the back of his mind.
He tried to tell himself that all of these were only speculations and stop jumping to conclusions. But a small voice was telling him he got most of it correct.
Nevertheless, there was still a question bothering Kyran:
Did the Soul Emperor cause the demon's arrival and sow discord in the Human plane only to gather an army of undying souls? Is that all there was to it?
No. She was definitely after something and was preparing an army for it.
Kyran sighed inwardly. He knew too little of the Anima Novitiate to draw any conclusion.
Even if she might be Cyneah's essence, they were different.
They had to be different.
'Because Neah is not that kind of person,' Kyran thought.
Shaking his head slightly, Kyran reigned in the fear that gripped him. He would not wallow in his fear. Instead, he had to use today's knowledge to improve his odds of saving his clan and then...
'No, let's focus on saving my clan first. I'll think of the rest after that,' Kyran decided.
At the moment, his success rate is 15%. It used to be 5% after accumulating the Templar Code, but after killing Savagery, it gained an additional 10%.
It shot up to 15 because killing Savagery meant the Anime Novitiate also lost her beast army.
Kyran believed the thousands of eggs that came out of her after death was her army. They lived off Savagery's magic energy, but when she died, they regressed into eggs after their supply got cut off.
The 85% failure rate was mainly because the Anima Novitiate still had two Sovereigns with her, each having their own army. There was also her army, consisting of the Royal Family Guards, the Royal Army, and the rest of the factions— big and small in the empire.
Of course, this was not Kyran's final odds.
He sent his Sigils on errands to increase his odds.
Max and Reuben went to the Valley of Morte to replenish Max's stock of beasts. Kyran would also find a way for Max to tame and cultivate Savagery's eggs as soon as possible.
Tritus, on the other hand, was Kyran's eyes inside the Royal Family's Elite Force. He would also feed them information that would benefit Kyran. As a matter of fact, Tritus already sent the Royal Family a slightly amended report of the Shaiha incident under Kyran's order. That was Zephyr's errand when he met Tritus the other day.
Byron's task was to establish a connection with Olivia's original self. If Kyran could get the Aureole on his side, too, he would gain the assistance of two prominent factions.
When Kyran said two, he meant the Aureole and the Conclave. The Templar Code was not included because they were technically under his command now.
Then there was the Montgomeray Family.
Based on Kyran's assessment of their military strength, they were only considered a small faction. Unfortunately, their number, even with the addition of their contracted Spirits, did not pass a medium faction. But Kyran made arrangements with White Lily to improve the number of summoners in their family.
White Lily was the Queen of the Faes, and it was easy for her to awaken the Fae's blood sleeping among the Montgomeray members' veins.
This way, the number of summoners would increase, allowing more Spirits to enter the Human plane.
Spirits were more than willing to help Kyran. Unfortunately, due to a lack of human summoners, most could only stay in the Human plane for a limited time. But once there were more human summoners, Kyran could expect more help from them.
Kyran also planned to infiltrate most small and medium factions and find something he could use to get them to his side. By coveting these factions, he could lower the backup forces the Anima Novitiate could tap into.
Infiltration was a tedious task and would need one to devote a considerable amount of time to infiltrate one faction. But Kyran did not have to waste his time doing these alone. He also did not need his Sigils to step in and do it. Besides, even if he employed all five of them, they could only infiltrate five factions.
For this reason, Kyran devised another way of infiltration. That was the first thing he had done after appearing as Tyr.
That was right. Kyran's infiltration started when he released his magic items to the public.
All his magic items had his signature, and he could tap into it and 'read all information' it came across whenever he wanted.
Of course, his magic signature was hidden. And he would not make a careless decision of hiding it within 'Tyr's signature.' The latter's signature was only a disguise. Kyran's real signature was hidden inside the magic item's array calculation and was undetectable.
Whenever Kyran had time, he would connect his magic sense to all these items and check for any updates.
So far, he had already gathered enough information on a few dozens of small and medium factions. He planned to visit them and then convince them to sign a temporary alliance while working as Nar in the Blue Lotus.
Speaking of the Blue Lotus, they would still become Kyran's main force
Keeping in mind True Void's warning, Kyran decided that if the Blue Lotus's head was untrustworthy, he could do what he did to Tritus and make him a trustworthy Sigil.
Finally, there was Gage.
Gage's task was to gather all hidden factions willing to fight the Royal Army. These were rebels waiting in the dark for their chance to revolt.
Gage and Silas both hated the Royal Army after what they did to their families.
Kyran did not know what happened to Gage's family, but the older guy's hatred for the Royal Army was real. It was enough for Kyran and even Nolan to trust him with the task.
Kyran believed once he gathered all of these forces— his target was in a month— he could increase his odds to 50%.
A 50% success rate was better than his initial 5%.
There were other factors Kyran did not include in his estimation. They were Nolan, True Void and Azaloth.
The reason was simple.
Kyran considered them as his trump cards. Well, two of them, to be precise, because the other one had a 'special identity' and would not be able to do much.
In any case, Kyran still needed to find True Void's real 'body' for him to really appear as a trump card. At the moment, his ability to absorb an enormous amount of magic energies was the only reason Kyran considered him one.
As a last resort, Kyran would release True Void and absorb all the magic energies in the surroundings to stop all mages from tapping into their magic.
There was another trump card Kyran had in possession that his father's essence had taught him. But he could use that one at a specific place with the correct number of participants, which was why Kyran did not include it.
Nevertheless, it was something he would do if an opportunity presented itself.
"Void Halfling, are you okay? Did your brain happen to short-circuit after all those information?" True Void's voice snapped Kyran out of his reverie.
Kyran looked at him with a raised brow, "No. Come on, help me maintain the cottage's array while I warp this whole place."
"Aren't you going to tell your Sigil, Zephyr was it? About relocating?"
"I'll get him and godmother after. The cottage takes priority."
"You mean the mistress's safety takes priority," True Void teased, his eyes glowing mischievously.
Kyran ignored him and activated the cottage's array.
"Bahahaha! You don't have to be embarrassed. You are a young man. I'd be worried if you are not interested in a woman. Even my master used to think about that whore all the time."
Black lines appeared on Kyran's head while adamantly ignoring True Void's nonsense. He wondered how Caelan nurtured his weapon to produce such a... strange spirit.
When True Void failed to get any response from Kyran, he chuckled and finally settled down to help.
From a distance, if one looked at the forest outside Noser from a very high place, they would have noticed a vast purple light enveloping a massive part of it. But the light only flickered once that one would think they imagined it.
That night, a huge part of the forest unknowingly disappeared, leaving only a large stretch of empty land behind.
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