Free Web NovelChapter 42: Playing the strings
ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ
Ding!
[Mission Completed]
Save the City of Light and Bring It Completely Under Your Rule!
Reward: Five Heavenly-grade Abyss Bloodline Elixirs
ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ
A smile appeared on Rios’s face after seeing that his final mission had finally been completed. At last, he could relax for a while and begin understanding this world at his own pace.
Closing the system panel, Rios shifted his gaze toward the Falcon guests with a sly smile before speaking.
"Welcome, our honored guests. I must admit, I’m quite curious. What brings you to our humble City of Light?"
Mark Volk subconsciously swallowed when he met Rios’s cunning gaze.
This man is anything but simple... I need to be careful.
"Your Majesty King Rios, first allow me to introduce myself. My name is Mark Volk. On behalf of Storm City, I congratulate Your Majesty on your ascension. We also apologize for not bringing a gift worthy of Your Majesty, though I will make certain one is sent upon my return."
Mark bowed slightly, and the other members of the Falcon race followed suit.
"Thank you, Lord Mark. I appreciate your congratulations on behalf of the City of Light. As for the gift, there’s no need. I didn’t invite anyone from outside the city in the first place."
Rios spoke indifferently before narrowing his eyes.
"But you still haven’t answered my question. What exactly is the reason for your visit, Lord Mark?"
Mark swallowed again as he felt Rios’s aura locking onto him. He mentally prepared himself to fight—or flee—at any moment.
"We originally came in response to the City of Light’s distress call. Our intention was to negotiate and offer assistance. However, now that Your Majesty has already eliminated the threat hanging over the city, there is nothing left for us to contribute. So we merely wished to meet the new neighbor the Storm Kingdom has gained."
Mark barely dared raise his head as he spoke, all the while cursing himself for ever entertaining the idea of exploiting the elves during their moment of weakness.
"Oh? So you came to negotiate... or to profit from our downfall?"
Rios looked at Mark without bothering to hide the disgust in his eyes.
"And now you say you simply wished to meet your new neighbor? Or was it your new potential threat?"
Mark frowned inwardly. freewebnøvel.com
This won’t be easy...
"You cannot blame us, Your Majesty. I have no doubt the City of Light would have done the same had the Storm Kingdom been in our position. Besides, who wouldn’t want to learn about their future friends... or future enemies?"
Summoning every ounce of courage and pride he possessed, Mark answered in a firm voice, defending the dignity of both his kingdom and his race.
Rios’s brows furrowed even further.
His gaze sharpened.
The pressure of his aura intensified around Mark.
Yet Mark remained standing, his expression rigid.
Eventually, the stern look on Rios’s face melted into a sly smile.
"I can’t fault you for that. Everyone pursues their own interests." freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
"Thank you for your understanding, Your Majes—"
Mark had barely begun thanking him when Rios interrupted.
"Everyone looks after their own interests, and naturally, the City of Light is no exception. I’ll overlook your previous offense as a personal favor—and as a gesture of goodwill to open a new Chapter between us."
His words sounded ordinary to everyone in the hall.
Everyone...
Except the five Falcon guests.
"We elves naturally prefer peace before resorting to violence. But should anyone wish to test their luck... or try playing with the strings..."
Rios’s smile widened.
"I’ll be more than happy to take the initiative... and cut off the hands they’re using to play."
The moment Mark heard those words, a chill spread throughout his entire body.
I’ll overlook your previous offense...
Test their luck...
Playing with the strings...
"Your Majesty, I’m afraid our journey ends here. We apologize for not staying until Her Highness’s coronation is complete, but there are matters of the utmost importance that must be reported to His Majesty, King of the Falcon Race. Decisions of great consequence must be made as quickly as possible."
Mark bowed respectfully while asking permission to leave.
If he were refused...
He was prepared to escape, even if it meant sacrificing the companions who had come with him.
Far too many things had happened today.
Every single one of them had to be reported immediately.
"Mmm. You may leave."
Rios nodded, granting permission.
From the very beginning, everything he had said about the elves’ love of peace had been nothing more than empty lies.
If he possessed the necessary strength...
He would have declared war on them without a moment’s hesitation.
True, Rios was almost invincible on this continent.
But only on an individual level.
Many would say that he had annihilated the Centaur army entirely by himself.
What they failed to realize...
Was that the Centaur army had been nothing more than a small military force compared to ancient noble powers like the Falcons’ Storm Kingdom—or even the City of Light before its decline.
Even Abyss Graveyard was far from invincible.
It possessed numerous weaknesses.
As a close-to-mid-range skill, its first weakness became obvious against enemies capable of fighting from extreme distances.
The Falcon race, able to fly at tremendous speeds, maneuver effortlessly through the skies, and launch devastating attacks from several kilometers away, was practically the perfect counter to the skill.
Not to mention that the Storm Kingdom wasn’t the only Falcon kingdom on the continent.
Nor was the Forest of Light the only kingdom of the elves.
And the Falcon race wasn’t even the only race capable of flight.
The skill’s second weakness lay in its immobility.
Once Abyss Graveyard was activated and the Abyss Domain established, neither Rios nor his enemy could leave unless the domain itself was destroyed... or Rios willingly dismissed it.
Then came the third weakness.
Using Abyss Graveyard consumed an enormous amount of energy.
Worse still, each use left both Rios’s body and soul utterly exhausted.
Attempting to cast it again immediately afterward would only injure himself unless he had absolutely no other choice.
For that reason, Rios had no intention of relying on it often.
Instead, he reserved it as his final trump card—or a means of ending a battle as quickly as possible.
Until he fully understood this continent and built an army worthy of his ambitions...
He had no intention of launching any campaign of conquest.
"In that case, Your Majesty, we shall take our leave. I hope we meet again soon."
