The primogenitors looked at each other in absolute disbelief, feeling like they were being pranked by Lady Sphinx and Jörmungandr since they hadn’t met for a long time.
But looking at their confident expressions made them realize that those two were in it for real!
“You guys lost your minds?” Siren shook her head and advised them with good intentions, “I don’t mind taking your treasures after wiping the floor with your champion, but still, I beseech you to reconsider your decision and pick another champion from an actual decent Race.”
Aspidochelone nodded his head and supported her claim, “Humans can barely contest against other participants. In front of our worst champions, they would still get obliterated. You better pick another or at least pick few more champions from your descendants to increase your odds.”
“This Felix Maxwell barely has what it takes to participate in the promotion games.” Erebus commentated while reading Felix’s details from a hologram.
“Thank you all but we know what we are doing.” Lady Sphinx said calmly, “Now, can you please bring the contract so we can get this over with? I still have matters to attend.”
Aspidochelone and the rest of the primogenitors looked at each other one last time before shrugging their shoulders carelessly.
In their eyes, they said more than enough if Lady Sphinx and Jörmungandr were hell-bent on going ahead with their plan, then they would gladly watch it crumble and hope for their champion to be the one who ends up against Felix.
“Lady Sphinx, the contract had received a couple of modifications since the last time you signed it.” Aspidochelone said while projecting two holographic contracts.
Lady Sphinx and Jörmungandr both lifted their heads and started reading its terms silently.
The rest of the primogenitors continued discussing Felix’s situation while at the same time searching for news about him.
If it was any other champion, they wouldn’t bother giving him much attention since each primogenitor had hundreds of champions registered under him.
However, a Human champion that was shared by Lady Sphinx and Jörmungandr?
They knew that they were missing something since there was no way for Lady Sphinx to be stupid enough to pick a human to represent her when she actually participated in the primogenitors’ games and saw how brutal they were.
‘Anyone going to watch his upcoming promotion game?’ Kumiko asked everyone telepathically.
‘If my champions didn’t meet with any of yours in that time, I will give his game a quick glance and see what so special about him.’ Erebus informed.
‘Some of his videos are showing that he is using multiple abilities of poison and sand, do you think that Lady Sphinx has found a method to install two limited manipulations in one body?’ A humanoid body made completely out of molten red rocks asked telepathically.
‘Uhm? Cherufe might be on to something here.’ Siren exclaimed, ‘It’s already known that our descendants or any race related to us can’t inherit more than 1 elemental manipulation. But for humans? That’s a different matter!’
‘With Lady Sphinx’s terrifying intelligence, I actually feel like she might pull it off.’ Kumiho mentioned while peeking at Lady Sphinx who was reading the contract with a casual look.
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‘Heheh, I know what my first bet against them is going to be.’ Erebus said while smiling creepily with his shadow form.
The rest of the primogenitors showed more or less the same expression, appearing like they were all scheming something against Lady Sphinx.
In a short while…
Lady Sphinx and Jörmungandr signed the contract immediately after not discovering any loopholes that were detrimental to them or Felix.
After all, the entire reason this contract was made was to protect the champions somewhat plus punish the primogenitors who failed to abide by the terms signed.
Like reigning in a bet or giving something totally different than what the original wager.
Naturally, for existences like the primogenitors, the punishment would be severe enough to make the breaker feel the pinch of his actions.
If it was possible to make the punishment as severe as death, those primogenitors would have done it to make the games be taken more seriously.
Too bad, every primogenitor was connected to the UVR by using merely a separated tiny part of his consciousness.
So, it was impossible for the Queen to obliterate their consciousness ike she does to other people. If it wasn’t for so, those at the top wouldn’t dare enter the UVR.
“Alright, old pal, now you are capable of seeing other champions in the participation list just like yours would be shown to other primogenitors.”
Aspidochelone explained the basics while looking at Jörmungandr, “If you noticed a champion, simply contact the primogenitor above him and place a bet and the conditions of winning it.”
“Thank you Aspi but don’t waste your breaths, I have already informed jormi about everything that he needs to know.” Lady Sphinx said while standing up.
Jörmungandr followed after her and said to Aspidochelone, “Old turtle, pick a date and call me. Let’s catch up over some drinks.”
“I will make sure to bring the others as well. They would be thrilled to see you again.” Aspidochelone said while giving him a slight head nod.
“Ladies and gentlemen, until we meet again.”
Jörmungandr and Lady Sphinx instantly teleported away after leaving this remark behind.
The primogenitors glanced at each other for a second or two before throwing themselves into their contact list.
All of them started sending messages to their faction members who didn’t bother to show up in this assembly.
Wendigo included had sent a message to two more primogenitors, informing them about everything that transpired at the moment and also to set up a meeting as fast as possible.
‘The emergence of that snake means the other snake may not be dead as well.’ Wendigo thought grimly, ‘After everything we had done to their descendants and legacy; we need to be prepared for the worst retaliation.’
***
Five minutes later…In the consciousness space, Lady Sphinx and Jörmungandr had just informed Felix about his successful sign-up in the champions’ games.
“I bet they looked down on me pretty hard, right?” Felix said, chuckling.
“That’s to be expected.” Jörmungandr said.
“This will make it more fun.” Felix smirked faintly and opened up the participation list again.
He had already done his homework on every one of those players in the past hour, memorizing everything public about them.
Now, it was time to check if there was a primogenitor’s champion within his promotion game.
Look and behold…
Felix had spotted that the name Blood Merchant was golden unlike the rest of the participation! He instantly knew that he was a champion since his name was also shining brightly!
“Blood Merchant, Manananggal’s champion.” Jörmungandr’s expression turned as frigid as ice at the mention of the Blood Primogenitor.
Upon hearing his bone-chilling tone, Felix knew that the situation had changed entirely. He didn’t even need to ask if the Blood Primogenitor was his enemy.
Though he didn’t know what exactly happened between them and he wasn’t planning on asking. If Jörmungandr wanted him to kill the Blood Merchant Felix was going to do so in a heartbeat.
He was offered too much and treated too well by Jörmungandr to object to his requests.
“It seems like he is the newest champion to Manananggal.” Lady Sphinx informed, “Should we contact Manananggal now or wait for him to do so?”
“Let’s wait.” Jörmungandr said indifferently.
Upon hearing so, Felix clicked on Blood Merchant’s profile again and started rereading his information extensively to see if he missed anything.
Based on what he previously read, the Blood Merchant was known for his brutality in killing as he always saps his targets dry of blood before throwing them like juice containers.
It was unknown how far he reached in his second stage of blood manipulation but based on his videos, it was obvious that he was in the high ends.
That’s because he could create towers of blood out of nowhere with a simple finger snap.
Compared to Felix who had just entered the 2nd stage of poison manipulation, he was way too far in his control.
Felix was barely capable of creating poison bombs three meters away from him. Although he was improving with a tremendous speed, it was still not enough to catch up to those champions.
Thankfully, he had other strengths to rely on!
***
Meanwhile, inside a cozy living room that was floored with grey wood and decorated with many waxed creatures’ heads, three individuals were sitting in front of a burning fireplace.
Besides the cracking of burning wood, silence reigned the living room as those three appeared like they were in deep contemplation.
One of them was Wendigo and the other two were his close friends, allies, and his faction members.
The one sitting on the left armchair had a gloomy feel to him due to his scrawny figure and dark eye bags on his bleached skin.
The other appeared like a four-legged centaur with his horse-like body parts.
The only reason he wouldn’t comes off as a centaur was his ash-grey smooth skin and unique ‘U’ shaped red horn on top of his bald head.
A few moments later, the pale man let out a long exhale and said with his eyes closed shut, “I still can’t believe it.”
“Neither did I brother Manananggal…Neither did I.” Wendigo shook his head and said, “But, it is the truth.”
Manananggal looked at the horned man and asked, “Brother Saurous, mind sharing with us your thoughts?”
Saurous broke out of his contemplation and said, “To be honest, I am quite stumped.”
“How so?”
“Think about it, the news of his death and Thor’s had been confirmed from the tiny pieces spread in the massive area around the place they battled in. Only by going supernova would their bodies end up in such a state, which made us confirm their death and carry our plans against their descendants.”
“Now, you are telling me that he is alive and kicking?” Saurous shook his head, “I don’t know if they staged their death by splitting parts of their bodies and sending them away or they truly had truly died and Jörmungandr’s current existence is merely a surviving wisp.”
Wendigo scratched his skull with a bony finger for a short moment before addressing Saurous guesses, “There is a small chance that he is a surviving wisp since he would need someone to awaken him. I doubt that Lady Sphinx would bother doing so since she understood that would offend our faction immensely.”
The rest nodded their heads in approval. They understood that Lady Sphinx was the last primogenitor who would do such action that would cause her a shit storm of trouble.
That’s because she was known for avoiding any kind of drama or conflict that would do nothing but waste her precious time.
“In addition, I doubt that there is any merit in awakening that snake besides getting some of his buried treasures.” Wendigo added, “If she was aiming for dead primogenitors’ treasures, we would have been seeing that all of the dead primogenitors had been revived by her.”
“Correct.”
“You forgot the most important reason.” Saurous said calmly, “No primogenitor would be disrespectful enough to awaken a primogenitor who chose to die at the worst possible timing.”
All of them agreed on this point. They knew that every primogenitor who died right after the pact had gotten shafted hard by destiny.
By waking them up, it would serve no purpose but rubbing it in their faces.
What they didn’t know was that Felix was the asshole who woke up Jörmungandr without having a single clue about any of this.
He was the missing link that made Jörmungandr’s being awakened after his death not logical at all.
It was more believable that both Jörmungandr and Thor had faked their deaths…However, this hypothesis had another issue that wasn’t logical as well in their eyes.
“Why would they do it? And I doubt that I have seen Jörmungandr and Thor in the illusionary world with us.” Manananggal said with a frown.
“Maybe they have entered it after we had been put to sleep by the illusion primogenitor?” Wendigo suggested.
“Possible but that still doesn’t answer the biggest question…Why did they do it?” Manananggal looked at them and said, “If it was a way to ambush us when we least expected then they have failed miserably after the Jörmungandr exposed himself. Plus, they left their faction member Fenrir fending against all three of us.”
“It just doesn’t make any sense…None of the options make sense…Something is missing, something that would clear this fog.” Manananggal said coldly, “We just need to find it and act based on it!”
