“Shall we investigate the background of that adorable young lady?”
Gillian spoke, swinging her fluffy tail and gazing in surprise at her master. She tilted her head and said in displease.
“I’m surprised, Master. I thought that the intelligence department would be useful after having Alice around. I even considered laying off some members due to the economic depression. Our departmental budget needs to be cut again. Although for the most part we are self-sufficient, we’re affected by your lesser support, Master. But… We’re basically useless before the godlike ability of Alice…”
Even though this fox-eared young lady was full of it, she was actually right. After having Alice around, Rhode didn’t need to worry about gathering intelligence any longer. As the History Deity Warden, Alice could record and pull out any history from anytime. Judging from this, even though the things that she recorded was the ‘past’, its intelligence was even more effective than the Internet in the real world. It was due to this reason that Gillian’s intelligence department was doing badly in comparison as gathering intelligence required time. It was understandable from Gillian’s exaggerated reaction when Rhode said to send someone to investigate Lilian. It felt as though one had an ultra-high speed quantum computer but chose to operate with an ancient model instead.
“The situation is a little unique.”
Rhode didn’t entertain her jokes this time. Instead, he looked at her and spoke sternly.
After gaining information on Lilian from Lydia, Rhode immediately looked for Alice, hoping to use her ability to discover what exactly happened to Lilian back then. He felt like the fact of Lilian being brought back to the side of the former Light Dragon by the Light Parliament was rather fishy.
Rhode initially thought that this wasn’t hard to accomplish because it was Alice’s expertise to read the past and history. But he realized that he was too naive because Alice wasn’t able to ‘backtrack’ to the crucial period. She could find out where Lilian was born and how she grew up in the Country of Light but the most crucial part was completely skipped. No, perhaps it was distorted in history. It was as though a compact history book had its next page torn or smeared in black ink. But after flipping through several damaged pages, one would find out that the content was heading in a totally different direction. In fact, Rhode was also stunned when he heard this news from Alice and she seemed like this was nothing worthy of being astonished for.
“This isn’t strange, Your Majesty. Indeed, I’m the ‘History Deity Warden’ and in this continent there is almost nothing that I can’t backtrack. But please take note that this is ‘almost’. The so-called ‘history’ needs to have the past from the present, a present from the future, and the present piled up with the past. Nothing is too challenging for me with the prerequisite that…” Alice paused on purpose as though emphasizing her point. “It is within Order. Your Majesty, you’ve personally witnessed the past of the Void Territory. To a Deity Warden like myself, the dragon soul heir is only a baby-like figure at best now and not worthy of a mention.”
Alice domineeringly dismissed the dragon soul heirs with that last statement. Of course, Rhode also realized that her so-called ‘history’ ability definitely wasn’t as simple as Holmes’ investigations.
“Her Highness Christie and I possess enough strength to deal with the dragon soul heirs. But… in order for that to happen, we must be within Order. We are the people of Order and if we lose the protection of Order, our powers will become extremely limited and unusable.”
Rhode understood what she meant because it was as though strategic weapons in the real world that were capable of destroying earth would be nothing more than a pile of scrap metal without their energy source. Judging from this point, Alice’s power was indeed limited. Just like she mentioned, history was the necessary Order arrangement, but if they lost the support of Order, there would be no differentiation between present, past, and future. Without history, it would mean nothing for the ‘History Deity Warden’ Alice.
In this case, the outline of things became much clearer now.
Something must have happened from the point where Lilian was led away by the emissaries of the Light Parliament and sent to the former Light Dragon. Besides, this matter was also related to Chaos… Could this be the reason why the two archangels were wary of Lilian and treated her coldly? If this was the case, Rhode could understand their behaviors. No matter what, Chaos was the natural enemy of Order and as the dragon soul heir, it would be intolerable and unacceptable for Lilian to be contaminated by Chaos. But the archangels lacked sufficient evidence to prove this point which was why they held this cold attitude toward her. Considering this perspective, their behavior was completely understandable. If it weren’t for Alice’s help to confirm that Lilian was indeed associated with Chaos, perhaps Rhode wouldn’t have confirmed this truth.
But… that happened in the past, after all.
At this point in time, Lilian was only an ordinary dragon soul heir, to which Alice had also nodded in agreement. But her answer wasn’t comforting for Rhode at all.
“If I detected that she’s a worshiper of Chaos, I would have killed her during our meeting today.”
Rhode had to admit that Lilian was indeed fortunate.
Of course, he didn’t believe that Lilian was a worshiper of Chaos. After all, she had inherited the Light Dragon and even though her body might have been contaminated by Chaos in the past, her power of Order was much stronger than its power of Chaos now. An ice cube that tried to extinguish the sun would only find itself evaporating to nothingness.
But this way, there were two problems. What exactly did the Light Parliament do to Lilian? And was the former Light Dragon aware of it?
Rhode didn’t need to question if the Chaos worshippers had infiltrated the Light Parliament because he knew that there were several groups of cultists, demons, and devils within the Country of Light like a huge family of evil. Therefore, it was impossible to say that no Chaos worshipers had found their way into the parliament. Judging from the weak Light Dragon and how the parliament had been promoting human freedom for years and requesting humans to abandon their beliefs in the Light Dragon, the motive of Chaos couldn’t be clearer. Their ultimate goal was to invade the Dragon Soul Continent and weaken the dragon soul protection barriers and striking the Light Dragon first was the best option for them.
Order and Chaos were natural enemies. Perhaps Chaos occupied an absolute number of advantages on the periphery, but on this continent, they weren’t too powerful. Besides, would the former Light Dragon be unaware of everything?
Alice couldn’t find an explanation. The former dragon soul heir occupied a unique and important position in history, like a combination lock. If it were Rhode, she could easily read his history. But if it were the dead dragon soul heir, it would take a lot more effort to break the code. Besides, according to Alice, it was challenging to find the dead in the intricate sea of history. If she could find the person’s bones or some related items, perhaps it would make the situation easier…
Therefore, Rhode needed more information, and since he couldn’t get them through Alice, he could only use the most ancient method.
“I see…”
Gillian puckered her brows. Indeed, since this was the case, this would be a tough issue for Rhode and the continent. Even though Rhode didn’t know when Chaos would stop, it seemed like Chaos was rather successful.
So successful that Rhode was concerned.
“Alright then, what should I do? If you want to investigate the Light Parliament, your pet has more value, isn’t it, Master? I heard that she did well sneaking around in Parliament.”
“Sonia has to be the final insurance for Lilian. I will find some time to explain to her about that. Currently, the Country of Light isn’t doing great and it will be terrible if Lilian faces any danger now. I guess those guys should be aware of this.”
Rhode waved his hand airily and knitted his brows.
“Sonia has an advantageous identity now. Since Chaos has chosen to attack Lilian, we may possibly need Sonia’s help. But before that happens, it is best that Sonia does her current job calmly and not act rashly. This is why I need your men to investigate. I know you will sacrifice a huge number of people, but don’t worry. With Alice around, she will inform you immediately as soon as their ‘history’ began to distort.”
“Uh-oh. Master, what you meant is to let the Deity Warden join my intelligence department?”
Gillian widened her eyes in surprise before chuckling playfully.
“How scary. I’m only a humble elemental lord, so how can I make the Deity Warden work for me? But since you’ve given your order, I can only follow through, Master.”
Gillian rolled her eyes.
“By the way, about your pet…”
“I’ll tell her myself.”
“Wow. You’re so nice to her… Master, even though I shouldn’t say this…”
Gillian teased and Rhode twitched his brow.
“Since you’re using her life as a pawn, it goes without saying that she should be treated better despite her being your pet, isn’t it?”
It was near midnight when Lilian fell asleep. Sonia quietly walked out of the room and closed the door after taking a final look at the adorable girl. Lilian seemed much happier than usual today and Sonia knew the reason why. But it was a pity that if it weren’t for the sacred palace allowing only dragon soul heirs and their direct subjects to enter, Sonia would have met her master…
After being with Lilian for a long time, Sonia had learned how to grasp Lilian’s mood swings. Even though Lilian was also happy around her, it was apparent that she was particularly delightful today. Sonia felt helpless because no matter what, she had been together with Lilian for so long and yet, she still lost to Rhode in terms of affections…
However, this thought instantly vanished as soon as she saw the person who stood inside her room.
“Master!?”
Sonia shrieked in surprise and widened her eyes in disbelief. She quickly closed and locked the door before scampering to Rhode and bowed deeply.
“Long time no see, Master.”
“Yes, it has been awhile, Sonia.”
Rhode nodded pleasingly. In fact, he had treated Sonia as a useful tool from the start like Nell and Sara. But Sonia had proven that she was highly effective. Judging from her results, everything that she accomplished was praise-worthy. She knew how to act appropriately, concealed herself between the Light Parliament and Lilian, and wouldn’t forcefully attempt some risky investigation for the sake of winning his likes. She was the main reason for the recent riots that occurred in the Country of Light. She cleverly used the arguments of one unpopular parliament member and two parliament members who were deeply loved by the public and successfully aroused fear in the non-humans living in border regions. This led to them having a sense of urgency that ‘if they didn’t resist, it would be too late’ and started breaking out in riots. Judging from this result, Sonia seemed really experienced. Besides, she didn’t reveal herself or do anything that sabotaged her identity, and yet she completed all the tasks that Rhode had given her perfectly.
There was no better pawn than her.
Rhode gazed at the young lady and of course, he sensed the excitement and agitation in her beautiful eyes. Come to think of it, it was necessary for the master to teach his students how to distinguish between rewards and punishments. If he were to only exploit and oppress, he would be nothing more than a slave owner. While the student was wagging her tail, the master should show some love to encourage it to work harder, wasn’t it?
“You did well, Sonia. Even though I have many things to tell you, I can leave them for later…”
Rhode narrowed his eyes and scanned her from head to toe. Sonia shivered in exhilaration upon sensing his threatening and violating gaze. This was what she had been anticipating, craving, and waiting for: the supreme reward.
Rhode wasn’t mindful that the young lady was only clad in a plain, less attractive attire. At this moment, his gazes were as though licking wantonly on her dewy skin through the thin clothes, leaving her shuddering and rubbing between her legs. Sonia reddened in a blush and her vision slowly turned fuzzy…
“… Alright. Take off your clothes. You should know what to do.”
“Yes, Master.”
