Duchess Alina went silent for a few moments before asking back, “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. Everyone watching the stream knows what I mean.” Felix stressed, “Why are you proposing a challenge now instead of doing so at the start of the war or even in the middle.”
“Why now?”
Based on discussions in the chat rooms, everyone wanted to know Duchess Alina’s reasoning as well.
In their eyes, the war went to sh*t for the vampires from the very start, and it was clear that no matter how much they struggled, they weren’t going to win it.
If so, why not propose this ‘salvation challenge’ much earlier? Whether it worked or not, at least countless lives would have a bit of hope of being saved.
“I had to test out other options before resorting to this.” Duchess Alina answered composedly, “It’s the last countermeasure since I don’t know whether you are going to accept it or not.”
She somehow deflected the bullet with a logical response. Still, Felix wasn’t planning on dropping this subject at all.
“I was going to accept it even if you proposed the challenge at the start of the war.” Felix replied coldly, “I merely sought the destruction of your empire and if it meant achieving it with a simple death match without a continuing war, I would have taken it in a heartbeat.”
“He is joking right?”
“I don’t think he is…”
“The hell is going on?!”
Upon hearing so, everyone realized that Felix had no issues with accepting the challenge even when it meant battling the twelve ranked strongest individual in the alliance, which was truthfully insane!!
This had taken the Void Nation’s citizens by surprise more than everyone else.
? “You’re lying to fish for sympathy.” Duchess Alina retorted, “If you truly didn’t want to start the war, you wouldn’t have tried to assassinate all the leaders at the very beginning…You would have challenged us to a fair battle instead of attempting to start chaos.”
“I never said I didn’t want to start the war. I said I wanted to avoid continuing it if there were other options to fulfill my goal.” Felix sneered, “That’s why I tried to assassinate the leaders at the start. I hoped to conclude the war with the least numbers of casualties…If you all died, the vampires and gremlins civilians and even soldiers wouldn’t have had to suffer for additional two weeks unlike the astrians!”
“As for proposing the challenge at the start? Are you dumb? I am the winning side.” Felix addressed, “It’s not my responsibility to seek solutions for your own failures to protect your own kind.”
Duchess Alina went silent at his arguments, not knowing how to get herself out of this without appearing like she was making excuses.
Felix might have had his personality twisted, but it didn’t mean that he had lost his edge or wits.
[He is right, it’s foolish to blame the wolves for the death of the sheep if the Sheppard walked them near their den.]
Meanwhile, the viewers agreed wholeheartedly with Felix’s last statement.
Even the ones who despised him the most, understood that Felix had his duties to his people and Duchess Alina had her duties to her people.
To attempt and blame her own failure to protect her race on Felix was quite embarrassing for a leader…Especially, when she started the stream by owning this failure when clearly, she was merely fronting to keep her people backing her up.
When Felix saw that Duchess Alina wasn’t planning to continue on this subject, he lost his mood to keep conversing with this ruthless monster.
In his eyes, he might be a monster too with everything that had happened in the past month, but at least if he was put in the same situation as her, he would have sought to fight for his people even if it meant doing it personally.
“I repeat, I agree to your challenge.” Felix stated with a flat tone, “If you win, my Void Nation will leave both races alone and return all conquered territories. If I win, both gremlins and vampire must immigrate to somewhere else. In addition, none of you can start an official empire ever again.”
“Firstly, I am speaking merely for my own race. Whether I win or lose, it has nothing to do with gremlins.” Duchess Alina stated calmly, “So, you need to fight King Jaygat as well if you want to conclude the war on his race too.”
This news pissed off the void citizens and Felix’s supporters since it was a clear unfair demand! It would be already extremely difficult to deal with just one of them, now he had to fight both?
“Secondly, I am not too fond of your second condition. You have no right to cut off rebuilding our legacy away from us.” Duchess Alina remarked with a stern tone.
This didn’t cause as much of a reaction since they understood that Felix’s condition was indeed too harsh.
After all, being banned from founding a new empire implied that their race would merely end up with having many kingdoms at best.
In the alliance, many benefits and important options were based whether a background was a nation, kingdom, or an empire.
Nations was a term coined on backgrounds that control only one solar system.
If they expanded their civilizations into another solar system, they get promoted to an official kingdom by the alliance.
For a kingdom to become an empire, they were required to control well over one thousand solar system minimum.
All of them needed to have at least one planet populated.
Hence, if the vampires were defeated, even if they started in a new galaxy and completely took control over it by spreading their civilizations, they would merely be proclaimed as one giant kingdom…Even if they named themselves to be an empire, the alliance wouldn’t acknowledge it and allow them to receive the benefits of being one.
Since Federations and such were considered as empires in terms of statue in the alliance, they would never be able to go past such heavy limitation.
This would make their race be considered on the bottom of the alliance for eternity!
“Firstly, I know that King Jaygad is listening to this. So, if he is interested in being part of this deal, he will have to fight a councilman of my choosing.”
“I am not fighting two of you even if I could wipe the floor with your corpses.”
“Secondly, tough luck, I don’t care whether you are fond of my conditions or not.” Felix spoke in an indifferent manner, “If you want this challenge to occur, you will accept them. If not, I am perfectly fine with continuing this war as it is.”
“All I know is that the next victims of the war will defintely not be on my conscience.” Felix pointed at Duchess Alina and stressed coldly, “It will be on you and only you.”
Without waiting for her response, Felix exited the live stream.
He closed his eyes and massaged his eyelids silently while having millions of thoughts and questions running through his head.
Did I make the right decision? What would the void citizens think of me now? Should I have been less assertive on the conditions? What if they canceled the challenge and wanted to take this to the end? I said that the next fatalities wouldn’t be on my conscience, but I am still reluctant to keep this massacre on going…What am I supposed to do…
Just as Felix’s mind was being flooded with doubts, hesitation, and uncertainty about the future, Asna reached out to his hands and put them away from his eyelids without saying anything.
When Felix tried to speak, she shushed him with a finger and helped put his head gently on her lap.
Then, she started to massage his temples gently while looking him directly in the eyes with a loving look.
“Felix, no matter what happens, I will always be by your side.” Asna whispered, “So, stop doubting your decisions and act on what your hearts tell you regardless of how wrong it seems.”
“But, it’s really hard…” Felix smiled bitterly.
“Your entire life was packed with difficulties.” Asna smiled beautifully, “This is merely one of them. I firmly believe that your previous difficulties have helped shape and prepare you to overcome this roadblock.”
“You think so?”
“I don’t think, I am confident that you are up for the challenge, whether it’s fighting that sl*t or concluding the war in a normal manner.” Asna reached out to his forehead and gave him a soft kiss before murmuring, “So, don’t doubt yourself and finish this war with your head held up.”
The moment she said so, Duchess Alina declared coldly in the stream, “We agree to your conditions. After twenty-four hours we will be holding two open death matches in the UVR with Queen Ai as the host. We will sign the contracts under everyone’s eyes to make sure that both parties will be held accountable by the public.”
“If you agree to those conditions, come back and make a statement.”
Felix glanced at Duchess Alina and the chat rooms that went absolutely wild at such insane news!
Then, he turned to face Asna and smiled for the first time in this month, making Asna’s eyes tear up a bit.
“Welcome back…”
Felix wiped her tears with his thumb gently and leaned closer to her lips. Then, he whispered with a tint of emotion in his voice, “I love you…”
Before Asna could react, Felix held her head with one hand and kissed her softly, making her forget anything she was going to say and focus purely on engaging in their passionate kiss.
As for his other hand? Felix used it to write a single sentence in the chat room.
“It’s On.”
