'That was close…'

I had originally thought that the scar-faced guy had maybe noticed that something was wrong with my acting, but it seemed like he was simply stating that he 'understood' everything.

Being under the delusion that Crane has killed 'me' to take revenge for the problems I caused for him, he was just delivering a warning that he would report me for that even if I tried to hide it by burning the corpse, but that was…

'Perfect!'

Thanks to him being too quick-witted and familiar with Crane, he caught up on most of the things I only implied subtly and took the bait just as desired.

...

"Alright Long, you can take it off now."

After waiting for another ten minutes to make sure that the pair of black-robed demon seeds had left, I immediately canceled the 'Illusion' that was on me and called out for Long to remove the effect of 'Elemental Manipulation'.

'This should give us some time…'

Finally letting out a sigh of relief, I slightly rejoiced over the fact that this little play had gone well, however, this could only help buy some time before the whole facade would be discovered.

With how the demon seeds were well spread over the domain, they were bound to discover something was amiss but now, we at least had some time to prepare for this…

'Let's hope everything went smoothly on Blade's side.'

Not forgetting to put away the little black orb on the table, I flashed out from the hidden room…

`~~`~~`~~`

In a medium-sized hall that seemed to be situated underground, nine individuals were sitting around an oval table exchanging stares at each other.

"For how long is the Elemental Blade going to let us wait like this when he is the one that invited us personally?"

A middle-aged woman sitting close to the empty chair at one end of the table voiced out her complaints as signs of impatience were already apparent on her face.

"Have some patience, Cult Master, he said that he wants us ten to have a secret meeting for the sake of discussing territory and resources allotment, who knows, he might actually be feeling generous to give us some of his…"

The man sitting on the chair facing instead replied to her sarcastically but didn't forget to address her by her formal name as she was in fact the master of the Cult of Elements.

"What? Do you really think that childish-looking monster would give up what's already in his hands? Did you forget his habits because he had been in seclusion for too long?" The woman retorted back at his delusional thinking.

"Maybe he found peace of heart in his seclusion and decided to get rid of his worldly belongings, is it too much for me to just think about it, old hag?"

This time, the man who was also known as the Supreme Sword threw away the formalities as he called the cult master by her most hated name!

"You grow ruder by the day stick boy! Do you want to-"

The woman wanted to strike back using the exact same method, but when she was about to suggest a fight to settle this a small familiar cough made her forget about the Supreme Sword as she looked towards the source of this cough.

"Ahem…"

The source of the cough, a young man with white flowing hair with his eyes mostly closed made his way to the empty chair as he continued, "Can you two stop fighting like you usually do? This is really important…"

"Really? You only bother to come half an hour later and you still say it's important, maybe we should do another battle royale like the one we did back then and maybe refresh the old ranking?"

The woman seemed to have completely forgotten about her Pickering with the Supreme Sword as she looked at the young as if she found a new target…

"I'm always up to a good fight if you want, however, maybe you could pick up a better timing than this? I was busy handling one of the main objects for today's meeting, but… if you really want to go now then I won't be holding back."

The young man opened his eyes completely as he directed his sharp gaze at the woman who suddenly felt a faint layer of pressure go over her head.

"Ah, I see… in that case, we can hold up on that for later."

Shifting her eyes to face the Supreme sword once again, the evil expression that she had on her face faded.

"It seems like your seclusion was fruitful this time, Elemental Blade."

On the other hand, the Supreme Sword showed a profound smile as he nodded towards the young white-haired man, the one known as the Elemental Blade.

"Let's leave the formalities for later, the situation we are currently facing needs immediate addressing…"

Lowering his eyelids once more, the young man took out a tall scroll out of his spatial artifact as he spread it out on the oval table, which ended up reaching the table's end.

"Hmm, isn't this the collective map of the domain?"

One of the seven who stayed silent till now suddenly opened his mouth as he questioned.

"Are these signs the things we are supposed to be discussing?"

As another question was voiced out, the rest of them started wondering if the Elemental Blade was really going to do a territory revamp before they started noticing the common things that the places with these marks shared…

"Wait a sec! This territory is the one that contains a 5-star Dark Nest on its center…"

"It's the same for me! But this is classified level information within the sect…"

"Same…"

"..."

As the rest of the participants of the meeting all opened their mouths and let out various questions, their eyes that quickly searched through the map laid out in front of them all returned to look at one person, the youth at the end of the table.

"What is the meaning of this, Blade…?"

"No need to panic, everything will be explained but we first have a guest that would like to say a few words."

Creaaak...

The youth pointed his hand towards the door which was being opened as a familiar pair walked in while pushing a man in front of them...