“I do not know, your grace! Please, please believe me! I truly do not know! It is all kept secret by the Shadow Prince.” Vorillius exclaimed. Aswelth’s sword moved even closer to his neck, trickles of blood flowing from it.

“Oh? Is that Shadow Prince of yours why you decided to attack me in the heart of my territory? Tell me, how did you think that it is a good idea?” I asked. I had to admit, I was curious, there didn’t seem to be much logic in these actions.

“Because you were supposed to die! That dagger should have killed you and the shadow prince would have teleported me away! Now I have failed! Just let me go! I know nothing!” Vorillius exclaimed. A teleportation promise? I did remember it being used in some fictions, but this felt weird to me. Usually the assassin was responsible for teleporting himself away.

“But you must know some things. After all, how else were you ‘offering’ people to me?” I said, “Do share what you know. All of what you know. And that is not a request.”

Vorillius looked at me and then looked at Aswelth, gulping as he said, “I… I can’t say, your grace! The Shadow Prince would kill me! Please have mercy, your grace!”

I nodded to Aswelth, who increased the pressure of his aura. ”Let me put it in words you understand, Vorillius. This is not a choice, request, or anything in the same vein. I am ordering you to tell me what you know about this organization of yours. Not giving you the option to confess.” I stated.

Vorillius seemed like he wanted to object some more, yet the words wouldn’t emerge from his mouth. The aura was working.

“The Shadow Prince, your grace, is one of the Investors of the Confederacy. I, I, do not know which. Please please don’t ask me, your grace.” Vorillius said as he looked at me in a pleading manner, “The Shadow Prince has been supplying arms to the armies of the Kingdom and the Sect through the intermediaries, it has been my branch’s greatest source of income.”

“But after General Aswelth defeated the Jade Sect and you sent that heir of theirs their way, the tensions have deescalated and people aren’t buying weapons anymore. The Shadow Prince is not happy about that. So, he sent me here with this picture to trick you into buying it and starting a war. I admit I thought you would be easy to fool, your grace, but you were not.”

“Please, please don’t kill me, your grace, I only know this much! I am just a sales manager!” Vorillius said as the aura’s effect lost its pressure.

“Locations. Where is your branch and where are the slaves stored?” I demanded.

“I… I…”- Vorillius made gagging sounds, as if he was trying to not say something, but Aswelth increased his aura again forcing him to speak, -“ The slaves are in Cilanthra, your grace. After all those miners moved away, a lot of areas in the poor district became empty. No one wanted it, so it was decided that we would refurbish it into a warehouse.” Vorillius said.

A ‘warehouse’ of people. Ugh. Xianxia world, please stop doing these things. But another thing struck me as odd in that sentence.

“The area, did your organization own it before too?” I asked.

Vorillius opened his mouth to answer as I suddenly found a wave of threats coming from all around me as arrows began piercing the ice dome. Immediately I made the dome transparent, to find myself face to face with a wave of what had to be hundreds of arrows.

Aswelth waved his hand, causing a wave of fire to appear and engulf the arrows. I summoned my own Qi and incanted.

‘Lightning strike my foes just once, Fire rise in wall high, and Ice begin to defend me on all sides!’

It wasn’t a good rhyme, but it worked. At the cost of a large amount of Qi. I felt a wave of Qi leave me as the meter dropped.

(4580/9600) 1030 Qi spent

Over a thousand Qi gone in a few minutes. But it wasn’t useless, I could see pillars of smoke rise as my foes suddenly found themselves getting struck by lightning. But what little I did was inconsequential before Aswelth.

Three waves, of Fire, Lightning, and Ice had formed above him, at least a few hundred meters in width. In unision, they billowed out towards the smoke. Apparently my spell had turned into a locator. I could just see people their panicking as they died.

I had the feeling that Aswelth being a Treeling was not yet known to them. Post the attack, the arrows stopped coming in, and I turned to Vorillius to find out what else he knew that was so valuable. Except Vorillius was dead. A single black arrow had found its way into his head.

Whoever the attacker was, they could have easily taken me out, but had prioritized Vorillius. Exactly how valuable was the information he had? And more importantly, had I gotten it? Either way, the King would need to be informed of this new…thing. Absentmindedly, I wondered how many exactly had attacked the duchy, not a single one had shown themselves from beginning to end.

There is a word for it, but I can’t remember it now. Anyway, I had to deal with the fallout of this.

"Aswelth." I said, turning to him, "How did this happen?"

Aswelth turned to me, his face grim, “I believe it was the smugglers tunnel, your grace, the tunnel could theoretically be used to exit anywhere along its girth as long as an Earth elemented cultivator was present. Some have likely survived the attack, your grace, I can sense no bodies when there should be many there right now.”

So it was basically the same as an infiltration tunnel? It might have been a bad decision to keep it open.

“Can you follow the tunnel?” I asked.

“To a limit, your grace. More would require me going into the tunnel.” Aswelth replied.

“And are you comfortable with that?” I asked, it was best if he was comfortable, but…

“It would be my pleasure to track down the source of this, your grace.” Aswelth replied.

“Good then, do it while I loop the King in. I think he would like to know.” I answered as I started moving away towards the City. Aswelth nodded and stomped his foot, sinking into the ground. Truly, a very convenient form of travel. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt for the duchy to have its own during wars.

I ran back to the Mansion, taking flight so that I did not crash into anyone on the way. Within minutes, I was at the Mansion. Entering the room, I quickly sidestepped the table and fished out the pebble, sending Qi into the right side.

An image of the King appeared before me.

“Archduchess Altura. I did not expect you to contact me so quickly. Has something occurred?” the King asked.

“I fear that the answer is yes, your majesty. The duchy just suffered an attack. The attacker first approached me claiming to be a merchant with information on the source of the Jade river. The merchant’s claim was proved false after a short interrogation, at which point he chose to attack me.”

“The merchant, named Vorillius, was apprehended and held hostage where he confessed to working for someone named the Shadow Prince. Moreover, he had been involved in supplying arms to both the Jade Sect and the Kingdom during conflicts and was unhappy that his income had been reduced with the calming of conflicts.” I finished, taking a deep breath in. It would appear that speaking so quickly still made me short of breath.

“So, the Shadow Prince was unhappy with his profits this summer and decided to provoke another war? How nice. But not entirely unexpected, the man is a nuisance. A powerful nuisance, but a nuisance nonetheless. Anything else?” the King asked. A very lukewarm reply. So this wasn’t even shocking? Well here’s a shocker.

“Yes, your majesty. While being interrogated, the man offered to trade some slaves for his freedom. Apparently his ‘organization’ has been running a slaving ring. A new warehouse was apparently made in Cilanthra. Aswelth is following the smuggler’s tunnel and will report back-” I said before I was interrupted by the King.

“Smuggler’s tunnel?” the King asked.

“Yes, your majesty. I did inform the royal inquisition that there was a smuggling ring running goods from the Kingdom to the Jade Sect through the valley over two weeks ago. Yesterday, Aswelth contacted them again regarding the Smuggler’s tunnel.” I answered. “Apparently their goods include humans.”

The King’s face darkened at that. “That is unfortunate. It would seem that some people have gotten lax in their duties again. That shall have to be corrected. But first I will deal with this ‘smuggler’s ring’ of yours. Cilanthra, you say? I suppose it's time for me to pay a visit.” the King said, no doubt about to cut the image. But I still had a question.

“Wait, your majesty, I have just one more question! How far exactly can Treelings and Trees teleport? The merchant claimed that the Shadow Prince was going to teleport him away.”

“Then the merchant was a fool. No Treeling can teleport living creatures, only Trees can do it. And the only reason I can teleport so far is due to the teleportation formations in most of the older cities in the Kingdom, otherwise all I could do was teleport across the Capital and a little beyond. Items though can be teleported across the Kingdom.”

“Now, if you will excuse me, I have a few slavers to visit. Truly, some people think they can get away with everything.” The King said as the image cut off. I think someone was about to have a very bad day.