Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 215. Blatant Provocation.

“That should be it,” Laien said soon after calming his thoughts. “We wanted to ask you all what your plans for the future are, but you already told us about them,” he added, then took a moment to focus. Once he prepared everything, he began taking out interspatial rings one after another and throwing them to their recipients, five of the rings being high-grade and two, top-grade. Naturally, the ones to receive the top-grade rings were Ruan and Gahar since the two of them had directly employed themselves to them and, to be fair, only they would be able to efficiently use such rings.

“So what now?” Liza asked soon after everyone received their rewards and the bonuses in the form of the interspatial rings. “Are you two in the mood to spend some time with us or would you rather we left early?” she asked straightforwardly. She had learned many things about Laien and Yin since her utterly unsuccessful early attempts to seduce the former of the two, and one of those was that the boys appreciated honesty, if not outright bluntness. Thankfully, the two were fairly open-minded in regards to most subjects, so she didn’t have to hold her tongue much around them. Had it not been for that, she doubted she would have been able to get friendly with them.

“Hm.” Laien and Yin considered the question for a bit. It would be nice if they spent some time with their employees, be it future or present, but did they really feel like doing so at the moment? Thus, once they exchanged a glance and a nod, Laien replied casually, “If you feel like you want to talk to us about something important, you can stay for a bit. If not, then we’d rather be on our own.”

“Got it,” Liza replied, knowing that it was pointless to overthink their answer. Still, thinking about how those unfamiliar with Laien and Yin would likely feel hurt by the cold shoulder given to them, she couldn’t help but snicker soundlessly. “We’ve got it very good in the Earth’s Quarters, with the Holy Union’s people and Mustafa’s people going out of their way to chat with us and make us comfortable. We even got quite a few offers for spars and training sessions, so you don’t have to worry about us. In fact, feel free to stay here for as long as you possibly can,” she added lightheartedly. It had taken her some time to accept it, but becoming ‘good acquaintances’ with those two was likely the limit of their personal relationship. So, instead of trying to force her way forward only to get burned, she preferred to stay a certain distance away from them.

“We will,” Laien replied with a grin. Soon enough, Raphael, Mikaela, and Arslan would join them here, so neither he nor Yin had any intentions of leaving the Holy Union early. Considering it had been almost three months since they had set out from the Kingdom of Sarkcente, and even taking the time Yin would need for his breakthrough into consideration, they could spare at least three to four months in this place. Be that as it may, Yin wasn’t bound by the deal with the Cail Family, so even if his enrolment into the Eclipse Academy got delayed a little, it wouldn’t be much of an issue.

“Escort us out, then,” Liza followed up proactively. Needless to say, Laien and Yin gladly complied with her request, and just a few minutes later, they dropped her and the other six off at the gate to the Heaven’s Quarters. On a side note, right as they were leaving, she noticed that one of the guards sent Laien and Yin a cold stare, which she was sure the boys noticed. For a second, she thought that some big scene was about to unfold, but to her surprise, the boys thoroughly ignored the man.

“Huh?” Startled, she staggered a bit before quickly regaining her balance. “I get Yin, but Laien too? Is he in too good of a mood to care?” she wondered. She doubted that Laien had suddenly turned over a new leaf and became a more understanding person, but it wasn’t like she cared all that much about this one unusual event, either, so she soon stopped thinking about it.

Meanwhile, Laien noticed Yin giving him an amused look as they were walking away from the gate. He returned the smile, thinking that, even though he wasn’t planning to change his attitude towards other people, ignoring those who weren’t worth the hassle was a very much acceptable concession. Moreover, he had long since learned that even something as simple as creating a mess required adequate time and the right opportunity. Doing so willy-nilly would not only fail to bring about the desired results, but more importantly, wouldn’t be fun to do at all. This much he could tell with full confidence, having instigated dozens of smaller and larger disasters when messing with the nobles back in Neil City and having had relied on Rudford’s protection to ultimately triumph in each of them.

“What do we do now?” Yin asked in a merry tone, all the while looking through the scattered memories Laien was recalling at the moment. He knew it already, but before the two of them met, Laien really had been quite a hoodlum. Personally, he had to agree that most, if not all, of the people Laien had had beef with in the past deserved it. Yet, the manner in which Laien had been stirring up trouble used to be, as hard as it was to believe, far more out of control than it was nowadays.

“Dunno?” Laien responded with a smile and a shrug of his shoulders. “I don’t feel like walking around nor doing anything specific. Do you?” he followed up, even though he didn’t have to ask to know the answer. Be it him or Yin, they enjoyed talking with each other instead of relying purely on their Spiritual Link, so they usually stuck to their old ways of communication despite not needing to.

“I don’t, either,” Yin said with a chuckle. He had a feeling that days as peaceful as the current ones wouldn’t come again any time soon, so he wanted to make the most of them. Playing cards or board games or having fun with their horses; those things were secondary. As long as he could comfortably spend those few days next to Laien, even just sitting at a sofa and doing nothing, he would be satisfied. What made him happiest, though, was the awareness that Laien felt the same.

With the course of the day decided upon, Laien and Yin returned to their mansion and did exactly as they intended. Apart from reading some random books they had collected throughout their journey and remembering to once again play with their horses in the afternoon, the two of them didn’t do much, simply spending their time together in a leisurely manner. Like that, the day passed in the blink of an eye and just before seven in the evening, they were notified that Azuresky and Emeric had come to pick them up. Finally, it was time for the burial ceremony to take place.

Feeling calm and relaxed, Laien and Yin left their villa and mounted their horses, then rode towards the mansion’s gate to meet the two Kings there. Having had more than enough time to cool their heads, their mood quickly turned more serious, and even slightly gloomy. After all, those to be sent off today were all people they came to have some kind of a connection to.

Casimir’s and Anna’s Royal Guards, which lost many of their members;

The Black Sword Unit which was annihilated in the course of the war;

The White Sword Unit which was left with only thirty men out of its original one hundred;

Julien’s six units of thirty-six Cherubim, which had lost almost three-fourths of their original numbers;

Finally, all the members of Mustafa’s White Guard who had died, including Jasmine who had unhesitatingly sacrificed herself to stall Abdain and save their lives.

The choice they had encouraged Arslan to make, to fight Yimar Maar head-on; they still believed that it was the right path to take. However, the closer they came to the time of the burial ceremony, the more the deaths of all those people weighed on their consciences. During the war, they had steeled their hearts and made sure to focus on what was in front of their eyes, to not think too much. Then, until now, they chose to focus on resting in order to restore their mental strength. Yet, as unpleasant as it was and as suffocating as it felt, they couldn’t avoid facing reality any longer, nor did they want to.

Seeing Azuresky and Emeric approach the gate from the other side, Laien created a bit of water and used it to pull it open. Technically speaking he could have used the Core Rune to do the same thing, but he couldn’t be bothered to take it out of his interspatial ring and then put it back inside. “Still, this atmosphere is suffocating,” he noted silently after exchanging slight nods with the two Kings. He had already been starting to feel a bit asphyxiated due to all the things he was recalling, yet the cold and gloomy aura Azuresky and Emeric were giving off made it even worse.

“Come,” Azuresky said flat-out and proceeded to lead the way with Emeric beside him. He was glad to see that Laien and Yin were taking the burial ceremony seriously enough, so he wanted them to remain in their current mood and reflect on their lives and the nature of the world. To people like himself, like Emeric, or like those two young monsters, such thoughts were bound to be an excessive burden in their day-to-day lives. Yet, in his long life, he had clearly seen that discarding those worries entirely was bound to make anyone’s character crooked. Thus, he saw this old tradition as an important opportunity to make peace with oneself, and with as high as his expectations of the boys had become, he wholeheartedly wished for them to do just that.

Naturally, however, he wouldn’t voice any of those thoughts out loud. He intended to further judge those two boys’ characters based on how they acted during the burial ceremony. And, if he found them lacking, he was ready to reconsider the thoughts of the Three-Way Alliance between the Ruishi Federation, Makarash, and their Holy Union. As great as this alliance looked on paper, he wasn’t naïve enough to assume good intentions on all sides and agree to it immediately. In regards of this, his evaluation of Laien’s and Yin’s characters became all the more important, especially now that he had learned from his earlier talk with Mustafa and Arslan that it was those two boys who were in large part responsible for first the alliance between the Ruishi Federation and Makarash, and then for the idea of joining hands with their Holy Union, too.

“Such a worrywart,” Emeric thought to himself, glancing at Azuresky out of the corner of his eye. For better or worse, he had known this bastard ever since the two of them were kids, so he could tell what was hidden behind this seemingly expressionless face of his. “If he still can’t tell that what we have to be worried about are the intentions of Mustafa’s advisors and the Elders of the Ruishi Federation, then the events of three years ago must have affected him more than he cares to admit. Can’t he tell that we can trust those two boys to be fair and speak the truth by now?” he wondered as they rode onwards. Thinking along those lines, he couldn’t help but question whether Azuresky’s newfound trust issues weren’t one of the reasons the ‘People’s Faction’, as they ostentatiously came to call themselves, had a comparatively stronger presence in the Kingdom of Bolan.

“Eh.” Sighing soundlessly, Emeric had to consciously stop himself from shaking his head. “We should have done as I suggested and used Azuresky’s rise to royal power to weed out all dissenters in his country. Without that backbone, the silly People’s Faction would have never emerged. Azuresky’s been too indecisive far too often the past three years,” he thought once again, repeating the musings he had had during their private talk with Mustafa and Arslan earlier today. Being cautious was one thing, but while those around Azuresky might not have noticed anything yet because of the strong upfront act this buffoon had been keeping up, he could tell that Azuresky had lost his old confidence.

Emeric frowned ever so slightly at the thought. “Not even I am crazy enough to try to micromanage everything. He’s being far too fearful of people’s mistakes. Honestly, him doubting his own judgment this much and looking to find assurances time and time again is disgusting.” He thought this so strongly that he was worried whether the words weren’t going to slip out of his mouth. Compared to before that incident, in his eyes, Azuresky was like a blade that lost its edge. If this fool remained like that, then perhaps that idiotic People’s Faction had a point and harbouring any intentions of expanding their borders and becoming a continent-wide superpower were delusions of grandeur as, without sufficient resolve, any great goals and ambitions were but a fool’s fantasy.

“I’ve got no other choice,” Emeric thought in the end. “I’ll have to see if this ceremony can reignite his spirit. If not, I’ll have to beat some sense into him,” he decided, at the same time managing to unintentionally release a sliver of combative aura, which he reined in as soon as it came out. He then raised his eyebrows at Azuresky’s questioning look, pretending that he didn’t know what Azuresky was asking about with those annoying black eyes of his. Alas, Azuresky soon turned his gaze away, which earned him another scoff from Emeric. The usual Azuresky would have pestered him relentlessly to find out what caused the small outburst, partially from concern but mostly to annoy him. Yet, the look of indifference in Azuresky’s eyes was making him want to beat some sense into this fool even more. In fact, he would do so regardless of what happened during the ceremony.

In such a way, with each of the four riders pondering over their own thoughts, their group descended Academy City’s main road and left the city. Even without Azuresky and Emeric guiding them, Laien and Yin could sense the presence of hundreds of thousands of people at the western slope of the mountain, next to Academy City’s outer walls. They could also vaguely hear the soft sounds the mass of people was making, though what surprised them was that they couldn’t make out any loud talking at all. Yin began to hear the incoherent whispering of many people from all those kilometres away since his senses were incredibly sharp, but it was apparent that the people were treating the ceremony with a great deal of respect, given how orderly they were.

Roughly a minute of decently fast riding later, the scene of what should be the entire population of Academy City and more entered Laien’s and Yin’s eyes. The two of them had seen quite a few huge gatherings of people in the past few months, so they were able to tell that roughly six hundred thousand attendees were present. What was the most impressive, though, apart from how quiet everybody was being, was the almost military-like manner in which the commoners stood. It wasn’t just them being separated into a few dozen larger crowds by the pre-prepared wooden paths, but the way in which they all stood in mostly orderly rows. Compared to the chaotic mess Laien and Yin were used to seeing when so many people gathered together, this scene was impressive in its own right.

That being said, the arrival of their four-man party, headed by Azuresky and Emeric, caused a wave of murmurs to roll across the mountain’s slope. Moreover, be it Laien or Yin, they both noticed the overall shift in atmosphere that accompanied the arrival of the two Kings. Excitement, anticipation, but more than anything, pride. From the elderly to the young children, wherever Laien and Yin looked, the people seemed to genuinely revere these two Kings. If this type of attitude was common throughout the Holy Union’s territory, then the extent to which Azuresky and Emeric could exert control over their subjects was no less than Mustafa’s in Makarash or Elder Samuel’s in the Ruishi Federation, if not even slightly greater.

“Hm?” Laien raised his eyebrows slightly. The higher up the mountain’s slope they went, the more extravagant the people’s clothes became, and the less fervour gleamed in their eyes. “It started from the halfway point or so? It looks like they do have some opposition even amongst the public, after all,” he mused, only to end up frowning more strongly the next moment. He wouldn’t have noticed it on his own since the intent was well masked, but Yin sensed the thickly veiled hostility in the gazes of many of the nobles and high-ranking officials that were gathered at the very top. Interestingly enough, a good half of this hostility was directed at them instead of the two Kings.

“Leave them be.” Yin sent the thought over, then exchanged a glance with Laien, whose expression relaxed soon afterwards. “We can deal with them later if we have to, it’s not worth it to do it now,” he added. Compared to Laien, he was a bit less agitated, so he was able to think more clearly. However, he couldn’t deny that he felt more guilty… because unlike Laien, he used to think little of the deaths of those seemingly unrelated people, the deaths of those he didn’t consider friends or even acquaintances. However, the time he spent with Laien changed this detached attitude of his little by little, then fighting side by side with all the people who weren’t obliged to, yet still risked their lives to help Arslan… to help him and Laien, as per their request, shattered his old conceptions.

Thus, he couldn’t help but feel that he hadn’t been genuine when asking Casimir for help with Laien. That he hadn’t fully understood what it meant for all those people to jump into the heat of battle, to risk their lives, and to actually die, all while trying to help them. So, all the more, now that he once again started thinking about those painful things, he wanted to make peace with his heart. During this burial ceremony, he wanted to apologize for his own lack pf understanding… and to give thanks for the sacrifices all of those people made just so that he, Laien, and Arslan, could live. In light of all of that, the hostility some of those present were showing was truly too insignificant to care about.

“Truly,” Laien murmured, his mood returning to a contemplative one due to the influence of Yin’s thoughts. “Many of their people died, including young and promising experts from Casimir’s and Anna’s Royal Guards. It’s no surprise some of them won’t be looking at us fondly,” he mused, though most of his actual thoughts ended up wandering somewhere else. He had experienced the deaths of people around him more than once, so why was he feeling so heartbroken this time around? Why was it so bad that he and Yin had both chosen to leave all those thoughts alone until now?

“It’s because I did it,” he thought and let out a sigh. “Unlike in the past, I was the one who pushed for this plan all the while knowing that deaths would be inevitable if it was carried out. Others agreed to it, but I was the one who started it all. I don’t think I was wrong, but… it also means that Jasmine died because of my choice, even if it wasn’t a ‘wrong’ one,” he pondered. Much more than he had ever expected, it was hard to come to terms with those emotions, especially when he thought about the future. The path he intended to take, wouldn’t it involve many situations like this one? The conflicts, the battles, the wars… how many tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people would have to die before the outcome everyone desired to see… he desired to see, was achieved?

Even if he managed to keep the people he treasured the most safe, was it truly the right thing to do? Be it this Three-Way Alliance and the ambitions of their respective leaders or the situation in the south, neither seemed like an even remotely bloodless path. Yet, if he chose not to pursue these paths because of those feelings, then would the different futures be better or worse? If he cowered away in fear and tried to appease everyone, or waited until he had enough strength to deal with everything on his own… wouldn’t it be too late by then? And in the first place, if he simply waited, then would he ever come to possess enough strength to quell any opposition?

“It seems that the only way is...” Laien murmured, his gaze drawn towards the great pile of wood where the White Guard stood, where Jasmine’s body likely lay alongside the hundreds of White Guards who had fallen. Alas, before he could complete his thought, his attention was drawn to the five people who unexpectedly approached them just as they were dismounting. Usually, just a little thing like that wouldn’t have been enough to bother him, but two of the five, the two young men, were no longer concealing their ill intent and were openly releasing a not-so-subtle aura of hostility. With the eyes of those five focused on him, and with Azuresky and Emeric exchanging greetings with Sebastian further to the side, the intentions of those people, albeit incomprehensible, couldn’t be more obvious.

“In front of everyone?” Yin almost felt tempted to ask the question out loud. Never mind Azuresky, Emeric, and Sebastian, people like Casimir, Alexander, Anna, General Adrian, and some other equally-strong martial masters were present in the two Kings’ camp. To top it off, from further to the left, Mustafa and his White Guard were watching the entire scene. To pick a fight here, under those circumstances, one had to be mad. “Either that or they want to cause a huge scene. Since it’s an official occasion, they won’t be attacked physically unless they start a fight first,” he mused, a flash of killing intent appearing very briefly in his eyes. He knew that Laien had just come to the same conclusion, and neither of them was intending to put up with the attitude of those people.

They might still be wrong in their assumptions, but if those guys were from the opposing political camp, and if they wanted to use the two of them as scapegoats in their machinations, then they weren’t going to meet a good end. It was obvious enough how seriously the people of the Holy Union treated this burial ceremony, not to mention that they themselves were heavily unsettled and wished to calm their hearts through the process, too. So, if someone foolish enough to step on the smouldering flames that their emotions were right now appeared, then they would suffer the full brunt of the fire’s retaliation.

“You must be Laien, and you, Yin,” the young man, looking to be twenty-something years old in appearance alone, said in a cold tone. Naturally, he did so without forgetting to send his voice far and wide with the aid of some Qi. Then, one of the two men behind him glanced at the attendants present, who stiffened from the gaze alone and quickly led the four horses to their designated positions, revealing the two parties to everyone on the mountain slope. This, in turn, caused Azuresky to try and step forward, only to be held back by Sebastian. While Azuresky proceeded to stare at the Rector with a mixture of surprise and anger, the conversation continued.

“I’m Frederick, the second son of Duke Flamesworth, a member of People’s Faction… and the older brother of a man you killed.”