PLANS IN MOTION

In the Holy Kingdom…

Gathered in the Holy Sanctuary, around the round table, were the thirteen Paladin Sect leaders, the two god kin, the holy queen and the Nation’s trump card, a woman with long burning hair, glowing yellow eyes and a cloak which covered everything but her head; standing beside the queen. This woman, who was the Great Phoenix in her human form, was beautiful enough to have wars waged over her. She never participated in any meetings for three main reasons.

The first and most important was to prevent anyone but the queen from knowing where she was at any time; this prevented other nations from making plans to invade since they never knew where she could be. The second reason was because; she never really cared about human meetings, strategy planning and the like. Her only job was to protect the Holy Queen at all costs, anything was a waste of time. The final reason, she was far too distracting for the meetings to proceed smoothly. The male Paladin Sect leaders, which held majority of the seats, could never focus whenever the Phoenix was at a meeting. Not only were the Paladins, but even the two god kin were overwhelmed at her presence and beauty.

“Let’s get on with the topic for today.”

Whenever the meetings were of high enough priority, the introductions were left off. The Great Phoenix, known by the citizens as the Holy Sage, hated the introductions anyway, since she never really cared for them.

“Your majesty, according to the new information we acquired from Paladin Mjanomin, this god kin possesses demonic power and is more than strong enough to not only fight, but kill seven Warrior Rank paladins and one Champion Rank Paladin Sect leader.”

“All at once no less.” Lucias added to his sister’s accounts.

In the presence of the Holy Sage, not even the god kin could address the queen in an informal manner. She was short tempered enough to break a few bones for the slightest misdemeanor.

“I deeply apologize for my failure in capturing the god kin, please forgive.” Paladin Mjanomin bowed as he spoke.

Feeling the pressure from the glare coming from the Holy Sage, he hurriedly sat down. The queen gestured with her hand that he was forgiven, then said, “Do not worry about it, this was to be expected. You, our finest agents in information collection, could not discover anything about this god kin and, you got your asses handed to you by him single handedly, but this was to be expected.”

As expected of mother, she planned for their failure in advance and made plans ahead of time. I may have a similar plan but I shouldn’t be rash now, the Holy Sage is here. Sarah thought. She always had a fun loving smile on her face, except when the Holy Sage was around but even so, her smile persisted. She only had a frown when she was lost in thought or was planning something. The frown was difficult to discern by anyone, the only ones who could tell were her mother and brother.

Seeing the frown, the queen asked Sarah to explain her plan to the others while she calculates some other factors. Her favorite excuse. After saying so, the Holy Sage’s expression changed from an emotionless one to a smile. Sensing the change, the queen cleared her throat loudly—bringing the Holy Sage back to reality. In the Holy Kingdom, the only two people who knew the queen’s real thoughts were the Holy Sage and Paladin Jirbal. Though they both knew that she was smart, they didn't explain to her that the passive skill she had, gave her a vast intellect she was oblivious to.

“As you wish, your majesty. I believe, her majesty expected your failure to confirm her hunch that that this new god kin may really be a god. After feeling the released energy a few more times, it is safe to assume that this god kin is far more powerful than we were when we were his level. He did claim to be the son of our goddess Zaire, so it is still unclear what he actually is--if he's a he that is. I personally find it ridiculous that he could also claiim to be the child of Pride.”

“—?!”

Hearing the news, the Holy Sage was visibly intrigued. She looked at Sarah querulously, waiting for more information. Sarah, noticing the attention, froze up for a second then continued with her analysis.

“Her majesty may be planning to ignore the threat for now since his party is heading for the Holy Kingdom anyway.” She paused to look at the queen and after receiving a nod of approval, she resumed. “Then we’ll set a trap up for them.”

“Ahh, I see.” Lucias looked at the queen with a look of admiration, obviously dumbfounded by her intellect as usual. Of the god kin, he was the younger and stronger one while his sister was the older smarter one. He had good ideas but compared to his sister’s, they were mediocre at best. “Why don’t we send someone stronger after him?”

“There are unknowns, we don’t know how strong he is so we could end up exhausting our resources during this crucial period of—”

“Hold it Sarah…”The queen interrupted, ”I need you to go after the god kin. You can take a group if you need it.” She is the weaker of the two but she’s more than strong enough to handle it, plus she’s smart enough to plan for anything. Also, if I don’t send anyone at all, the Holy Sage will definitely want to go since the new god kin may be the child of the goddess Zaire.

“Of course, your majesty.” This must be a part of mother’s plan. It makes sense too, I should be able to handle any troubles that occur with as little damage as possible.

“Now then, on to the next major event that’s soon to happen.”

Paladin Jirbal stood up, bowed, sat down again and spoke. “Your majesty, we managed to push through the first three walls of the Beast King’s Domain. There are two more to victory, but we’ll need our strongest paladins to finish the last of them off. We of the Dark Sect, will be ready to mobilize our best troops to the front lines.” He paused to look at some Paladin Sect leaders who nodded back at him, then continued, “Along with the best of the Earth Sect and the Storm Sect of course.”

“All right. To guarantee our victory, I’ll need the Shadow and Lesser Light Sects to infiltrate the enemy bases and take out the commanders to brew miscommunication and confusion among the beastmen.”

“…!”

Noticing the Holy Sage’s change in aura, the queen added, “Then of course after we gained victory over the Beast King’s Domain, we move on to the Kingdom of Eves. Using the beastmen, we’ll pit one enemy against the other, pushing the King of the Lost into a corner. Hopefully, that’ll make him use his trump card.”

Everyone in the sanctuary knew what came next. The Holy Sage, along with the god kin, would then go against the Spirit of the Void. Victory was so close but yet…

“Your majesty.” Paladin Hue, the leader of the Aura Sect-in charge of reading into the affairs of the natural flow of aura in the world- voiced up.

After receiving the continue gesture from the queen, she continued.

“The natural flow has been interrupted numerous times now. We of the Aura Sect believe it’s the same god kin’s doing.”

The queen’s expression became tense. The natural aura flow was the total aura exuded by the all living and dead creatures in the world. Being able to significantly increase or decrease it was a herculean task on par with killing twenty five percent of the planet.

The natural flow of aura was sometimes used by humans—used on a day-to-day basis in the Holy Kingdom, to read the travel patterns of high level monsters and predict magic related disasters before they happened. Changing the flow significantly, would give misreadings and inaccurate information for years to come.

“How can you be so certain it is his doing.” The Holy Sage asked the paladin before the queen could.

“Hmm, it’s starting to make sense.” The queen said. After waiting to make sure she had their attention, she continued. “The Beast King is one of the longest living beings in the world today, it makes sense that he could sense the changes faster than we could. That must be why there’s been more activity in the Beast King’s Domain recently.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” Sarah added, “Normally he would have quickly reinforced his troops to drive us out, but this distraction must have given him a scare.”

“Exactly, but wait a minute.” The queen turned toward the Holy Sage. From the look on her face, everyone could tell exactly what she wanted to ask.

“Do not worry about this Esther, you have my protection.” She answered callously. The Holy Sage was the only person in the Holy Kingdom who could address the queen by her first name. Nobody dared object, the fear of her anger was far too much for anyone to foolishly challenge her. Knowing the history between the Holy Sage and the Holy Kingdom also deterred needless questions of loyalty and disrespect.

“That’s not it, I want to know why you didn’t inform us of the change sooner. You are the wisest here, and you were around the last time the natural flow of aura changed so you can give some insight.”

“Hmm, well this time is different so I don’t know about insight.”

“You mean?”

“The last time it happened, two of the great dragons were fighting. They destroyed a whole lot of land and the casualties were a lot, by casualties I mean ‘innocent’ deaths. That was easy to understand since those two are a force to be reckoned with, and they were facing each other at full power. That was the last time I was properly entertai—”

“No, no, no, the last time it happened was eight hundred years ago.”

When the queen mentioned it, the whole room froze up. The “DarkLord Rising”, as it was called, was an unspeakable incident in almost every human nation in the world. It was the worst moment in human history since all the gods were killed within a week by DarkLord, a former god who hated humanity. Even the Great Phoenix, who was on a different level than humanity, never spoke of the incident; her reason, unknown.

“I cannot talk about that, an executive order.”

“Sure, Paladin Hue? What do you suggest we do?”

“Well your majesty, I suggest we capture the god kin or bring him over to our side as soon as possible because he could be the biggest threat the Holy Kingdom has ever faced.”

“How so?” The paladin of the Water Sect, Paladin Wallace, asked. “Forgive my rudeness your majesty, but I fail to see how the god kin may be a threat to us. He could be on our side and want to exterminate all monster kind from the planet. The report did say that he single handedly slayed many monsters near the village and he leveled up far too quickly for that to be a lie so we know he has done his fair share of monster hunting.”

“Besides, one god kin cannot be a problem for the Holy Kingdom, the mightiest human nation in the world.” Paladin Renkyuu voiced his thoughts quite arrogantly.

“Yes that could be true, but due to recent failed kidnappings, we fear he may include us in his enemies now. We may also be underestimating this Masayuki fellow since he’s more than strong enough at level thirty two to kill a few high class paladins with ease. If he is a god and not a god kin, our chances are drastically reduced. A single god could massacre an Elite Ranked army of a hundred and twelve thousand with ease; plus subduing a great spirit is no easy feat, even for me and my brother combined.”

“Do not forget the ‘evil god’ and his influence.” The Holy Sage added, to everyone’s surprise. “He could be out there trying to recruit or maybe even kill the new god or god kin. I don’t really care about that now. Right now, I want to have some action so wrap this up, would you?”

“Hmm, as I said before, Sarah will go after the Masayuki fellow. Paladin Sect leaders gathered here, we will proceed with the war as planned and wrap this up in four months, if all goes according to plan. Holy Sage, you will stay on standby for the moment and Lucias, you should try to level up or equip the best equipment possible for your fight against the Beast King.”

With that, the meeting was over. The queen stood up and walked gracefully out the sanctuary with the Holy Sage following behind. Then the god kin walked out side-by-side, followed by the Sect leaders in the order of their gods.