Chapter 219: Macabre Delight
When the final hour finally came to an end, every disciple on the Ashen North Star felt their emblems pulse.
The next second, space folded.
Within moments, they found themselves standing in a colossal plaza.
Looking around, they saw tens of thousands of Outer Branch disciples gathered together.
Their bodies were covered in blood, their robes were torn, and exhaustion was written across their faces. The final round had pushed the difficulty to its absolute peak, forcing bloody battles right up to the very last second.
Yet what truly sent a chill down everyone’s spine wasn’t the wounds from battle.
The plaza was surrounded by over a thousand Elders and Elders of Laws. Hovering above them all at the highest point was the Outer Branch’s Elder Leader herself—Mishnar.
An overwhelming, suffocating pressure filled the entire area.
No one even dared to breathe too loudly.
In perfect unison, the Elders of Laws moved through the sky. Their expressions were cold and solemn.
They positioned themselves in a perfect circle, surrounding a single figure on the ground.
In the distance, Dandara and the generals of Priam’s faction clenched their fists, consumed by helpless frustration. Meanwhile, panic spread through the faction Priam had helped, and half of its soldiers hurriedly backed away to distance themselves from the target.
The army of Holy Mages, however, along with several hundred veterans, remained standing motionless beside him, staring into the sky with resolute expressions.
Priam, on the other hand, looked completely calm.
He casually glanced toward the Young Mages and noted with satisfaction that the numbers of all four factions were still almost intact. Days of joint training had reduced the death toll to practically zero.
"Priam! Do you understand the monstrosity of your crimes against this sect?!"
The voice, clear and resonant like the tolling of a divine bell, echoed across every corner of the plaza.
To everyone’s shock, the accusation hadn’t come from the Elders of Laws.
It came from Elder Leader Mishnar herself.
The hearts of the older disciples nearly stopped.
In everyone’s memory, Mishnar had always been lazy, indifferent, and detached from everything around her. Seeing that woman radiate such crushing solemnity made it clear just how furious she truly was.
Priam merely tilted his head slightly, a faint smirk appearing on his face.
"No."
His answer was short and blunt.
The crowd collectively swallowed.
The audacity of that young man was unmatched.
Mishnar fixed him with an icy stare.
"Your emblem records that you killed more than six hundred disciples. You repeatedly slaughtered disciples of your own sect, and you still dare act so casually? Do you have any idea how serious that is?!"
Priam let out a nasal chuckle and crossed his arms.
"You insolent brat! Are you pretending to be an idiot?!" one of the Elders of Laws roared from the center, his voice trembling with rage. "Your previous act of heresy was forgiven with exile only because that incident posed no threat to the sect’s foundation! In truth, the cabal of disciples back then was the real danger! But now... you’ve committed a sacrilege a thousand times worse, orchestrating a massacre during a trial where the sect couldn’t intervene! Let’s see if that arrogant tongue of yours can save you from execution today!"
Priam clicked his tongue, casually noticing that Walhart’s father—the former Leader of the Elders of Laws—was strangely absent.
He looked at the Elder of Laws with nothing but contempt.
"Fuck off, you dying old bastard. Nobody’s called on the kennel yet, so quit barking. What right does an insignificant pawn like you have to speak to me?"
"You—!"
"Shut your mouth. I’m the one handling this, and I never asked to hear your braying."
Mishnar’s voice cut through the air like a blade.
The very instant those words left her lips, the sky collapsed.
The bright sunny day was swallowed by pitch-black night in an instant.
Storm clouds materialized out of nowhere, tearing across the heavens with bolts of plasma lightning.
An overwhelming existential pressure descended upon the plaza.
Every Elder’s heart turned cold.
The Elder Leader was truly unleashing her full power, directly influencing the world around her.
At that moment, whether they were new disciples or mighty Elders of Laws, everyone felt like insignificant specks of dust.
Although Mishnar shared the same Sage title as many others present, the gap between them was the difference between heaven and hell.
With a mere blink, she could erase thousands of them without ever needing to draw her blade.
The Elder of Laws’ legs nearly gave out beneath him as thick beads of cold sweat streamed down his pale face.
"F-Forgive my insolence, Elder Leader... It will never happen again!"
He collapsed to his knees on the runic floor, lowering his head in desperation.
Mishnar didn’t even spare the old man a glance.
Her eyes slowly returned to Priam.
"Priam... what was it you just said? Choose your next words very carefully."
As Mishnar’s will expanded to its fullest, every disciple felt as though a mountain had been dropped onto their shoulders.
In a fraction of a second, thousands of disciples collapsed to their knees.
But...
Priam remained standing.
He could feel the weight of her aura, but fear was completely absent from his mind.
After all, comparing Mishnar’s pressure to the primal terror he had endured at the hands of the Sovereigns—back when he had been nothing more than a vulnerable soul—was almost laughable.
Meeting the Elder Leader’s gaze without blinking, Priam calmly repeated,
"I asked: what’s wrong with exterminating the trash within the sect?"
He didn’t regret a single blow he had struck.
If the sect chose to punish or expel him over it, he would leave without looking back.
Mishnar let out a dry snort.
"Leader of the Elders of Laws... why don’t you answer his question?"
The new man stepped forward and took a deep breath.
Priam now understood that Walhart’s father had been stripped of his position and replaced by this man.
"According to Section 6996 of the Ironweald Sect’s Internal Penal Code..."
"Are you deaf, or just stupid?" Priam cut him off coldly. "The Elder Leader told you to answer with ’yes’ or ’no.’ Spare everyone your bureaucratic rambling."
The new Leader of the Elders of Laws’ expression froze, the veins on his neck bulging. He couldn’t help but wonder whether this brat had any survival instincts at all.
"Yes..." he spat through clenched teeth.
"There is? Great, then I’m relieved," Priam nodded, pretending to be completely at ease.
"What nonsense are you talking about, boy?" Mishnar demanded coldly.
Priam answered unhurriedly, his voice carrying clearly across the entire plaza.
"Walhart and another bastard from his race deliberately lured Mage Master-level Corrupted Beasts to my position. When their first attempt failed, they sent fifty-one more afterward. The result? An entire faction was nearly wiped out, and over a thousand young female Mages were slaughtered. If killing fellow sect members is such a heinous crime, then Walhart and his accomplice committed unforgivable acts of heresy. I merely cleaned up the house and saved this branch. So, honorable Elder Leader, I’d love to know exactly where my supposed crimes are."
"What absurdity!" the new Leader of the Elders of Laws roared. "You didn’t just execute two Super Geniuses! You butchered over six hundred innocent disciples!"
"Innocent?" Priam sneered, looking at the old man with utter contempt. "Where did you leave your brain, old man? I was eliminating accomplices who were protecting a murderer and helping bring down our defensive line. Did you expect me to stand there with my arms crossed while they slaughtered my faction and handed the fortress over to the Sorcerers on a silver platter?"
At that moment, the Elder Leader’s voice thundered across the plaza.
"So that’s what happened... Who gave those two their orders?!"
Mishnar’s gaze pierced through the group of Elders of Laws like invisible blades.
Those connected to the former commander trembled from head to toe.
The entire plan had been built on the assumption that Priam would die and the fortress would be damaged. Amid the chaos of the disaster, the sect’s rules dictated that the Elders of Laws would be the first to enter the planet and investigate everything.
That way, the former Leader of the Elders of Laws would use his authority to cover up every trace during the investigation.
But not only had Priam survived...
He had resolved the entire crisis on his own and exposed the conspiracy before the whole sect.
"R-Reporting to the Elder Leader!" the new commander hurriedly declared, cold sweat running down his face. "Former Leader Frethart acted in complete secrecy! He organized everything with members of his own race, driven by a twisted personal vendetta! The institution of the Elders of Laws has absolutely no involvement in this!"
Mishnar let out a cold snort, the storm aura surrounding her growing even heavier.
"I’ll investigate every last detail of this. Capture Elder Frethart immediately!"
"YES!"
Several Elders of Laws shot into the sky in a panic to carry out the order.
The kneeling disciples swallowed nervously, already able to smell blood in the air.
Everyone knew that the Ashstalker race had long been deeply tied to the former Elder of Laws, always acting in his favor.
That meant...
Their entire race would likely be severely affected, with its leading figures losing their heads.
At that moment, everyone swallowed hard.
The Ashstalkers had been like a poisonous thorn lodged in this branch for a very long time.
Long before Mishnar had even become the Elder Leader.
Could it be that she had allowed everything to happen, waiting for the perfect opportunity to finally catch them?
Had she deliberately pretended not to care, letting them grow more and more confident while sinking deeper into breaking the sect’s rules?
Then, when a disciple who wasn’t afraid of them—and was strong enough to back it up—finally appeared...
They had exposed themselves.
Mishnar, who inwardly felt both satisfied and deeply grateful toward Priam, turned her solemn gaze back to him.
"Boy... while you were taking part in the competition, the investigation into the incident that led to your exile was completed. The disciple who tried to assassinate you belonged to the race of Frethart’s wife—who was also an Elder of Laws. She was ultimately sentenced to six hundred years of imprisonment and permanently demoted to become a sect worker."
"As for Frethart, although there was no direct evidence of his involvement, he was stripped of his position and demoted to an ordinary Elder for negligence in command."
Priam listened quietly and simply nodded.
So the wife had taken all the blame by herself?
It was a ridiculous arrangement, but an obvious one.
She had accepted the sacrifice so that her husband and son could retain enough power to seek revenge.
A few seconds later, the air above the plaza distorted once again.
Mishnar narrowed her eyes and turned around.
Several Elders of Laws appeared in the sky, dragging along a figure bound in heavy runic restraining chains.
"What happened?!"
One of the officers landed and announced, his voice trembling with panic,
"We caught him at the teleportation circle! He didn’t resist... but he’d already sent a group of people away before we restrained him!"
Priam fixed his gaze on the chained man.
It was Frethart—
Walhart’s father.
The former Leader of the Elders of Laws slowly raised his head.
When his bloodshot eyes met Priam’s, a grin of pure, macabre delight spread across his face.
At that exact moment, an icy, ominous chill ran down Priam’s spine.