Affinity: Chaos

Chapter 1990: Shocking Secret Behind The War

Klaus’s reckless battle made the blood of Reynolds and Alice boil. The duo initially wanted to take their time with their opponents, but seeing Klaus in such a state, they too decided to engage in reckless battle. Although, their case could not be considered reckless given the fact that they were stronger than their opponents to begin with, and having helpers like the Seelie and Elemental Warrior made it easier for them to handle the Gnomes and their Puppets. The Peak Sovereign Commander was the only one who was in no rush. After confirming that the youngsters could handle themselves, he did not want to concern himself with them. Although he was a little worried when he noticed Klaus’s recklessness, he also realized the latter did not show any signs of wanting to throw his life away.

Hugh’s opponent was having a terrible time dealing with him. The ability of the vines to suck out essence from whatever they were attached to made them very tricky to deal with. The Gnome’s Puppet currently looked like a bag of bones after being pierced and constricted multiple times by Hugh’s vines. No matter how he tried to evade them, the vines were simply too difficult to dodge. With no other choice, he had to sacrifice the Puppet for his own safety. This was the first time the Gnome was forced into such a situation where he was actively seeing the essence being taken out of his Puppet little by little and there was nothing he could do.

He wanted to retreat, only to realize that whenever Hugh was given any freedom, he would either assist any of the others fighting the Sovereigns, or he would aid those in the battlefield below. It was a frustrating sight and he had been reprimanded by the silver robbed Gnome Klaus was battling the time he was caught by Hugh’s vines which gave Klaus an opportunity to attack him.

….

While Klaus and the others were having an intense battle.

Grey, who was in the Gnome World, was having a difficult time at the moment. He had dropped off the Principal and the others in a region that barely had any experts. Before heading to the Capital City where Brown was located, he wanted to make use of the Seventh Prince to scout the area and see if there were any dangers. He never expected that the moment he stepped out of the Seventh Prince’s room, he would encounter the Emperor of the Gnome Race. This was not the first time he was seeing the Emperor, only in past cases, he did not engage in any form of conversations. He was only summoned to a briefing Hall where the Gnomes discuss several plans. This was the same method he used to find out about the portal that was discovered in the Azure Continent that could send in Half God Plane Gnomes.

The Gnome Emperor stopped him and told him to follow him. It has been almost one hour now, and he knew if he were to cancel the mind control technique right now, the Seventh Prince would naturally show confusion as to how he got there, raising suspicion. It is simply impossible for a Fifth stage Sovereign to suddenly lose an hour or two of their memory, unless it was being tampered with or he was hit strongly in the head; which in a case like this one only pointed to the former rather than the latter.

Grey knew the Emperor would definitely be able to find out something is wrong with the brain of the Seventh Prince if he thoroughly inspected it, so he had no choice than to play along. Luckily he still knew some of the Seventh Prince’s mannerisms, and had come to learn that he was very respectful to the Emperor. Everyone in the Gnome World showed the Emperor maximum respect, which is expected. The Seventh Prince, however, seemed to somewhat have a shocking level of administration for the Emperor. It could almost even be said that he worshipped him. Grey has never had anyone he treated in that manner before, so he was having a hard time replicating the way the Seventh Prince would normally act in the presence of the Emperor.

He was fortunate the Emperor has been preoccupied with attending to a lot of people, giving him the chance to not expose himself.

He continued following the Emperor another hour before he was led to an underground chamber. The chamber was quite large, around eight hundred meters wide, and from the entrance where Grey stood, he could see multiple doors and even different paths that led to other places. He was curious, but did not try to inspect anything. If he dared to take out his Mental Sense here, the Emperor is bound to notice the strangeness of it. The Mental Sense is largely that of the Seventh Prince, however, any expert at the Peak of the Sovereign Plane and above would be able to sense the foreign Mental Sense that was hidden within it. Albeit very little, it was still not something people of this caliber can miss.

The Emperor, noticing his son’s gaze, turned to him and asked, “Are you curious about what lies in these rooms?”

Hearing this question, Grey’s brain quickly speculated that the Seventh Prince has never been here before. He noticed how tight the security around this area was and surmised it was definitely a restricted area in the Royal Palace, he just never thought the Seventh Prince had never been here before.

Bowing, he replied respectfully, “Yes, Your Highness.”

The Emperor chuckled with his right arm resting on his stomach. For someone who is regarded as an expert, the Emperor could be regarded as fat amongst the Gnomes.

“It’s normal for you to be curious. You were meant to only see this place after becoming the Crown Prince.” Waving his hand, the Emperor continued, “This place has a lot of information, information that is only accessible by the Emperor!”

The Seventh Prince’s eyes glowed when he heard this. Information that is only accessible to the Emperor would mean information that most of the Gnomes had no knowledge of.

He was still thinking about this when the Emperor suddenly asked him a question that caught him off-guard.

“Son, do you know why we are attacking the Human World?” The Emperor appeared solemn as he asked.

The Seventh Prince raised his head to look at the Emperor before replying carefully, “To take their natural resources?”

The Emperor chuckled, expecting such a reply, “Hoho, that is just a lie that the Royal Family has cooked up for ages. Some of the older Families who have been around for millennials know this is a lie though.”

“It’s just a ruse to cover up the real reason. Although the Human World has some desirable resources, it’s not enough for us to take the risk of going to war with them.” The Emperor continued, not waiting to see his son’s reaction, “You can say the World is the reason we are doing this. It is the one pushing us to take such actions.”

“How could the World be the reason?” The Seventh Prince wore a confused expression. Grey was genuinely confused, and naturally could not hide it even though he was controlling the Seventh Prince. Fortunately, he knew the Emperor would not find anything wrong with him being confused since this was new information to the Seventh Prince too.

“Every few tens of thousands of years, our World needs to consume another World. If we are unable to do this, our World will slowly start losing its ability to produce top experts.” The Emperor explained, “If you’ve read ancient texts, you will know that we used to produce God Plane experts every hundred years or so, and not one! However, since we failed to conquer the Human World thousands of years ago, the World is slowly losing that ability. This is the reason we only make one God Plane expert every few hundred years now. And even at that, it isn’t certain we will make them.”

Grey felt his head buzzing by this information. He never thought this was the reason the Gnomes were attacking them. Just like his answer a few minutes ago, he genuinely believed it was for the resources, and also the fact that they could use Humans as Puppets, that was the reason they invaded the Human World.

“Father, how can our World consume theirs?” This was something he found very confusing. The World needed to consume another World to be able to produce God Plane experts, which is already strange, but what he found confusing was how the World is able to achieve that. He added, “This should not be the first time our World has done this, right?”

The Emperor nodded, “You’re right, over our years of existence, we have conquered four Worlds. If we can conquer the Human World, it would be the fifth.”