Dragon Monarch System

”What do you mean by Vardy is not here?” The maid trembled under Wahid’s stern gaze.

”Sir, just a little while back, Commander Vardy received words that a horde of magic animals was charging towards the city. So he took most of the Harrington family’s army to fight the horde of magic animals.”

Hearing this, Athena was sure that this was a false alarm to get Vardy and most of the troops out of the city.

”It was a trap.”

”I am sure by now Commander Vardy has also realised that this is a trap. But because of this mysterious barrier, he is stuck outside and is unable to return to the city.” Everyone’s expression became grim. The situation was worse than they had thought.

They were trapped in their own fortress.

The organisation had planned everyone throughly.

Wahid could not refuse what Athena said because, from Aditya, they learned that the organisation had a habit of planting scouts. So most likely, there were scouts working for the organisation within the Harrington family as well.

”Why didn’t Vardy inform you about this?” Aditya asked.

”Because, given the geography of Axel City, we are used to being attacked by the Horde of Magic Animals. There are attacks almost every night. So instead of wasting time informing me, I had asked Commander Vardy to lead the army to crush the Magic Animals as soon as possible to minimise casualties.”

”I had no idea that the organisation would take advantage of this,” Wahid spoke in a regretful tone.

While everyone became silent and stared outside the window, a servant carrying a red box and a letter came behind Wahid.

”My lord, someone has sent you a letter and lots of gift boxes.” Hearing this, Wahid was very annoyed.

They were under attack by the organisation, and here his servant was coming and telling him that someone had sent him gift boxes and a letter.

”Can’t you see our current situation?” Wahid asked in a frustrated tone.

Hearing this, the servant showed a look of hesitation and nervousness.

”But, Sir, the person who sent these letters and all the gift boxes, especially asked me to give you this letter at this moment. Otherwise, he said, it will be too late, and the letter will lose its meaning.” Hearing this, Aditya, Laura, Freya, and Athena all looked at each other. The arrival of the gift and the letter at this moment couldn’t be a coincidence.

In his other hand, he held a red square-shaped box.

Wahid was still about to send the servant away, but Aditya stopped him.

Athena took the letter and the gift box from the hands of the servant.

She gave the letter to Wahid, and she started opening the box.

Wahid still felt that there was no time for this kind of crap. But he did what his nephew wanted him to do.

When he opened the letter and read the first few lines, his expression completely changed.

Aditya, who was also reading that letter by standing by his side, also showed a look of panic.

[Greetings From league of Black Tomb!]

[I have sent 20 gift boxes. I hope that in this situation, the entire Harrington family will enjoy the gift that I have specially prepared for them.]

A gift from an enemy is never a good thing. A gift from an enemy could only mean one thing, and that was danger.

”Athena, stop!” Aditya teleported beside her, held her wrist and stopped her from taking out whatever was inside the gift box.

”It’s a strange artefact.” Athena pointed at the strange sand clock that was inside the gift box.

The sand clock looked nothing like an ordinary one.

Its outer frame was made from a dark metallic material that looked almost alive under the light. Strange crimson-colored runes continuously moved across its surface like crawling insects. Instead of normal glass, the centre was covered by a transparent crystal that gave off a faint blood-red glow.

Even stranger, the sand inside was not flowing downward naturally.

The black sand inside the clock was moving in reverse.

Some grains were falling upward while others floated in the middle as if gravity itself had become unstable around the artefact. At the same time, every few seconds, the entire sand clock emitted a faint ticking sound, almost like the heartbeat of something living.

Around the crystal surface, tiny cracks of green and golden lightning occasionally flickered before disappearing again. The closer one looked at the artefact, the more uncomfortable it became. The mana fluctuations coming from it were extremely unstable and violent, as if something inside was desperately trying to break free.

Most disturbing of all was the fact that the amount of black sand remaining inside the lower half of the sand clock was almost gone. Only a very thin layer remained.

But Aditya was a five-star runemaster. He understood at a glance that this was not some ordinary, strange-looking sand clock, but instead a ticking time bomb.

”It’s a bomb!” Aditya noticed that the sand clock timer was almost about to be over; there were barely a few seconds left.

Aditya reacted at lightning speed. He grabbed everyone in the living room and hardly teleported out of the mansion.

Wahid looked at the Mansion and then looked at Aditya.

”Even if it was a ticking time bomb, we could have thrown the gift boxes away.” Aditya shook his head.

Booooooooooooom!!!!

In front of their very eyes, the entire mansion exploded. For ordinary people, the explosion would have appeared instantaneous. But to higher-order cultivators like them, everything unfolded in terrifyingly slow detail.

The moment the timer inside the strange sand clock reached its end, countless crimson runes suddenly spread across the entire mansion like veins of light. The walls, the floors, the pillars, even the furniture hidden deep inside the mansion, all became covered in glowing red cracks.

A deafening explosion erupted from the centre of the mansion like a miniature sun exploding into existence. The first thing they saw was the shockwave.

The air itself visibly distorted before violently expanding outward in every direction. The pressure was so overwhelming that the marble floor beneath the mansion shattered into countless pieces before the flames had even fully erupted.

Massive stone pillars, thicker than ancient trees, were blown apart into dust. Walls exploded outward like paper. The luxurious windows shattered into millions of glowing fragments that scattered through the air like deadly rain. The wooden furniture inside the mansion did not even have the chance to burn properly. It instantly vaporised under the overwhelming heat of the explosion.

The outer sections of the mansion were no different. Balconies, towers, hallways, gardens, statues, and defensive structures were all violently torn apart. Huge chunks of stone spun through the sky while flames consumed everything in their path. The shockwave spread so violently that even the ground around the mansion cracked apart.

For a brief moment, it almost looked as if a volcano had erupted in the middle of the city. The explosion rose upward in the form of a gigantic crimson pillar of flames mixed with black smoke. Lightning-like currents of mana flickered within the explosion as the destructive energy continued swallowing everything around it.

Even after Aditya teleported everyone away, they could still feel the terrifying heat reaching their bodies from hundreds of meters away. The mansion that had stood proudly for thousands of years was erased in just a few seconds.

In place of the Mansion, there was a massive crater. Thousands of servants who still remained within the Mansion instantly died. Not even their remains could be found.

Aditya, Wahid, and everyone stared at everything with mixed reactions.

Wahid looked really sad. He grew up in that mansion, and now everything was gone. The deep and rich history, the childhood memories, his favourite things, the treasury, everything was gone.

Wahid’s two wives wanted to comfort their husbands, but both women were barely holding on.

Zahira hugged Wahid’s other wife, Runa, who was silently weeping while staring at the large crater where just a moment ago their home stood.

Watching the family grieving, Aditya felt really bad. Since the moment they met him, they have shown nothing but love to him. Yet, because they were connected to him, they also had to suffer.

’This is partially my fault.’ Aditya felt he was partially to blame for this. He also felt really sad because this place held so many sweet and fond childhood memories.

”Don’t blame yourself,” Athena whispered into his ear.

He turned around and stared at her, looking surprised.

’How did she...?’

”Seeing your expression, I can pretty much guess what you are feeling and thinking right now.”

Meanwhile, the servant who brought the letter and the gift box was horrified. He never expected the gift box to actually contain a bomb.

’I have to flee.’ Without looking back, while everyone was busy weeping and grieving, he ran to run with all his might.

----------------

Really, thank you very much to all those who sent support with valuable golden tickets and gifts. I hope we can keep it up!!!