Titan's Throne

Kai's Advice

"We lost 70% of our troops? This isn't a joke right?" Said Sula, to her this sounded absurd.

'Vermalaen is there, there is no way...'

Sula was starting to get lost in her thoughts until Bastian spoke words that stunned her back to reality.

"70, that's less than I thought. Good, so that means everything is going according to plan."

Sula had a foreboding feeling in her chest as soon as she heard these words, and as if to confirm, Phantasma was right on cue.

"Indeed, it is just as you predicted, she is a spy."

Phantasma ignored Sula's expression of shock as she remembered what she had experienced with Bastian the previous night.

....

Last night, Phantasma and Bastian travelled out of the city. In order to see Bastian's infamous 'Master'. Phantasma was curious to meet the so-called 'Master' who had been able to threaten the entire Cole family compound with a windstorm while barely registering any energy waves.

Phantasma at the time still thought of Bastian as a pampered brat from a powerful family who had everything done for him. Everything from his demeanor to his odd childlike disposition made him seem inappropriate as a leader. But Tino and Guy were no fools. She knew that their eyes were far keener than hers and she trusted them, hence she took the initiative to ask Tino in secret to be the one who meets Bastian's Master.

As the saying goes, a teacher for a day, a parent for life.

'What is your parent like?'

Yani City was on a large mountainous Island. The City was built in one of the few flat areas around the boundary of the Island. Many countries in the Blue Seas Alliance, or rather the Eastern Islands in general were like this.

The due walked in the dead of the night, passing through a thick, rainforest-like environment. The walk was a bit odd for Phantasma. And there was a good reason for this. Firstly the Falsified Daughters were very good at their jobs. They were masters of collecting information.

From what she understood, Bastian had never so much as even left the city. Leading the Falsified Daughters to ask; How did they communicate?

According to their observations, Bastian and Kenshin had never even bothered to use any form of long-range communication devices. Being a rich scion Shasha had many such trinkets and objects. But the duo kept to them. Not even so much as a communication spell.

The Falsified Daughters even did research on every single spell Bastian had requested from Shasha's library, but they couldn't make sense of it.

A lot of it was just basic magic, and of the complex ones Bastian had asked for, they were either incomplete or gibberish. Shasha's little sister had taken all the important books for her vassal who was a mage.

'This guy was able to take that incomplete pile of garbage and create that odd purple energy that allows him to manipulate magic. Is his Master involved, or is it Bastian's genius?'

Tino and her sisters had seen vast swathes of geniuses within the Thunder Tiger Empire, so Bastian's feats were not that impressive. Tino and Guy however knew a few things Phantasma did not, and she intended to close the gap.

'Whatever he is hiding I will find it.'

The Falsified Daughters already knew where Bastian came from. They knew about the Tirius family and how powerful it was. It was a family capable of rivalling the Thunder Tiger Empire. But they had many capable scions, and Bastian did not seem like one of them.

'If he was important to the Tirius family, he would at least be a Mark Bearer of some sort.'

It was already common knowledge among high-level powers at the level of the Thunder Tiger Empire that those with purple hair within the Southern Grasslands had a rather high concentration of the blood of Ambevilus, King of the Titans.

'He is no Mark Bearer; at least he doesn't show signs of it. Tino said it's too early to rule out that he is one...does she know something? What about General Moto and the others?'

Rumours had travelled in the Great Desert of Shandelar that General Moto had a Mark bearer, and this did not escape the ears of the Falsified Daughters. A few months later it was revealed to the sisters that Bastian and Kenshin were the ones who were hired by General Moto.

Phantasma was tempted to believe that Kenshin was the Mark Bearer but certain events made it seem unlikely.

For starters, Kenshin always chose to play a secondary role to Bastian. Bastian was able to save Kenshin from the 'Blind Disaster' affliction, one even a powerhouse of Kai's calibre could not deal with.

'Duke Kai is one of our Empire's most powerful and knowledgeable fighters. Yet even he was stumped.'

Solving Kenshin's affliction, removing Vee's Soul Crawler poison, and unlocking a powerful body-altering bloodline that makes one a practitioner. Powerful water and fire affinity along with the ability to break down, mix and create new spell matrixes. The sisters could not help but think of the enigma that was Bastian. Kenshin was also quite the mystery as well but he seemed to have come to some unspoken agreement with Kai who ordered the sisters to not even bother with his identity.

When Phantasma and her sisters tried to ask Kai about Bastian and Kenshin's histories and abilities, all Kai said was, "Kenshin is out of your league, forget about who he is and what he can do, with time you will see. Now as for Bastian, the way he solved the 'Blind Disaster' issue...to be honest even I am not sure how the boy did it. Even the Soul Crawler poison in the Inkume Girl isn't something easy to deal with. It should take a powerful organization on the same scale as our empire to deal with such, so I am not sure what means he used.

Either way, do not underestimate that bald prick. He is not a joke. He still could be a Mark Bearer so don't be disrespectful, otherwise when the underworld calls, you won't even leave a corpse behind in this world and you will never be able to learn how it happened"