Lumilia, Lynn, and Princess Alea were sitting around a table. The three of them had the same depressed look on their faces.

"It's been a few weeks and there's still no news about Bryan..." Lumilia sighed as she looked at the coffee on the table.

"Sigh... I've tasked my subordinates to investigate the incident and they haven't found anything. Some of the huge family is cooperating with us like Bentley Family and they've given every information about it. Every evidence pointed out that Bryan is the killer." Alea stopped for a moment before she added, "Damn, just who would dare to cause me some troubles... I, a princess of a blood moon am getting tired about everything."

"Princess, your manners." Lumilia smiled wryly.

"Uwa, I forgot that we're in a public place." Alea fixed her posture.

"I know Bryan and I'm sure that he wouldn't resort to killing. If he wanted the girl to escape then he would simply knock out those guards. He isn't Souta who is decisive about this kind of things." Lumilia said. "If it was Souta then I would believe that Souta would kill those guards leave no one alive but it was Bryan. Bryan is a kind-hearted person who loves fighting but hates killing."

"Yeah, I'm sure that Bryan didn't kill those guards." Lynn nodded.

"But we don't have any evidence." Alea narrowed her eyes. "I will be forced to restart the investigation."

"We'll be doing our own investigation too but... A lot of people are wary about us since they thought that we're hiding Bryan from the authorities." Lumilia said.

The one that solidified Bryan as the killer was the event when he fought the guards near the red light district. The guards said that they were trying to talk to Bryan when he suddenly attacked them. It only means one thing, Bryan was the killer. If he wasn't the killer then why would he attack those guards?

In one of the rooms inside the royal palace...

A tall man wearing a full plate golden-colored armor was looking at the window. He was Resti, the commander of the Eternal's Army that talked to Bargan a few weeks ago. One of the top experts of the empire.

'Bargan have left the empire to go to the battlefield and the demons have shattered the barrier in the Listen Wastes. Their forces are spreading quickly.' Resti frowned as he placed his hand on his back. 'The battlefield is being pushed towards the Heretic's Dynasty. A war against the demon? Who would have thought that it would happen in my generation.'

The war in the Heretic's Dynasty was going to last as it was different from Listen Wastes which was caught off guard by the demons. But Resti knew that it wouldn't last long if no one helped the Heretic's Dynasty.

Small countries would simply crumble under the might of the demon army but the Heretic's Dynasty was a large country that had a god-level powerhouse protecting them. So they would be able to resist for one or two weeks.

On the other side, he doesn't need to worry about demons passing through the body of water that divided the Listen Wastes and Lion's Kingdom, and Fort Anvi. Those two large countries were experts in naval warfare.

The Three Great Countries were only watching the situation. Resti understood the mindset of those people. He knew that the great countries would let the large countries fight the demon army and when the two sides were exhausted that's when they will appear to swallow everything.

That's not all. There was another reason why they weren't making a move. They were wary about the Mechanic Country. The military prowess that the mechanic army showed in the war against the Sy, Rhine, and Distrok nations exceeded their expectations. Those three nations were large countries yet the Mechanic Country handled them perfectly.

"Sooner or later, we wouldn't be able to conceal to the public that the demons had appeared. It will cause a panic but we are preparing to manage it."

Resti muttered as he closed his eyes. Then, he heard a knock on the door behind him.

"Come in."

The door behind him opened and a man entered the room. The man bowed down and said, "Sir, I've gathered the information about the incident regarding the young man named Bryan Dagruel."

"Good. Then, tell me everything..." Resti said as he turned around and sat on his chair.

The man placed a stock of paper files on the table before he reported, "This is everything that we could gather. Everything pointed that the young man named Bryan is the killer behind the incident in the detention center. The survivor of the massacre said that he saw Bryan's face under the hoods."

"I have a question. Did you really investigate the scene or maybe did you just get this information from other people?" Resti narrowed his eyes as the atmosphere inside the room turned cold.

"Yes, sir. But we had to cooperate with the people that are tasked to handle this case so we simply gathered everything as fast as possible." The man said in a respectful tone.

"This information came from...?" Resti looked at the paper files on his table.

"The noble families..." The man replied quickly.

"Which families?"

"Bentley, Ardi, Nasul, and Yasmi family. Since the princess is acquainted with the young man, they are helping the princess investigate this matter to curry her favor."

"If I didn't know Bargan then I would accept that young man is the killer but Bargan, the Flame Master, believes that his student wouldn't do such vile things," Resti said and then he looked at his subordinates in the eyes. "So I will choose to believe in him. Start over again. Don't let other people knew that we are investigating this case. Maybe, some of the information that we had were altered."

Gather the experts and let them investigated it without letting the authorities knew especially the noble families.

Do not exchange information with other people.

Just deal with it alone and quietly as you can.

Also, don't let the princess knew that we're involved in this matter.

These were his orders...

...

Inside a dark room, Bryan was on his knees as his four limbs were bound by thick chains. These chains were made of metal with the lowest energy conductivity. It has a characteristic that could disrupt mana flow in one's body so while being bound by these chains, Bryan would be having a hard time exerting his mana outside his body. His mana would only scatter in the air once he let it out.

Also, his body was full of wounds and some of it was fresh. He was exhausted.

He was captured a few weeks ago when he confronted the guards. He didn't think that several A-rank would appear out of nowhere. At that time, he didn't even manage to react when they knocked him out using a powerful combo.

Bryan spat a mouthful of blood and he turned his eyes on his side.

He wasn't alone in this place. There were others like him in this prison and all of them were tortured. The only reason why they didn't kill them was because of their mana. The people that tortured them were slowly extracting their mana and plucking out their mana pool to transfer it to a vessel.

"Hey, still alive...?"

He asked in a low voice.

"Somehow..."

Bryan heard a replied and he sighed in relief. At least, some of the people with him were still alive. But who knows when they would collapse. They were fated to become a cripple once their mana pool was plucked out.

In the past few weeks, Bryan received torture from people that he didn't know. From the other captives, he learned that those people were from Bentley Family and they were doing something ominous with the captured girls.

Sacrifice. The women were all sacrifice to create a pure bloodline of the Bentley Family.

"Those damn elves..."

Bryan heard a voice from the other cell. He glanced around and wondered why the people from the Bentley Family weren't here.

He asked and received an answer from the people in this prison.

The ritual was going to start tomorrow so they were busy preparing for it. He didn't understand other complicated details of the ritual but he knew that a lot of people were going to die tomorrow.

Argh!!

Bryan groaned in pain as the tube that was stuck on his back was sucking his mana. It was draining his energy in his mana pool.

The other people writhed in pain too as they experienced the same thing. Some of them collapsed and fell unconscious as they couldn't handle the intense pain.

Damn! Damn! Damn!

I need to get out of this place...

Bryan gritted his teeth as anger filled his eyes. The chains that were binding him were preventing him from using mana and the tube on his back was sucking his mana. In short, he was left with his physical strength.

The only problem was that he was exhausted from all the tortures that he received in the past few weeks and he haven't eaten a single thing.

"DAAAAAAAAMN!!"