It took three days to get to Dink and reach Hector’s place. Although Dred didn’t state his location, it was obvious to me. The Dark Scars made a camp out in the desert, a few kilometers away from the city. Audrey, Jake, and Cor stayed back with them, while I went to the palace.

The defensive mechanisms of the capital city didn’t even fire the alarms thanks to my advanced hiding abilities. It was good to know I was getting better at it since last time their detectors still caught me.

I entered the palace and went straight to the throne room, without anyone noticing me. Despite magicians being rare on Dink, had anyone seen the number of magicians in Drung, they’d have thought twice about saying ‘rare’.

Thanks to the magicians and warriors Bethor sent, their forces had been growing. Hector didn’t attack the neighbouring nations, but they didn’t dare to pick a fight either. Drung simply grew too powerful and turned into the strongest kingdom on Dink.

“Hello~” I whispered into Hector’s ear as I snuck up on him.

“Haargh!” he jumped up from his seat. “Ah! God! Elena, don’t do this…” he held his chest and sat back down. After heaving out a sigh of relief, he said, “I suppose you came to see Dred and hear what he has to say.”

“Mhm.”

“Well, then wait a moment, he should be here in a bit.”

“I know, he’s on the way,” I nodded my head. I was able to sense him, no matter what he did. We were connected, after all. The door was swung open and after coming closer, he hugged me without any warnings. I opened my eyes wide, but I still hugged him back.

“Did you miss me?” I asked.

“I told you before.”

“Hmm~ I thought about rewarding-”

“*Cough*” Hector forced out a cough to interrupt me. Mood-killer...

“...Let’s talk about this later. So what did you find?” I stepped back and sat on the edge of Hector’s table.

“I’m trying to do some work here!” Hector slammed his fists on the table.

“This is related to your kingdom as well, so stop whining,” Dred furrowed his brows.

“Is that so?” this time Hector raised his head with interest. That was a really quick change.

“I finished our business with Hector, as usual, and I was about to leave when one of his servants returned with an ancient relic he found. Here is the deal. The relic mentioned a hidden room, which turned out to be another hidden room in the hidden room where we found Cor’s gold and Audrey’s Supernova spell.”

What the actual fuck?

“The third room led even deeper underground, to a house. It was furnished and seemed to be perfect for living. I suppose that was the place where Cor lived before he died.”

“This is all nice, but what’s the point of all this?” Hector hurried Dred.

“I found a book about his life… it’s still with me, but I’ll give it to Cor once we meet. What matters is the following. Dunk is a huge planet, but we know only what’s on the surface. There lies a race hidden underground, called the kobolds, who return every ten thousand years to purge the surface. It’s probably one of the reasons as to why there are so few high-level magicians and warriors.”

“And when is the turn of this ten thousand years?” Hector furrowed his brows.

“We’ve passed it already.”

“Come on, Dred. Spit it out already,” I elbowed him.

“Ugh- you could be gentler sometimes,” he shook his head before continuing.

“The seal he created with eight rings are using the world energies to hold back the kobolds. As long as the seal exists, nobody can get to a higher level than five hundred and ninety-nine, but the kobolds are also held back. I couldn’t find notes related to the kobold’s abilities, but I’m sure they aren’t weak if they were able to destroy every intelligent race before.”

“Then… if we break the seal, will the kobolds also attack?” I furrowed my brows.

“Yes.”

“And where would these kobolds even come up from?”

“There is only a single place that connects them with the surface, which is none other than the island in the Moonlit Sea, the place where the seven leading nations held their conference, and the place where we have to take the rings to break the seal.”

“Sounds like a pain in the ass,” I shook my head.

“It is. We now have to deal with Padinyss and a whole race living underground if we want to keep our lives,” Dred crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“Yes, and we’ll have to deal with both at the same time. I haven’t worked so hard and separated the ‘bad’ people from the ‘good’ people just to let them die. We’ll have to make plans to keep the kingdoms we left behind alive,” I pointed out.

“Wait, you want what? Sure, we can help them, but we can’t protect all of them! I don’t want the Dark Scars or our friends to be hurt because of others!” Dred used my whisperings to tell me his opinion.

“Are you saying that we should just crap on all the things we did? How much time we ‘wasted’ to gather information about each and every kingdom and spare the people we deemed worthy of living?” I asked furrowing my brows.

“Look, I know, but you can’t expect me to put them in front of you and the others,” he replied.

“You don’t have to. We’ll have to split our forces and prepare for two different things.”

“Are you sure about this?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m sorry, but I want to go through with this to the end,” I nodded my head.

“Haah- okay. And we should stop moving our bodies when using your whisperings… It looks really strange,” Dred added towards the end.

“This is a catastrophe!” Hector leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples, his eyes closed, oblivious to the debate we just had. “And I’m sure you two want to break that seal, right?” he opened his eyes to look at us.

“Not just us, Padinyss too. Or do you want to live the rest of your life hidden from the world, the universe, hiding from Padinyss and the other leading nations, afraid they’d find you and kill you because you helped us?” I asked looking into his eyes.

“But if you could kill Padinyss, we could all live in peace. I’d make sure to satisfy you-”

Dred shook his finger and cut into his words, “The thing is, the rings will be destroyed if their owner dies, but if either of the rings is destroyed, the world energies will get out of control and the seal will break.”

“What?!” Hector stood up slamming his fists on his table. “Will we really have to fight again? I don’t want another war, especially not one where we have to fight to protect our own planet!”

“Want it or not, you’ll have to,” Dred shrugged his shoulders.

“Haah- fine! I’ll modify my plans. From now on, whenever you two destroy a kingdom or an empire, the king I’ll select and send in the old one’s place will prepare for a war. I’ll also notify the other kings to change their policies. If there really is a world-sized war coming, every race needs to be ready. And you two have to deal with Padinyss because I sure as hell can’t!”

“I’m glad to see you made up your mind,” I smiled. “Well, then we should be leaving now. It’s time to step up our game and start playing with the Dragon Empire as well. I haven’t forgotten that bitch Inhe… I’ll be sure to torture her mind a bit.”

“Oh? I haven’t heard of this before, but I’m obviously in,” Dred nodded his head.

“Hehe. I believe we can leave the Dark Scars to our friends, while we’ll set out to catch Ekrok and a few of the royal guards. I want to see her face when her rival’s mind changes and her sweet master dies.”

“You two sound like some villains conspiring an evil plan…” Hector shook his head.

“It’s just your imagination,” I chuckled.

“Of course, it’d be my imagination.”

We left him to do his job as a king and joined up with our friends. But right after leaving the city, Dred grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side in the forest.

“What? What’s up?” I asked confused.

“I have something else to tell you. You know about Cor’s condition. His seizures have been acting up more often these times, but we had no idea what was going on.”

“Yes, I know. Did you find something?” I furrowed my brows.

Nodding his head, Dred replied, “Yes. When he created the last ring, the Eighth Ring of Calamity, the ring of darkness, he tore off a part of his soul and put it into it. It was supposed to serve as a security lock because once somebody wore the last ring, he’d have overtaken the owner’s soul and would have reborn. But it didn’t turn out as well as he thought because the split off soul was too weak alone and his personality didn’t even match with the soul in the ring.”

“Is that why the last ring changed Shin’s personality?”

“Yes. But there is more. Unless he held the ring close, he started having seizures thanks to his wounded soul and he also noted that he’d have died if he stayed far from the ring for too long.”

“And that ring is in Shin’s hands, who is protected by Padinyss…” I nodded my head, realizing Dred’s implications.

“Mhm, so Cor is probably dying and getting closer to it day by day,” he nodded his head.

“So we must hurry up and capture Shin in that case. I don’t want one of my friends to die, even if they’re supposed to be nothing but ‘tools’. They mean more to me. And because of this, I still can’t agree with you pertaining the kingdoms we created.”

“It’ll be fine,” I said and then added, “I suppose you plan to tell him.“

“Of course, I’ll do it as soon as I meet him.”

“Alright, then let’s go back,” I gave a small kiss on his lips and then turned around. I knew he’d understand and accept my decision. He had a soft spot for me, after all.

“I know that you’re taking advantage of me, you evil girl… But you’re still so cute,” Dred whispered into my ear and then transformed into his panther form. He pushed his head between my legs and threw me on his back, only to run off with a loud roar.

Sitting up straight on his back, I remarked, “All this wildness. As if either of the monsters here would dare to come nearby…”