The sparse forest was filled with towering trees, they hardly obstructed the vision of the warriors, so, this human commander directly ignored those stupidly tall trees without any hesitation.

If one were to enter the military cleanly without any underhand mean, one would receive numerously training and studies before ascending the ladder that was the ranking of the military, they would not create these mistakes or else they would be demoted long ago.

But the reality wasn't so beautiful as one might imagine, this commander only got to this point because of his little bit of talent and the precious connection with his father, one of the generals.

Coupled with the defeated of the demi-humans, his ego was greatly boosted, he was blinded by greed and lost his wit. He ordered his army into the deathly traps of the demi-humans.

Before long, the human army was surrounded by the hidden reinforcement of the demi-humans, aiming to cut their retreat and communication route.

"Impossible! How did the scout teams not foresee this!?"

The commander stomped his foot to the ground, shouting in anger.

"Hurry up! Request for reinforcement!"

"Reporting! Our communication devices were jammed by those demi-humans!"

The commander cursed loudly, slapping his subordinate in the face, sending them flying.

"Useless! You all are useless!"

Although he is stupid, he had great talent in combat, so all the planning part would be the work of another, but because of his reckless actions, he ignored the plan and charged in alone. Thus leading him to his end.

The fight shortly broke out at the retreat route, the commander was trying to get back to safety, so all the manpower would be focused on breaking out of the encirclement.

And that was where he committed another mistake, because of his lack of brain, he chose to flee and not thinking of plans, directly concentrated everything on a single point instead of playing defensively and waited for the reinforcement.

The demi-human commander had already been instructed of the plan by their generals, he organized his army and employed defensive strategy, slowly chipped away the rear of the human army while focusing on defending the retreat route.

They crashed and fought, due to home ground advantage and careful planning, the demi-human always emerged victory, the morale of the human dropped to an all-time low, some even surrendered and defected to the demi-humans, offering themselves to them for the sake of survival.

...

In two days, the human army was annihilated, their commander was captured, he was locked within the dirty prison, eating the rotten fruits to survive.

"This stupid human sure was strong, we even needed eight of the elite soldiers to capture him alone! He still managed to kill three of them!"

"Strong or not, he still lost, look at him now. Eating rotten fruits and drinking dirty water. No one can beat us, the demi-human!"

"I heard that the commander will arrive today, so prepare yourself, you animal."

The guards mocked the commander, as usual, he was ridiculed every day, but he silently gritted his teeth and endured it.

The commander kept his mouth shut, if he didn't tell them any information, he would survive a little longer.

A while later, the guards slowly opened his ceil, they dragged him out easily, because of the rotten fruits, both his physical and mental were broken into pieces, he had no will and strength to resist.

Another figure walked casually into the room, he sat opposite the broken commander and waved his hand, the guards saluted him and orderly walked out.

The figure was naturally the demi-human commander that commanded this operation, Ferror.

He pulled out a fine knife and slowly peeled off the apples, he seemed to enjoy every moment of it.

"Hello, human. As requested, if you told us the location of the next meeting, you will not be ."

Using the word "request" instead of "demand" would give off the non-hostile feeling toward the prisoner, lowering his guard.

Too bad that the sensitive information liked the location of the meeting was selected just before the meeting started to avoid the leak, even though the commander was the son of the general, he still couldn't pinpoint the location.

A mocking smile surfaced from his face.

"If you think that you could get it from me, you better entertain me well."

Of course, the commander didn't let any emotion present itself on his face, maintaining the lie, hoping to survive until the reinforcement came.

Ferror stabbed the knife into the table, creating crack on it, the table trembled lightly, fear started to manifest in the commander's mind.

A hint of madness could be seen in eyes of the Faceless believer, his smile stretched across his face from side to side.

"Very well commander, let us see how long yo-"

A sound of the explosion could be heard even in the room, the chaos had descended, many demi-humans in the camp ran toward the direction of the explosion, trying to fend off the intruders.

Ferror's face turned ugly to the extreme, he immediately rushed out of the room, pushing the table and chairs scattered around, knocking the tied human on the floor, alone.

Even though falling onto the floor hurt him, the commander could only feel the happiness of being alive, he forced himself to vomit something out, it was a yellow ring.

His life-saving artefact was actually implanted within him, the enemies would never be able to tell even after a body checking. He transmitted his thought into the magical ring, the ring then dissolved into a small butterfly and flew toward the Human Empire.

All the time he kept quiet and ate rotten fruits wasn't in vain, he surveyed his surrounding and deduced that he was still within the boundary of the same forest he suffered his defeat.

He struggled to free himself, in the end, he chose to try his luck with the fallen knife that Ferror used to peel apples. After numerous wounds, he finally freed himself.

Afraid of exposing his escape, he slowly crawled toward the broken door and listened to the sound that came from the outside.

The sound of yelling and gunshots were everywhere, faint screams and cursings could be heard.

The outside was too occupied to notice the absence of an unlucky soldier who got dragged into a tent, the loud noise from the battle concealed a measly scream within the tent.

The disguised commander walked toward the frontline, using his stolen uniform as the free pass, he managed to walk unobstructed into the boundary between his imprisonment and freedom.

Many demi-humans yelled at him along the way, completely failed to see through his disguise, their greets would be responded by a knife at their throat.

"You there. Stop moving at once!"

Seeing the shiny ring on the commander's hand, the human soldiers gradually walked toward the commander from behind, seizing the ring to inspect before bowing to him.

"Respected commander, please immediately return to safety, we will escort you, sir."

When the commander got out of the war zone, a big figure emerged from the darkness, in his hand was a magical necklace. Pouring the magical force into the artefact, the necklace twisted itself violently before disintegrated into dust.

"Everything is within the grasp of her highness, may her goal be fulfilled."

The commander of the demi-humans said solemnly before returned to the battlefield, continuing his slaughter against the pre-destinated battle.

...

"Greeting, Lord Aceros. It had been a while since your last visiting."

"Hello, old friend. Or should I call you the Agent of the Outsider?"

Sitting in his guest room, he slipped his own black tea as he casually mentioned the origin of the man before him.

"You could call me anything, I don't mind. Also, about our previous arrangement, we would like to express our gratitude for such valuable information. The true location of the smaller brunch of the Pantheon is priceless."

"No need to thanks me, this is a fair trade between us. You fulfilled my request while I fulfilled yours."

Aceros snapped his finger, the young maid of his slowly knocked on the door, waiting for her master's approval, before she opened it and walked in with a small wooden box on her hand.

If one didn't look closely, the faint yellow light that the box emitted would be ignored. The magical power of the box interfered with one's mind to make the box looked ordinary and unimpressive.

On top of the box which contained the secret that the Outsider desired was a page detailing the contact they both agreed on.

Once they formed the contact with their blood, their soul would be shackled by the contact. If any of them broke the contact, their soul would immediately dissipate into pure energy. Even the high and mightly Sages from the ancients couldn't bypass the secret of the contact.

"As expected of the Grand Noble, even the ancient magic such as the Soul Bind would be in your hand."

He picked the contact up and pulled out a medical potion, in it was blood-red liquid, he poured a drop of the liquid onto the contact.

"Sir Agent, don't praise me too much. Your organization had been the shadow of the humanity for eras. Something as little as Soul Bind wasn't worth mention in this discussion."

Aceros also pour the prepared blood of his onto the contact, the contact rapidly absorbed the blood.

The contact burned itself slowly, leaving behind two strange-shaped seals, representing the two sides of the contact. The seals flew into the two's arm, merging with the body of them, leaving only tattoos behind.

"It has been a pleasure conversing with the lord today. But my time is tight, please pardon me, I need to report to the head immediately."

The Agent took the wooden box with him and left the mansion, the location of the church of the Pantheon was too important to not promptly report to the head.

After making sure that the Agent of the Outsider left, Aceros shook his head mildly. This Agent of the Outsider is a big fool. He seemed to be the new member and not the veteran one.

He processed to tap his finger onto his newly-acquired tattoo, it slowly melted off and disappeared into nothingness. The tattoo that he got was just an illusion created by his underling.

The contact itself was formidable, able to force the great legends to follow the rule, let along the measly human noble. But the language was not absolute, words weren't always the truth, sentences' structures weren't static.

The flowery decoration on the contact was just another way to write the seemingly forgotten language, without careful observation, it would go unnoticed.

The name of his, Aceros, was not the same one as in the contact. He had various slaves, many were nameless. It was not impractical to name some Aceros and used them as the receiving end of the contact.

Of course, for them to send the newbie to negotiate with me, it was another way to test my ability, if I fell to take advantage of this Agent. The Outsider would regard me as a weakling, lowering my importance and priority of archiving my goal.

Thinking to this point, he felt regret that he didn't take that much gain from the Agent, it was not often that the wealthy organization would send free treasure to him.

"Just wait for me, Relica. I will get you out of that place before you turned into one of them."

His only worried was the sanity of his daughter, for someone that was a mastermind, he perfectly knew that how fearsome brainwashing someone was, able to bend and distort their belief permanently, effectively making them a faithful slave.

If his daughter were to become the believer of the Pantheon, even worse if she was saintess, his life-long work would crumble. The effort he spent grooming this young girl into a capable leader was immeasurable, he would not let anyone steal his lovely girl.

"You, speed up the preparation, the faster it finishes the better. I would die as an incompetent father if my only useful successor were to perish."

Little did he knew that the fate was cruel and merciless, the goal he hoped to obtain must be paved with blood. Countless suffering must be paid in exchange for his selfish wish.