Chapter 536: You Lose

As soon as Lucas became aware that real-time two-way communication Spirit Tools existed, he swore to get his hands on at least one such item no matter how much it cost.

When Second Queen Ancestor Ariana had visited Misty City, he had made a point of telling her as much, but even as an Elder of the Vast Ocean Trading Company, the Royal Ancestor had told Lucas that getting him what he wanted would be difficult.

Still, Lucas was determined, and had declared that price was of no concern, no matter how ridiculous it was.

3 months later, Lucas received 2 sets of Spirit Voice Links which allowed for very short voice conversations between uniquely paired devices.

These Low-Rank Grade 3 Spirit Tools were each quite bulky, bigger than an ordinary dinner plate, and weighed nearly 5 kilograms a piece, so they definitely weren’t something you would use while moving around.

Theoretically, their maximum range was close to 2,000 km, but if you wanted to have a clear transmission, the limit was about half that far.

30 Low-Grade Spirit Crystals were required just to turn an individual Spirit Voice Link on, and they drained about 5 Spirit Crystals worth of World Qi every minute they were active, meaning the longest conversation you could have between fully charged receivers was less than 6 minutes.

They also couldn’t be used continuously, having a kind of ’cool-down’ period of 11 days.

Why that was, not even Ariana knew as this type of communication Spirit Tool wasn’t produced directly by the Vast Ocean Trading Company but instead by a separate guild, one that guarded all knowledge of its inner workings quite zealously.

On top of all those restrictions, each pair of Spirit Voice Links had set Lucas back 180,000 Low-Grade Spirit Crystals, and that was with a 10% discount Former Queen Ariana had secured for him using her position in the Trading Company.

In other words, compared to the tiny hand-held terminals from the other universe which could literally connect to any other terminal on any other planet within the network, these Spirit Voice Links were total crap.

Still, even after spending his entire amassed fortune, and taking a big loan from his Master, Lucas was ecstatic about having these Spirit Tools.

Unlike when she saw Lucas spending ridiculous amounts of money on things she deemed unnecessary, however, Celestina had no objections to him doing this and even supported him, hence why she loaned him the last bit of cash he needed in order to purchase the Voice Links.

From that moment on, any time Lucas, Eris, or Christina left Misty City, they would carry one of these Voice Links with them, just in case.

They would also have to wear a special wrist-band-like Spirit Tool that acted as a kind of locator beacon.

Naturally, when Christina boarded the Raging River Legion warship, these two Spirit Tools had been the first ones she had packed, and she was incredibly thankful she had now.

Just as Lani Jess had suspected, Elly had recognized her; not by her face, but by her voice. That was why the little girl had completely freaked out the moment Lani had started talking back on the ship outsider the ruins of her village.

Lani was both cruel and sadistic, so while trying to hide and escape from her home, Elly had actually heard this woman torturing her father, causing her to be unable to forget the sound of her voice.

It had taken Christina quite a while to calm Elly down after returning to her room, but once she did, and had gotten this critical information from her, she was enraged and wanted nothing more than to leap across to the Darr Kingdom’s ship and cut off Lani’s head.

However, Christina was still just rational enough to realize that the situation had grown far beyond what she, or the Third and Fourth Battalions could handle.

She needed to call for reinforcements.

It was actually at that time that one of her subordinates arrived to inform Christina that they had been invited to dine with Prince Landon that evening when they reached Sabre Point.

Christina immediately became suspicious and gathered the rest of the Captains on the ship together to discuss what she had learned.

They were now in a highly dangerous situation, but it was also a rare opportunity, one that after witnessing the depraved scenes back in Elly’s village, all of them agreed they needed to take advantage of.

A plan was hatched, preparations were made, and then, Christina contacted Celestina over the Spirit Voice Link to asked for her to sneak an elite force into the Darr Kingdom and wait for her signal.

In other words, since she stepped off the ship and onto the dock at Sabre Point, Christina and the rest of the Rockwell Kingdom soldiers had been on high alert, anticipating being attacked at any moment.

They had all also taken an anti-toxin before entering the town as a precaution, which was how Lana Gage and the other Sea Establishment officers were able to retaliate when the black-cloaked assassins initially tried to attack them.

There were a lot of variables and risks involved in this plan, the proof of which was the battered state Christina currently found herself in, but in the end, she believed it was all worth it, and Celestina reluctantly had to agree.

The attacks on the villages up and down the Lorren were becoming more frequent, and more devastating, with fear permeating all the smaller outlying settlements of both the Rockwell and Darr Kingdom, but now they finally had a clue as to the identity of the culprits.

Whether they would be able to extract any useful intelligence out of the two Spirit Initiates they had managed to capture tonight remained doubtful, but at least they weren’t completely in the dark anymore.

Finally able to relax a bit, Christina stiffly turned her head to the side where her companion for the evening was also being treated and asked, "How is he?"

Glancing over at the wounded grandson of her late friend, Celestina smiled faintly and replied, "He’ll live."

"I’m not so sure," Landon, whose dominant arm was broken in several places, had a number of cracked ribs, multiple bloody gashes, and heavy bruises covering his entire body, groaned in response.

Coughing weakly, he too turned his head with great difficulty and nodded, "Thank you for rescuing us, General Balfour."

"Think nothi..." Celestina started to speak, but then paused, her brow furrowing slightly.

Just now, she felt a powerful Soul Sense briefly sweep over them, one that was weaker than hers, but not by much.

She wasn’t able to identify the exact source, but she could tell the direction it originated from.

Thinking the enemy’s true leader had finally exposed themselves, Celestina hurriedly channeled her Internal Qi and prepared to pursue them, when a manic laughter drew her attention, one that came from the ’supposedly’ unconscious Lani Jess.

Coughing up blood, and with a twisted, nigh insane look on her face, Lani met eyes with Celestina and taunted, "You lose..."