Chapter 64: Annoying

The Next Day.

Immortal Council Headquarters

The meeting hall of the Immortal Council was filled with powerful beings from different supernatural races, yet most of their attention was focused on the man sitting at the head of the long table. Caius looked as cold and unimpressed as ever, with his silver eyes moving across the gathered leaders as if he were already tired of being in their presence.

The Fae Queen, the Fairy Queen, the Dragon Lord, and Dracula, the Vampire King, had all come together to discuss the growing danger in the immortal world. They had spent the past two hundred years trying to find a solution to the problems caused by the Demon King, but now that Caius had returned, they couldn’t help feeling that their old troubles were about to become even more complicated.

After all, the Werewolf King had a special talent for making every meeting feel like a battlefield.

Caius rolled his eyes when he noticed how everyone was staring at him.

"You’ve all seen me at the welcome celebration, so why are you looking at me as if I’m an illusion?" he asked coldly. "If you have something to say, then say it. I don’t have the whole day to sit here while you study my face."

The Fairy Queen chuckled, covering her mouth with one hand as she exchanged an amused look with the others.

"Honestly, Caius, you haven’t changed at all. It’s been two hundred years, and you’re still the same impatient man we remember."

"That’s your problem, not mine," Caius replied without hesitation.

The Fae Queen sighed, clearly trying to remain serious despite the way he had answered her. "You know, we’ve discussed a lot of things during the past two hundred years, and we haven’t been able to solve everything. There are still several matters that need to be addressed before we can move forward."

"I don’t care how much you’ve discussed," Caius interrupted, leaning back in his chair. "Continue from where you stopped, and tell me what you’ve discovered about the Demon King. You must have found a solution to that problem by now."

The Dragon Lord let out a tired sigh, shaking his head as he remembered how difficult the past two centuries had been.

"It’s not that simple, Caius. Things became much harder when you disappeared, especially because the Demon King refused to cooperate with anyone. We tried different ways to deal with him, but every plan we came up with failed."

Dracula raised an eyebrow and leaned forward, looking as if he wanted to defend the council’s efforts.

"We could have solved the problem without him. We simply needed to—"

"Oh, please!" the Fairy Queen interrupted with a laugh. "What exactly are you talking about? We all know the Demon King has something going on with Caius. No matter what the rest of us do, that man always finds a way to bring the conversation back to him."

The Dragon Lord nodded slowly, while the Fae Queen rested her chin on her hand, looking at Caius with open curiosity.

"That’s what I’ve been wondering about, too," she said. "It’s difficult to tell whether the Demon King is trying to destroy you or simply enjoys teasing you. Sometimes, I think he causes trouble just to get your attention."

Caius sighed, rubbing his forehead as if the thought alone were enough to give him a headache.

"He’s good at annoying people," he admitted.

The Dragon Lord looked at him in amusement. "Really? I thought you were the only person in the immortal world who enjoyed making everyone else lose their patience."

The Fae Queen immediately sat up, her eyes shining with interest as a teasing smile spread across her face.

"So, you actually know there’s someone who can annoy people apart from you?" she asked. "How interesting! I never thought I’d live to see the day when Caius admitted that another person could be just as troublesome as he is."

The entire table burst into laughter, but Caius only stared at them with a dark expression, his silver eyes narrowing as he wondered why he had bothered returning to the council in the first place.

He had been away for two hundred years, yet somehow, these people had become even more irritating than he remembered.

And the worst part was that the meeting had only just begun.

.....

After the weekend, Hazel finally prepared to return to Basileia, the central city where Caius’s royal palace was located. She had spent the past few days with her family, and although she enjoyed being away from the palace for a while, she couldn’t deny that she was beginning to miss a certain silver-haired man who had made her life more complicated than she could ever have imagined.

As she packed her belongings, Emily stood near the door, watching her with a strange expression. Hazel noticed it almost immediately because her friend had been unusually quiet since morning, and it wasn’t like Emily to keep things to herself when they had the chance to talk.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Hazel asked, folding the last piece of clothing into her bag. "If you’re going to miss me, just say it. You don’t have to look as if I’m going to die on my way back to the palace."

Emily rolled her eyes. "Don’t flatter yourself. I’m only wondering how long it will take before you start complaining about His Majesty again. Knowing you, you’ll probably return here within a week to tell me how annoying he is."

Hazel laughed, but when she looked at Emily again, she noticed that her friend was still not behaving normally. There was something different about her expression, and Hazel had a feeling that Emily wasn’t simply worried about being left behind.

"Wait a minute," Hazel said, narrowing her eyes. "Is there something you’re not telling me? You haven’t been acting like yourself since yesterday, and now you’re looking at me as if you have something important to announce. Where are you going?"

Emily sighed before finally giving in. "I’m planning to travel to the human world and work at one of the companies there. I think I need something to keep me busy for a while, and I don’t want to spend all my time sitting around here."

Hazel stared at her in surprise. "The human world? Since when did you become interested in working with humans?"

"Since I realized I need something to do with my life," Emily answered. "There’s a company over there that belongs to Caius, and I want to work there for some time. I’ve already discussed it with Father, and he agreed to let me go."

Hazel’s mouth fell open slightly.

"Wait, wait, wait! Caius owns a company in the human world?" she asked, looking genuinely shocked. "Why am I just hearing about this? Does that man own everything in the immortal world, too? Is there anything he doesn’t control?"