Chapter 57 - Hostile
"Here they are! the first batch of our youth is approaching." A middle-aged man standing above the gate of the Black Sun shouted suddenly
When everyone heard him they quickly left what they were doing and approached to welcome the new arrivals,
the atmosphere surrounding the tournament and this hunting event, in particular, was strange and frustrating for all of them, in fact, they were mentally prepared that none of their youth will come out!
Although this would be considered a very stupid move from Dolivar and a blatant declaration of war on the Black Sun kingdom, seeing their behavior from the beginning, it sounded very possible.
When everyone saw a group of just under twenty people, they got excited, but their enthusiasm quickly subsided...
the group members were looking like that they have just gotten out of a disaster, all of them looked exhausted and enjoyed, some even lost a limp or two..
some of them were looking angry and some were looking extremely sad as they were mourning their fallen brothers, only one person was crying from the intensity of happiness and this was Dali son of the Julian family, which was even more suspicious!
After a few seconds the group crossed the gate, the group was made up of 19 people, 6 of them were geniuses and the rest were followers.
The ratio of the number of followers to their assessment geniuses was .. terrible!
The elders of each duchy went to their own genius, Billy was also present, he heaved a sigh of relief and went to Caesar's side to examine his condition.
Prince William examined the group members first and then approached his little brother, "Alfred, are these the ones you managed to run into? What about the rest?"
"I don't think there are any left but those with me, brother." Alfred shook his head
"What do you mean by *I don't think*? Is there a rest or not?" William frowned, this was not a simple claim to make
"What I can really confirm is that Octavia's squad and Steve's squad were killed, the first we saw their bodies by the den of a heavenly mountain lion, as for Steve I passed by chance while his team was battling a giant tree snake I managed to help them kill it but he had been poisoned before I arrived and died shortly after.. I could only save one of his followers." Alfred pointed towards one of the group
The faces of the men of the two duchies turned gray after hearing this heartbreaking news
A family elder shouted, "Oh, damn me, the patriarch is going to kill me because I didn't provide Steve with better followers..." Then he looked at the rescued follower, "And you, you bastard, your master is dead and you dare come back!!" So he directed his palm towards the head of the follower, and blood splattered everywhere.. He killed him where he stood..
No one paid any attention to the slave's murder, instead, an old man came forward and approached Alfred, "Your Highness, where is Andrew Alton? You only confirmed the killing of two but you said the rest wouldn't come, what did you mean by that?"
"Right, the boy from my family is also not present." This was the head of the mission of the Duchy of Evren
"There's mine too! Your Highness, why you said they are dead!" A middle-aged man cried
Prince William raised his hand, "Let my little brother explain himself!"
"I searched for them for many hours today but to no avail, but It happened and I saw a strange situation during my meeting with brother Caesar and brother Dali, and it made me suspect that it was behind the disappearance of the rest," Alfred said
"What is that situation?"
"Ask Caesar. When I tried to ask him, he refused to speak because we were in a hostile area." Alfred shrugged his shoulders
All eyes turned to the young man standing next to Billy Burton...
One of the men of the Evren family approached and placed a hand on Caesar's shoulder with anger and apparent killing intent, "Speak, boy, say all you have!"
Caesar did not say a word, he just rolled his eyes towards the gatekeepers who were still standing looking at them smiling..
Everyone understood Caesar's intent with this move, except for Mordred Evren himself, who was still holding Caesar's shoulder, blinded by anger, "You dare mock me?"
He raised his other hand and almost land it on his face, but Billy hurriedly caught it, then pushed him back and stood in front of Caesar.
Mordred was also a level 21 Saint, he quickly stabilized himself and started shouting "You've forgotten your place here, you Burton bastard!!"
He almost pounced on Billy.. but an old man from the Evren family came up and grabbed him and whispered in his ear, "Calm down.. the boy was pointing his eyes at the guards, maybe what happened is a secret that can't be revealed publicly."
At this moment Prince William took two steps forward, "all of you Calm down!" then his eyes landed on Caesar's, " just tell me one thing, did you see their death with your own eyes?"
Caesar shook his head
the prince nodded, "Since the murder of our three young men of the Stanley, Alton, and Evren families have not been confirmed, we shall stay here until we are sure of their death.
after that, we will continue any other talk at the residence of the royal family! For now, let every genius send one of his followers to deliver the tokens he has collected to the gatekeepers to check them for the final results."
They all heard and obeyed the Arrangements of prince William Marley and went back to wait, not only because he was one of the oldest princes and strongly nominated for the next king's position, but also because he is the most powerful saint here.
Mordred Evren Humphed and retreated with the rest of his family as well, while the members of the Burton family present gathered around Caesar as if they were a chicken trying to protect their egg!
Caesar gestured at Peon who was standing next to him, so he moved the full leather bag he had been carrying all along on his back and took it to the gate guards,
No one paid any attention to the size of the bag, the roll said that the tokens can be anything from the bodies of the dead beasts. So it might take one big token for it to be big enough to fill a huge bag.
"Caesar, are you OK? What is Alfred talking about? what situation did you get yourself into, and what is your connection to the death of the three geniuses?" Billy kept asking in a low voice
"I will announce everything in the right time, Uncle Billy, not now.. I generally have an idea of what happened to the three but I really don't know if they are really dead or not."
Neither Billy nor the rest said anything else.. they all just stood silent in front of the gate.. everyone hoped for a miracle, they really hoped that the last of the three squads would come out
Another ten minutes passed.. Then another ten.. The time limit had passed for the squads to leave the forest..but they hadn't come out yet.
They waited another hour on the pretext that they might be injured and were late in coming, and send knights to the other gates to see if they got out from there... but nothing happened.
All the saints and knights above the fifteenth level of the kingdom set out on a search mission, within one hour they had searched the entire hunting area..but there was no trace of them.
The miracle did not happen.
The teams of the duchies of Alton, Stanley, and Evren... are all gone.
Those who were checking the other gates and those who were searching the hunting area returned, everyone gathered again in front of the black sun gate,
The air got very intense, the men and women from the three duchies were fixing their gazes on Caesar, it was sparkling with killing intent...
For whatever happened to their young relatives, is somehow connected to this Caesar!
Caesar started to feel suffocated and all that pressure, Billy quickly stepped in front of him to take it on for him, he was ready to fight it out with everyone here if they made a move against Caesar,
But a shout came up to calm the situation, it was Prince William "STEP BACK, We will continue our talk at the residence of the royal family, let all the saints and all the geniuses who participated in the event come with me, as for the rest, please return to their residences."
But even in shouting, it was with a clearly a heavy voice, the death of 5 Kingdom-level geniuses at once was a massive loss.