A week later, Darius returned to Ando City. He had a strange smile in his face as he hadn't expected his harvest to turn out so good over the past few days.
Upon visiting the other fallen cities and towns, only the first two resisted, forcing him to battle using his own strength.
Instead of using the bugs, he deployed the remainder of his Guard Androids which routed the foot soldiers with ease.
As for the Masters, there was no need for him to defeat them. He had just traded a few blows and escaped with his robots in tow.
Making them aware of his existence, especially as a perceived Master mage with the Space element, the most annoying type to catch, was more than enough.
After all, the main reason why they would choose to fight him instead of immediately packing up would be to stifle the kingdom and make their only Master disappear.
If they couldn't do that, they were totally fucked legally!
It turned out that the invading kingdoms and empires had a good information network. Darius had deliberately refrained from teleporting to all of the cities and towns, to achieve exactly this type of effect.
And just as he had expected those Darius who had already encountered spread the news, making the rest who heard it eventually pack up and leave grumbling.
Those who had done very little damage to the town or city they had attacked during the siege felt better as they felt by paying a little compensation that would be the end of it.
As for those who had behaved without any restrain harming many citizens, upon hearing the news they had begun to sweat.
The Fallon Continental Council was absolute on this continent because it was backed by the majority of Grandmasters.
In fact, many talented peak-stage Masters would leave the fold of their kingdom or empire and join the Fallon Continental Council to make that last step.
It gave them a wider berth of power, though their allegiances would become restricted because of an oath they were forced to swear before taking office.
If Faust had been like Earth, this would have never stopped corruption.
Everyone knew that oaths sworn before taking office were like paper-thin barriers attempting to block the nuclear blast by the rockets named greed and corruption.
However, with things like Soul Paper in existence, swearing an oath had heave consequences!
One had to consider the details carefully and check all loopholes, otherwise an oath sworn in honesty could be used to twist you into doing some very questionable things you never knew you signed up for!
As such, Darius was not worried about how the hearing would go. The various kingdoms had wisely withdrawn because they understood that the one who held all the advantages now was Andrato. It was in their own interest to cut back and minimize damage.
Darius entered the throne room and saw Jeanne speaking softly with Elijah. When they saw him enter the throne room, both of them stopped and rose to their feet to receive him.
"How was it?" Jeanne asked curiously.
Darius simply smiled in response. "It went well. You should get some of your people to start repairing the various towns and cities."
Elijah nodded. "Leave that to me. I can easily have that sorted before we leave."
The Seneschal had already prepared everything during Darius' absence. With a smiled he left the Queen alone with the young man.
Jeanne felt her heart thump initially, before she remembered her agreement with Darius and calmed down, though she was sad inside.
"First things first, we have to fix the damage you caused by overusing your bloodline skill." Darius stated with a frown. He had long noticed that Jeanne's character sheet was not looking too good after he met her.
[Detected target is of a Friendly affiliation. Displaying details accordingly.]
[Name: Jeanne Ando
Race: Half-Human, Half-Angel
Class: Mage
Subclass: Queen
HP: 96/96(1,334/1,334)
MP: 1,534/1,534(3,953/3,953)
STA: 708/708(3,422/3,422)
Level: 59
Strength: 8(23)
Agility: 34(56)
Endurance: 12(58)
Intellect: 26(67)
Charisma: 15(40)
Luck: 0(20)
P-Status: Severely Weakened
M-Status: Obsessed
Affection: Friendly lvl 5]
It was more than enough to tell him that Jeanne was in a bad way. If she had used it any further, she would have likely killed herself, and that was even the most optimal outcome.
Darius had only heard the news and had not seen Jeanne actually use her bloodline ability, but based on his knowledge and the consequences, it seemed that it was majored in the Light element with a hint of the Order Element.
That would explain why she lost stats with every use. It would also explain why she could resurrect those who had died repeatedly.
Only the two elements of Order and Chaos could achieve something like this.
In fact, based on the consumption of the Basic spells, it seemed that the bloodline ability was more aligned with the Chaos element sub-ability rather than an Order element, but that should be impossible.
Order should only be able to work with 'positive' elements like Light, Earth, Wind, Water, Plant/Nature, Lightning, Time and Life, whereas Chaos was supposed to work with the likes of Fire, Dark, Death, Spirit, Poison, Gravity and Space elements.
Of course, the best way to be truly sure would be to have Jeanne use the ability so he could observe it, but that would require more than one cast, and the cost of it was not something Jeanne could bear to afford right now.
The good news was that Jeanne should be able to recover. Otherwise, the Supreme System would not have put her original stats into brackets.
It was likely due to the fact that the amount of Order/Chaos in her spell had been surprisingly very little.
If she had used a pure Order or Chaos ability, that deduction should have been of a permanent nature.
Darius took out a bottle of Lunar Dew and handed it to Jeanne. "Drink."
Jeanne looked at the precious liquid from which she could feel some strange power and she was left speechless. She didn't think Darius valued her enough to give her such a precious thing and it made her already dangerous fixation on him become slightly worse.
As for Darius, he wasn't too bothered giving it away.
Thanks to the Bowl Of Nuwa his stockpile of it rose with every day.
As long as he put Pure Water in, he would get more. Ever since he had stopped filling the pond in the Divine Glade till, he had accumulated a 'little' too much.
