"Trash!" Julius growled and waved his hand.
The level 9s in front of him were blown away leaving only Sovereign Julius.
He stood in front of Narcis' space ship or at least what was left of it.
His superhuman senses caught the countless whispers and it irritated him to no end. He turned around and saw the spectators watching.
Something snapped in him.
"You all? Do you think this is a show? Scram!" Julius' thunderous voice embedded with aura reached everyone's ears and rumbled like a thunder clap.
Right from the nearest spectator ten miles away to the one farthest fifty miles away, everyone was affected.
Instantly, the level 5s went into a coma and suffered a cerebral damage.
The level 6s bled in the ears and fainted.
The level 7s were bleeding lightly while the level 8s had a pale face.
Only the level 9s looked relatively normally, but if one observed closely, they would find that these level 9s' backs were drenched in cold sweat.
Thus, everyone, be it a level 5 or a level 9 scrambled away.
Evander already imposed a lockdown on the Infini City's territory and ordered an investigation.
But Narcis died suddenly and Julius Xander appeared in a few minutes. Under his order, new groups quickly arrived.
First was three Squads of Shura Special Forces. It was too much!
To put into perspective the rarity of the situation, even Evander had to struggle to let the 6th Shura Squad attack Shadow Order's secret realm.
It was only after his promise that Bali agreed and his squad finished off Shadow Order's secret realms.
Now three such squads descended in Infini City. Even though they were only 12th, 13th and 14th squads, considerably weaker than 6th squad, they were still best of the best.
Their arrival took every awakener by storm.
But they didn't know the real menace was yet to come.
When it did, every high awakener who had even a bit of suspicious activity under their belt prayed for their life.
The newcomer was Athena Group.
Despite being one of the three pillars of Federation Intelligence Service (FIS), Athena Group was very low profile.
They never made any headlines. They never gave public interviews. They didn't even have a PR team.
If not for their website, the general public would've forgotten such a group even existed.
But such a group was precisely every high awakener's nightmare.
Once they reached level 7, all their activities came under the monitoring of FIS and particularly, the Athena group. When a high awakener was found to be in cahoots with Abyssal, they were severely tortured and killed. Their families also faced severe punishment.
That wasn't all, but if one was ever found out about having done something harmful to the federation's interest, Athena Group had the power to immediately detain them.
If they could produce sufficient evidence, they could even skip all trials and directly handle the culprit as they wished.
They even had the power to arrest someone upon 'suspicion'.
In a sense, Athena Group was one of the most powerful across the federation.
Athena Group head's status was a bit higher than Evander's.
Now, the head was in a serious conversation with Sovereign Julius.
"We promise to dig out everything! All the spies here will be rooted out. Please calm down, Sovereign Julius. You'll have a report in two hours."
"I hope your report will calm me down." Julius closed his comm and looked into the vast space.
'Enigma...is this your gift?' His gaze extended far as he looked beyond Earth and locked on the faint red planet. Mercury.
This month, like all previous months, Enigma's traces were discovered in the ruins of Mercury.
Julius recalled the day where he agreed to Enigma's condition. It was almost a year.
He thought he'd follow the agreement for a few years, but things changed.
His Origin was now closer to the Sage Avenue than ever.
And Julius made a shocking discovery'”His rate of progress increased after 'that' incident a few years ago.
Back then, even though he was hailed as the youngest Sovereign, his strength was at the bottom.
But now, he was unabashedly first. Of course, Sovereign Albert was closer to him in strength and was perhaps only a little weaker than him.
'So what? I'll cross him in a year. At this rate, I'll only take 10 years to reach the Celestial Rank.' Julius exhaled.
If not for Varian, he'd have undoubtedly said he'd be the first Celestial Ranker of humanity.
But Varian's speed of progress shocked him. Peak level 5 in 2 months...if he really extrapolated that speed, Varian would reach Celestial Rank in at most 5 years!
It was ridiculous, and almost seemed like a prank. But Julius wasn't a man who liked variables.
So, despite the consequences, he eliminated Varian.
He also planned to get rid of Enigma once he took the next step.
Thus, for him to reach Celestial Rank and destroy Abyssals, it was absolutely necessary for Varian to die.
He didn't know Varian's secrets. He ordered the dogs to stop spying on Varian after reaching the agreement with Enigma. Perhaps it was a mistake.
The mistake that costed his son's life.
'Narcis, you'll forgive me, right? I know. I know you will. You must be proud of me. Don't worry, I'll kill Enigma. Then also the person she's protecting'”Sia.
And Sia's friend Sarah, her entire family and every person related to Sia, even if their memories of her are erased.
They'll all die.'
Julius loved his son or he thought he did. But more than his son, he loved the Celestial Rank.
"Eve Xander, listen to what the Athena guys have to say. I need to spend some time alone." Julius said in his comm.
The silver-white ring on his body flashed and the space around him distorted. The next moment, Julius was already tens of thousands of miles away.
He was going back to practice.
His grief and anger were already fading quickly.
All that was left was a sense of urgency. He wanted to be stronger.
As for the investigation?
He already knew there was close to zero chance of finding anything useful. But he did it anyway.
Just as he predicted, two hours of investigation dealt no results.
But they found out the traitor who let the assassins sneak in was the Vice Mayor of the city.
However, he had already committed suicide at that point and burnt himself locking away any chances of a Psychic peeking into his memory.
The Vice Mayor was only a puppet. And Varian's case came to an abrupt halt.
Of course, the Vice Mayor was one of the underlings of Sovereign Kreo. He fulfilled his mission.
Then there was Narcis case.
The first group that attacked Varian weren't the same as the second one that killed Narcis.
Narcis' guards were all killed minutes before the blast.
The killer was also identified. It was a woman with ordinary features in the crowd of high awakeners'”her identity wasn't in the federal database.
It was obviously a face mask. But even Athena group's cutting edge technology couldn't crack it.
Disguise. Single member. Murder. Perfect Escape.
A typical Shadow Guardian tactic.
What was also typical was that Shadow Guardians assassinated only in retaliation 99% of the time.
Thus, a conspiracy theory popped up.
Varian was killed by Xanders.
Narcis was killed by Shadow Guardians in retaliation.
Of course, the Xanders used their influence to keep this rumor away from any social media.
And many geniuses dismissed the rumor. Julius Xander ordering the death of a genius? Impossible.
Some thought deeply and thought it was plausible. But still, the chances were too low.
But it was quickly thrown at the back of their minds, as idle chatter during dinner.
Except for one.
Evander.
Evander looked at the reports with trembling hands. It was a footage of a man spying on a 17-year old boy.
[Almost a year ago, one of Xander's watchdogs investigated Varian. They kept him under watch for two months but suddenly one day, they stopped.]
Crack!
Evander's chest heaved up and down as he slapped his desk. The heavy wood desk turned to dust and a small hurricane was formed under his slap.
"Haaa" Evander took a deep breath and calmed himself.
So Julius knew...he knew that Varian's true awakening time.
And that's why...
He wanted to fight Julius, but he knew he would lose. He wanted to attack Xanders', but he had Sarah behind him.
The same dreaded feeling enveloped him.
After the Pluto war, Evander worked hard to never experience this feeling.
But here he was, covering his face in helplessness.
"I'm sorry." He whispered as tears wetted his cheeks.
"I'm sorry, disciple."
