Seeing the black smiling expression in the "face" of the man in front of him, Ernest felt all the hairs on his body stand on end, it took him a couple of seconds to regain his composure.
"Fucking disgusting monster", thought Ernest, he as an Archmage was still affected by the eerie aura radiated by the smiling man.
That being said, he didn't show his real thought on his face and instead cleared his throat.
"Ahem, it's good to hear you ate beforehand… Falco, did you bring the thing we talked about?".
Falco's smiling expression didn't wave, under the surprised eyes of Ernest supporters he shoved his hand on his stomach before taking out a bottle with a peculiar design, the body of the thing was made out of a transparent material, but the clog was made out of wood and a small skull.
Inside the bottle there was a single drop of a grey liquid, although there was only one drop of liquid, it seemed to be boiling as it produced some kind of gas.
Ernest's pupils contracted to the maximum seeing the object in Falco's hands, he basically ruined himself for that bottle, mana crystals were the "evolution" of mana stones, only Arch rankeds could use them to cultivate given the strength and purity of the mana contained in them.
All the magic equipment, weapons, formations and the like which was of the Arch rank, needed mana crystals to power it, and a ton of them were burned everyday to maintain formations, cultivate etc.
Ernest as a high ranked elder had saved quite a hefty sum of them over the years, the problem was that most of them were "safe" in a vault at Edgar's mansion, after all who in the world would have tried to irrupt in the mansion of the supreme elder.
The problem was that after Edgar was dismissed from his rank and sent to the jail, all the things in his possession were seized and became part of the treasury of the family, including nearly eighty percent of the personal savings Ernest build up since he became an Archmage.
No matter how much he tried to demand for his saving to be returned, Elaine rejected him with a single sentence, "Can you prove they are yours and not part of Edgar's property?".
That sentence made Ernest lungs fill with anger, how could he prove a certain amount of mana crystals inside the vault of another person were his, so feeling his heart bleeding he had no choice but to swallow his complains and hold on to his remaining wealth which was inside his storage ring.
Then after the being revoked from his authority as an elder, he basically lost all the incomes he had and since he was the tutor of Edgar, for him to be fed in his cell, the clan didn't maintain traitors after all.
And now after eight years of getting only mana stones from some deals he made under the table; his reserves were drained until he had only about ten million of mana crystals which were all spent to get the sole drop of "gray death" in Falco's hands.
Ernest handed the ring which contained the payment to Falco and then extended his hand to take the bottle, but then Falco retracted his hand which now Ernest noticed was longer than that of a normal proportioned human.
Ernest's expression became cold as he spoke while gritting his teeth.
"What is the meaning of this?".
Falco's smile wasn't affected by Ernest's hostility, he then pointed at the woman who seemed to be attached to Edgar.
"You know my conditions to make deals with people of the Revy family, besides the formal payment there is a tax you must pay, that woman seems "delicious", so I will have her too".
The woman's face paled, she gave Ernest a worried gaze, which made Ernest hit the table.
"Falco, don't take things too far, she is my distant relative, change your target or…".
Ernest couldn't finish his sentence, when Falco's eyes turned completely black, there was no pupil just a complete black empty space as he shouted.
"You Revy people killed my father and his father before him, I want that woman or the deal is cancelled, I would like to see where are you going to find anyone willing to give you even a drop of "gray death" besides me".
Seeing that Ernest was fighting with himself to not accept his demands, Falco clamed down and used a soft approach too.
"We have benefitted from our business relationship over the last one thousand years Ernest, so just because today I feel especially kind, I will add a heart clouding pill to the deal, without any cost".
"You know how hard is the "gray death" to get, it requires the gray matter of both a human and a demon Arch rank after all, I only managed to get this drop because it was the left over throwed away by an alchemist friend of mine".
The woman saw that Ernest's expression calmed down and she inwardly let out a sigh of relief before shouting at the still smiling Falco.
"Humph, dream on you pervert, I was raised to become the wife of lord Edgard, while right now that is not possible, with my talent I will become an elder and find a way to take revenge on those bastards, so there is no way my uncle…".
The woman suddenly stopped speaking, she looked downwards just to see a knife piercing the area below her navel where the magic core is positioned, she followed the knife all the way to the one who was wielding it and the people at the other end was none other than Ernest.
The woman lost all the strength in her legs but before she fell to the ground, Ernest used his mana to make her body float as he delivered her to Falco.
His face had a slightly regretful expression but that immediately changed to indifference as he spoke.
"I'm sorry, you were supposed to have Edgar's children, unfortunately you weren't lucky enough, at the very least with you magic core now destroyed you won't suffer more than what is needed, don't worry your sacrifice will bring prosperity to the family so you can leave in peace".
Falco's smile widened, he threw the bottle at Ernest and then licked his lips while looking at the desperate expression in the woman's face, before shoving his hand on his leg to take out a box with the size of a palm.
"I knew you will not let go of this chance, here this is the heart clouding pill, now if you excuse me, I'm not a flasher so I don't like others see me while eating".
Just as Falco was about to stand up to leave, a black dome covered the room, then all the presents fell as if an invisible hand was pressing them down, all the ones that were standing immediately fell on their knees, the ones sitting hunched in their seats.
While Ernest was thinking Falco set him up, and Falco was thinking he was played by Ernest, a cold and disdaining voice echoed through the room.
"Don't leave so soon, a smiling ghoul is such a rare sight nowadays, specially one that deal with people of the beast faction".
Although their bodies were paralized, both Ernest and Falco managed to see from the corner of their eyes a silver haired young man wearing a black get up and a mask, the youth was there simply looking at them from one of the corners of the room.
"Who the hell are you!!!", shouted Falco before his "body" exploded revealing his true appearance, it was a humanoid creature, its whole body was covered in grey skin which was a bit rotten, his arms were longer than normal reaching at least twenty centimeters below his knees.
Both his hands and feet ended with large claws which were clearly designed to cut and rip off meat, but the most notorious aspect of the creature was that it had no lips or nose, instead the whole area of its mouth was uncovered showing its teeth and the inside of the mouth.
Due to the disposition of its teeth, the creature seemed to be smiling all the time.
"Impossible why did I return to my original appearance; I'm using a high ranked disguising treasure" he mumbled with a hoarser voice.
The silver haired youth was none other than Daimon using the hollow suit with his original hair color of course.
Daimon took a few steps and approached Falco, he put his hand on his chin and then seemed to evaluate him before saying.
"Undead are ugly, but you go beyond that, you are simply disgusting".
Falco's body trembled due to the wrath of being insulted, but no matter how much he tried he couldn't move at all.
Daimon's eyes which were visible thanks to the mask glowed, he looked at the black robed figures at both sides of Falco, and then with snap of his fingers, they exploded in white flames.
"Aghhhh!!!!".
A beast like growl followed by a hoarse scream filled the room, the eyes of all the presents were drawn by the two black robed figures which were now being consumed by white flames, as they screamed but weren't even able to move.
The creature which used to have the form of Falco, was terrified looking at his bodyguards, two middle stage Archmages, were being tortured in front of him.
A single word was born in his heart after listening the pained screams produced by the two bodyguards.
"Demon!".
