Upon seeing the damage to his organization, the supreme elder was shocked to the core of his soul, not understanding where that had come from.
But upon noticing the deplorable state of Gavin's body, he could not hesitate and began what was necessary to prevent this fellow's death.
Parts of the flames that nearly obliterated this headquarters had reached Gavin's unprotected body just before this high-level Spiritual Saint managed to rescue him.
Because of this, Gavin's two legs and arms were burned to a crisp, while several deep burns could be seen on his abdomen, chest, and back.
His clothing had been completely evaporated by the scorching plasma that invaded the sect, so this level 78 man could clearly see those wounds all over Gavin's body.
'Unbelievable!'
'Who did that? Where did those flames come from?' He wondered as he tried to contain the wounds and nourish Gavin's body and soul.
Gavin was a Spiritual Saint, so as long as he stayed alive, he could recover the damage to his body.
On the other hand, this old man did not need a whole body to preserve the Destruction Eyes. As long as Gavin remained alive, no matter how serious his situation, those eyes would remain useful to whoever would transplant them later.
For this reason alone, the supreme elder of this sect had saved Gavin. In that way, he soon stabilized the redhead's situation, preventing his death.
"You still have much to give us before you die, boy." This man said in a weakened tone before looking toward his sect below where he was floating.
He saw the flames diminishing in the core of that headquarters while the smoke in the area hid some of the damage done by that explosion.
"Sigh!"
'Unfortunately, the defenses only served to stop the attack for the weaker sect members...' He lamented, thinking about how the most protected area of the sect had been the most wretched of all on this day.
This sect had several defensive layers. But those defenses were meant to prevent outside attacks!
As much as barriers worked with the same logic on both sides, the core of this sect, the last layer protected by barriers, had no protection from attacks from that place. The defenses there would even help and did help this day to lessen the lingering effects of an attack like that on the other parts of the headquarters.
But this was only good for those outside the core of this headquarters!
Noticing this, even without knowing the results of such a calamity, the number two of this organization already imagined how bad the news would be.
...
A few hours later...
Mortimer and the upper echelon of the Saints Killing Sect survivors of the fight against Minos finally returned to their headquarters.
Upon arriving on that island that had lost tens of meters of its previous altitude, the people in that group promptly noticed something unique had happened.
All the headquarters' defenses were down, while ruins could be seen in the center of that island, where the formerly majestic home of all those people should have been.
At the same time, tens of thousands of sect members were working in the rubble, clearing the area, and searching for survivors and resources.
When he saw all this, Mortimer lost the smile on his face and cried out. "What happened here? Who attacked us?"
"Who could do that?" One of the men in his group could not believe the situation in front of him, feeling that this could only be a nightmare.
"Could it be that damned Minos has set up a secondary attack against us?" Someone asked.
But they would soon learn about how the headquarters of this sect had turned out like this, having heard everything from the supreme elder and a few witnesses who had seen the incident happen.
"Sect master, I'm afraid your wife has died." That man who saved Gavin said that. "At that moment, I had to choose between saving the Destruction Eyes and her. I hope I didn't make the wrong choice."
Mortimer heard this and felt anger at the person responsible for all this, but he did not blame that elder. If he had been in this person's place, he would have made the same choice since it was more important to him to transplant Gavin's eyes and reach level 80 than to save that woman's life.
He liked her, but she was replaceable, while Gavin was not!
He then said. "We will take revenge on whoever did all this to us!"
...
Meanwhile, Minos had left the previous battlefield and moved on with his movements, heading toward the enemy headquarters.
At the moment, they were standing still, resting from the previous events, which had finished off some of the group members, but also wounded and exhausted several others still there.
"What? Why do you look like that?" Oswald asked Minos, sensing that this person looked a little strange.
"If you are sad on account of..."
Minos continued looking at the ground and interrupted his grandfather's speech. "Something strange happened back there."
"Uh? What are you talking about?" Oswald looked curiously at his grandson.
"That Black Hole Bomb should have done much more damage," Minos told him. "It looks like it lost more than 30% of its power somehow..."
"I can't understand how."
"Are you sure about that? You must be wrong." Oswald said, finding it hard for something like that to happen since it was quite a power to lose.
"I couldn't be wrong. I created that." Minos stated.
He then looked to the horizon, figuring Gavin was already lost and Mortimer would probably be able to absorb those eyes.
'Damn it!'
'It's going to be harder to eliminate that person now!' This emperor clenched his fists, feeling that he could only continue with his previous plans to solve the war and the Abe problem at least.
"What will we do now, sect master?" A Moss family member asked Minos.
"We will continue with our plans," Minos said after a moment. "The enemy has suffered more than we have. So we are close to achieving their surrender and ending this damn war."
"Let's continue on our way! In a week at most, we'll be knocking on the doors of enemy headquarters!"
The people there were not happy to hear this. Still, they accepted it, considering this would be a more straightforward attack since the enemy headquarters could not move.
...
In the blink of an eye, three days passed, and the news of the calamity over the headquarters of the Saints Killing Sect finally reached the confines of the Flaming Empire.
In particular, this news angered the elders of the imperial family, who promptly accepted Mortimer's complaint against Minos, the one allegedly responsible for what had happened.
More people than should have died because of this incident, so the imperial family would not remain quiet in this situation where the word of the emperor had been disregarded!
Even Isabella had been placed under house arrest on orders from the supreme elder of her family so that she would not get in the middle of the investigation and the trial of Minos.
Thus, the men of this local regent were already flying into the territory of the Saints Killing Sect to arrest Minos Stuart!
