The Conclave High Council mbers sat in silence around the round table in the Tower of Conclave's conference hall.
Malek sat at the head of the table, where Stella normally did, while Chairman Hugh sat to his right and Chairman Noir to his left.
On the other side of Hugh sat Head Chief Vaness while Chairman Malia sat beside Noir.
The rest of the second-in-command follows; Callan and Avrum to the right, and to the left were Sigma and Ery.
All of them, except for Malek and Hugh, wore expressions of unmasked disdain.
Right across them, sat four Royal Army representatives.
Three of them wore red military uniforms with silver accents, while the other one had red and gold accents.
From the left, facing Malek, one of the four had short dark hair with white streaks along the side of his ears. His facial features were not sharp, to be honest, he even looked to be effeminate. However, his sharp crimson eyes had a certain ferocity that one would imdiately overlook his feminine features.
Beside him was the only woman with them.
She had shoulder-length blonde hair and light blue eyes. She did not look overly beautiful, but she possessed a certain charm even when she had a visible pout in her full lips.
The other man, sitting at the other end, had long reddish-brown hair tied on a high ponytail, and piercing green eyes. He was tall but did not possess a huge fra. However, he was not lean either. One could say, he possessed just the right height and physique, making him look very sharp and handso.
However, their features were least of the Conclave council mber's concern. All of them looked at them with disdain because they knew who these three people were.
The six gold badges on their vest, was a dead giveaway if others would et them.
As for the one with the red and gold uniform, he was a middle-aged man with blonde hair and amber eyes. He had the sa number of gold badges; except he had an additional diamond badge.
That was right, these four people held the highest position in the Royal Army.
Deputy Marshal Imman, Deputy Marshal Ingrid, Deputy Marshal Mannick and lastly, Grand Marshal Gael!
Having the four of them appear together and even seed to have a very good relationship made the Conclave council mbers recall Malek's briefing when the Crown Princess had co to visit.
He told them the Crown Princess seed to possess an innate ability to control others.
Could it be that the reason why the Royal Family had assimilated the Royal Army was because of her ability?
If that was true, then it would be very troubleso for them.
Malek admitted not knowing how the Crown Princess activated her ability. If even him, a Magus, could not detect it, then how would the rest of them fair?
They all rembered Kyran's warning that the Royal Family was likely making preparations to slowly assimilate the Conclave.
So of them still had doubts. But seeing the four officers before them, made them realize that it was really possible.
And the Royal Family might even succeed without letting the Conclave fight back.
The Conclave might not even realize that they had already been assimilated by the Royal Family.
"Have you completed the list of participants for tomorrow's military exercise?" Gael asked, directing the question to Malek.
Malek, wearing an unreadable expression, replied with a monotonous voice, "Not yet."
Mannick, sitting at the right side of Gael, furrowed his brows as his green eyes glowered at Malek.
"The proposal was sent last night, and it is already the afternoon of the following day. Don't you think we ought to have the complete list by now?"
Sigma slamd his clenched fist on the table and growled in retort, "It's precisely because you only sent it to us last night that we have not completed the list! We can't randomly pick nas and have them participate in your unreasonable events!"
Sigma's outburst was understandable.
Last night, a ssenger from the Courtenay Family had personally delivered the proposal of the Royal Family to the Tower of Conclave. The proposal explained the addition to hold a joint military exercise between the Royal Army and the Conclave after the latter's monthly assessnt was done.
It also listed the events and how many participants both sides had to prepare.
Previously, their joint military exercise only had two events. The first event being a parade of both side's Elite team, and the second a friendly field operation.
Because of this, the military exercise would only last for two days.
However, the proposal given yesterday actually listed eight events: material gathering, beast hunting, alchemy, smithing, array creation, single competition, team competition and last, field operation.
It was clear what the Royal Family wanted to do. They wanted to understand the Conclave's overall strength as well as reveal their talents.
The Conclave had a choice to hide their real talents and only let those that ca in second participate. But Stella felt that it might be the Royal Family's real purpose; to draw out these people and convince them to leave the Conclave.
After all, there was a better chance in persuading these people than those with real talents which the Conclave had placed high importance in nurturing.
Besides, poaching talented mages would require the Royal Family to propose a handso offer.
Still, Stella believed this was only one of the possible reasons why the Royal Family had proposed this out of the blue. She felt there was more to it than what they initially believed.
In order to prepare for this, Stella called for an ergency eting that morning. She also hoped Kyran would co.
Kyran seed to be able to predict the Royal Family's plans better than any of them.
Unfortunately, they could not reach him on the communication channel he had given them before.
In the end, they were unable to co up with any counterasure against the Royal Family's proposal, before these four people arrived.
When they realized that the top brass of the Royal Army had personally co, Malek imdiately told Stella to lock herself in her quarters and no matter what happened, she had to stay there.
They did not think these four would do anything drastic within the Conclave's premises. Kyran's defensive array was also sothing these four would have trouble destroying.
But Stella's existence was only known by the Royal Family.
If any of these four sensed her presence, who knew what would happen.
Then again, if their assumption about the Crown Princess was correct, then maybe these four already knew about Stella.
Maybe the reason why they had co here was to ensure that their odds would not entirely be against them if sothing did happen during their eting.
After all, the Conclave still had two Magus, even if the other one, Hugh, was rumored to be injured. If they included Stella in their ranks, whose magic level was also unknown, their strength was sothing the Royal Army would have to guard against.
Having one Magus and three Exalted attend the eting was a better choice.
At least, this was what Malek and the rest of the council mbers believed.
None of them really knew what the Royal Family had in mind when they asked these four to co here.
"Sigma," Malek turned to Sigma, giving him a stern look after the latter's outburst.
Still, the four people across them knew Malek's action was not to appease them. If it was, he would have not let Sigma complete his outburst and cut him off imdiately.
These displeased Gael and the rest.
"Head Master, what they want to do is unreasonable," Sigma continued to complain as he glared at Mannick. "It even looks like they are up to sothing!"
The tension in the room imdiately doubled at Sigma's words.
Malek imdiately released his magic pressure and aid it at Sigma.
At the sa ti, Gael's eyes glowed red and a dark clawed shadow had appeared right above Sigma.
The conference's hall's array also activated enveloping all the mbers of the Conclave High Council with a translucent gold light.
BAM!
A huge, armored fist manifested in thin air and slamd on the round table, instantly shattering all the magic pressure that were on the verge of exploding.
It was only then that they realized that Mannick, Imman and Ingrid had also released their magic pressure toward Sigma.
"Stand down, you three."
The one who had spoken was Hugh. He was also the one who had summoned the huge, armored fist to block the magic pressure that Mannick, Imman and Ingrid had released.
As for Gael's clawed shadow, if Malek had not aid at Sigma with his magic pressure, it would have slashed his head.
Blood trickled down Sigma's lips after receiving so of the rebound from Malek's magic pressure colliding with Gael's clawed shadow.
"Grand Marshal Gael, retract your magic," Malek told Gael, his green eyes bore down on him piercingly.
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