"You see, there was sothing I realized after the last battle at the outposts. The number of Angels arriving as reinforcents has been a little too high, and they always seem to arrive at just the right mont. The world I ca from was a lot more technologically advanced than this one, but not even the best army in my world could mount a counter to a sudden attack in such a short ti and with such ferocity. So it got thinking, and after thinking through everything, I could only co to one conclusion: There is a traitor in the army—"
Gasps and confused murmurs rippled across the table as many of the council mbers rushed to their feet, with so even starting to yell up in denial of Mark's words. A demon betraying their own kind!? That was impossible! They would never allow a traitor in their midst!
Mark's face morphed into a look of fury as he saw them all talking loudly, trying to yell their points across incoherently, and he poured his aura out from his body in a wave of pure bloodlust. The people there all stumbled as they felt the intense pressure pressing down on them, and so even fell back to their seats in stunned silence, trying to catch their breaths. The others realized that Mark was not playing around, and they slowly sat back down, allowing him to continue without further interruptions.
Once they had settled down, Mark continued.
"I don't care if you all feel like your army is so patriotic that you could never betray each other to the Angels, but if any of you dare to talk over again, I will end that person's life. Am I understood? Good. Now, like I was saying, I gave you all a different position for my arrival on the island because I realized that the traitor could only be soone from the demon army council—soone who knew about what we were going to do and how we were going to do it long before the other mbers of the army did. Soone very, very close to ."
Crack!
The sound of a loud crack echoed through the entire room, and everyone turned toward Kaylen as they heard her cry out in pain while reaching up toward her shoulder, which had finally broken under the strain of Mark's power. Mark never let go of the shoulder, and she was forced to stop trying to move after she felt so electricity dancing against her skin from where Mark was touching her! She spoke up quickly.
"M-My lord! There's been a misunderstanding! W-What are you trying to say? That I am the traitor? I would never betray my own people to the Angels! I would never do that! They are nothing but pests that have infested this world, and I am dedicated to making sure they are eradicated!"
Kaylen was practically shouting after so ti, and Mark could feel a small smile spreading across his face as he saw her enthusiasm. Surprisingly, the empathic feeling that allowed him to sohow sense what the demons around him were feeling was telling him that at this mont, Kaylen was not lying. She was saying nothing but the truth about what she felt for the angels and demons. But it isn't the demons that Kaylen has been betraying, was it? Mark leaned down and spoke right into Kaylen's ear.
"You know, once I heard about how the forr demon lord and the one before him were killed in ambushes resulting from surprise attacks, I realized that the traitor hadn't been trying to destroy the army at all. The ones you really hate are the demon lords that were summoned, isn't it?"
Kaylen shook before she tightened her hands together to prevent them from trembling. Mark's aura in the room was starting to increase even more, and all the other mbers of the council could do nothing but watch in shocked silence as they saw one of their own being interrogated so intensely.
"I-I don't know what you an, my lord. I swore my loyalty to you. I promised that I would help you win this war. You have to believe ."
Mark didn't have his [Styxwatcher's Discernnt] with him, so the only way he could tell if soone was telling the truth was by observing the way they spoke and moved while talking. But from how much her voice was cracking and the way her entire body shook under his arms, Mark knew that Kaylen was not telling the whole truth. Also, even though Mark didn't have the [Styxwatcher's Discernnt] skill anymore, he still had the empathic connection that linked him to all the demons under his command.
Mark used this feeling to reach out to Kaylen's senses, and he chuckled in amusent as he realized there was no emotion at all when she spoke about him—but Mark could sense fear deep within her psyche.
When Kaylen spoke about not letting the Angels conquer the demon world, there was a deep sense of patriotism that Mark could feel flowing out of her. But when she spoke about him, it was like she was empty. She felt nothing for him.
Mark already knew there would be people in the demon army who didn't see him as one of their own, especially since he was just summoned at the midpoint of the battle as a stand-in for the demon lord who had died earlier. They already had a lot of generals and demon lords, so it probably didn't matter to them whether Mark lived or died. If Mark died, they could simply summon a new demon lord, and the cycle would continue. But Mark never thought it would be to this extent.
A deep feeling of anger suddenly started to bubble up from sowhere deep in Mark's stomach as his hand tightened even more, making Kaylen cry out in pain as her broken shoulder was almost torn apart. Mark's aura rose in intensity once more, making all the council mbers in the room cower as they tried to keep their breath even in the face of such oppression. When Mark spoke, there was a furious sneer on his face.
"Why the fuck did you do it, Kaylen? It doesn't even make any sense. You gave up your own people just because you didn't like being here? Are you that stupid, or did you think for a mont that I wouldn't find out what you were doing? Did you really think that you could keep killing demon lords and no one would ever figure out that you were a traitor!?" Read latest stories on My Virtual Library Empire
"M-My Lord! I don't know what you're talking about! Please!"
Kaylen was still begging for rcy, denying the accusations that were being brought up against her. Mark felt his hand tightening as his anger flared again. There was no one else Mark told he would be coming from the northwestern region of the Aragon island, and Mark knew that the Angels being there only ant one of two things.
Either Kaylen told the Angels about it, hoping that Mark would be killed by their ambush, or she told soone else about the position even after Mark explicitly told her not to tell another soul about it.
Both scenarios were just as bad as far as Mark was concerned.
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