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Allen Family Manor
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Living room
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The living room exuded quiet elegance, with high ceilings that rose like a tranquil sky, while velvet sofas, soft as petals, embraced the space. The marble fireplace stood dignified, and polished floors reflected light like a serene lake. Draped windows welcomed soft sunlight, and warm lamps cast a timeless, harmonious glow.
In the living room there were seven people, six of them sitting in the sofas while one stood beside the one he served.
On one of the sofas directly opposite the fireplace, I sat with Thomas and on the others were the heads of the branch families while Alfred stood beside us.
After the murderous and silent night had passed by, a storm arose; this storm was named Thomas Allen, and the only thing that it sought to destroy was the Assassin's Syndicate.
"We will kill them all," Thomas declared without a hint of hesitation, his eyes sparkled with fiery temper seeking to destroy everything in his path.
This statement didn't come as a surprise to the ones who were present in the room but starting the conversation with a declaration did make them uneasy. However, they were ready to follow his commands without any hesitation.
The Allen family didn't like to interfere with the rest of the world and kept to themselves most of the time; since they were the guardians of the Concept of Time, they didn't have any time to care about worldly matters; in a sense, you could call them lukewarm. Although Thomas was a renowned hero, he didn't use that authority in any way or try to protect people outside his city.
All they wanted keep themselves and their people safe while protecting the Concept of Time without meddling with the timeline.
However, even they had a limit and the Assassin's Syndicate had crossed that limit by trying to kill me.
But by engaging in a war with the Assassin's Syndicate, they will announce that they are ready to face the rest of the world and follow their rules and regulations if they were to maintain their status as a Major Family because, without it, their words will have no value to the rest of the world.
No matter how good they were, they would be villainized by the rest of the world if they broke any of their rules.
"I don't have any complaints about your decision, Patriarch, but I think we should put more thought on this matter before acting," the young lad sitting nearest to uncle spoke, he had sharp red hair, whitish skin and brown eyes that looked like it could see through the future, he wore a black suit like all the other family heads properly to show his utmost respect for his Patriarch. This was the head of the Warwick family, Elmond Warwick, the strategist of the Allen family.
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"Elm, as much as I want to agree with you, I don't think we can take a chance. They have already tried to kill Ray once, we can't risk another invasion like this. This time Ray had to kill someone, he is five years old! Five years, and he killed someone! How much more do you want him to go through?" the young lad sitting next to Elmond spoke, he had blonde hair and green eyes that looked as if it was ready to support any decision that Thomas made. This was the head of the Albright family, Orian Albright.
"I think we should hear him out first, Orian. Elm had a point: we can't attack them head-on; we need to kill them without anyone knowing that we did it. If we charge head-on, then we will most likely lose a lot of people; the Assassin's Syndicate is just as strong as any Major Family; the only difference it has is that it is an organisation with no bonding; we can use that to our advantage. What do you think, Lyrien?" the young lad, sitting proportionally on the other end of the sofa beside me, spoke; he had brown hair and black eyes, and he was wearing spectacles that he thought would make him look smart. This was the head of the Penrose family, Kalsy Penrose.
"Do you like cotton candies?" the young lad sitting nearest to me spoke, looking in my direction while holding a white cotton candy in his hand; he had grey hair and black eyes that were filled with innocence. This was the family head of the Archer family, Lyrien Archer.
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"I love cotton candies," I replied, breaking the tension in the room, while accepting the cotton candy from Lyrien, after which he patted on my head.
"Lyrien... Not now, please," Uncle heaved a sigh out of frustration. "Focus on the topic, you can talk about... Cotton candies, later on."
"I think Elm is right, and so are all of you. We are going to kill them all, but not directly; let's split them apart first. Elm, would you care to explain the strategy we discussed?" Lyrien asked, looking in Elmond's direction while taking his hand off of my head.
"With pleasure, since the Assassin's Syndicate are all loyal dogs of their higher-ups and follow every single one of their commands even if it means killing their colleagues, Lyrien will implant fake orders through their dreams. This will plant seeds of doubt in their hearts and make them look at their organisation in a new light while they kill their own. The ones they are ordered to kill will also be their most trusted allies and friends they thought they could trust even assassins have emotions somewhere within their hearts. By doing this on a low scale we will cause inner turmoil and lessen their numbers, and by the time the higher-ups, who will be dealing with their problems like financial crisis because of Orian, catch the news of this, it would be too late," Elmond explained his grand plan while taking a sip from his coffee.
Lyrien's meta ability was Temporal Projection; he could play past, present and future like an illusion and project them in the material world or show them to someone else in their minds. The best part is he could manipulate the events however he wants before sending them to someone else's mind or projecting them into the material world.
Since he was also a Dream Path aura user, the dreams he creates feel as if they are truly real as if it's happening in reality.
Some people even thought that they foresaw the future or regressed after Lyrien had freed them from his control.
He could also make his victims dream whenever he wanted to in any state they were in, which meant that those fake orders wouldn't be any different from real orders for the Syndicate members.
Honestly, listening to Elmond's speech inspired me a lot, although I created them. This conversation was never supposed to happen; they would have charged head-on without any plans if I died, just like in the novel.
The strongest wizards and witches are not those with fancy destructive spells but those with esoteric ones that can literally screw over the powerhouses. I remembered my father's advice. Now that I see it, he was truly right. Elmond is a very good strategist who has his fair share of bad experiences which made him the calculative man he is today.
Although his ability is Foresight, he doesn't use it all the time before calculating every possible outcome because by the rules set by the previous guardians, once a Foresight user picks a path, they can't do anything to deviate from it, they have to stick with it no matter what happens or else it will break the timeline and cause it to reset in a loop repeatedly. This means that if he picks the wrong path, he can't change it even if it kills him.
"Hm, let's proceed with this plan then; I will let the other Major Families finish the job. However, find out who gave the order to assassinate Ray," Thomas decided, his eyes were filled with so much killing intent that it felt like he would kill all of the Assassin's Syndicate members by himself if he got the chance. "I would like to know who was brave enough to start a war with Time."
"Eating cotton candies is better than discussing these topics," I spoke, taking a bite out the cotton candy in my hand while looking straight forward.
"I couldn't agree more," Lyrien agreed with my statement while taking a bite out of his cotton candy, which he took out of nowhere.