Gray stood in the crowd, looking at Cedric, who was now much older than he remembered and much more powerful.

He had killing intent in his heart, but he didn’t dare to unleash it in a crowd, lest he get himself killed before he could even start his plan for revenge. He may be impulsive, but he certainly wasn’t stupid.

There was no surprise whatsoever when he sensed that Cedric had demonic Qi, but what truly shocked him was that not only was Mei alive, but she also had that demonic Qi!

This meant…

‘Was it all a trap from the beginning? Or was she later corrupted?’

He didn’t even have to think very much to understand that she had been put into a state of fake death by the poison, and the plan was probably to make him suffer the same pain his father did when his mother was murdered by the Blood Order before killing him.

However, Gray had put a massive roadblock in their plan when he escaped from prison.

Being the most talented female in the kingdom, she would be married to the crown prince regardless of who it was; the position had simply been changed because Gray was far more talented and accomplished than Cedric could ever hope to be at a far younger age, meaning that she was engaged to him before Cedric was even considered as a possibility.

But after he died, she would be reengaged to Cedric. It was a horrible system, but if the continent wasn’t in constant danger, perhaps it would be different. However, for now, the future generations needed to be stronger than ever, meaning that sacrifices had to be made.

Luckily, Gray had truly loved her, and he thought she felt the same, but now he was confronted with the brutal truth.

Extending his senses as far as he could and activating his bloodline’s potential to the absolute maximum, he once again increased his sensitivity towards Qi.

However, what he found just broke his heart. The amount of demonic power within Mei was more than ten times the amount compared to Cedric. She was clearly raised specifically to help topple the kingdom.

As for how she communicated with the Blood Order, he wasn’t quite sure. All he knew was that she was in this for far longer than Cedric ever was, and she was the bigger threat of the two of them.

He felt… oddly calm about this. At least, in comparison to how a normal person would’ve reacted.

His entire life that he had lived so far was a lie, those he was fighting for betrayed him, and the one he thought he was fighting for had already betrayed him long before he was even involved in the fight.

From all points of view, he was the pawn being messed with, all while being praised as the top genius and one of the most strategic geniuses of his time.

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From a certain point of view, he could be viewed as a weapon that the Blood Order used to take down morale and destroy hope.

From the moment his mother was murdered, his father, the king, had always held an unnatural and blinding hatred towards the Blood Order and anyone related to them. Every single traitor that he caught was always tortured to death mercilessly or killed instantly.

For this reason, when he found out that his most accomplished and trusted son had ‘betrayed’ him, he lost all sense of reason and immediately went crazy, sending out the kill order. This was also within the calculations of the Blood Order.

In this way, the Blood Order not only sent out a message that anybody could be corrupted, but that even the strongest of the strong weren’t immune to their power and that it was only a matter of time before they took over.

Meanwhile, he, as the pawn of this game, was just trying to survive, improve his kingdom, and protect the one he loved.

And yet, the one he loved had also betrayed him, guiding him slowly and without him knowing towards a certain path that could allow this series of events to happen.

In the face of being messed with on such an intrinsic level, he was forced to reflect. And from this reflection came one thing: anger.

He was angry that he was used as a pawn. He was angry that all those he trusted had betrayed him. He was angry that all of this was even able to happen in the first place.

But more than anything, he felt absolutely unrestrained rage at the fact that he let it happen to himself! That he was so wrapped up in thinking that he was the best that he couldn’t escape! He was angry at himself for not being strong enough, for being too naive.

And as this anger surfaced in his body, the flames in his dantian flickered and flashed, roaring up and down in ‘joy’ as they sensed the emotion surging through his body.

All at once, the Qi around his body started to go into an uproar and surge into his body, while the flames in his dantian were purged and replaced with flames no weaker than his ice.

The process was instantaneous, and the flames were brought to be just as pure and just as powerful as his ice in only seconds.

He then suppressed his emotions and opened his eyes, looking around at the crowd around him, only to realize that not a single one of them was looking at him.

He then realized that he could very faintly sense a familiar power of flames around his body, and he could extremely faintly see a layer of green flames forming a barrier around his body.

‘The Old Man must have noticed me and stopped others from noticing the fluctuations. I guess he’s still quite sharp.’

The Old Man was his master, the strongest expert on the continent. He was known only by this title and nothing else. Nobody knew his past or where he came from, only that one day he had just appeared, and a month later he had rallied all the kingdoms together into a treaty against the Blood Order.

And from the looks of it, The Old Man was presiding over this celebration. Yet it seemed that even he was unaware of Cedric and Mei’s corruption.

When he realized the abnormality with Gray, he had covered up the fluctuations with his own power so that nobody present would notice anything wrong with him.

And after those abnormalities vanished, so did the power covering his body.

He then focused his gaze upon the main centers of attention of the celebration, the Princess who had gotten engaged and the one she was engaged to.

The Princess looked vaguely like a mix of Cedric and Mei, confirming that she was their daughter, whereas the one she was engaged to looked similar to someone that Gray knew in his previous life.

And he wasn’t surprised to find that, in the end, they were both also corrupted by the Blood Order.