Mila
“Why did you bring me here?” Mila looked at Xander Rogar and the other two D ranks sitting opposite her in the conference room in the core area of the Violet Mountain Blessed Land. “Is this about Orianthi?”
“Orianthi?” Xander Rogar, who when not rescuing E ranks targeted by assassins was one of the three subheads of the Violet Mountain Sect’s disciplinary committee, asked. “Orianthi Hewin?”
“You asked me who would send assassins after me earlier and I didn’t want to say due to her family connections.” Mila acted like she didn’t know anything about King Hewin’s attack or the Violet Mountain Lord killing Epecteos. “But that’s who I suspect. No one else I know has anything to gain from my death, except for maybe enemies of the Violet Mountain Sect.”
“And why do you think enemies of the Violet Mountain Sect would target you?” one of the other subhead asked, a human female Mila knew to be a rather powerful water mage.
Mila raised her hand with three fingers extended, lowering one for each point she started to make. “Even though I’m only level 39, I’ve already met all the requirements for the normal bottlenecks of my D rank class. I’ve made it further in the War of the Chosen than any member ever from the Violet Mountain Sect. And I’m on a first name basis with the princesses of both the Vin Clan and the Forest Cauldron.
“Of the E rank core disciples, I provide the highest amount of contribution to the sect and my loss would affect the sect the most.”
Xander started laughing, but the other two just frowned.
“You sound like you’re listing reasons for the Violet Mountain Sect to not punish you.” The third subhead, an earth element warrior human almost as big as Isaiah, frowned at her.
“Of course I am.” Mila turned to look at him as she put her hand down. “I haven’t done anything against the sect yet I’ve been pulled in front of all three subheads of the disciplinary committee after being forced to wait for over a quarter of a day without an explanation. And the last item I just mentioned should only be known to the sect’s elders. It’s almost impossible any enemies of the Violet Mountain Sect would target me for assassination.
“This then leaves Orianthi and possibly her grandfather, who almost everyone knows hates my ancestor, as the reason you are holding me here. I don’t want to fall victim to politics just because I might rise to the status of one of the sect’s elders in the future.”
“Elder Hewin had a fight with your ancestor today.” Xander Rogar watched her face and aura, as did the other two, and Mila, who’d been expecting this, went with the reaction she’d already planned.
She winced and mixed her face and aura with a blend of mirth and embarrassment. “How bad was the sect’s image hurt? Also, the sect didn’t retaliate against my ancestor, right? That would be a really, really bad idea.”
The reactions on the three’s faces made it obvious they didn’t know Epecteos was dead, showing quite a bit of shock but no fear.
“Why would it be a bad idea to retaliate against Mr. Ka’Dravone?” the large earth element warrior asked.
“You didn’t send more people to attack him, did you?” Mila thought about what Aalam was planning and allowed a little fear to enter into her aura.
“Not that we know of.” Xander Rogar’s face was more serious now. “Why would it be a bad idea to retaliate against Mr. Ka’Dravone?”
Mila calmed herself down, her aura doing the same, and looked directly at Xander, seemingly ignoring the other two. “Why am I here, Xander? From what I can tell, the younger Hewin tried to kill me and failed while the elder Hewin tried to kill my ancestor and was most likely humiliated. In both cases, members of the sect have attacked my family, which is strictly against sect rules. And yet I’m locked up here, which implies you’re about to do something against me.”
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Xander appeared contemplative for a second. Then he said, “You’re right. This is unfair. Elder Hewin is definitely in the wrong. And, were it up to me, he would be severely punished, as not only did he attack your ancestor, he did so in a way that brought shame to the sect’s name.
“But it’s not up to me, Sarra. So please give me a reason to stop those in the sect who would press an assault on your ancestor from doing so?”
Mila just looked at him for a few seconds, tricking her aura into showing fear, respect, and anger in a mixed jumble by thinking of several things at once. “I can’t. I would feel too much pain and I wouldn’t be able to speak.”
She made herself appear to think for several seconds. Then, slowly, she said, “There are three facts you should be aware of. One, my ancestor is a very, very skilled combat instructor. Two, there are forces in the universe far, far more powerful than the Violet Mountain Sect. And, three, princes and princesses generally have the authority to call upon the power of their forces for things like revenge.”
“Oh crap.” Xander and the other two looked at each other and then Xander and the earth element warrior quickly ran out of the room.
This just left Mila and the water mage, the water mage showing signs of distress, and Mila limited her outward show of emotions to a mix of worry, annoyance, and a little mirth.
Then, about ten minutes later, five of the sect’s C ranks came into the room and sat down around the conference table, Mr. Haxor in the lead.
“You have contracts on you that make you unable to say who your ancestor works for?” Mr. Haxor carefully controlled all the outward signs of his emotions and Mila was pretty sure the other four didn’t yet know the Violet Mountain Lord had killed Epecteos.
“I don’t want to answer that question.” Mila controlled her emotions to show a bit more respect and fear than previously, but deliberately not too much of either, her strongest emotion still worry.
“Understood.” Mr. Haxor nodded before turning to one of the other C ranks, a completely human female death element mage. “Nari, please undo the contracts on her.”
And there it was. Mila had been hopeful at least one of the sect’s C ranks would have a contract breaking skill, and thankfully she was right.
The biggest issue with what Aalam was about to do, at least to Mila, wasn’t morality. The Violet Mountain Sect, as the biggest force in an entire galaxy cluster without any major enemies, was incredibly corrupt and there was quite a lot behind the scenes which was pretty reprehensible, such as the practice of regularly feeding outer sect disciples to a special machine in the blessed land to generate primal energy stones. The sect might have treated her well, but that was because she deliberately entered as a core disciple. Overall, morally speaking, the Violet Mountain Sect was pretty average in the universe, and, when the universe’s rules rewarded mass slaughter, average was pretty bad.
Most who were going to die probably didn’t deserve it, but that was how wars worked.
What Mila was far more worried about was Aalam’s wellbeing. If he went through with what he was planning, he’d hate himself and, if he took any concrete actions in his plan without first declaring a sect war against the Violet Mountain Sect, the System would automatically place a bounty on his head, and that would almost certainly lead to his death.
Aalam himself, however, couldn’t declare a sect war. Due precisely to their fears about Aalam’s Id state, they’d designed their force such that only their president could declare war, and that was currently Mila.
But Mila was a member of the Violet Mountain Sect, and, while she could be in two forces at once, and the System would allow her to leave the Violet Mountain Sect easily due to their actions against Epecteos, given the contract she’d signed with the Violet Mountain Sect, she’d permanently lose her cultivation were she to do so.
Thus the first thing Mila needed to do was to break her contract with the Violet Mountain Sect.
If push really came to shove, she could break the contract herself, but, with the help of a C rank contract breaking skill, she wouldn’t have to risk a random god showing up in the future to assassinate her for having the Shadow Princess uniqueness. And that was so much better.
The death mage stood up, walked around the conference table, and put her hands on Mila’s back. Then she started pouring death element energy into Mila which moved towards every contract Mila had.
Mr. Haxor didn’t have any skills to allow him to see bonds, and his Laws weren’t quite at the level to allow him to do so without as he didn’t have a third eye line uniqueness like Mila, but, given the nature of the artifact Mila had been bound to by his skill, it was an almost certainty Mila wasn’t under any contracts she hadn’t made herself, thus why he was sure the death mage’s skill would be able to break all of Mila’s contracts except for the one made with his own power.
What he hadn’t accounted for, however, was Mila’s recently advanced peak grade Law Larva of the Reaper, with which she guided the energy of the death mage’s skill to mostly work against her contract with the sect’s artifact, completely avoiding her master servant contract with Aalam and her student teacher contract with Nana Xara.
As a result, a couple minutes later, Mila was free from the bounds of the Violet Mountain Sect, and the broken contract which had been shackling her soul was destroyed as well, revealing Mila’s full aura and stats to the C ranks in front of her.