Omalia
Omalia became even more terrified than previously, but her emotions quickly stabilized as she realized the woman in front of her would actually be less likely to kill her after finding out her family was willing to betray the Gale Clan, not more.
“Yes. My family has betrayed our clan.”
The scary elf looked at her with a calm expression. “From now on, answer every question I ask honestly and share any related information you think I might find relevant.” The elf woman waved her left hand and all the documents and everything else from Omalia’s tent disappeared. “Why betray your clan?”
Omalia took a deep breath. “The Gale Clan has grown weak since our C rank elder was lost several hundred years ago, but it’s been a lot worse in the last several decades. Three of our D ranks died by angering the fifth son of the War Dragon King while on an expedition and our clan mistress was raped by the monster, resulting in the beast who chased you into our camp. Then the clan master killed his wife for daring to have sex with another man, even though she was facing a bloody C rank dragon.
Omalia couldn’t help feeling heated at the sheer idiocy of the man. “We had 7 D ranks and then lost 4 of them within a year. The Grand Elder will fall from age within a decade and then the only two D ranks will be the clan leader and my paternal grandmother.
“Previously, it was possible young master Raven, the son of the clan master and the wife he killed, could have grown strong enough in time to help us pull out of this mess, but, while most don’t know, Raven left the clan a year ago due to his father’s actions and his paternal half siblings don’t have even half his talent.”
“Hmm.” The elf nodded, acknowledging how sensible the reasons for leaving were. “But why the Flare Clan?”
“Bloodlines.” Omalia felt sick revealing secrets of the clan, but she didn’t want her soul to burn so she answered honestly. “Both the Flare Clan and the Gale Clan are offshoots of a much more powerful clan from the past. If our Wind Pheasant bloodline is mixed with their Fire Pheasant bloodline, it is possible for a child to be born with a Scorch Pheasant bloodline.
“There are ancient animosities between the two clans, but the Gale Clan is already on the road to ruin, so they accepted us with the condition that I am to marry the young lord of their clan.”
The elf didn’t seem to have much reaction to this, but it made sense. The bloodlines in the Life Tree Empire were numerous and powerful. To the woman in front of her, with her powerful Spirit and Aura, even the Scorch Pheasant bloodline was likely trash.
“Why did you hide information about the Kindar Raiders and the Undead as well?”
Omalia thought about how to answer the question so as to hide some of the deeper details, but then her soul started to itch and she realized she’d die if she did. Those hidden details would be very relevant to the elf, so she couldn’t deliberately hide them without her soul burning. “The Kindar Raiders are the remnants of the force that used to follow the Shadow Thief.
“They were the original ones to know about the inheritance and reached out to the Gale Clan a hundred years ago. My grandmother was the one responsible for contacting them, so, when we betrayed the Gale Clan for the Flare Clan, she helped create a new contract between the Kindar Raiders and the Flare Clan.
“I kept the information about the undead secret for a much simpler reason. If the undead forces grow too strong, multiple other forces would be required to wipe them out, and if we had information before others it would be easier to make those forces not our own, weakening our competition.”
The elf smirked slightly, but Omalia didn’t know why. “What is in the inheritance that you want so badly? It can’t just be class path information.”
Omalia felt sad at that statement. Being part of a powerful B rank force like the Life Tree Empire must make things so much easier. Given how obviously talented she was, the elf probably had access to thousands of known paths to C rank, so she dismissed just how rare that information was.
“Don’t underestimate how much class path information matters to minor clans,” Omalia said bitterly. “Knowing the requirements in advance means you can train in the right direction from the start, and can set up the right foundation at each rank, giving a better chance of advancing before reaching old age. Especially for clans which rely on class paths based on their bloodlines, that information is essential.”
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Omalia took a deep breath. “To answer your question, though, the Shadow Thief also stole resources for improving one’s race. For the Flare Clan, the class path information is less valuable than those resources, as they could be used to possibly make several C rank powerhouses.”
Beings with higher grade races usually had better natural affinities with Laws, and Laws were generally the main source of rank bottlenecks, so improving the grade of one’s race was the easiest way to see a major improvement as a cultivator, but race was even more important in the transition to C rank. To become a C rank a cultivator needed to establish a core, somewhat similar to the monster cores more powerful beasts naturally generated, and a more powerful race made that process infinitely easier.
“Who do these artifacts connect you to?” The elf summoned Omalia’s two communication rings from the subspace seemingly built into the fingerless glove on her left hand. Then she casually held them up with Telekinesis.
“The leaders of the invasion forces of the Flare Clan and the Kindar Raiders.”
“Do they know you?”
“The leader of the Flare Clan force, Hogar Flare, is the younger brother of my fiancee, though I barely know him. We’ve only briefly met twice at functions in the Kingdom of Night. I haven’t yet used the second artifact and have never met the leader of the Kindar Raiders' force in person.”
Omalia was pretty sure the woman wanted to use the artifacts to potentially impersonate her, and that made her feel very disposable, but she had to answer to stop her soul from burning.
“What do you know about the defenses and structure of the inheritance? And how are the Gale Clan and Flare clan preparing to get away with the treasures with so many other forces watching?”
“The inside of the structure looks like a dungeon made of carved stone, and at the entrance is a small hall holding an Orb of Information containing the instructions for how to create those beastmen monstrosities the natives have turned themselves into. Behind that is a closed entrance. The entire structure is made of D rank materials, so, even though it wasn’t exposed to mana for hundreds of years before the integration started, its defense is still so strong no one on the planet can do anything to it.
“The closed entrance is set to open one standard year after the invasion forces arrived, but behind it should be sixteen powerful E rank golems. Other than that, we don’t actually know. It’s expected the Shadow Thief left a portion of her soul behind to run the inheritance, but no one knows what she was thinking at the end of her life, so the criteria for gaining her treasures isn’t certain.
“Following her will is the only way to get them, though. For us F ranks stealing them will be impossible, and the inheritance will be destroyed in 36 years, well before any E ranks or higher can come.”
Omalia had to stop herself from smiling as she’d found a loophole in the elf’s orders. There was one criteria which, while not absolutely certain, had over a 90% chance of earning the favor of the Shadow Thief’s soul fragment according to the Kindar Raiders. They just had to sacrifice a blood relative of the one who killed her on an altar inside the inheritance.
Why had that idiot clan leader kept the bastard child of the woman he’d killed alive for all these years? It wasn’t because he feared the boy’s father. The fifth Dragon Prince was a notorious playboy and had thousands of illegitimate children throughout the universe. He wouldn’t care about Isaiah at all.
The Shadow Thief on the other hand was known to be petty in life. She’d almost certainly desire revenge on the War Dragon King for killing her, and the death of his descendent would make her a little happy at least.
Omalia didn’t need to tell the elf this, however, as it wasn’t relevant to the woman. The Pink Ursa had grown way too powerful during the campaign to take over the north of Hira’s main continent and the woman didn’t have the power necessary to take him down, nor the right information to create the specialized tools the Flare Clan crafters were working on to counter him.
She did, however, need to tell the elf something which would make all her own plans come crashing down.
“As for the Gale and Flare Clan’s plans to handle the interference, the answer is war. The Gale Clan has the best information network on the planet at the moment and, through me, that information is shared with the Flare Clan. They’ve both formed an alliance with the force of the Kingdom of Night’s royal family and the alliance plans on starting a war of conquest once the undead are found and eliminated.
“The Kindar Raiders have already abandoned their Pillar of Conquest and plan to stay on this planet until the 72 years are over and both the Gale Clan and the Flare Clan expect them to help eliminate the remaining forces of the Kingdom of Night’s royal family along with the other clan once the war of conquest is over.”
The elf woman’s smile was a bit creepy and Omalia was scared she’d be killed to silence the fact the Life Tree Empire now knew their plans.
But instead, the elf woman asked an unrelated question allowing Omalia to realize the elf was after more personal benefits. “Who among the Gale Clan have contract breaking skills?”
Again, Omalia was forced to answer honestly, but this time it wasn’t much of a loss and she found herself feeling a bit safer. “Only the twins. Our leader and the general you haven’t met yet.”
“Alright then. What were you trying to hide when I asked about the inheritance?” The elf woman smiled at her and Omalia realized she’d forgotten the woman’s aura was many times stronger than her own.
She was forced to explain about the plan for Isaiah and she started to grow far more scared as the elf woman’s face darkened the more she spoke.
Then the greenish gray dragon earrings the elf was wearing flowed and expanded into a grayish green spear in the elf woman’s right hand and the next thing Omalia knew her head was flying through the air while her body began to collapse.