Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 90: Talks of Cooperation

"Dornik Sarzeiros, right? Nice to meet you. I’m Jamie Westley."

He then pointed at Miranda before concluding his introduction.

"Her other half."

Miranda chuckled lightly when she heard his words, questioning how long it had been since Jamie last used that means to introduce himself, to which the man replied with a frighteningly specific number.

"...I’m a bit concerned that you know exactly how many years it has..."

"Says the person who knew how long I was asleep, down to the minute"

"There’s a clear difference in priority right there."

"A clear dif-Ah, we’re digressing."

Jamie snapped back to the original topic of their conversation that somehow led to the current one, concluding the statement he had begun earlier.

"I was saying how the reason why these guys have been so wary is because they probably gained information about you from Yugnot or whoever gave them his weapons."

"Oh, that. Figures.

That’s probably why they made me a ’Special Grade’."

The male Hybrid was a bit confused about the whole Special Grade business, so Miranda gave him a quick summary.

"It’s their ranking system. ’Grades’ for threats, and ’Classes’ for their combatants."

"I see."

Jamie looked towards Dornik and told the man to create another grade above ’Special’, then put Miranda above it; something that one of the Race Kings he spoke with a few hours ago had told him to do as well.

Miranda just held up her palm to cover Jamie’s mouth, shutting him up before she spoke.

"Ignoring his silliness. The main reason I’m here today, besides introducing Jamie, was to inform you that I’d be taking action in earnest from now on."

Dornik narrowed his eyes and leaned forward when Miranda spoke, but the woman held up her hand to put him on hold before continuing.

"Ikerth took some actions recently that pissed me off in more ways than one, so Jamie and I decided to crumble everything he’s built on this planet in return."

She spoke about ending a thousand-year venture so casually that it almost seemed like she was joking, but Dornik knew fully well she was not.

"I might have opted for a ’Heavy Handed’ means to accomplish this; basically, blind destruction, but honestly, there’s no fun in that.

Also, there’s something I wish to find out from Ikerth’s Lieutenants, hence the reason why I am keeping Brambus in special custody.

The same applies to the one who descended a few days ago; she’s currently locked up after Jamie here beat the living daylights out of her."

"Oh, you mean Pirate?"

"It’s ’Pirantu’, Jamie."

"Same difference."

Miranda’s words revealed the answer to the questions that they had during their meeting some days ago, identifying Jamie as the one who had defeated the ’Second Grade’ threat that was Dragon Lord Pirantu.

Placing both hands on the table, she continued speaking.

"First of all, All of Ikerth’s Lieutenants are not to be killed, but sealed away, so as to prevent them from returning to their main bodies at least for now. It’d be in our best interest if Ikerth is not made aware of our presence here just yet.

Basically, just leave handling any Lieutenants to me.

Secondly, in the event that you guys launch another attack like the one you did on Oyend yesterday and plan to do on Bliteon next week; we’d be joining you."

Dornik found it hard to prevent his brow from twitching after hearing Miranda spill information that not all the people present were supposed to be privy to.

He hadn’t even finished planning the attack in the first place, but somehow, she already knew about it.

’Just who exactly are the moles feeding her information...’

Though he had run secret checks on all the higher-ups before to find out who her informants were, he had always come up with no results on that front.

"Anyway, that’s all I have to say. We’d be assisting you in dealing with Ikerth’s forces, and leave his Lieutenants to us."

Finishing her piece, she leaned back on her seat and gazed at Dornik silently, waiting for the man to speak what was on his mind.

She could tell that there were more than a few of the Commanders and other higher-ups who didn’t take kindly to working with her and Jamie but their opinions did not matter to her.

All that mattered was Dornik’s decision.

And the man, being someone who had accepted help from various other Race Kings, was less likely to reject the addition of Miranda’s forces to the mix.

The woman’s Avatar was a Superior Transcendent, after all. He didn’t have many of those lying around.

As for Jamie, his spatial manipulation abilities were certainly useful if they wanted to entrap enemies as they did in Fusevale; plus, his offensive spatial magic was very deadly too.

"Mind If I ask what it is that you wish to discover from Ikerth’s Lieutenants?"

He put out his first question, one that his closest aides also wanted to know the answer to but Miranda shook her head and spoke.

"Can’t say. Some fools here would get big ideas if they hear and I doubt you’d want any more traitors to Zotov at this point."

The way she spoke made it seem as if whatever reason she was after Ikerth’s Lieutenants was dangerous or valuable enough to make Liberation Front higher-ups like them switch sides.

"If we do help you and the Lieutenants are killed, they would return to their main bodies and inform Ikerth about what’s happening.

The end result would either be Ikerth sending more forces here and when they do tell him Miranda and I are here, I assure you, Ikerth would come in person.

I don’t think that’s something you’d like, is it?"

Jamie’s words inadvertently reminded Dornik and the Commanders of what happened the last time Ikerth descended into Zotov. How the Four Continents they had ’Liberated’ were quickly recaptured and how many of their transcendents died by his hand.

They knew that recapturing the continents now would eventually pull Ikerth’s attention, but even with the Anti-Dragon weapons, they were not too sure they could deal with his overwhelmingly powerful avatar.

"This is quite a good proposition for you guys, don’t see any reason why you should refuse."

Miranda spoke with a light shoulder shrug, showing she couldn’t care less even If they refused to cooperate with her.

Dornik put up a few more questions to try and find out about more things; from Miranda’s real motives to the division of spoils after battle.

Eventually, they came to an agreement just as Jamie was starting to get bored of the whole situation.

"Oh, yeah. Where’s that Bounded Field guy again? Navarre, was it?"

All eyes turned towards the Second-Class Combatant who was suddenly called up by Jamie, but before the man could speak, Miranda beat him to it.

"Jamie, about that. I don’t think putting this guy in Argent would be a good idea.

I’ve done a little work to raise the average power level there over the past few millennia and I highly doubt he’d be able to handle the pressure while being just a Sovereign."

She knew about Jamie’s habit of picking talents from various worlds and taking them to either the Argent Empire or his other organizations across the galaxy to nurture them, so it wasn’t hard to predict Jamie’s plan for Navarre when she saw his interest in the man.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Things have changed while you were in your beauty sleep. He’d only be average if he goes there now."

Ignoring her little quip about his slumber, Jamie thought about it for a moment before eventually going with her decision.

Navarre didn’t really understand their discussion, but he was glad that he was not gonna be whisked off to somewhere he didn’t know about.

Besides, a place where Sovereign Realm existences were only ’Average’ sounded scary as heck.

With the first major discussion ended, Miranda then suggested that Dornik and the First-Class commanders discuss their plan for Bliteon while they were there since she and Jamie were going to be partnering with the Liberation Front anyway.

Dornik had initially refused to do this, as there were certain things he wanted to remain secrets between him and his Commanders, but then Miranda suddenly said that Jamie’s spatial Control and Knowledge were going to be crucial if they wanted to deal with the dragons, or rather, the ’invaders’ on Bliteon.

This was a continent unlike Oyend, and Liberating it was going to be significantly harder than Oyend was.

Considering the unique circumstances, the man agreed and dismissed all the Second Classes, before finally working on his plan with Miranda and Jamie.

After they were done discussing what mainly concerned him, Jamie zoned out of the conversation, missing out on a lot of other things and earning Miranda’s ire.

"Jamie, Concentrate."

"Don’t worry, Mira. With me there, everything is gonna be fine. It’s all gonna go according to plan."

◇ ◇ ◇

’It’s all gonna go according to plan’

"To think I genuinely thought that."

Such words escaped Jamie’s lips as he looked down on his body that was strapped to a chair and bound in a straitjacket made out of magic power sealing materials and then bound with aura suppressing chains that dealt continuous damage over time to him.

He looked back up, at the half a dozen transcendents who were watching him like hawks and spoke.

"This is pretty bad, isn’t it?"