"Julius, why did you order the space radars?" Cail Xander asked, clenching his fists.
Sovereign Julius propped his chin on his hand and said with a nonchalant smile. "You know why, my dear uncle."
Cail Xander nearly yelled with a face seething with rage. "Is it really necessary? She's gonna die anyway. But they served humanity. Even in the cluster cities, their members played an important role."
"There surely are good people in them. Patriotic people even." Julius nodded, causing Cail's expression to ease.
"Then why…?" The older man titled his head.
"Because." Julius stood up from his chair and stepped in front of Cail, towering the old man in both size and dominance.
"There is no guarantee that there isn't a second alien in there. Actually, there is a second alien there. You know her name, don't you?" Julius asked with a smile.
Cail Xander flinched and instinctively stepped back. "Don't."
"Oh, come on." Julius looked down into Cail's eyes. "Aren't you the one that convinced Kreo to erase memories related to her? An orphan girl who lost her adopted mom and was living a difficult life.
Do you remember what you told me when I found what you did? She's a necessary sacrifice."
Cail Xander gritted his teeth.
"There's still Sia with them. And who knows? Maybe there's a third, a fourth, or even a hundredth alien with them? To secure our race's interests, aren't they 'necessary sacrifices', dear uncle?" Julius asked with a mocking expression.
"T-This…" Cail was at a loss for words.
He bent his moral spine once and destroyed the life of an innocent girl, calling her a necessary sacrifice.
Now, that moral spine was bending again. It's telling him that it's better to remove any possibility of risk than be merciful.
A few hundred lives for 50 billion lives, pretty fair, right?
Julius shook his head in disdain. "What I loathe the most is people like you, Cail Xander. Your self-righteousness disgusts me. You are a cold-blooded butcher who will do anything for humanity's interests, but you pretend you're some saint."
Cail's eyes were bloodshot as he stared into his nephew's eyes with burning rage, but also drowning shame.
Julius' eyes glowed with a dangerous light. "I am a cold blooded butcher like you and I admit it. I will protect my race, but I'm neither selfless nor kind. I will also rule my race and take it to greater heights my useless father never could."
*** *** ***
"Don't worry, we'll get her next time," Rudolf said in a stiff voice as his body blurred and appeared on a mountain top.
Xia tapped her comm and pointed to the tracker hologram, which showed Enigma's location far away from earth, in the abyss region of influence.
Gnashing her teeth, she yelled. "She's far, far away for fuck's sake. And with Dreamer. Why is he supporting her? Is he also an alien?"
"…" Rudolf responded with silence. He was uncomfortable since they decided to do this.
Xia narrowed her eyes. "Don't think I didn't notice. You deliberately slowed down back then. Or maybe you could've caught her."
"I didn't d—" Rudolf wanted to defend, but was cut off by Xia.
"You know it. So do I. I'll go for hunting her by myself." Xia said and lightning covered her body.
The next second, she vanished, appearing only a few hundred miles away.
Rudolf sighed and followed, only to find that her speed suddenly increased.
They were already close to the secret realm, so why was she…
"Huh?" Rudolf's senses found something peculiar and he sped up.
In a few seconds, he was staring at thousands of soldiers surrounding an empty area.
Rudolf's heart sank at the sight. He quickly hid and cautiously stared at the army.
Right then, his comm rang and four messages popped up.
[Sir, we are surrounded.]
[There is an attack, Vice-Leader!]
[They found us!]
[Don't approach the bases! We're exposed.]
Rudolf glanced up and saw Xia's pale face looking back at him.
Why?
Why was this happening?
Boom!
A loud explosion snapped him out of his thoughts.
A couple of space awakeners found the weak spots of the secret realm and broke it open.
As a result, the secret realm was open to the outside world.
The soldiers stormed in.
"It's an invasion! Escape! Escape!"
"Prioritize the geniu—"
Boom!
The scared voices were quickly drowned under the reverberating sound of explosion.
A huge fire cloud rose into the air as a level 9 officer attacked the secret realm, burning dozens of miles, killing thousands.
"You! We're not Shadow Order! We serve human interests" An old woman appeared in front of the military officer and yelled in rage and desperation.
"We're following orders." The officer shook his head and raised his hand, condensing a huge fire lotus.
"Escape!" The old woman revealed her level 9 and blocked the officer's attack, buying time for others.
She was quickly outmatched as did every other level 9 Shadow Guardian.
The army was simply stronger and had more members for each high level.
A few level 9s even had to fight three at once and were quickly pushed towards death.
However, they fought on, hoping their lives could save the juniors.
But it didn't matter.
"Arrgggh!"
"I've never killed an innocent perso-Kehhh"
"I only fought Shadow Orde—Guhh"
"I surrender. I surrend—"
Boom! Shuaa! Kacha!
The secret realm was a few hundred miles in radius, hosting many facilities and thousands of members.
A place of dreams for justice.
Now, it turned into a hellish landscape.
Fires lotuses scorched earth for dozens of miles, burning the fleeing shadow guardians to ashes.
Ice phoenixes froze the young and old alike and broke them to pieces.
Hundreds of shadow guardians were attacked by telepaths and psychics. Their brains burst and they died on spot.
Gravity skyrocketed in some places, crushing people into meat pastes, their blood and flesh splattering on the ground, painting it red.
Space cracked in other areas, cutting people into pieces like they were sheets of paper.
Every known divine path was used in the slaughter.
It was hell in making.