Since his father’s death, Julius was never been this nervous.
As he strolled back and forth in the wide hallway of the Guardian Palace, his heartbeat didn’t slow nor did his breathing calm. The sweat continued dripping down his forehead.
His superhuman senses ensured that Julius was acutely aware of even the minute changes in his body. The cheat-like senses now turned into curses—they reminded him of his pathetic state.
“Enigma! Dreamer!” Julius slammed the wall as he uttered their names through gritted teeth.
Boom! Kacha!
The wall that could easily withstand even attacks of level 9 started to tremble and cobweb-like cracks started to spread throughout.
Julius snorted and glanced through the news.
“Xander family! What are you doing?! They are kids!”
“You want us to drink human blood?”
“You nearly caused irreversible damage to humanity!”
“If you can’t even study it properly, why release the potion?”
“Our hopes are crushed.”
“The Xanders are no longer what they once were.”
Kach!
Julius’ hands dug into the wall as his body trembled in rage.
There weren’t just a million or hundred million messages against him, but more than a billion!
“Haa! Haa! Haa!” Julius took in quick, sharp breaths as he tried to stabilize himself.
He checked fifteen minutes ago and it was only three hundred million. The news absolutely blew up.
“I hate it!” Julius clenched his fists so hard that his nails dug into his flesh and the splashing blood formed a small puddle near his feet.
He contacted the Sovereigns. Told them he’d conduct a separate investigation and asked to take down the post.
“Sovereign Julius, this is beyond our control. More than a hundred million people already downloaded the proofs. Do you think we can stop them from sharing it with their personal contacts?
And even if somehow manage that, what about the Science Academies that agreed with the claim?
You shouldn’t be thinking about reputation right now, but what you should answer us in the next Sovereign meet.” Sovereign Albert said in a cold voice.
Julius knew that this old man was extremely disappointed by his reaction, but he didn’t care.
Ting!
His hologram lit up and Julius eagerly tapped it.
“Sir!” A hologram popped up and an old man greeted him with a tired face.
“What happened?” Julius almost grabbed the collar of the old man.
“I…I’ve had my team check it thrice. There really is a big flaw in the potion.” The old man said with a pale face.
“I-Is there no other way?” Julius didn’t notice it, but his voice was trembling.
“I apologize.” A deep bow and regretful sorry was all this renowned scientist could give.
It wasn’t enough.
“Leave.” Julius waved his hand and channeled his prana into the artifact.
The space ring on his finger emitted ripples of space and the next moment, he appeared above the ocean.
From high above, he could see the guardian islands in the ocean. Every other time, he felt that it was majestic.
But now, as the roaring waves shook the ocean, he felt a different emotion rising in his heart.
Fear.
Xanders stood above the people. But it could also be said that the public let the Xanders stand above them. The same public also had the power to bring them down.
“Using lives of humans and feeding us the same thing! You vile monster!”
“The gamma potion itself is harmful to anyone who drinks it. Imagine if our army took it! Are you a traitor?”
“Treason!”
“Hang the ones responsible!”
“Xanders should be punished!”
Julius sighed deeply. Things were already out of control.
2 Billion people had actively participated in the discussion so far. And in a single day, most of the population would know the truth.
“In this case, someone has to bear the responsibility.” Julius’ eyes turned cold.
“Huh?” As he was about to select some useless Xanders as scapegoats, he noticed another trend on social media.
“Don’t tell me…” Julius’ eyes widened as a terrifying guess began to form in his mind.
The new trend was the resurfacing of the old post where Varian beat up the relatives of Shadow Guardian. “Let us not kill these scum, but torture them.”
Those were his words, which people at that time agreed with.
Not anymore.
Instead, with the resurfacing of this post, people turned more and more against the violence.
They called for the safety of the Shadow Guardians’ relatives and absolutely condemned the Xanders for arresting these innocent people in the first place.
Once the discussion turned in that direction, two people naturally came up.
Cail Xander—deputy head of the Xander family.
Princess Iris Xander—the second-best genius of the Xanders.
Previously, due to a mysterious push in social media, Cail Xander got extremely popular for his strong condemnations against Guardians.
Seeing the opportunity, Xander’s family announced that he was the one responsible for the extermination of Shadow Guardians.
At that time, this decision made perfect sense. Not only did it consolidate Cail Xander’s own fame, but it also elevated the Xander family’s status.
The same went for Princess Iris Xander. She was also promoted as the ‘new voice’ against terrorism. Later, many ‘reports’ were ‘leaked’ into social media showing her valor when she killed many Shadow Guardians who were escaping from the persecution.
The videos where she killed men, women, and children alike without batting an eye were previously seen as heroic.
But now, she was only seen as a cold-blooded viper.
Because, just recently, people came to learn that Shadow Guardians weren’t actually terrorists but actually heroes in the shadows.
They also learned that this was an open secret in the military.
This also meant that these two Xander members knew that Guardians were innocent, yet killed them.
It was a cold-blooded murder for fame.
Once they realized this, the public opinion, which previously was overwhelmingly towards Cail and Iris turned on its head.
As they say, the higher you climb, the greater you fall.
The more people respected them in the past, the more they hated them now.
As a result, an unprecedented hate campaign started against these two members of Xanders.