A few hours after they started the meeting, Peyton and Xanali sent the four of them on their way, giving them four files that contained the information of each of their targets.
Standing in front of the whiteboard, Xanali stared at her big step sister's portrait, her eyes contained a tinge of hatred but also a slight sorrow.
"Xanali, don't you have somewhere else to be right now?" Peyton noticed her junior staring at her sister's portrait and asked. She knew the history between Xanali and Gaya, so she could understand Xanali's feelings. Peyton also knew that although Xanali hated her stepsister for everything Gaya did, she still had a soft spot for her in her heart, after all, she was her sister.
"Yes, I have to go pick up the bodies in the usual place" Xanali retraced her gaze away from Gaya and looked at Peyton.
"Make sure no one follows you, especially the holy guards. We need to cleanse the kingdoms using Lucifer's name but we need to do that without leaving any trace that could lead back to Guardians" said Peyton.
"Senior, do you really think the real Lucifer will take the bait and try to send a message by killing a noble himself?"
"Im positive, people like him have an ego. If his sole purpose was to kill evil as he claims, he wouldn't have presented his victims in a gruesome manner. He wants the people to see his handiwork and since we are hijacking his thunder, he would definitely come out of his hiding and when he does, it either us or the holy guards who would put an end to him" Peyton looked so confident as Xanali really believed that her prediction about Lucifer would be true. However, Xanali still had some lingering doubts and hesitation about Peyton's plan of killing the nobles and using them as the bait to catch Lucifer while getting rid of nobles who had prior criminal records.
Just by staring at Xanali's eyes, Peyton could tell she's still not a hundred percent onboard on her plans.
"Sometimes, even the good guys gotta do bad things to make the bad guys pay, do you understand me Xanali?"
"I do senior, it's just that I quite don't like that human Quinn"
Peyton chuckled, patting her junior on the back
"You don't have to like the tool to get the job done. After we get what we want, we'll just get rid of him too, after all, he's one of the wanted criminals of Royal land" Peyton's beautiful smiling face quickly turned cold and murderous. Seeing her transformation even Xanali felt freaked out.
"Senior, I still think that we should have brought Noah and Alicia into this operation"
Peyton just waved her hands showing her disagreement,
"No, Noah is not the material to work outside the moral codes. He would ask too many questions, we needed people who would do what we say without asking a question, Noah and Alicia are not those people.
Besides, you'll be emotionally compromised if I bring Noah to New Dawn '' The sudden statement startled Xanali before a slight shade of redness emerged on her face. Peyton chuckled again,
"You like him, don't you?"
"Senior!" Xanali stomped the ground, her face completely turned red.
"What? Do what you want but just don't act too quickly, your people still have resentment towards humans" Xanali nodded after hearing Peyton. The Nagas had resentment towards almost all the races because they thought they were better than everyone else. After the disappearance of the Dragon Clan along with thousands of dragons, the Nagas' power increased significantly and under Gaya's mother's rule, Nagaland entered into a golden age where they dominated all the races and reigned supremacy.
Unfortunately, the Nagas' supremacy started to decline after Gaya's father took the throne and married Xanali's mother. Xanali always believed that Gaya's mother's way of doing this was wrong and lawless but here she's doing exactly what she initially hated Gaya for.
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((Three years before Michael's arrival to this world))
Under the scorching hot sun and above the burning hot sand, a large group of warriors wearing only a simple leather cloth to cover their genitals. Some of the warriors had toned bodies with cut muscles while the others looked like professional bodybuilders with their beasty muscles.
Other than the similarity of no fat in their bodies, they all had cuts and bruises over their bodies, which they viewed as their prized possessions.
Among these warriors, two men stood out with their golden hair and handsome faces and once could not tell them apart because of their identical faces.
"Titus, Optimus!'' The twins dropped their short swords to the ground and walked out from the other warriors when they heard their Doctorus who trained them to be the best gladiators in the entire Miral Kingdom.
The man who called them, Doctorus was a tall black man with no hair on his head, he had a lean body and a whip was hanging from his waist.
"Dominus is calling for you" Titus and Optimus's faces brightened immediately. They were Gladiators of the Ludus Gallio for five years and their time has finally come to be the freemen. They did not become Gladiators by choice but when General Quintus of Miral Kingdom invaded their homeland Wesite, they were captured along with hundreds of citizens and soldiers of Wesite. Titus and Optimus were one of the soldiers who got captured by General Quintus and sold as slaves in the slave market of Miral. Because they were soldiers and good at close combat, a nobleman called Gallio Tuccius Cethegus bought the two of them and put them into the training to be the warriors who fight to the death for the entertainment of southerners, The Gladiators.
Usually, a gladiator had no chance to become a freeman until he drew his last breath but fortunately, Gallio offered all the gladiators in his Ludus the chance to become a freeman. All they needed is to win a certain amount of battles in the arena and they would be freed from slavery afterward. Gallio set the number of battles to fifty and the twins had won 49 battles.
After getting their freedom back, the twins planned to go to Mairid, the nearby kingdom of Miral, and search for their sister. When they were losing the war to General Quintus, the twins sent their sister to Mairid so she could escape slavery. It had been two years since they saw their only family, Arria. It was the thought of reuniting with their sister that kept them fighting for two years.
Now they had one more battle before they could finally on their way to search for their sister.
"One more win twins," Doctorus said with a thick accent as a small proud smile appeared on the black man's face. He was teaching the gladiators of Ludus Gallio for twenty-five years and these twins were the best he had ever trained. He felt proud and truly happy for them, he saw Ludus Gallio has been offering the same offer to all the gladiators in his Ludus but no one has come closer to 50 victories, not even close. The twins were the first to come this closer and he was confident they would win the next battle. Even Doctorus could only win 27 battles before he lost to a gladiator from another Ludus. In the battle between gladiators at the arena, a gladiator could either die or surrender which is considered being a shame and would result in back to slavery, therefore, a gladiator would rather choose death over slavery. Doctorus did not surrender but had a dagger sent through his chest by his opponent and deemed dead, however, he survived miraculously. Ever since that battle, Doctorus never stepped onto the arena but thrown himself into the role of Doctorus. Since he had no family or desire to be a freeman, he was happy being a teacher to the gladiators.
The southern continent was also known as the Awor continent and this continent resembled the ancient Rome of earth. Everything the Romans did in Rome, the southerners were doing the exact same things and more on Awor. However, although this world had energies like Arch and Celestial that enabled the people to cultivate, the southerners were unable to cultivate. Anyone who stepped into the Awor continent would immediately lose their ability to use Arch or Celestial energy no matter their cultivation level, even an immortal would turn into a mortal in Awor.
This was the reason that anyone who was born in Awor seldom travels to the other continents or vice versa. Only a few merchants used to travel to Awor from the other continents. Since the cultivators couldn't use energy in Awor, they avoided Awor at all costs because no matter how powerful they were outside, they would become completely powerless in Awor.
Even though the southerners could not use energy, they were not powerless as one would expect, on contrary, the southerners had the technology, education, and wealth to match up the lack of energy use. Besides, just like back in ancient Rome, they had spartans, gladiators, and a few other super soldier units to fight any enemy.
This strange phenomenon of Awor protected the southerners from the attacks of cultivators and the remaining continents from being attacked by the southerners. The southerners thought of this as a blessing and their gods' will. The void of energy in Awor made even the senators and great generals not form a countermeasure to deal with the cultivators. And they had no idea that this lack of planning was going to change their world forever.