"Michael," Gaya said. Countless emotions got stirred up by the word. It had been decades since someone called him Michael.
"Michael" Yet again she called him. She did not let go of him as she still had him locked in her embrace.
"Michael"
Again and again, she called him by his name until Michael began to chuckle,
"Okay okay," he took his head off her shoulder and cupped her head. With a bright grin on his face, he playfully rubbed his nose on her nose before giving her a gentle head butt. His soft kiss on her forehead warmed her heart.
"Still I like to call you human," As Michael put his arm around her neck, she pinched his cheek.
Forgetting all of his problems for a while, he walked around the forest with Gaya. Being with her felt different than being alone. It was like all of his problems became puny when he was with her. Moreover, the blood lust diminished from his heart.
He wondered if Gaya leaving him was the reason for the third persona to appear.
"Did I tell you that we have a guardian to interrogate?"
"Yeah. Let's go celebrate our special day with good old-fashioned torture, hehehe" She chuckled. Her reaction made Michael chuckle too,
"You are so evil. Are you sure you don't have any alternate personas within you?"
"I have and you will see them after marriage" She sounded like a cartoon villain. Her evil laughter echoed through the forest.
Regardless of his problems, he couldn't help laughing with her. It was so funny. On their way back to the underground mansion, they did not fly but just walked, enjoying each other's company. For Michael, it felt like he was taking a walk in the park with his fiance. All the way to the mansion, he had his arm around her neck while her hand was around his waist.
When it came to romantic gestures, Ghost beat Noah every time. Noah's love was spread to multiple girls but Ghost only loved Gaya. All of his love was directed towards Gaya. That didnt mean Noah didn't love the girls in his harem. However, he was too busy solving every single girls' problems instead of actually spending time with them. No matter how busy Michael was, he always made time for Gaya. Sometimes Gaya wondered how they could call him evil.
When they entered the mansion, Azazel appeared before them to greet them.
"How are they?" Gaya asked,
"They are sleeping with Lord Nightmare, my lady" Gaya nodded on her way to their room. She stayed outside making zero noise. Then she slowly opened the door to peek through the gap to see Vedora cuddling with Nightmare. They were sleeping under Nightmare's wings. Ayag's head was on Nightmare's face with her mouth wide open. Sarba and Cain slept peacefully under Nightmare's warm body.
"I can't believe they will soon grow up" She smiled as Michael put his hand on her shoulder to reassure her. For a few moments, she rested her head on his hand and watched them sleeping.
"Azazel, tell Dular to come to the guardian's chamber with an undead" Michael let Gaya take the lead as torturing was not his strong suit. He preferred to kill instead of torture.
At the moment, Connors was tied to a tree in the pocket dimension attached to the mansion. He was unconscious. Michael injected enough knockout potion into his body to keep him unconscious for several days.
In addition to the potion, he had to buy specialized chains from the system store to tie him up. Usually, the guardians used a chain with specialized runes to keep a cultivator tied. These chains were extremely expensive.
This was why Runemastery was the highest-paid skill in the world. They could make a piece of junk into an enhanced magical item.
Since Michael had no time to go shopping and it would raise suspicions if his underlings bought these expensive chains, Michael decided to buy them from the system store.
"Hrmmm" Connors's consciousness slowly returned to him. He felt a sharp pain on his cheek. While growling, he opened his eyes. The last thing he remembered was getting knocked down by the woman with Lucifer back on a ship.
His eyes twitched due to seeing a light after a long time. as his blurry vision cleared up, he saw Lucifer standing in front of him. The surroundings surprised Connors. He was outside as he could hear the sound of a waterfall in the distance, birds chirping and as far as he could see, there was not a single man-made structure. The tall mountains stood around as though they were guards of Lucifer.
Connors tried to move his limbs but he noticed he had been tied to the chair. He looked at his wrists to see the silver chains. The chains gave him some hope because he recognized the chain. If Lucifer was using the chains, that meant they were no longer on the Southern continent.
"Our guardian is awake. Wonderful" Connors's body jerked when he heard a voice all of a sudden.
He couldn't turn back but soon he saw another figure walking from his behind. The figure wore armor similar to Lucifer but the figure looked feminine. The shape of the armor indicated whoever wearing the armor was a woman.
Connors was staggered by the two of them. The guardians were thinking Lucifer was working alone. They did not even suspect there might be two Lucifers, let alone one woman and one man.
"Guardian Connors"
Regardless of her feminine look, the figure sounded exactly the same as Lucifer. The unearthly animalistic voice still freaked him out no matter how many times he had heard it before.
"We have some questions for you. And you're gonna answer them like a good boy"
Connors didn't know how many days he'd been out. The faith in the guardians was not as strong as before. He joined guardians to climb the ranks and live long enjoying a wealthy life. Getting tortured was not in his mind. He had two choices, he could try to stall them and hope for the guardians to appear but the possibility of that to happen was extremely slim. The second choice was to answer their questions and hope they won't torture him and let him live.
"What…what do you want to know?"
Gaya was surprised. Behind her mask, one could see her brows arch up. She did not expect the guardian to drop his shield just like that. Again, when she thought about it, it wasn't much of a surprise to her as she knew the guardians valued their lives more than their duty as a guardian. Only a few handfuls of guardians valued the principles of the guild more than their lives such as Noah, Peyton, and probably Xanali.
"Tell us everything about operation New Dawn," Lucifer asked as Connors was startled to the core.
"How…how did he know?" Connors asked himself. His body shivered.
Sweat began to appear uncontrollably through every single one of his pores.
There was only one thing that could tie him to the New Dawn operation; an access card with the name 'Operation New Dawn' etched onto its surface.
The reason he kept the card was that it was made of pure gold. He planned to use that card and negotiate with Alpha guardian to climb up the rank. Off-the-books operations were risky but they also came with opportunities.
Keeping his mouth shut about Operation New Dawn was not worth losing his life. Hence, he decided to spew out everything he knew about the operation. There was no information about the operation that would make Lucifer torture him to death.
"You can start by telling us what was the goal of this operation? And who ran it?" asked Michael gruffly. The feeling of something amiss whirled inside his heart.
Gaya strolled towards him and put her hand on Connors's shoulder. She drummed her fingers on his shoulder,
"Come on Guardian,"
"Peyton-Peyton was the lead. She put together a team to find clues about you"
"Oh"
As Michael had expected, Gaya's voice sounded surprised. What were the odds of a guardian they knew personally to run the operation that aimed to take them down? If Peyton was running the operation, Xanali would definitely be involved.
"I assume there were others in your team. Names" said Gaya sharply.
"Hashira Sayo, Alberto Pirani and Xavier Rogers" Connors listed the names without a second of interruption. For him, ratting out their names was no big deal. After all, they weren't the ones tied to the chair and being interrogated by two scary people.
"And Noah Winston"
Connors never liked Noah. Ever since he joined the team, all the girls including the red haired hottie were too mingled with him.Which obviously annoyed Connors. He felt threatened by Noah. So Connors wanted to put Noah in the crosshairs of Lucifer.
"What was your role in the team?" asked Gaya, tightening her grip on his shoulder,
"We…we each got a target. We followed, surveyed and reported back to Peyton"
"Who is your target, Guardian Connors?"
"Gh-Ghost" Connors stammered.
Michael's red eyes flickered. With a few steps forward, he came before him.
"If you had followed him, then you must know how much sins Ghost and the people around him committed"
Gaya was bewildered by his words but decided to play along.
"In my eyes, those who had the power to punish the evil and chose not to are the worst kind. So tell me Guardian Connors, have you punished the evil as a Guardian should? Have you punished Ghost or his lackeys? Your answer will decided whether you leave here alive or dead"
What the hell? Gaya's mind had so many questions.Still, her mind quickly came to a conclusion that made her blood boil.
"A life for a life. If you had taken a life of a sinner, you will be forgiven" Michael bluffed.
His flickering red eyes hid the murderous intent within him. At the place where Jack died, he saw two words 'GG'.