His maniac laughter echoed through the room and sent shivers down the guardians’ spines,
”Your bullshit doesn’t work on me Elf. I can see it in your eyes. You know about the attack long before I exposed the vampires. The only difference is because I exposed them, the vampires left some people alive so they could spread the message. Otherwise, it would have been a complete massacre with no survivors to tell any tales,”
Xanali was startled by his words. There was no way the Alpha guardian knew about the attack and did nothing to prevent the killings. So many people, including nagas in their human forms were killed in the arena by the vampires.
Tanulia creased her brows as he continued,
”You were planning to catch the Elder vampire. But you didn’t expect the dark net to be so problematic to break. Now that your incompetence backfired and caused so many lives, you’re trying to pin it on me. Pin it on Lucifer or The Dark Lord as usual,” Peyton heard the Dark Lord snicker,
He leaned back on the chair and played beats on the table casually.
”We will catch the vampires. Just like we caught you” Tanulia clenched her fist only to see the Dark Lord snicker again,
”At what cost? You two are responsible for more deaths than me, and you people call me The Dark Lord,” he turned his head to look at the mirror.
The elite guardians and Xanali felt as though he was looking at them.
”I wonder what your future Supreme Guardian has to say about your plan,”
For the first time, a shock emerged on Tanulia’s face. She stared at the Dark Lord without batting an eye,
”Noah Winston. I know all about him, Tanulia Valren,”
Bang!
As soon as he spoke these words, Tanulia kicked her chair backward and lunged at him over the table. She grabbed his shoulder and punched him without pulling her punch,
”Hahahhaha”
But the Dark Lord kept laughing as though he heard a joke. His laugh became creepier by the second, and many guardians wanted it to stop.
”Alpha Guardian”
After seeing Tanulia punching him for the fiftieth time, Peyton softly called her to stop Tanulia. Although they suspect the Dark Lord was not a human and possessed inhuman strength and power, Peyton still didn’t want to take his life before they could get as much information as possible from him. Particularly about where he came from. The Demon Realm or Hell Realm was something which they knew frighteningly little.
The last pages grimoire about the Dark Age and the Dark Lord mentioned something about a Demon King of Hell Realm, and the higher-ups of the Guardian Guild suspected the Dark Lord might have some information about the Demon King. Unfortunately, the only information they possessed about the Demon King was a name…Hunter…
(Dictator With a Badass System MC’s name is also Hunter…hmm…what a coincidence)
The higher-ups were none other than elders in the Skyhall, but even the Alpha guardians had no idea that the Skyhall from the shadows controlled them.
”He doesn’t know, and it will stay that way,” Tanulia said before throwing one last punch at him. Her fist felt numb after punching him repeatedly.
”After we’re done with you, we will see how your body is built. Starting from cutting open your throat” Tanulia threatened him, but he still kept laughing,
”You’re a maniac. Not a god, like some sickos claiming you are,” Peyton growled,
”Seeing you hanged to death will make everything I went through worth it,”
”Again, I wonder what your future Supreme Guardian has to say about your plan. Particularly the part where you endangered his little sister’s life,”
Seeing Tanulia and Peyton remain calm, Michael slowly connected the dots and was truly surprised by them.
”They knew the vampires were going to kidnap her and force her to retrieve that key,” Michael said to himself,
”If I am right, they are planning to kill the vampires after she retrieves the key. Then they will take the key from her,”
”You should worry about yourself,” Tanulia snarled at the Dark Lord,
”Set a course to Dradel. Elders will meet us there,” Tanulia turned her head and locked her gaze with Xanali.
Xanali nodded before leaving the interrogation room towards the ship captain. Because Xanali was a guardian captain, a couple of elites followed her behind.
Meanwhile, in the interrogation room, Peyton and Tanulia each took a few parchments from the crate on the table and opened them.
”What am I thinking?” Suddenly Tanulia smacked her forehead,
”Remove his mask. I want to see who is behind that mask,” Tanulia ordered Peyton as the elites standing outside the room took a step forward.
At that moment, every pair of eyes were locked on the Dark Lord’s face.
Peyton stood up from her chair with a nod, strolled to the Dark Lord, and came behind him.
First thing, she removed the cloak covering his head, revealing raven black hair. It seemed like Peyton was doing everything in slow motion to the elite guardians.
His smooth raven black hair was long enough to reach his neck. After removing the cloak, everyone could see the black skull mask on his face clearly.
Michael had difficulty controlling the urge to kill Peyton and Tanulia then and there. However, he was unable to send his sword through their heads personally.
As Michael was watching Tanulia and Peyton, the latter grabbed his skull mask. The guardians felt their heart beat rapidly increasing, including Peyton.
”Time to see how you look behind the mask, Dark Lord,” Peyton snickered as she slowly pulled up the mask to reveal the Dark Lord’s face.
They all felt a chill running through their spines as soon as his mask came off. His face was decayed with several cracks in his face. Half of his cheek was missing and they could see his yellowish decayed teeth. The two pale white eyes stared at Tanulia with a creepy smile on his face.
Tanulia twitched her nose as the strong pungent smell of rotten skin entered her nostrils. It was pretty horrendous, to say the least.
”A netherel,” Tanulia could recognize an undead or a netherel as they were commonly known in the cultivation continents when she saw one.
”HAHAHAHAHAHAH” the undead burst into laughter and squirmed, shaking the chair he was tied to.
This time when Tanulia heard his mad laughter, she had a bad feeling.
”AH!” the undead abruptly cut his laughter short and opened his mouth as wide as he could.
When Tanulia looked into his mouth, she noticed something glowing inside his mouth. Before she could guess what that was, the undead spits the glowing rock onto the table.
The elites immediately leaped away and curled into a ball, thinking the rock was going to explode. For some reason, the first thought when they saw the rock was that it might be a bomb.
Tanulia stared at the jade rock on the table while a bright light inside the rock pulsated in regular intervals like a heartbeat. None of them had an idea about the rock until a bright light shot out of the rock to the wall behind the undead.
The bright light slowly turned into a figure resembling the Dark Lord, but the Dark Lord before they unmasked him.
”Dark Lord,” the undead uttered the word as Peyton felt her entire body go numb.
”Tsk tsk tsk…Peyton…Peyton…Peyton,” The Dark Lord projected on the wall amused.
The elites slowly managed to grasp the fact that the undead wasn’t the real Dark Lord. But Tanulia was smarter than the rest. Hence, she realized the truth; the Dark Lord had played them.
”Where is Tiriana?” The Dark Lord asked as Tanulia quickly scanned everything around the Dark Lord. But no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t see anything but darkness around him.
A few elites outside quickly made their way to Tiriana’s room without waiting for Tanulia’s orders. Instead, they were trained by Tanulia and worked under long enough to sense her thoughts.
”Here she is,” In the dim red light, Tanulia saw the Dark Lord pulling something from his side.
”Tiriana,” Tanulia muttered, looking at Tiriana in the Dark Lord’s hands. He grabbed Tiriana by the neck as she squirmed to escape his grasp but to no avail.
”A necessary sacrifice. Hmm,” the Dark lord calmly said in his demonic voice. Then he turned his head to look at Tiriana,
Boom!
The elites gasped in shock as Tiriana exploded into a bloody mist in the blink of an eye.
Peyton stumbled back, seeing Tiriana’s sudden yet horrifying death. On the other hand, Tanulia clenched her fist as her nails protruded the skin, making her literally bleed.
After Tiriana exploded into blood-red mist, they saw nothing but red until the Dark Lord swiped off the blood.
The guardians who went to look for Tiriana returned to the area and pushed open the copper door.
”Tiriana is not in her room, Alpha Guardian” the two armored guards had no idea that Tiriana exploded to death just a few moments ago.
Boom!
Tanulia raised her hand as a powerful gust of wind blasted away the two guards,
”I thought you were fine with her dying, Tanulia Valren,” the Dark Lord said, tilting his head.
He sounded amused by the anger in Tanulia’s eyes,
”Not a good feeling, is it? Realizing your whole plan is just a colossal failure, hahaha,” he laughed, shocking everyone.
”Your elders have been wetting their pants for thousands of years because of me. A simple thought of me gave them nightmares. Did you really think that two bitches could catch me?” his voice became colder and murderous.
He then took a step closer as they saw his face closer on the projected screen. Slowly his crimson red eyes became dark as Tanulia saw his eyes flaming up.
Under their gazes, he raised his hand and kept his middle finger and thumb together,
”Peyton, when you thought you were playing me, you forgot something really important,” Peyton’s mind went black as she walked backward in fear,
”I AM THE DARK LORD,”
He snapped his finger as the entire white room turned red with Peyton’s blood. The guardians gasped, realizing that Peyton exploded into a bloody red mist just like Tiriana with a snap of his fingers.