Then the army joined together behind him after he passed by. They turned to face the golems. His lieutenants led their soldiers to fight the golems. He reached the end of his army and turned towards the multitude of people waiting by the edge. He stayed quiet and chose to sense everything going on around him.
"What are you thinking about?" Salvini asked him.
She seems cheerful which is an anomaly in and of itself in this situation. This is a serious situation. He for sure can't be cheerful when someone is out there seeking to discredit the title of the child of the plane. This entire thing is an endeavor to make him look bad. They want to prove that he is nothing special and that he can be defeated. It will reduce his hold on the denizens of the Virut plane and make it difficult for him to gain support if the image of the child of the plane is besmirched.
The title of the child of the plane is sacred. It is a position that comes with honor and power. Most of that power comes from honor. The plane will empower him more if the people of the plane have faith in him. Their honor comes with faith.
Salvini would have certainly failed to bring her group here to serve him if he wasn't the child of the plane and if he wasn't a sage. Power alone will not be enough to make 100 talented people come to subordinate themselves to him. They will rather decide to take the crown from him if they find him unworthy. But his image tempered their Greed and allowed for their cooperation.
He will lose a lot of his power as the child of the plane if his prestige is tarnished. It is that prestige that the troublemaker is targeting. People would rather fight him or disagree with him rather than follow him.
His prestige is at its highest right now. He is the child of the plane and he is a sage. He is untouchable but his prestige isn't. His prestige is both his strength and his weakness. Even though it is ephemeral, it can be targeted. The troublemaker just needs to show that he is not perfect, all-powerful, or infallible. He is unbreakable but public opinion isn't.
He answered without looking at her. "I am thinking if I can fight everyone here on my own."
He just has to fall once for his image to take a hit. What they need is a single defeat either by a million people or one person for them to create a weakness in his prestige. So yes, this situation is too serious to be cheerful.
He also can't be cheerful when the person beside him can betray him any moment now. His enemies and his supposed allies might even be working together. He has to be prepared for the worst. So he is thinking about his chances of facing everyone including his allies at once.
Salvini shook her head and said with slight pain in her voice, "You still don't trust me. Can't you at least trust my affection for you? The love of a woman is strong and potent. It can overcome all things. I might just be doing this so that my lover won't look bad. The simplest explanation is probably the correct explanation. I love you so I care for you."
He was quick to offer a rebuttal, "I am not your lover. Even if I am, that doesn't mean I am safe from your schemes. Love goes hand in hand with betrayal."
She looked deeply into his eyes as she said, "Not everything is as it seems. This competition is more than it seems."
"I know that this competition is not as it seems." He said to her with a glare. "I might not know what you are after, but I am not ignorant of that much."
He knows that there's something up with the competition but he doesn't know what exactly is going on. He just knows that the first sage baited him here and wants him to win it. He is like a hired goon or something. He also knows the realm lord has something to do with this competition.
The fact that Salvini also knows that something is up about the competition didn't make him trust her. It did the opposite. Now he is even more suspicious of her. After all, she was the one that gave him the 6 sheets of paper that baited him. She started all of these. Maybe she is setting him up.
They remained in silence for a while. Then Salvini sighed. "This is so difficult to do. I can't use my future vision anytime it is related to you so it is difficult for me to convince you since I can't predict your reaction to me. This is why I like you. You make our moments together feel real and special. I want to be always around you."
He didn't say anything. He doesn't have anything to say to her confession so he won't say anything. The fact that she expressed interest in him doesn't mean that he should reciprocate or even acknowledge it. Her confession might just be a way to dull his suspicion of her. It won't work on him. She isn't done anyway.
"Anyways. What I am trying to say is that you might not be able to trust me but you can trust your intuition as the child of the plane. You will know that what I am doing is for the good of the plane once you invoke the power of your title."
He grunted and said, "We'll see."
He hasn't used the boost from his title ever since he became the child of the plane but people have been asking him to use it recently. First, it was Jarkon, then Salvini. She has mentioned the boost twice now. There must be something going on and it is probably related to his title.