Chapter 338 Outsmarted
Northern slowly approached the trio, with a whitish orb in his hands. His face was stained with blood and emotionless.
He stopped in front of Raven, who cast an indifferent gaze on him, stared at the core in his hand, then materialized her sword.
With a quick movement of her hand, Raven's sword flashed and returned to where it was.
The small girl standing behind her slowly crumbled to her knees, a thin line appearing on her neck. As she fell, her head completely rolled away from her neck.
Northern's face paled as he watched Raven decapitate a young girl without even a slight show of emotion.
Just how much of a cold-blooded killer was she?
But he said nothing and just ground his teeth behind pursed lips.
Raven bent down, plunged her hands into the girl's chest, and pulled out another whitish orb, her hand covered in blood.
Northern then turned to Sura. He wouldn't lie; in this moment, he felt a lot of mixed emotions.
And carefully tried to navigate peace through all of them. One single thing kept him in anticipation.
'If Sura should betray them, if Sura ended up lying after all...'
The thought was like a pest that incessantly ate at Northern's mind.
He was patiently awaiting for just that to happen. Because he never trusted Sura from the onset.
All he did was just a gamble.
Even if they were puppets as Sura called them, it still didn't feel human to gamble with the life of the boy king.
Someone he had closely tutored, someone that looked up to him for salvation.
It tore Northern's heart to shreds even in this moment, which was why Northern knew he wouldn't hesitate to turn Sura to shreds should he try nonsense.
"What next? I don't see the rift core revealing itself..."
His voice sounded with a strong and threatening tone.
Anyone would shiver with how intimidating and cold he sounded.
But Sura maintained 100% composure. He smiled delightfully as usual and looked at the cores in their hands.
"It's right there, my friend. In your hand."
Northern raised a brow and looked at him.
Immediately, Sura extended both hands.
"Bring the cores..." he said.
With a contemplative look on his face, Northern collected the core in Raven's hand then placed both on Sura's.
He smiled at them and nodded. Then began to bring the cores closer to each other but slowly.
Immediately they touched, a bright white light emanated from both of them and continued to shine even more brightly until they were fully fused.
As the brightness slowly dimmed, Northern saw the panels appear with its usual monotonous voice in his ears.
[You have identified the soul core of the rift without killing its guardian]
Northern's brows immediately furrowed; in the same instance, a wide grin spread across Sura's face.
Northern in that moment, seeing the grin as it spread on Sura's lips, felt an electrocuting sensation travel through his entire body.
'Fucking bastard'
He reacted without a sense of control, leaping towards Sura like a spring.
"How naive..." Sura said with a vicious grin and muttered, "Frostbite Reflection"
A protective layer of transparent, reflective ice shimmered around him, spreading across the air quickly before Northern could reach him with a black Lance that had already materialized.
Eventually, the black lance lunged forward, lashing a ferocious and ground-shattering attack at the layer, but was instantly reflected and shot back at Northern.
Casually, the attack disappeared when it got closer to him.
Sura was now encased in a layer of defense that not even the black lance and probably the black flame could pierce.
One that even reflected attacks.
However, his face paled when he realized something. The core in his hands... something did not feel right.
And he was only just noticing it right now.
Immediately Raven stepped forward and smiled, bringing out another whitish orb and handing it to Northern, who also was handed another core by his clone that just appeared.
Sura frowned from where he stood watching Northern and the two cores in his hands.
"What is this? What is going on?"
They had handed him fake cores?
No, that wasn't it. Fake cores would never merge together like these ones did. Even if it was for a minute, he sensed the originality of these orbs.
What went wrong? At what point did they change it?
'Was it when he launched the attack? Did he do something?'
Northern curled a corner of his lips in a smug smile and shook his head.
"You look so confused. It's quite a sight; I wish I could capture it forever..."
Sura's frown intensified.
"What did you do?"
"Well... I will tell you," Northern breathed. "It's simple, I just couldn't bring myself to trust you no matter what, so I decided to clone the orb I gave you. I also cloned the one Raven extended to me and collected it from her hand, leaving the original to her. Before getting here, I'd given my clone the one with me to hold. And thus here we are..."
That was the plan he had told Raven before walking away from her.
Northern's smile was drenched in satisfaction.
"Turns out I was right not to trust you. I couldn't be happier."
"So you are the guardian of this rift after all."
Sura sighed and face-palmed himself.
"Of course, I'm not. Do you think I'll be able to do what I did with those cores if I was?"
Northern's face immediately became grim the moment a realization struck him. His mind went to the one person that was alive right now.
"Fano?"
Sura smiled sweetly.
"I altered his memories and bloodline with mine after defeating him. I gave him a family, I gave him a reason. So, he is very convinced that I am his brother and we live to protect the kingdom of fire and ice together."
Northern shook his head in disgust, then closed his eyes for a moment.
A second later, the entire rift shook.
And the orbs began to float on their own, glowing with white light as they came closer to each other.
Sura, seeing what was happening, was immediately terrified; all the composure he had before now started to fall apart.
"What? What? What did you do?"
Northern cocked his head.
"What else? I killed the guardian of the rift. I figured I probably wouldn't be able to force reveal the true form of the rift's core like you tried to, but since I knew the guardian, I could just kill him. So, I ordered my subordinates to do it."
Of course, he didn't forget that Pangu (Koll) had been with Fano all along.
Sura shuddered and crumbled to his knees as the cores merged and finally revealed a slightly larger core.
He stared at Northern with trembling eyes.
"What have you done?" Horrified, his voice shook.