Apology Note - Due to a mistake on my part, the sequence of the last 2 published chapters have been reversed.
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( Sam Saint Maximus's POV )
Sam was convening his regular elders council as they talked about the vampire monarchy and the standing of the Saint Maximus clan as a whole.
The agenda of the meeting was to discuss how the Saint Maximus Clan could rise from their rank at number 7 to number 6 during this time's evaluation and what areas were they lacking in the most.
Sam who sat on his throne listening to the council members speak turn by turn and engage in a civil and meaningful conversation could not help but notice that one of his elders, elder Gervais had a particularly irregular heartbeat in this meeting.
The Saint Maximus Clan's bloodline ability was related to superior hearing skills, and they had a subsequent spell that was only taught to the patriarch of the clan where this ability was heightened to the extreme.
If Sam focused enough he could hear sounds from across the poles of a planet, however, he did not use this ability much as the noise would make him go mad.
Nonetheless even in his normal state his hearing was far beyond what a normal Saint Maximus Clan member was capable of as he could listen to the pulse of every single member of the room and even the minute sounds of their muscles twitching.
In his long career as the patriarch of the clan he had often heard the heartbeat of people who lied and were nervous and he could clearly feel that something was off with elder Gervais today, as if he was nervous to be in his presence.
Sam smiled as he maintained his gaze towards Gervais, but the moment Gervais noticed that the patriarch was looking at him and smiling he immediately averted his eyes so as to not look at him as his already fast heartbeat increased even more.
This all but confirmed his guess that Gervais had done something wrong and was now nervous that he was going to be found out.
Gervais was a second generation council member, who became the minister of internal affairs succeeding his grandfather who served in the tenure of both Sam Saint Maximus and his predecessor.
He was a tier4 administrator who was known to be ambitious and ruthless, but nothing he had done till today suggested that he would betray the Saint Maximus Clan, hence Sam needed to be careful with his words.
If he was nervous for minor affairs like money laundering or passing laws favourable to certain merchant groups, Sam would not mind it much, but if it was treason then he needed to crack down on it immediately.
" Elder Gervais, let's have a private conversation in my quarters after this meeting is over, I wish to discuss something with you" Sam said abruptly in the middle of the meeting as everyone's gazes turned towards Gervais.
Gervais started to visibly sweat as he stuttered to reply " Y-yes my lord "
Sam let the matter slide after that as he waited till the end of the meeting for elder Gervais to enter his quarters before starting his line of questioning.
" Do you want wine? " Sam asked as he poured himself a cup
" N-no " Gervais answered, biting his tongue for stuttering again.
Gervais was very nervous, he was practically asking to be sniffed out.
" This next evaluation must be tough on you, no? " Sam asked in a sympathetic tone
" Haha, serving the clan is my greatest privilege " Gervais answered lightly as Sam heard his heartbeat fluctuate slightly.
" Good good, We need HONEST men like you " Sam said putting emphasis on the honest word as he saw Gervais develop goosebumps on his skin
For a moment the atmosphere was awkward as Gervais stared into Sam's eyes and realised that he knew about his crimes.
At this moment he only had two options, fight or flight and he knew he could not flee from Sam within the palace, so the only option he had was to fight.
Pulling a poisoned dagger out of his inventory Gervais charged at Sam, but the god only sighed as he slapped the dagger out of Gervais's hand before bitch slapping him in the face.
*SLAP*
Gervais spat a mouthful of blood alongside two teeth as his right cheek got completely swollen. He was an academician by class and not a warrior, so while he was at tier4 he did not have the subsequent physical build to support it.
Pulling him by his hair Sam cruelly stared in his eyes as he let some of his godly aura seep out.
Gervais began to tremble as he subconsciously peed a little, he knew he was royally fucked now.
" What have you done? Don't you dare lie to me boy " Sam said emotionlessly as Gervais began to confess straight away.
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( A while later )
Sam had a headache with Gervais's betrayal as he launched an instant operation to deal with all the spies planted within the Saint Maximus clan working under Gervais.
In one short hour, 23 government officials from all levels of administration were arrested as a scandal that rocked the entire Saint Maximus clan to its core was exposed.
Although Sam wanted to kill Gervais and the others, his rational side knew that he needed to interrogate and understand what all of them knew before sentencing them to death.
Currently his biggest headache was about the leak of planet Greensoil as while Gervais did not know about the creation of primordial vampire in that lab, he did know about Max being the brother or Rudra Rajput and the subsequent chaos that ensued.
If this information had already been passed to Caesar clan then Max would be in a shitload of trouble and by association so was the Saint Maximus Clan.
In the first place, Sam never wanted Max to roam free in the universe since if his existence was ever discovered by Regus Aurelius it would be the last day of the Saint Maximus Clan, but his brother forced Sam's hand to sign a contract and let him live a free life.
Now for better or for worse his fate was tied with the boys and he needed to protect him from the fallout of this leak within his own house.
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/// A/N - Guys I've lost my mind and have decided that there will be anarchy for the next 10 days till the month ends!
The goal is 4 chapters each day for a total of 40 chapters.
It's an impossible target, but I'm determined to achieve it. All I ask for in return is to keep motivating me in the comments.
This is chapter 1/40, let's go! ///