RISE OF EROS

While the entire city was in chaos from the recent events, a remote area of the fringe region was holding a secret meeting. It was a simple, ramshackle wooden house, very similar to the house where Andrew grew up.

Inside the house, there was nothing special, just some old furniture, but this house had a basement, something that was not common in the slums. Even stranger was that to get to this basement, you had to go through a reinforced steel door that obviously very few of the inhabitants of this place could afford to have.

Inside that room, there was a wooden table with a small oil lamp that barely illuminated the place. Three people were sitting there, one of them at the head of the table who was obviously the leader, and on the sides, one facing the other, sat his companions.

The three people were wearing long hooded cloaks that prevented other people from seeing their faces and were all clearly male. "My lord, Earl Gistaly, and other nobles who provided us with information have been arrested," one of them said, informing the man at the head of the table.

"Surely, they already know about the information that was sold to us, so we should advance our plans," he continued. Then the room was silent.

They were waiting for their leader to make a decision, which didn't take long, as the man sitting at the head of the table said, "Right, we can't let them take precautions. Lead the men to destroy the factories."

The two men in front of him responded with a short "Yes" and left. When the leader was alone, removed the hood from his head, revealing a man with pale skin and brown short hair.

Few would recognize this man, but if Oliver, Marie, or any of the Shadow members saw him, they would immediately know who he was, since he was none other than the crown prince of the ancient kingdom of Nufa.

When the war escalated, the crown prince was not as stupid as his father to believe that he could win, so he quietly escaped bringing his trusted men with him.

Although they were not many, they were loyal to him and had considerable strength. He knew that the war would be lost and that if he was captured, only death awaited him and he blamed his father and the nobles of the ancient kingdom of Nufa, for being so brainless in attacking a giant like the empire of Cannaris.

Despite all of that, he also hated the empire for how ruthless they were in fighting back. Normally when the war between two countries escalates, usually some cordialities are offered like a peace agreement or surrender is requested and the empire did not give that possibility to the kingdom of Nufa.

The empire limited itself to destroying the enemy, without giving it any chance, destroying everyone, that's why the prince was full of hatred, because he had been left with no way back.

For that reason, he dedicated all these years to establishing a base in the empire's capital city of Cannaris with the intention of having revenge. He wasn't stupid enough to think that he could overthrow the empire because if they couldn't do it when they still had the full strength of the Nufa kingdom, much less would they do it now that they were just a handful of people.

However, what the prince wanted to achieve was to destabilize the empire enough to attract those who could cause harm. His plan was very simple, he bought information from some greedy nobles, about different key facilities of the empire, like weapons factories, food warehouses, and even the houses of important people.

With this information at his disposal, he planned to carry out several terrorist attacks and create chaos. While they were doing that they would contact the surrounding kingdoms to carry out an attack from inside and outside, that way he would get revenge on them.

However, he never counted on the participation of Donald. There really were many events that revealed his accomplices, but without a doubt, it was Donald's investigation of Gistaly that started everything, therefore, the prince had a special hatred for him and had prepared something special for him.

The crown prince of the extinct kingdom of Nufa planned to launch an attack on the most important arms factory in the city and at the same time, he would attack the mansion of the Marquis Valoid.

His plan seemed perfect and detailed, but the prince, consumed by his hatred, omitted a lot of information necessary to success, and that would be what would bring about his downfall. While he planned everything for the attacks, the king and nobles of the empire were also not idle.

The king had assembled all the nobles in the capital and reported everything they had learned from Gistaly's confiscated book and any other records they found among the possessions of the other arrested nobles.

Despite the fact that none of the evidence they found described the organization they worked with, there was a record of the information they had sold, and thanks to that, they knew what the attackers' objectives were.

Therefore, the king together with the ministers organized the other nobles to strengthen the security of the arms factories and food warehouses. In addition, they also warned them about the dangers they could run, since several mansions had been marked in this evidence.

All the nobles were shocked when they found out, but they were soon angered, especially when it was specified which mansions were marked as targets.

Since the empire of Cannaris had a little internal conflict, the nobles organized quickly and by the time the men of the crown prince of the extinct kingdom of Nufa arrived to attack, they were surprised by the tight security measures.

The terrorists, seeing how well prepared the empire was to repel them, so they did not dare to attack, as it would be suicide, and they quickly withdrew to inform the prince about the difficulties they faced, but they were too naive.

The most elite forces in the city had been deployed and that included the king's personal command assassin organization "Hell" and this organization was not something to be taken lightly.

The men who belonged to this organization were experts in the art of camouflage, as well as in the gathering of information, and at the time they were deployed, they found strategic places to watch for strangers who approached the weapons factories and food warehouses of the city.

In this way, they managed to capture the terrorists when they approached. They were also very patient and waited for the terrorists to attack or retreat, to find the mastermind behind them.

Hell was prepared to let the terrorists attack, as they were sure that the empire's warriors guarding the weapons factories and food warehouses had the ability to defend themselves and their job was to follow those who retreated to find their leader and end the problem from the root.

Even so, they were surprised when they noticed that the terrorists did not dare to attack and escaped. However, this also worked for them, as they just had to follow them.

Although all the terrorists did not return to the crown prince, the two men who had met him before did, and to their misfortune, they were followed by several members of Hell.

These men had skills far superior to the members of Shadow, they were elites, so even though the basement where the prince met with his lackeys was difficult to infiltrate, it was no problem for them.

The prince and his two men were discussing the situation they were in when a tall and stocky man appeared from the shadows, dressed completely in black with a mask that covered his entire face.

They couldn't help but be surprised at the appearance of this man and anxiously got up and drew their weapons with the intention of defending themselves. "Who are you?" the prince shouted, but he got no answer.

The prince's subordinates didn't bother to ask any more questions and pounced on the intruder, wanting to eliminate him, but when their attacks came they only struck the air.

The two men were surprised since they could not see the movements of the intruder, not even the prince who was further back and could see the situation at a greater distance, saw how the man disappeared.

It wasn't until he felt the cold, sharp black dagger at his throat that the prince understood that the intruder had gotten behind him unnoticed and when the man spoke his heart fell to the bottom of the abyss.

"I am the devil". The prince did not even have the courage to shout, his back was drenched in sweat and his legs were trembling. His two subordinates turned to look for the man and only when they saw that the man had a dagger in the prince's neck did they feel defenseless.

Seeing that they could not defeat the intruder before, they knew that it would be impossible to do so now that he had the prince hostage, so they lowered their weapons and wanted to negotiate, but before they could utter a word they felt a blow to the back of the neck and fell unconscious.