Chapter 588: Betrayed?

It was already late at night when Immortal Knight and the rest of the Savannah Expedition returned.

Michael ordered his subjects to prepare a feast for the Savannah Expedition and a humongous campfire to honor Liopham, Pheli, the Holy Knights, and everyone else who fell victim to the dangers of the Savannah's Regional War.

The Forest Elves weren't that hungry and Mika bawled his eyes out in front of Michael. He hugged Michael tightly and wept like a little child. Michael was younger than Mika - only a few months - but Mika considered Michael as someone who was much more mature and older than him. He cried his heart out while Michael patted his back lightly.

Michael expected that Mika and the others would throw a fit in their emotional turmoil. He was prepared to listen to their complaints and be shouted at for ordering them to join the Savannah's Regional War. However, nobody said anything.

The members of the Savannah Expedition were fully aware that their Lord gave them the chance to join the battle or stay behind in the Untamed Jungle. Everyone was given the opportunity to stay back. Michael never forced anyone. In fact, even if he had forced the strongest Soldiers to join the Savannah Expedition, nobody would have said anything. His course of action was correct. Michael didn't do anything wrong.

The casualties of the Savannah Expedition weren't that low. However, they weren't high either, considering that the Savannah Expedition participated in the Regional War for a while now.

Less than 200 members of the Savannah Expedition died, most of them in the first two large-scale battles. The casualties were a result of the expedition member's inexperience and impatience. They overestimated their strength and underestimated their enemy's combat prowess grossly, thus, creating prickly situations that resulted in severe injuries or death.

Fortunately, the mistakes of their fallen comrades turned into great lectures for those who survived. They learned a lot and improved rapidly. Their strength, tactical understanding, and combat awareness skyrocketed, improving their survivability on the battlefield drastically.

Michael didn't join the feast. He comforted Mika and the others, instead. Mika and Tiara clung onto Michael like leeches for the rest of the night.

He tried to carry them to their rooms to ensure that they would sleep, but when he tried to loosen their iron-tight grips around him, the pair of Awakened grumbled something incomprehensible.

At one point, they fell asleep while clinging onto him. Michael felt like throwing them into their comfy beds, but they wouldn't let go of him.

'That's a one-time thing...' He said to himself before he returned to his office.

Immortal Knight was supposed to be sleeping as well, but after today's miserable loss, Siegfried couldn't keep his eyes shut. The dull eyes and the pale faces of the Soldiers he'd failed appeared in front of him whenever he closed his eyes.

Michael found Immortal Knight cramming through a bunch of reports. He made notes on one of the Savannah Region's copies and pointed them out to Lilica, who was also awake and in his office. Opars was also present but he fell asleep after a Healer used up the Forest Elf's last bits of energy and nutrients to tend to his wounds. Michael moved Tiara and Mika next to Opars once he managed to loosen their iron-tight grips.

They huddled together and slept on the small couch.

Lilica sighed heavily when she glanced at them.

"I have yet to go back and report Liopham and Pheli's death. I'm...not sure what to tell their families..." She said at some point.

She tried to avoid talking about her friends' deaths but it was hard. Lilica saw them die right in front of her...and she couldn't do anything about it.

At one point, she'd wished that the Adventurer with the Pull Soultrait marked her instead of Pheli and Liopham, but then again...she didn't want to die either. It was a selfish thought, but Lilica didn't want to die. She hated herself a little bit for that selfishness.

Lilica retrieved three spatial rings. One of them belonged to her, whereas the others belonged to Liopham and Pheli.

"Immortal Knight told me that you asked for some corpses of the Valyr and Zynur. I collected some of their bodies after the Laprix Lord was killed. Before the trap of the Council went off inside the grove, I noticed that the Trilance split up. The strongest forces slowed down instead of accelerating and they stopped in front of the grove even before Immortal Knight ordered everyone to stop charging. I found that weird, so I collected their bodies after they had been killed later. Nobody should have noticed something."

"I forgot about that because of what happened...later...and only recalled it when Immortal Knight mentioned it." Lilica's voice crumbled. She choked and was on the verge of breaking out into tears.

Lilica didn't speak any further. She placed the three spatial rings in Michael's hand and turned back to the reports as if she hoped that the reports could drown her tears and sorrow.

Michael decided that it was better not to bother Lilica any further. Instead, he inspected the spatial rings. Michael channeled a trace of energy into the rings to see what was hidden inside and retrieved the corpses of four Valyr Adventurers.

The Valyr Adventurers were part of the Valkyrs' Super Elite Unit. Even now, hours after death, their bodies were still strong. Fickle flames flicked around their heads, but they died down quickly.

Michael raised an eyebrow when he saw that the four Valyr had been killed with a precise stab to their neck. There were no signs of resistance on their bodies. They had been stabbed to death with a razor-sharp blade before they could retaliate.

'Interesting.'

Michael used Extraction on the bodies, focusing on their memories to extract as many useful memories as possible.

It didn't take long before the first Memory Orbs formed in front of him. The extraction was completed within a few minutes, leaving Michael with a few dozen SoulStar Fragments, one Soultrait Symbol, and five Memory Orbs.

He was a bit surprised about the SoulStar Fragments and the Soultrait Symbol since neither he nor his subjects killed the Valyr, but he pushed that thought aside. The Memory Orbs were far more important.

Michael consumed the Memory Orbs at once. He ignored the oldest memories, stored the combat-related memories in a separate file to digest later, and put his mind entirely on the newest memories.

Shards of memories flashed through his mind. There were thousands of them, yet Michael's attention pulled toward a particular set of memory shards.

'There we are. Mere minutes before the Laprix Lord died.'

At first, Michael couldn't find anything useless. Certain clues made him doubt the actions of the Valyr and Zynur but most doubts were proven wrong quickly.

There was only one memory that attracted his attention. A memory showing the Valkyr slow down when they heard something through the Zynur's secret communication channel.

The Valyr Lordess would never acknowledge it openly, but she had infiltrated the secret communication channel of the Zynur and Laprix Lord.

The Zynur race used a special technique, not quite unlike Whispering Energy - just inferior -, to communicate with each other secretly.

The Valkyr learned the special communication technique as well. Thus, they heard when the reinforcement of the Zynur race told their people to be careful of the groves.

The Valyr were confused, but they were even more shocked when the Laprix Lord was slaughtered and the Council's trap went off.

The Valkyr were shocked and spun to the Zynur to question them. However, before they could confront the Zynur...they were killed.

The Valkyr didn't even know what happened. They died, and their memories ended.

"I cannot be certain...but I think the Zynur betrayed the Trilance. If I'm not wrong, they must have changed sides not too long ago. Or, all of this is a misunderstanding? But if it's a misunderstanding, and they used other means to find out about the Council's trap, I don't understand why the Zynur didn't warn everyone."

Michael was not certain what to make of the memories. It was highly likely that the Zynur Lord betrayed them, but he couldn't say so for sure. He didn't have enough pieces of evidence to prove his betrayal.

It was possible to inform the Valyr Lordess about the intel he had. However, Michael could not give her any hard evidence as proof of his suspicion. It was not possible to tell the Valyr Lordess about his suspicion without attracting the Zynur Lord's attention either.

The Valyr Lordess didn't have a great temper. She would definitely ask the Zynur Lord about what happened. That would either worsen the situation all over the Savannah Region, though Michael was not sure how much longer the Zynur Lord would keep the charade up.

'I should keep it for myself until I have more pieces of evidence.'

That was not a permanent solution. However, Michael had to avoid confronting an all-out attack from the Savannah Region for a while.

He had to take care of the Heart of the Blazing Lion army first, after all.

Nonetheless, Michael determined to prepare some memory crystals that contained the little pieces of memories that could be used as evidence and grounds to be suspicious of the Zynur Lord's actions.

He would be ready to throw the memory crystals at the Valyr Lordess once the time was ripe.

Lilica was raging while Michael was busy preparing the memory crystals. She didn't expect that the Zynur could have betrayed them.

It was totally unexpected and more than enough reason for her to feel like charging into the Zynur Lord's territory to question him.

Michael was understanding, but he had to calm down the furious Forest Elf.

"We will confront the Zynur Lord later. Calm down a little bit and take care of the tasks with higher priority first."

It was obvious that Michael was talking about Liopham and Pheli's families. Their families must have observed something by now. After all, most races had similar devices to mankind's Lord IDs.

Michael wished that Lilica would take care of the deceased's families first.

After that, they would have to deal with the Zentika Empire's army, and only then would they have some time to spare to confront the Zynur Lord.

That was...if the Regional War in the Savannah Region wouldn't escalate all of a sudden.