Chapter 833: False peace destroyed

"But what the hell is going on?!"

"Shit!"

"What's this all about?!"

...

The four kings and the Queen of Pralan were greatly surprised when the ground began to shake. The shaking was strong enough that even they, Third Order soul evolvers who literally could no longer be considered human due to how high the power they controlled was, wavered on their feet.

The kings were forced to use all of themselves to stand their ground and not fall miserably and even Eloise was forced to kneel on one knee to avoid being swept away by the earthquake.

The kings and queen watched in shock as huge cracks opened up in the ground due to the trembling. The cracks only grew larger as dragons soaring the skies, giant trees in the distance were swallowed up by these cracks as the earth crumbled or simply collapsed as their roots broke into pieces.

Curtis was suffering the most at the moment. As a mage, the Mana stat was his main strength aside from Magic while his physical body was relatively weaker when compared to warriors. It was difficult for him to keep his stance and there were several times when he was about to slam his face into the ground or be swallowed by a crack because the Mana inside his body was not obeying him and was becoming especially hard to control even for him.

Fortunately, however, the earthquake only lasted about 5 minutes before it slowly stopped. Gradually, the earth ceased to shake and the skies stopped rumbling noisily until finally everything returned to normal.

Eloise and the four kings exchanged glances with pale faces. It was not difficult for each of them to notice the shock and even fear in each other's eyes, which was completely understandable considering that even they, the supreme powerhouses of this world, failed to stand their ground in the face of what appeared to be a mere earthquake.

On the other hand, Bai Zemin held Seraphina through the entire tremor, and thanks to the fact that he had experienced the same kind of situation twice in the past, they did not suffer as much as the five in front of them.

Seraphina's face was pale not only due to fear in the face of the unknown as a result of what had just happened but also because the inability to control her Mana was becoming too heavy for a priestess-type mage like her.

"Are you alright?" Bai Zemin asked in a low voice as he helped her stand up straight.

"I- I'm fine..." Seraphina nodded and said quietly, "W- What was.... What was that? It seemed to be the aftereffects of an attack..."

A tremor of such magnitude could only be caused by a few things, and to affect even the people present...

"It could be... Could it be that someone on the level of the Demon Lord launched an attack near here?" muttered the king of the Akirian Kingdom as he gripped the hilt of his sword tightly.

"Impossible!" Curtis roared in denial, "The Demon Lord definitely wouldn't dare to attack unless he has 200% certainty of victory! I refuse to believe that monster has forgotten the miserable loss the former Demon Lord experienced at the hands of our humanity!"

Miserable loss? Eloise exchanged glances with the other three kings and all four saw the bitterness hidden in each other's eyes. Whether the previous Demon Lord had suffered a miserable loss or not, they were all clear about it thanks to the high status they held which gave them privilege to know things others did not.

"Don't worry, ponytails. That wasn't an attack at all."

Bai Zemin's voice drew the voices of the five. He seemed to ignore them and as he looked at Seraphina making sure she was really alright said something that froze the blood of everyone present.

"That tremor before was caused by the world. The world is warning about great changes coming."

"G- Great changes...?" Seraphina looked at him with doubt in her wide eyes.

He nodded, and while pointing to the surroundings, said word after word: "Eventide World has undergone two great changes so far, hasn't it...? Have you forgotten? Every time the world is relatively close to evolving, what happens is that fierce tremors become more and more frequent at the same time as the world's mana thickens and increases in quality."

For a few seconds, the place was silent except for the dirt and rocks that continued to fall back to the ground after being sent flying all over the place; a consequence of the previous tremor.

"Y- You... what the hell are you talking about?" the king of small stature wielding two hammers looked at Bai Zemin with wide eyes as he whispered his disbelief.

"Third great change?" The eyes of the Queen of Pralan widened and her pupils trembled slightly as she said in shock, "You mean... Are you talking about the apocalypse? Eventide World is about to evolve again?"

"That's what I said." Bai Zemin nodded. He ignored the expressions on the faces of the five people in front of him as a faint smile peeked out from the corner of his lips and said with a hint of mockery in his voice, "I think you guys will now be able to understand how stupid this so-called peace you all feel so proud of is. I really want to see if you guys can keep playing the little house and elaborating stupid competitions when every city in every kingdom gets attacked by mutant beasts, orcs, demons, and any other race that exists in this world."

The kings, as well as Queen Eloise, and Seraphina, felt chills run down their spines as the words Bai Zeminjust said painted terrifying images in their heads.

Hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions of enemies raiding cities and towns at the same time. The soul evolvers will not have time to sleep properly, the weakest will die without even being able to stand up to the challenges to come, the walls that drew a false line of security will get destroyed and the blood of countless will join to turn into rivers flowing over the dead land.

"Lies!" Claus Von Asalium, King of the Asalium Kingdom, roared.

Drawing everyone's attention, he tightened his grip on the two white daggers so hard that his knuckles cracked as he said with obvious terror in his wide eyes, "You are lying! The last evolution of our world was about 4500 years ago, there are still 500 more years to go to reach the limit to which our ancestors managed to foresee before the third stage began!"

'I'm sorry, but with me here I'm afraid that time was shortened... and will continue to shorten as we speak.' Bai Zemin apologized in his heart while on the outside his expression remained impassive and he said in an indifferent voice: "I am sure you too have read the effects that the impending evolution of the world has, the behaviors of the world that is about to grow beyond its present stage."

Claus Von Asalium's pupils contracted slightly, and as he looked at no one in particular, he muttered under his breath, "Earthquakes never seen before, increase in the amount and density of mana, complete loss of rationality in unintelligent living beings-"

Before King Claus could finish speaking, the earth shook again but on a much smaller scale when compared to the previous tremor. Even then, the tremor was not small when the roars of what seemed to be at least several thousand enemies were added to the mix.

Under the wide eyes of the King of Asalium, mutant beasts of not-so-small sizes and orcs wielding bone weapons rushed out from the nearby forests. Some of the creatures began to fight each other fiercely without caring who it was or what race the one they were attacking belonged to and the only goal they had was to devour the life of their enemy in order to grow stronger.

Bai Zemin watched indifferently as several creatures charged towards them and said in a cold voice, "These creatures are smarter than you, at least they know by instinct that they need to become more powerful to survive whatever is coming." He looked at the five Third Order soul evolvers and said with a sneer, "Lady and gentlemen, welcome to the real apocalypse where there is no peace. At this point no one is safe and, who knows, one of us could suddenly lose our lives by being attacked by a flying beast."

The faces of everyone went white and Eloise blushed with embarrassment as she remembered what she had said earlier. Fortunately, her experience as a ruler was not small at all so she quickly adjusted her mood.

"Bai Zemin, let's put our differences aside for now and clean up these beasts. We can discuss again later regarding the situation from before." The Queen of Pralan said at the same time as with a swift movement she unscrewed the whip-like sword tied to her waist.

She leaned her body forward as she looked at a group of over 600 mutant beasts being led by what appeared to be a horned elephant in silver-colored armor, and at the same time as she activated her Dominant Cut skill, she slashed fiercely forward.

The edges of the whip-like sword were covered by a faint layer of shimmering silver color, and to Bai Zemin's surprise, it extended over 1000 meters in a jiffy.

Swoosh!!! Swoosh!!! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!!!! ....

The mutant beasts had no time to react at all when their bodies were cut in two halves. Blood and flesh flew everywhere, bodies split apart and internal organs fell to the ground making chilling sounds before the lifeless corpses collapsed; the most unfortunate ones that didn't die immediately roared in pain and wailing before finally receiving their eternal rest.

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty Eloise," Bai Zemin shook his head, and while looking at the surroundings cautiously, he said coldly, "Things have changed given the circumstances."

"What?" Eloise looked at him as she kept attacking, easily slaughtering hundreds of enemies with every swing of her weapon without even having to activate a second skill. "What do you mean by that? Are you planning to continue your stubbornness even at this moment?!"

"No no, it's not about stubbornness." Bai Zemin chuckled and approached Seraphina slowly under her confused eyes. He looked at the Queen of Pralan and said coldly, "But, you have lived inside a bubble from the moment you were born. You need to wake up and feel the true terror of evolution, you need to understand that this is not a video game where you can casually go out of the house and hunt monsters.... When you and the others finally understand what the ancestors of the mankind of Eventide World surely tried to convey but over the centuries was ignored, only then will we be able to have a conversation."

"What?! What do you mean?!" Eloise and the four kings looked at him in shock.

He ignored them all, and under the startled eyes of Seraphina, Bai Zemin caught her by the waist and pulled her to him.

"You- Let go of me! Let go of me I tell you!" The little princess who acted tough but was actually tremendously shy immediately began to squirm with a flushed face in an attempt to escape his grip.

"Tsk." Bai Zemin frowned and without further preambulation dominated her small body easily, tossing her over his shoulder as if she were a bag of potatoes. Because she was still kicking, he said in a cold voice, "Seraphina, do you want me to spank you again for misbehaving?"

Surprisingly, the effect was better than Bai Zemin expected.

"Wait! N- No... I-I'll be good." Seraphina became as obedient as a little puppy as she soon stopped kicking and stood quietly as he carried her.

"Mm, good girl." He nodded in satisfaction before turning to look at the five rulers with a serious expression on his face, "The apocalypse is about to begin, it could be today, tomorrow, maybe the day after... it will definitely be within a week at most if I go by the current mana density... I will wait a month, 30 days should be enough for all of you to understand how naive you have been all these years and how ignorant you were to waste the valuable time others gave you by building strong fortresses for you."

Before anyone could say anything, the red lightning around Bai Zemin exploded fiercely and his body soon became a blur charging in a southerly direction at full speed.

Before disappearing from the line of sight of the five monarchs, his voice floated through the air delivering one last message.

"In 30 days I will hold a meeting in the capital of the Krap Kingdom, I will send letters of invitation. Whoever does not show up by then will be treated as my enemy.... No more opportunities!"