After a brief silence, Sir Astarot was about to speak when a figure suddenly appeared beside him, making him raise his guard. He was about to attack when he noticed the similarities between this figure and Grey.
Grey was also startled by the sudden appearance, but sensing the familiar aura, he heaved a sigh of relief.
"You want to use my son as part of a bargain?" Lucas snorted as his cold eyes locked onto the body of the Toad, "Your boldness is commendable."
He didn't release any aura, but in an area of around five hundred meters, the space started to show signs of disturbances.
The Toad looked at Lucas who just appeared, and it felt a little pressure from him. It could tell that Lucas wasn't a simple figure.
'The father of the kid?'
Lucas' words made the Toad understand the relationship between him and Grey. If this person is Grey's father, then it knew that it was impossible for it to pressure Sir Astarot into giving him Grey.
"Human, this is our territory, consider the consequences of each action you take here." The Toad didn't back down. Although it felt a bit of pressure from Lucas, it didn't mean that it wasn't his opponent. Given its experience, it was confident that dealing with a character like Lucas wasn't too hard.
Lucas looked at the Toad, his expression still cold, "I believe Sir Astarot has told you about our intentions?"
The Toad didn't reply to Lucas' question, choosing to remain silent.
"Originally, I was planning to wait until the gathering to say this, but there's no point waiting until then." Lucas' gaze started to turn even colder, as a hint of murderous intent started to leak from his body as he continued, "Not fighting with us against the Gnomes makes you an enemy. I don't want a threat like you staying in my backyard while the enemies attack from the front. I'd rather eliminate the threat in the backyard before attending to the one in the front."
By the time Lucas finished his statement, his eyes had already completely shown his undisguised murderous intent. The meaning behind the words was simple: you're either an ally or an enemy; there's no in-between.
Sir Astarot didn't expect Lucas would be this forceful. He was practically giving these Magical Beasts an ultimatum, join us or die.
The Toad's eyes changed as it heard Lucas' words. It already didn't have any good thoughts about humans, now that one of them was blatantly threatening to kill it, of course it was furious!
"You filthy thing! You dare come to this King's territory and threaten me?! Bold! Bold! Bold!" The Toad was livid, it turned to Sir Astarot, "Astarot, is this your intention? You want to use this opportunity to suppress my Clan?"
Sir Astarot rolled its eyes when it heard the Toad Clan Leader's allegations, only a child will fall for words like that. Clearly, it wanted to involve Sir Astarot in this matter to act as a mediator.
"Lucas, calm down. I believe we all want the good of this Continent." Sir Astarot, although aware of the Toad's intentions, still spoke up, after all, this was the Magical Beast's territory, and if words of Lucas threatening to wipe out an entire Clan got out, it wouldn't be good for it as the Dragon Clan is one of the leaders of the Magical Beasts.
"Sir Astarot, that I'm aware of. But if we are fighting the enemies and they suddenly backstab us, defeat will be certain." Lucas didn't suppress the murderous aura coming from his body as he spoke; even while talking, his gaze was still locked on the body of the Toad, clearly having no intentions of backing down.
Lucas' domineering and arrogant attitude displeased Sir Astarot a bit. It was thousands of years older than Lucas, and in terms of seniority, it was even older than a few of Lucas' Ancestors, so it expected him to at least show it some respect and back down. Lucas not backing down indicated that he saw it as an equal rather than an elder from the older generation.
Sir Astarot was slightly offended, but it also understood the reason behind Lucas' persistence on this matter. It's well-known among the top experts how much the Toad Clan Leader hated humans. If the war started and the Toad Clan were perhaps bribed by the Gnomes to launch an attack on humans, the consequences would be catastrophic. Lucas acting in this manner is natural for fear of this catastrophic possibility. Even though it isn't a certainty, it isn't a possibility humans would want to leave unattended. If Sir Astarot was placed in the same position, it would take the same actions as Lucas.
Sir Astarot was still thinking when Lucas continued.
"Even if they vow not to take any action, how can we be settled while fighting with the enemy when there's a threat that will cause a certain defeat in our camp?"
Sir Astarot realized that there was no way to get Lucas to back down from this matter. It was a very delicate matter and should be treated carefully. If he were to force Lucas to leave, there's a chance Lucas will go back and gather the experts across the Aurora Continent and launch an attack on them. It knew how dire the situation with the Gnomes were. If not for humans not having the confidence to successfully hold out against the Gnomes, they wouldn't have reached out to Magical Beasts. When the first war happened, even with the help of Magical Beasts, it took the strongest expert of that era sacrificing himself to forcefully seal the Gnome's main portal. The other portals couldn't support large scale teleportation, so it couldn't sustain an ongoing war. After losing a lot of their experts, the Gnomes stopped the war, opting to break the seal placed on the main portal. From what it knew, the portal was on the verge of completely being unsealed. The moment this happens, the war would start.
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