"…eee."
"…me."
"L-Leme."
Varian turned his head and saw through the walls of light enveloping Aurora.
There was a drop of tear sliding down her cheek while her lips quivered, a faint voice leaking from her throat.
"Let me…out."
Isadora stepped forward, eyes distressed. Holding the hand of her junior sister, she whispered, her voice gentle like wind. "Aurora, just sleep. Everything will be right."
"No." Aurora shook her head and then tried to get get up. And failed.
"Aurora!" Isadora said in panic, her eyes trembling. "Don't stress your body! Just rest some more and it'll all be fine!"
Aurora's eyes slowly opened and she looked at the ruby-red eyes of her senior sister. With a weak smile, she chuckled."I am going to die, aren't I?"
Isadora froze.
Gritting her teeth, she said. "If I am leaving anyway, then I don't want to spend my days like a patient. I want to jump, dance and sing! I want to die…I want to die with a big smile on my face."
With a small whimper, she moved herself and landed. Upon touching the floor, she almost stumbled before Isadora supported her.
"Thanks." Aurora nodded at her before taking a step forward with her barefoot. Then, another.
The six beams of light continued to pour into her, supplementing her the vitality needed to keep her from quickly dying.
As she approached the exit of the room, she was faced with a silent Varian.
"Brother-in-law." She called out as energetically as she could.
It came out as a whisper.
Varian looked at her with despodent eyes.
Maya and Kyle. Along with them, Robert, Anna, Bali, Irene and everyone else.
Then it was Eshala.
And now…
"A-Aurora." He forced himself to look her in the eye.
She tried to smile. Her face was still pale and her eyes were heavy, as if they would not open once they were snapped shut.
But she smiled. A weak, pitiful smile that came out in the face of sudden, unavoidable death.
If someone else was in her position, they would've blamed Primula or Varian or the world. Yet, from the start, Aurora never uttered a word of complaint.
"Don't be so serious, please~ Come on, smile! In my last moments, I don't want to see you sad."
Varian tried to smile and failed. With a powerless sigh, he vanished from the room, leaving Isadora and Aurora.
The six beams shrunk greatly and turned into an invisible chip hovering over Aurora's head.
A special pulse eminated from the chip and Aurora's complexion improved drastically. If she didn't know her condition, Isadora might've mistaken her to be alright.
"So he acknowledges my wishes but doesn't want to partake in them?" Aurora tilted her head and asked with a sheepish expression.
Isadora held her hand and asked in a soft voice. "Do you want to go fishing?"
*** *** ***
King Hades convened a meeting with the powerhouses under his command.
There was only a low rank 2 under him. Reaper.
But there were plenty of rank 1s, the highest in the alliance, no, confederation. And they were all eager to kill, convert and reign.
"My King, the spy reports from the Jai have confirmed our suspicions." A ghostly creature made of white fog reported with a reverent expression.
Undead didn't just mean physical Undead. The dead souls, under specific conditions, would turn into ghost-like creatures.
Spirits, Wraths, Ghouls and more.
In the avenue of life and death, these ghostly creatures would fall into death category. While their counterparts, spiritly creatures fell into life category.
Due to their natural stealth and soul abilities, they're an excellent tool for spying, coercion, torture and reconnaissance.
True to their nature, they enslaved certain spies from the Jai Empire and used them as double agents.
It wasn't as easy as it sounded. Whenever they tried it in the past, most of the double agents were quickly found. It'd have been great if they succeeded once for a thousand attempts. For that, they'd have to first find a thousand spies.
Even then, there was no certainty the one double agent would give them any useful information.
Spying was primarily the function of Warring faction headed by Eshala Starlight. She did a terrific job.
While the alliance was easily penetrated by the spy network of Warring faction, they were never able to replicate even a tenth of that.
But with the death of princess Eshala, things began to slowly fall apart. It shouldn't have been that chaotic. Someone else should've replaced her and taken charge.
It wasn't the death of a single faction leader that led to the chaos, it was the death of all three.
The God Emperor never appeared after the death of these leaders. He never passed them any instructions or even bothered to give signs that he was alive despite the increasing rumors of his death.
Even in such a terrible state, Mors Empire needed a period of nearly fifty years to properly infiltrate the Jai Empire and confirm some crucial details.
Eshala Starlight might've died but the organization she built fought stubbornly for five decades under the full offense of Mors.
"If she is alive," King Hades muttered. "Forget fifty, we wouldn't have gotten anything even after fifty thousand."
The ghost nodded in reflex. As the one in this job, he knew more than anyone how well Eshala managed the spy network.
Fifty thousand…was still an underestimate.
'Did she really die?' Even now, the supreme ghost couldn't believe it.
Maybe this was all her ploy to lure them out? Perhaps she was laughing at them as she secretly controlled the double agents.
The more he thought, the more he feared.
It was absurd. Even his best intel informed him that she's dead but his mind simply couldn't acknowledge that. Even as her enemy, he couldn't digest her death.
"Well, the time has come. Assemble the army." King Hades stood up. "It could be a very difficult battle but one we must win. The Jai Empire's is double that of Mors,
nearly half of all alliance. Once Jai falls, entire Eden will turn into a holy land of Undead."
The invasion of Jai began.