-Two Hours Later-
All tensions were much more tempered and Hal was now in a more official sort of meeting with the Devil Chieftess and certain members of her court, many of whom Hal remembered having seen in the Deliberation hall standing choose to her throne.
The meeting Hall seemed more like a hall used to try criminals of the tribe and this notion that Hal had in his mind was further supported by the latent Arrays all about the hall.
The seats of the Devil chieftess and the members of her court were raised so that they could power down ah Hal with superiority but Hal could not care less.
He had done the hard part which was to actually convince them to listen to what he had to say and now that they were clearly invested, he held the right to take a few liberties in regards to comfort.
He lounged on the small chair that was placed before the cluster of the Devil Chieftess and the members of her court and held on to the armrests as though he were holding on to the armrest of a chair of authority.
Sassy stood behind him with her two daggers held tightly and her eyes furrowed at those who clearly took on a judging position in regards to her master.ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ novelenglish.net . (f)ire
The meeting had already gone a while and Hal had made it clear that he, of course, had agendas but he had also clearly stated that he had no interest in elaborating on what those ambitions were.
He claimed that he deserved the right to make his plans and keep them to himself to which certain members of the Devil court said he lost that right the moment he trespassed into the Devil Tribe territory.
Hal then told them that they were free to speculate on what his plans might be and they were free to exaggerate or underestimate however they pleased but his lips will remain sealed... Besides, they were yet to believe that he was indeed telling the truth in regards to his private teleportation circuit.
"Choose a representative... And let me take them to the Haron continent to prove to you that my private teleporting circuit is indeed real" Hal eventually said and that was the matter that quickly took precedence.
Hal waved his hand and opened up a portal into the Harem space as proof of the means before closing the portal barely a second later.
Seeing him open a portal with just a wave of his hand raised the brows of many, if not all, of those in the hall and the eyebrow-raising detail was the fact that there was no use of cosmic energy involved...
No use of Astral energy, no use of Runes, and especially no use of an Ordinance.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtThe opening of the portal clearly had something to do with spatial manipulation but it was more like a simple opening of a door and did not give off the feeling of having anything to do with any of the wondrous abilities cultivators might have access to.
With the erection of noise-canceling barriers, the court kept Hal and Sassy out of their deliberations as they finally decided to test out his means.
They considered it a delicate issue...
Should they send an expendable expert they did not care about just in case this was all a trick that would result in the death of the said individual or should they send an absolutely capable fellow.
They even considered sending a human slave, maybe one that they had experimented on and had rigged to explode at the sign of any funny business.
In the end, Elenor announced that they were being too cowardly and decided to send forth a cultivation expert whose prowess was trusted and attested to... She decided to send a member of her council.
"Phedra, you will go," Elenor said and Phaedra was so caught off guard that she paused as though it took her a good while for it to sink into her head.
"What?!" she asked in indignation.
Elenor shrugged,
"You possess a strong cultivation base and an Elemental Ordinance at Harnessing mastery, so surely you are no pushover. You will go" she said.
It was final... There was no room for discussion and immediately after she spoke, Elenor canceled the noise-canceling barrier just as Gregor spoke up,
"Maybe I should go with her. We have no idea what she will meet at the hands of this stranger so she would need support..." he said.
"Nice of you to worry about your wife, Gregor, but this is merely reconnaissance and earlier, she proudly attempted to strike the stranger down with her arrow so she must be confident that she can deal with him.
Besides, for whatever surprises he might have, she should have even more with which to contend with him... She will go and she will go alone!" Elenor said before looking to the side at her sister as though to signal her to get moving.
Phaedra gritted her teeth and then bowed,
"As you wish," she said before her body fizzled and suddenly she was in front of Hal who was still seated in the chair.
"We should be going now," Phaedra said and she made no real attempt to hide her annoyance with the situation.
Hal smiled lightly up at her from his chair as he stretched his hand and reopened his portal to the Harem space.
"Through there..." he said as he stood from his chair to which Sassy also stirred and moved toward the portal.
"Your companion will stay here" Elenor suddenly said and Hal looked up at her and then at Sassy before saying,
"No problem. If that will convince you of my sincerity"
He knew Sassy was practically a hostage... An incentive for him to return and not try any funny business.
Hal was smiling even wider inwardly because this proved that even more of his words had gotten through to them... They probably felt that Hal was the only one who had access to the portal and if that was the case, they were in for a surprise should they ever actually try to attack her.
It wouldn't reach such a level though...
Sassy shrugged and then took a seat on the chair Hal had vacated while she crossed her legs and took to twirling her daggers in her hands.
She would await her master's return.
"Try anything and I will kill you!" Phaedra snarled at Hal before walking through the portal and arriving in the Harem space.
Hal had not actually had his anchor open a portal yet so Phaedra was able to observe a good amount of the large space they were in and she was in awe.
"Where is this?" she asked, especially caught by the beauty of the mansion.
Hal just retrieved his mask from his inventory and put it over his face just as he contacted Marla who promptly opened a portal out of the Harem space.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm"Right this way, Miss," Hal said to Phaedra as he ignored her question.
Phaedra snapped herself out of her sense of awe to turn her nose up at Hal again and then step through the second portal to arrive at a mansion in Sapphire city which was honestly the best place to bring a Dystopian.
No one would bat an eye at her presence mostly because none of them gave a damn and she could have enough time to determine that she was not being tricked.
"Welcome to the Silva Duchy, one of the twelve Duchys of the Haron continent," Hal told Phaedra in a fairly normal tone of voice as Marla silently walked away.
"That's it?" Phaedra asked.
"What were you expecting? Fanfare?" Hal asked with mirth as he led the way out of the mansion and into the streets of Sapphire city proper.
Once they were out of the mansion, Phaedra paused and spread her arms while taking deep breaths as though to suck in as much puffs of Haron continent air as she could.
"It is certainly different but it's also similar somehow" she mumbled.
With Sapphire city being the origination of Hal's spreading Devil influence over the entire continent, the feel of the city was quite similar to the feel of the Devil tribe that was permeated with Negative energy.
Phaedra took a few steps forward and then joined her hands together... From the point where her palms touched, Devil energy began to leak and when she separated her hands, she had cast a Devil spell which began to revolve between her palms.
Hal knew what she was doing and mostly ignored her to focus more on Sapphire city and especially its current state which was that they were getting were closer to clashing with the Silvas.
Meanwhile, the more Phaedra's spell revolved, the more widely she smiled,
"Unbelievable" Phaedra said and as she spoke, her spell took on the shape of the Nexus world with a clear marking of both continents...
On the side of the map that was the Haron Continent was a red dot that signified the location of her spell casting.
In other words, the spell was telling Phaedra exactly where she was in the Nexus world and the discovery caused Phaedra to be absolutely ecstatic.
For the first time since Hal had spoken of his private teleportation circuit, Phaedra finally got involved and began to imagine the applications this could have.
Just the thought of catching the stupid humans off guard and razing their establishments to the ground without them realizing it had the Devil woman's eyes glinting with excitement.