Chapter 906: Time To Appear

Cutting the call with Vritra, Evelyn walked into the cloud palace, her expression still calm.

Several figures came into view, from fader, Adam, Zengis, Armin to Hollie, who is Fader’s second wife.

They were all discussing something already, of which Evelyn had a very clear idea about.

"Evelyn!" as soon as she entered, Armin rose quickly to his feet and walked towards her to welcome her.

Ignoring him like usual, she walked straight towards fader without pause, pausing before him and asked:

"Father, what’s going on?"

She kept her tone level, waiting for his answer.

"The Garissa family, after the recent attack from the Crooked wishes to pull the date of your marriage to Armin closer, so we can unite faster and deal with internal and external threats."

Fader answered calmly, swirling some wine in a glass.

"Isn’t that wonderful, I wouldn’t mind giving you more time but the situation is getting bad, and we need to quickly marry." Armin walked back while sighing dramatically, but was overjoyed internally.

All the people present were well aware that Evelyn didn’t want to go through with this marriage.

But since their interests aligned, they wouldn’t care either way.

"Good, that’s the most natural thing to do, and nothing could be stronger than this bond." Hollie spoke in a graceful manner, her hands folded neatly.

She had long black hair and looked very beautiful, with an air of arrogance around her.

From the look in her eyes, it felt as if she was scheming something every single second.

Hollie’s marriage to Fader was also rather forced back then, when his first wife had died because of a Crooked, Adam still had most of the power at the time.

And thus, Fader was forced into marrying her, he had only been able to marry the woman he liked once but couldn’t protect her.

"Like I proposed, let’s arrange the wedding as soon as the start of the 2nd week from now." Zengis spoke, to which Armin nodded vigorously in agreement.

"Haha Good good, let’s not waste time over something like this, once they are married they will naturally get to know each other more. And, she can at least do this much for the family, no?" Adam laughed, as if stating the obvious.

’Why don’t you go marry him yourself then? Wouldn’t that be a generational bond?’ Evelyn rolled her eyes internally at him.

She doesn’t like her grandfather much at all, and that Hollie even less, only fader was different from the rest.

But Evelyn just couldn’t understand why, for the first time, he was forcing her into doing something she doesn’t want to.

"What do you think?" Fader asked calmly, pulling her out from her thoughts.

"Honestly, our Vespera family doesn’t need them to keep our control over this realm, so instead of moving the marriage closer, we should just cancel it." Evelyn replied seriously, meeting his gaze directly.

"Haha She sure jests, we are not discussing whether the marriage will happen or not. You just need to get ready, daughter, we will handle the rest." Hollie interrupted.

She chuckled lightly to herself and then spoke out of her goodwill.

"Yes, I agree. Then the marriage is set for the second week from now?" Adam spoke.

He glanced around the room as he said it, gauging everyone’s reaction.

To which, Zengis and Armin were the first ones to nod, then Hollie also nodded along.

"I just want the best for my daughter, I doubt anyone other than Armin could suit her any better, he even defeated Len. She is just shy in admitting it." Hollie said like a caring mother, smiling gently.

Her voice and words put a deep, unpleasant frown on Evelyn’s face.

She really felt disgusted by her loving mother’s act, she only truly cares for Joel, and no one else at all.

Now only fader remained silent, once he nodded then the new marriage date will be fixed for good.

Fader, whose body was completely wrapped by bandages, remained silent for a while, deep in thought.

Yet, just then...

THUD

A guard hurriedly knelt outside the cloud palace door and spoke urgently: "Lord Fader, we have just received a letter from the Crooked!"

The atmosphere inside the palace instantly changed, fader gestured for the guard to enter and then took the letter from him.

After scanning through its content quickly, he let the letter flow between them so they all could inspect it.

"Oh, what is it?" Evelyn asked in surprise, reading the content then exclaimed.

"What?! Those crooked are calling us to a war?"

Her voice carried through the room, drawing everyone’s attention at once.

All of them frowned deeply as they read the content of the letter. The higher beings and crooked often go to war with each other.

Crooked often plays tricks but for direct wars, they first make preparations like this, declaring it formally.

This sort of war continues for quite a long time, and it is also possible that a few from both sides could die in it.

"No" Zengis, frowning, shook his head firmly.

Armin tilted his head in confusion, he hadn’t yet finished reading it completely, and asked: "What no? It is clearly a war declaration."

No sooner had he said so, Zengis smacked his head lightly.

"This is not a declaration of war, it is a reply for the declaration of war sent to them." Adam massaged his nose and then looked at Evelyn, who was innocently looking at the letter.

"It was you, wasn’t it?" Hollie asked directly, a scowl now forming slowly on her face.

Armin finally grimaced, understanding it all at once.

At first, he didn’t think much of it, since it was just a declaration of war, they can push the war back and continue with the marriage as planned.

But now it was different.

The crooked had already accepted the challenge and the war will start very soon now.

’Damnit!’ he cursed internally, his fists clenched. They had used that crooked to bring up the marriage.

And Evelyn played the same game right back and had pushed it back again, at least until the war is finished.

"Oh, I had sent it before and forgot about it, they must have used this chance since we captured that crooked, to declare war." Evelyn said as a look of realization appeared on her face.

Everyone fell silent at once, they knew about her motive very well.

Armin wanted to say more but he became silent under Zengis’s sharp glare, who wondered why his own son was so talentless compared to Evelyn.

’This talk can’t continue for now anyway.’ He stood up abruptly and said goodbyes to Fader and Adam before leaving.

Armin followed behind him unwillingly.

Hollie frowned deeply, but didn’t linger anymore since the plan had been disrupted.

Only Adam and fader remained there aside from Evelyn, one visibly fuming and the other completely expressionless.

"Evelyn! That was so disrespectful, who are you learning these bad habits from?!" Adam yelled, looking very unhappy indeed.

"From my father." Evelyn shrugged.

"Err..." Fader was startled but couldn’t even refute the claim properly, he might have done the same thing himself.

This pair of father and son, Adam felt so angry that he was shaking visibly for a few moments, unable to even find the right words.

Finally, he huffed loudly, turned and left without another word.

"Father, we should prepare for the war, I will take the lead as usual." Evelyn said then added firmly: "Let’s send those heretics into the war so their power could be divided."

"Yea, you handle all that." Fader lazily sprawled over his seat, and dismissed her with a wave, not even bringing up anything else.

Evelyn bowed slightly, then turned and left too, for now this matter won’t be brought up again anytime soon.

And thus, the war began in earnest.

Joel didn’t come home much on the upcoming days, spending nearly all his time outside instead, so Vritra was unable to meet him at all.

While Evelyn and the others got busy with the war effort.

The heretics were pulled into the war too, just like Evelyn had planned. Dipper wanted to invite Vritra too but he refused outright, there is no way he can participate in a war of that scale.

The higher being realm was mostly calm overall, Evelyn although was participating in the war but was secretly happy that it was happening.

Yennefer, Diana and the rest were given the status and power of the gods, but because of the war, it was done without any big ceremony at all.

Vritra received it too through the staff, and just like that, over a month had already passed.

Evelyn was doing her best to prolong the war for as long as possible, but there was a limit to how far she could push it.

Thankfully, crying monk finally sensed it was time to bring out Vritra, there were several parameters he could meet for this to happen.

Like if his lives ends, or the time ends, or he gives up, and more besides.

Whatever might be the case, everyone was genuinely happy that Vritra can finally return, who knows how many years he had spent there all alone.

If he was alright, physically and mentally both.

Unsure of anything at all, the crying monk arrived at the entrance of the realm where Vritra was present.

"Vritra, it is finally time, let’s see how much you have progressed." The crying monk spoke confidently but just as he tried to bring Vritra out, he frowned deeply and failed.

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Thanks for reading... adios