Supreme Magus novel Chapter 1685

"As for Verhen, you should better not underestimate him. He has already destroyed two lost cities and there's no guarantee that the Golden Griffon won't end up being the third if your enemies hire him for the job." Just by looking at Thrud's frown, Night knew to have her full attention.

The Mad Queen had countless pawns and contingency plans in place, yet if anything happened to the Golden Griffon, they would all crumble along with her ambitions of conquest.

Lith was the only man to have ever achieved the impossible, not once but twice. Lost Cities were supposed to be eternal and yet they had fallen.

'I thought it was Orpal's obsession to outshine his brother talking, but she made a point. Verhen already entered and escaped Sevenus' office, something not even Jormun managed to do.' Thrud thought.

"Besides, I said that I want Verhen dead, not that either of us has to dirty their hands. Here is my plan…" The Horseman smiled like a kid pulling the wings out of a butterfly just to see what would happen.

Once she was done, the Mad Queen wasn't just convinced, she was impressed.

"We have a deal." She sealed the pact with a handshake before starting to discuss its terms in detail with the Horseman.

'My Queen, that's a reckless choice.' Sevenus said via a mind link and Jormun agreed. 'You can teach her the secret of the white core in a few sentences whereas there's no telling how long it will take us to figure out Baba Yaga's workings.

'On top of that, the life force of the undead has always proved to be immune to the Unwavering Loyalty array. My guess is that unlike the fixed life force of living beings, an undead's life force is made up of countless energy signatures and it changes greatly over time.

'Any rune applied to their life force gets washed away after a good feeding or a big fight.'

The slave spell needed to be carved on the victim's life force to work, but while a living creature's essence would slowly dwindle over time, taking years if not decades for the life force to be altered enough to get free from the slave spell, undead were different.

They would consume life force along with their mana every time they used their abilities and replace it by feeding. Even if Sevenus managed to enslave an undead, the spell would fade a few days after entering the academy.

'Good to know.' Once again, Thrud's calm baffled her generals. 'I never trusted either Orpal or Night, they are too deranged.

'I'm certain that they will betray me at the first opportunity they get, but this doesn't mean that I can't exploit their help before getting rid of them.

'Their offer has undeniable merits and as long as our interests align, they will play ball. I can't enslave undead, true, but why should Night's human thralls remain loyal to her once I offer them Awakening?

'I only need to keep them here long enough for the array to work to steal her assets forever. As for the secret of the white core, I'll keep it for last and demand to study Moonlight from the beginning.

'Even if I started right now and kept working on it 24/7 with my best Forgemasters, the war will start and finish before we have learned the secret of mage towers. Night knows it as well, that's why she is so confident.

'She's going to try and exploit our research to actually study my white core but I'm not going to give her anything but a swift death. There's no place for traitors in my Kingdom.'

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