The Rise of the Black Plain

Pow!

Pow!

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Immediately after seeing the four most assertive individuals there fall unconscious in that area, Minos finally struck the remaining Spiritual Kings, throwing punches and kicks in their directions.

First, he used his beyond normal physical strength from his Indestructible Body to kick one of those old men in the abdomen, causing that person's eyes to bulge out. At the same time, such an individual already had his mouth open, coughing up blood.

Crack!

The sound of breaking ribs resounded in that area simultaneously as the poor man's body flew towards one of the walls of the Hargraves headquarters.

After that, that individual's back crashed brutally into that wall, causing him to groan in pain before finally falling silent.

But while no one there could say for sure whether he was alive or dead, those other five individuals did not have a chance to mourn for that person.

After sending that person away with an ordinary kick, Minos promptly made a spinning motion in the air, launching another blow directly at the head of another of those people.

At the same time, his dark red-bladed sword slashed toward the shoulder of one of those individuals, slicing its way through without difficulty, making that person's eyes flutter in terror.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

More screams resounded from the throats of those people as one body fell to the ground, and the other flew away.

'Bastard!' One of the three remaining individuals wailed in his mind, feeling the sudden end coming towards him.

Pow!

Then a strong punch thrown by young Stuart hit that person's abdomen, causing that victim's eyes to bulge while his skin became as pale as snow.

"Ahhhhhhhh!"

"I've been seriously injured!" That man screamed in alarm, feeling an unprecedented pain spread through his abdomen as if all his organs had been crushed.

When Minos' spatial technique finally lost its effectiveness, the two who remained there fell to the ground, already unconscious due to the Infinite Dream.

Minos was not interested in eliminating those six people, but that did not mean he would not hurt them!

Hence, he had acted to leave each of those individuals in a difficult situation, but without putting their lives at risk.

"Sigh..."

'Let's see what you guys have to say.' Minos thought to himself as he looked at those four individuals who had been affected by the Infinite Dream at the beginning of this attack.

...

Inside the illusion created by Minos, the four members of the Hargraves family were slowly being tortured.

The Infinite Dream could be used to divide its user's attention to allow such a person to fight in the real world and still use mental illusions to his advantage without having his attention impaired.

Because of this feature, part of Minos' consciousness was already torturing those four individuals before he had even finished dealing with the other six Spiritual Kings.

In this way, by putting a little more of his attention on the illusion tormenting those four, Minos finally found himself in a dark place where his victims were inside what looked like a large pot of boiling liquid.

"Come on! Answer my questions, and I will free you from this nightmare!" Minos shouted as he sat on the ground, a few dozen meters from a gigantic bonfire, where that pot was.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"Damned devil! Ahhhhhhhh!"

"Kill me! Kill me!"

"AHHHHH! What do you want to know? AHHHHHHHH!"

Those people screamed desperately, feeling their bodies being cooked from the outside in as they trembled vigorously.

At the same time, none of them could understand how they had arrived in this 'alternate world,' this terrible place where they could not use even a bit of their cultivations!

Minos then said to those people. "Almost ten years ago, the Hargraves family acted in conjunction with several other powers of this state to massacre House Schmidt. At that time, people from outside the northern region of the Central Continent became involved in the situation."

"What is your family's relationship with the Blood Triangle Pirates? What was agreed between you at that time? What did they want?" He asked peacefully, slowly raising the temperature of that bubbling solution.

Upon hearing that, all four individuals looked in fright at Minos, sensing that this person could be much worse than they thought.

That was because, even if they were to die here, they still had hopes that the Hargraves family could endure this ordeal. However, this person knew the name of the organization behind the people of the Evergreen Empire.

That was not good!

The Evergreen Empire was considered one of the three strongest states in the Central Continent, the home of the Spiritual Church and also of 3 ancient Gods!

And knowing the origin of those pirates who had created the opportunity for the Schmidt family's destruction, those four men could not help but tremble in fear.

If this strange person was someone from the Evergreen Empire, this could be the end of the entire Hargraves family!

Organizations outside the northern region of the Central Continent hardly ever sent people to this place to carry out assassination and interrogations missions, as seemed to be the case here.

And considering the dangers of acting in this region, the presence of Minos in this place could only indicate to those men that a grave offense had been taken. Now they would have to endure the heavy hand of a higher-level power!

They then thought that other than the survivors of the Schmidt family who had been enslaved, very few people knew of these individuals, so these men soon assumed the worst.

Gulp!

One of them then tried to speak as correctly as possible while holding back his cries of pain. "Sir, our family has no relation to those pirates. We just agreed to participate in the attacks against the Schmidt family."

"Yes! Yes!" Another of them continued. "At that time, the Schmidt's had coveted something that belonged to that pirate group. Because of that, they were exterminated!"

"We only communicated with them face to face at that time. Other than that, we only had contacts through regional pirates who do outsourced work for that pirate group." So, the strongest of them said amidst his agitated breathing.

Minos' eyebrows frowned at such words, "So, you guys still have contact with that organization?"

"Indirectly."

"Why do they keep in touch with you? And how do they do that?"

"We rarely receive instructions from them. But it has always happened through regional pirate groups."

"In those situations, we are usually contacted to support regional pirates in certain regional ruin search missions. Other than that, we haven't received anything for them so far..."

Another individual continued. "Sir, we don't actually get any help from that power. We have only managed to reach the position of serving them in hopes that our contributions would turn into opportunities for family members."

Another of them said. "At that time, the pirates who interacted with us were very pleased with that outcome and offered us a task, but we could not do much about it until then."

"A task?" Minos' eyes sharpened.

"Yes. They asked us to support some regional pirate groups searching for a certain fabric."

'A fabric?' Minos wondered doubtfully, trying to understand the purpose of that group.

He had thought that maybe the Hargraves family had some kind of outside support because the headquarters city of this organization seemed much more prosperous than it should be. But he had not thought that the Blood Triangle Pirates would be in search of a specific item rather than the spiritual beasts smuggled from the Continent of the Beasts at that time.

Because of this, he was surprised to find that an organization from that powerful state was searching for an item right in this humble region.

'But why would something relevant to an organization from that state be in this region? Could it be that they are searching for something from the time when this region was still rich in spiritual energy?'

'It can't be!'

'So much time has passed. There's no way a fabric could have lasted that long!'

'Even more so considering that anything of value around here must have been taken away by the population of the Great Migration.'

Even if that didn't happen, hundreds of thousands of years have passed, and many expeditions took place in that period!' Minos thought about it quietly.

'Perhaps some battle of outside experts might have been fought in this region? Maybe the person who carried it hid that item in this region before he died?'

But it was useless to continue pondering these possibilities. Minos did not have much evidence and could only consider what little knowledge he had between the Golden Age and the current one, the Decadence Age.

With that, he just continued with his questioning. "Then why does your city seem so much better than those controlled by other powers of the same level as you in this region?"

"Are you not getting any outside help?"