The Witch Hunter System

Emperor Varan didn't expect the Delarosas to have such a troublesome history.

Not only did they join the demons, but they also stole a piece of Furhengir's carcass, which the Black Rose Kingdom brought back from Gehenna at a great price!

It was no secret that Furhengir's carcass was robbed by numerous forces after it was brought back to the Black Rose Kingdom. That incident had always been a sore spot in the Black Rose Kingdom's history.

Now that the Black Rose Kingdom was on a fast rise and incomparably powerful to its past, it had become one of the few countries Emperor Varan least wanted to antagonize.

It was also for that reason that Emperor Varan chose to negotiate for true dragon blood instead of trying to seize it by force despite knowing how crucial it was for the Red Wyvern Ancestor's breakthrough and survival.

He would rather lose the guardian beast of their empire than provoke the wrath of enemies with strength far greater than his own empire. Unfortunately, it turned out that one of the forces that robbed the Black Rose Kingdom actually came from his empire!

If the Black Rose Kingdom found out and directed its anger at the Great Ratholos Empire, it was unknown what disastrous consequences would come of it.

"Damn you, Delarosas!" Emperor Varan growled in anger, stepping on Matriarch Laelana with increasing force until bone-crunching noises were heard.

He momentarily forgot his original reason for immobilizing Matriarch Laelana as he took his anger out on her.

"Ahhh--!"

"Matriarch!"

Matriarch Laelana cried out in pain while her people cried out of concern and helpless frustration.

"Don't come here! There's nothing you can do to save me!" Matriarch Laelana growled with gritted teeth, enduring the torment of pain as her body mended itself once more.

Crunch!

Emperor Varan broke Matriarch Laelana's back once more as he felt resistance from her, causing her to wail again.

"Ahhh--!"

Amidst her painful cries, Matriarch Laelana's eyes darkened like a bottomless black abyss.

She felt anger, humiliation, and despair.

"It's over, Delarosas. I have your Matriarch. Surrender now, and you will be granted fair judgment. Stay stubborn, and you will die a cruel death," Emperor Varan gave the Delarosas an ultimatum.

"Shit! What do we do?!" the Delarosan members panicked with helplessness and indecision.

In truth, they had yet to suffer much loss. Of the three thousand members within the territory, not even a hundred of them had died. However, the family head was in the emperor's hands.

"Emperor Varan is too strong! Our powers are not enough to save the family head! We need the elders to intervene! Only they can save her!" a Delarosan member spoke.

However, all the elders in the inner courtyard hesitated.

Although they all possessed Rank 5 Totems, they weren't as well-equipped as Matriarch Laelana. As such, even if they fought Emperor Varan altogether, they might not necessarily do any better than her.

Crunch!

As Emperor Varan grew impatient with the Delarosas' silence, he again crushed Matriarch Laelana's bones, shaking everyone's heart and will to resist.

Suddenly, a soft sigh was heard.

The sigh was so soft, aged, and feeble that it seemed like it had come from a dying old man with half a foot in the coffin. No one would think it belonged to someone powerful if they had heard it.

However, Emperor Varan felt a chill when he heard it.

The sigh came from right beside him when there was obviously no one there. He couldn't even feel any presence, which made him think it was a mistake, an illusion.

That said, Emperor Varan couldn't have heard wrong; he was sure of it.

"Your Imperial Majesty… Look ahead of you…!" an imperial guard pointed out with a look of shock and confusion as if he was surprised by what he saw but couldn't understand how it happened.

In front of the inner gates, Matriarch Laelana stood beside an elderly man with a pale face, still recovering from her injuries.

Emperor Varan was only distracted for a moment, but it was all it took for the elderly man to retrieve Matriarch Laelana from underneath his feet. More alarmingly, he did not even sense how or when it happened.

As such, Emperor Varan immediately viewed the elderly man as a great threat – the person's ability was too mystical and mysterious.

"Your Imperial Majesty, you are, after all, the dignified emperor of a great nation. It is not good for your image to bully my granddaughter like so. How about you play with this old man instead?" the elderly man spoke, his voice so feeble and lacking in strength that it sounded like a ghost's whisper.

"You… You are Galen Delarosa! But how? That's not possible! You are from my father's generation… How can you still be alive?!" Emperor Varan's expression twisted with sheer shock and disbelief.

Galen Delarosa was someone he did not expect to meet.

However, the person was, indeed, still alive, albeit barely with any lifespan left. The person was so thin and aged that he appeared to be comprised of decaying, old, wrinkly skin and bones.

Galen didn't look much different from a walking corpse.

"Kekeke, considering what you did to my granddaughter, I don't see the need to answer you. However, suppose you can escape from my cage. In that case, I don't mind answering a few questions as a form of reward," Galen gave a condition.

In the next moment, he opened his clenched fist and blew the black dust on his palm toward Emperor Varan.

Emperor Varan didn't dare slacken his vigilance for a moment – he kept his body cloaked in Aura and immediately cleaved apart the cloud of black dust with an enhanced sword wave.

However, it almost seemed as if Emperor Varan had cleaved apart the dimension itself as he saw his surroundings change.

The courtyard, the imperial soldiers, the Delarosas, and even Matriarch Laelana and Galen disappeared before Emperor Varan's very eyes, replaced by a desolate world of endless graves with a red sky, thunderous black clouds, and an eerie eye-looking moon.

"This… How can this be?" Emperor Varan immediately frowned. He thought he had blocked the attack but was still taken into this unknown world.

"This should be an illusion… Everything has to be fake," he guessed.