The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart

Silence reigned in the room for a long time.

All the final decision makers of four out of the five kingdoms were present in this room right now. A true high level meeting, Mana thought to herself, even though it started out as a social gathering of sorts.

"I will investigate this thoroughly as soon as I return to the Pearl Kingdom," Head Sage Yue said quietly with a sigh. "Although, I'm afraid that Aqi is right. I have trusted the wrong people, and the Pearl Kingdom is paying the price for it."

"Do let us know if you need help in dealing with the Amber Kingdom," King Jaren offered.

"Indeed," Queen Carolina said. "The Sapphire Kingdom also has a small bit of shared border with the Amber Kingdom on the northern tip of the Inga Sea, and despite the border area being small, we have put doubly strengthened border wards there – it is even stricter that what you find along the rest of the border areas of the Sapphire Kingdom. This is because we found in the past that the spies and minions of the Amber Kingdom were setting up secret arrays and trying to take over our lands bit by bit. So we always pay extra attention to our area near the Inga Sea." She looked at Head Sage Yue. "If you need any help from the Sapphire Kingdom, please do let me know."

King Jaren nodded, fully in agreement with Queen Carolina. He turned to Head Sage Yue and made his suggestions to the other man as well, based on his own experience with the Amber Kingdom in the recent past. "You may also want to check your arrays throughout the borders shared with the Amber Kingdom, Head Sage Yue," King Jaren said in a grave voice. "In the Emerald Kingdom, we have found a lot of clandestine arrays being set up along the borders of the Amber Kingdom which were probably meant to breach into my Emerald Kingdom and claim some territory secretly – but as I said, our border wards are geared for very strong defence, so these arrays have been failing repeatedly. The one array that they somehow managed to get into the Verdant Hills several months ago to set of the eruption of a dormant volcano – that was diffused with the joint efforts of Jules, Mana and Raven. Since then, we have become extra careful and especially conduct regular checks across the entire territory of the Emerald Kingdom. We found a lot of hidden arrays – some were seemingly harmless and some were quite alarming – and we have been destroying all of them right away. We don't want to take any chances with the safety of any of our citizens," he explained. Of course, King Jaren rather conveniently left out the fact that all these arrays had been eaten by their little Azar as easily as a bag of his favourite salt and vinegar flavoured potato chips or a bottle of his favourite chocolate milkshake. That was extremely classified information, naturally, and none of the people in the know about this entire thing would ever want to reveal all of their baby dragon's powers. Besides, none of them even knew the exact extent of Azar's powers anyway.

Head Sage Yue was aghast. He had no idea that the Amber Kingdom had already started with such nefarious activities on such a scale – and the Emerald Kingdom and the Sapphire Kingdom were very powerful and prosperous countries, and they could dedicate a lot of resources to their border control. The Emerald Kingdom didn't even have a proper military force – but they had the Mercenary Guild working for them almost exclusively. And that meant that no matter who the opponent was, the Emerald Kingdom always got away with hardly any damage. This was also one of the reasons why no one wanted to wage a war with the Emerald Kingdom. King Jaren would simply throw a tremendous amount of gold at the Mercenary Guild, and then the Mercenary Guild would jump into action. The people of the Mercenary Guild came from all five kingdoms, so in a war, they had an almost unfair advantage, regardless of who their opponent was. And besides, the Mercenary Guild was very clear that they worked only for money and nothing else. And which kingdom could possibly have more money than the Emerald Kingdom?

It really was very clever – the citizens of the Emerald Kingdom didn't have to go to war themselves, and there would be nothing other than gold that would be lost. Besides, the members of the Mercenary Guild were highly skilled professional fighters – it was difficult to win any battle against them. And in the unlikely event that the Mercenary Guild actually lost a battle, King Jaren could always deploy his own imperial shadow guards, the imperial guards and the civilian police force – who were as fearsome as any soldier – probably more. The imperial shadow guards of the Emerald Kingdom were a thing of legend – other than the ruling monarch himself, no one knew their identities – not even the members of the royal family. They only listened to the ruling monarch and no one else and their identities were completely secret. No one would even know when you spoke to them – they could be a person on the street handing you a balloon or a lollipop, and you wouldn't even know that you had met an imperial shadow guard.

In fact, Mana was quite convinced that a good portion of the anonymous gifts that had been sent to her and Raven and Azar in the last few months were actually sent by members of the imperial shadow guards.

The regular imperial guards and the civilian police force, on the other hand, were out in the open and highly skilled. That was because they were trained by the Mercenary Guild – and this was another reason why the Mercenary Guild favoured the Emerald Kingdom so much (other than the generous flow of gold, of course). During times of peace, there wasn't much for the Mercenary Guild to do, other than an assignment here or an assignment there – but thanks to the Emerald Kingdom, the Mercenary Guild was permanently gainfully employed in the training of the imperial guards of the Emerald Kingdom and the civilian police force of the Emerald Kingdom. In fact, it was not unusual for some members of the Mercenary Guild to apply for immigration to the Emerald Kingdom as an ordinary citizen and then join the regular imperial guards or the civilian police force. Just in the last six months, almost thirty members of the Mercenary Guild had done so – and King Jaren never denied them as long as the Head of the Mercenary Guild, who was a very close friend of King Jaren, had approved of that particular member of the Mercenary Guild for migration to civilian life. The two of them would sit together and have a discussion about each migrating member of the Mercenary Guild, and then King Jaren would fast track their application and make sure that they were able to integrate themselves into the civilian life of the Emerald Kingdom. Later, if they wished to return to the Mercenary Guild, that was permitted, too – although, in the last fifteen years or so, there was only one person who went back, and that, too, was after his entire family was brutally murdered during their trip to the Amber Kingdom by a gang of bandits who drugged them all secretly and then killed them – the former mercenary had merely stepped out for an hour to buy a toy that his youngest daughter was throwing a tantrum over, leaving the rest of his family at the inn, and when he came back, he found his wife, his two sons and two daughters, the maid, the page, the two servants - everyone had been killed. The inn keeper had colluded with the bandits.

The man had completely lost his wits upon seeing the bloody scene. Instantly, the blood lust of a mercenary that he had suppressed for many years for his family, erupted violently, and within the next hour, the inn keeper and all the minions who were involved in this massacre, as well as the entire gang of bandits had been wiped out single handedly by this man. After that, the man had gone to the ambassador of the Emerald Kingdom to turn himself in, for he had no will to live anymore, and even if they were evil doers, he, being a citizen of the Emerald Kingdom, had killed citizens of the Amber Kingdom. The ambassador had put him in one of the rooms of the embassy and immediately contacted King Jaren. King Jaren and the Head of the Mercenary Guild had shown up right away and taken the bereaved man with them, after assuring the ambassador that they would take care of the matter themselves. Then the two of them had managed to convince the man to give up any thoughts of dying – and a month later, the man was back in the Mercenary Guild. He worked harder than anyone else and was the closest to the Head of the Mercenary Guild.. And eventually, he had become the Deputy Chief of the Mercenary Guild.