"The memory lake? Esteemed High Priest… What's making you in haste?" Emperor Valentin could not comprehend why High Priest Enoch acted like this.
In the old man's eyes was a visible sense of desperation and panic. What could have happened to the High Priest?
"T-the pope… is an enemy… That is all I can say…" The High Priest's lips trembled as he uttered these words. It was as if he had discovered something that he could not believe.
"H-he.. we cannot trust him… I must go to the memory lake, it's the only way!" He looked at Leon and Valentin with hopeless eyes.
In his desperation, he wanted to approach Valentin to hold his shoulders and convince him, but his raging emotions made his body unwell.
High Priest Enoch staggered, his body almost falling to the floor.
"High Priest, please calm yourself down!" Mishael, Joab, and Keren quickly went to his side and protected him from completely falling. They were so worried and so they looked at each other and helped the High Priest sit down on the sofa.
Emperor Valentin cast a grateful glance toward the three temple knights. Finally, they managed to calm down the old High Priest.
"By the way, you were talking earlier, I could deduce that you used your power, Esteemed High Priest." Emperor Valentin finally started the conversation with the calmed High Priest Enoch.
"Yes… I could not believe what I saw…" High Priest Enoch answered.
"Judging from your insistence to go to the memory lake, you would want to either take away your memory or tamper it with another… High Priest, what could you have seen to make you do such a drastic thing immediately?" Emperor Valentin asked worriedly.
Leon and the knights stayed silent and just listened to the conversation, allowing the two to discuss without interruptions.
"H-his gift is telepathy. He could read people's minds by touch…" High Priest Enoch's face darkened in horror as he revealed the crucial information. "And from the tiny fragment I was able to see, their goal is to get the identity of the Paladin… and dispose of her…"
Shock overwhelmed the entire group as they finally heard High Priest Enoch's words. No wonder High Priest Enoch was desperate to go to the memory lake… the Pope's powers were actually troublesome.
"If… if he managed to touch someone who knew of the Paladin's identity…" Keren dared not to continue her words.
"What was scary was that… not only her identity would be discovered… but Little Han will also be exposed…" Said the High Priest.
"Remember, they need someone who has a bloodline, a person with guardian's descent… that's why the Pope wanted Leon to marry the fake paladin. Little Han is what they need! He is of both Asani blood and Seirende blood!" He continued.
There was an eerie silence in the room. Such a great danger that approaches them!
"I will not allow my fiance and son to be in their hands! They have to go through me before they can do that!" Leon for the first time in such a long time emitted his deathly bloodlust, making all the people in the room suffocate in intimidation.
"Calm down, young man… That is why I proposed for the four of us to go to the memory lake to have our memories altered. I am sure that that would be enough." High Priest Enoch said.
"I am afraid it will not work, your Eminence…" Leon answered in a low tone. "There will be a lot of chances for him to touch anyone from the Imperial Family as it was part of the diplomatic relations.
"Then shall we gather all those who knew of Eli's real identity?" Joab suggested.
"The memory lake really can alter memories, but it has restrictions. Those kinds of things can only be done to one person! After that, we have to wait for ten years for the memory lake to allow someone to alter memories again." Emperor Valentin signed as he explained the information.
"That is because altering memories means to damage a part of one's soul. I am afraid that even if we had no choice, I would allow the High Priest to jeopardize your life in the process of altering memories."
"Finally, have you ever thought about how my future daughter-in-law would react the moment she knew about it? You know what kind of person she was! She will definitely be devastated." Emperor Valentin told everything that everyone needs to know about the memory lake.
The mood in the room could only fall deeper and heavier as they try to think of a way to solve the problem.
"No matter what, getting to the memory lake can only do that much." Emperor Valentin sighed. He too was feeling helpless over the matter.
They were fortunate enough to receive an advanced warning of the opponent's next move, but they simply had no way to counter it.
"I know that we cannot hide Eli's identity forever, but I just wished that we could still stall the inevitable for a few more months, or maybe years. Until we are all ready." High Priest Enoch clenched his fingers as he was saying this.
"We can only face it now… what we can do is to be ready. We have to do everything to protect as many people as possible!" Emperor Valentin declared. "Besides, we have to tell this matter to young Eli too."
"I shall inform her of your summons tomorrow." Leon immediately understood and replied.
"She recently reported that Baobao managed to detect around ten curse users that have successfully infiltrated the Empire." Leon continued.
"Any leads on who they were?" Mishael's eyes darkened, these people still managed to think of a way to get past the tight security that they had, how despicable these enemies were.
"Eli managed to get a hint of the location of the three strongest once. Upon my investigation, it belongs to the envoys from Vanderford. But as to who specifically they were, we still had to verify.
My men also were on the lookout for anything peculiar happening around the area and discovered that a part of the Capital's defense array had been deactivated. But it looks like they had a hard time deactivating a significant part of it because their progress is slow." Leon explained.
"Well that is to be expected, it is I and Eli who reinforced the arrays! Hahahaha! How can they think that they could easily solve our runes!" Mishael could not help but laugh proudly, knowing that someone was having a hard time during their work was quite a pleasant feeling.
"All we need to do right now is to figure out what they need to do. But from the recent reports, it seems like they were trying to find a way to infiltrate the city and cause chaos. They also seemed like they were not in a hurry, so I could only deduce that they target to do their plan either on the finals of the tournament or the arrival of the envoys from the main temple."
"..." The people in the room paused to think deeply about Leon's report, hearing his analysis, they also agree that these people might have two targets, the people attending the tournament or the captives that are the subject to the Main Temple's attention.
The worst-case scenario was for the enemy to target both.
"Alright… Mishael, I'll be entrusting to your team once again the task to keep the public safe from curse users. As for Leon, you have to ensure that the prisoners do not have any chance to escape regardless of the Pope's moves."
"I understand, Your Majesty!" Leon and Mishael nodded in response.
"Joab, Keren, we too shall not stay idle and wait for trouble to happen. If the enemies are out in the open, we shall also announce our presence. The temple knights were still someone they had to keep an eye on!" High Priest Enoch ordered.
"We understand, Your Eminence." Joab and Keren replied.
"As for the matter of the memory, we have to tell this to Eli. She had to mentally prepare for the worst-case scenario. We also have to accept the fact that we have no means to stop the Priest from reading what was on our minds." Emperor Valentin said to High Priest Enoch.
"Alright… we have no choice but to confront these enemies head on." High Priest Enoch replied, his eyes turning serious and fierce.
"Even if they had to touch everyone in the Empire, I will not let them get their way to Eli and my son. Should they insist, please… run as fast as you can for I will be going all out to destroy them all!" Leon said with a cold ruthless voice.
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