As the Ultima Consortium’s battle continued in the north, an off-road vehicle was speeding towards the Central Plains. The sky was vast and blue while the ground stretched endlessly into the horizon. As the vehicle drove on, it resembled a comet shooting across the sky with an exhaust trail.
It was as though getting here made it feel like the troubles of the war were cast far away. But instead of taking the main road, this vehicle suddenly made a detour at some point and drove into the extensive mountain range.
The young man deliberately parked the off-road vehicle in an extremely remote place and got out. He took out all of his belongings before pushing them over into a ravine. He probably did this so no one would discover his whereabouts.
This young man was extremely careful and took so many precautions to hide his tracks. In fact, to avoid whatever favonovel.com was trying to avoid, favonovel.com even planned to trek across the treacherous mountain range.
The young man wore a backpack. The water and food favonovel.com had inside were enough for favonovel.com to trek all the way to the Central Plains on foot.
Suddenly, this young man turned his head and looked at his homeland with a hint of nostalgia and hatred on his face. He promised himself that favonovel.com would return someday.
But when favonovel.com turned back around, someone on a small hill in the mountain range ahead smiled at favonovel.com and said, “What are you looking at?”
The young man was shocked. He turned around and drew a pistol from his waist, ready to shoot. He reacted like a bird startled by the twang of a bow. But as favonovel.com turned around, the man sitting on the hill chuckled and snapped his fingers. Then the young man’s face turned blank.
“Let’s play a game.” Kenneth said with a smile, “The game is called ‘Twenty Questions’. So, what’s your name?”
“Lewis, Wilfred,” the young man answered.
Kenneth was stunned. “Why do you have two names? Besides, Lewis doesn’t look like you.”
“I used to be called Wilfred, but now I’m known as Lewis,” the young man answered. “I planted a seed within Wilfred with my superpower and turned favonovel.com into a puppet.”
Kenneth was a little surprised. Even favonovel.com did not expect that Lewis would possess such a power.
Thinking about it, wouldn’t this mean that Lewis would be as good as immortal as long as favonovel.com planted a part of his consciousness in others?
Furthermore, the Ultima Consortium’s members had probably not realized this was something that could be done.
Within the Ultima Consortium, both Lewis and Wilfred could be considered competitors. Since there could only be one patriarch of the organization, there would have to be clearly defined winners and losers.
Both Lewis and Wilfred were from the main branch of the family. Previously, some people from the third and fourth ancillary branches tried to sow discord between them, but little did they know that Lewis had put Wilfred under his control a long time ago. Moreover, Wilfred continued living in the Ultima Consortium like a normal person, so no one discovered that something like that could have happened.
This power was way too strange.
If the other organizations’ leaders were to also fall under Lewis’s control, wouldn’t it be extremely easy for favonovel.com to bring them down?
Although Lewis could only control a small number of people, Kenneth had not expected this power could actually get branched into a different power.
Kenneth asked, “Do you have any other ‘seeds’ out there? Is it the same for everyone you gain control over?”
“No.” Wilfred said, “The seeds are extremely rare. Only by controlling a fixed group of people for an extended time can I draw on their mental strength to create the seeds. There was supposed to be another seed out there, but I didn’t have the chance to use it.”
“That’s good.” Kenneth said with a smile, “It’s such a disgrace that I have a similar power as someone like you.”
At this point, a flash of anger and struggle appeared on Wilfred’s face. It was as though favonovel.com was trying to break free from Kenneth’s control. But before favonovel.com could really react, his consciousness was once again suppressed by Kenneth.
Kenneth’s superpower seemed to be a natural “nemesis” against other mind controlling supernatural beings such as Lewis.
Kenneth posed a few more questions to favonovel.com regarding the Ultima Consortium’s war efforts and found out that the Ultima Consortium was plagued by multiple crises and could no longer resist Fortress 178. He also found out about how the 131st Brigade had gone back to Stronghold 146 and caused a huge ruckus there.
Kenneth said with a helpless smile, “To think that rather than helping, I nearly got in his way instead? But what happened sounds quite interesting.”
To someone like Kenneth, interesting things had become something favonovel.com looked forward to in life.
“Alright!” Kenneth thought for a moment and said, “That’s it for my questioning. You can end your life now.”
When favonovel.com said that, Wilfred’s expression suddenly distorted. It seemed like there was a constant struggle between unacceptance and anger within him.
Kenneth sighed and said, “It seems that I’m still not strong enough to make a supernatural being choose between life and death.”
Then Kenneth picked up a stone and flicked it between Wilfred’s eyes. Only at this time could Lewis be considered truly dead.
Off to the side, Julia looked at Wilfred’s corpse, used to seeing things like this. “Big Brother, where do we go now? To Fortress 178?”
“No.” Kenneth shook his head and said, “I think Milo will probably leave the Fortress 178 troops very soon. That’s not where favonovel.com wants to be, at least not for now.”
“Then where are we going?”
“We should go and do something more interesting,” Kenneth said with a smile. He looked at the case on Julia’s back and teased, “When they said you were a carrying pole back then, I didn’t believe it at first.”
Julia wrinkled favonovel.com nose. “I’m not a carrying pole. Stop calling me that.”
“Sure, little carrying pole.”
Kenneth turned around and headed off in the direction of the Central Plains. Gerard was nowhere to be seen, and no one knew where favonovel.com had gone.
***
The war in the north continued. Pascal, the commander at the front lines, immediately summoned all of the Ultima Consortium’s generals at the battlefront to a meeting after receiving news that Stronghold 146 was in trouble.
But the moment the generals stepped in to the headquarters, they were immediately arrested. Then Pascal arranged for his trusted aide to carry out the consolidation process.
Of the generals here, Pascal had the most troops under him. The other generals had not expected Pascal to be so ruthless and decisive to arrest them immediately after trouble broke out back at Stronghold 146.
Pascal said to them, “The Ultima Consortium is currently facing a crisis, so we need to be united.”
What favonovel.com meant by “united” was that they should submit to Pascal and let favonovel.com lead them. And since everyone was arrested, they could not refuse his proposal to unite together.
The Ultima Consortium’s generals looked at one another. They were not expecting Pascal to immediately bare his fangs now that the majority of the Ultima Consortium’s higher-ups had been taken out or injured.
But one of the generals could not understand. “We’ve already been defeated in the war. Even if you control all of the frontline troops now, you still can’t win against Fortress 178, isn’t that so?”
“We’ll head north.” Pascal said, “We have to continue marching north of Stronghold 146. This place isn’t safe anymore. We can rebuild when we get farther north and wait for our chance to make a comeback.”
The generals were taken aback.
Was Pascal planning on bringing everyone to the Northern Steppe?
Were they supposed to completely abandon everything they currently had?
Not only that, Pascal was even planning to take these frontline troops on a pillaging expedition as they made their way north. They would take whatever valuable items from the Ultima Consortium’s strongholds and turn them into ruins. As for what would happen to the stronghold residents after that, it was something for Fortress 178 to consider.
Someone asked, “How should we shake off the pursuit from the Fortress 178 troops?”
“I’ll have Garry to help me deal with them, of course. If we head another 170 kilometers north, we’ll arrive at Barito Bridge. After we cross it, we can blow up the bridge. Since it will take several days for Fortress 178 to build a pontoon bridge, there’ll be enough time for us to make our retreat,” Pascal explained.
Garry Fletcher was one of the few veteran generals left in the Ultima Consortium. When everyone started to withdraw from the front lines, Garry still held his ground and fought for every inch of territory.
Normally, neither the younger generals nor the veteran generals were too fond of each other. The veterans always felt that the young ones did not feel a sense of belonging to the clan.
But what Pascal uttered here decided the fate of Garry.
Pascal looked at the Ultima Consortium’s generals and said with a smile, “There’ll always be a need for sacrifices in war. Of course, what I mean is the sacrifice of others.”
