Everyone looked around in disbelief thinking something was at play as they began muttering. As for the emperor and Smith, both of them narrowed their eyes at John.
John waited and looked around, but no one did anything. "Seriously how boring are you guys. I thought at least one of you will try to attack me. Hopefully, one of you idiots will try attacking me outside the courtroom."
As for the commandments, all of them looked at Dexter, Titus and Maximus who seemed all too calm about this.
'So, they knew.' Stephen watched them.
Albert opened one eye from his sleep as he thought. 'But what are they planning with this last-minute backing out? Oh, is that fruit fly?' His eyes fully opened as he looked at the fruit fly flying towards the emperor's fruit.
'Come on, so close.' He watched in excitement.
*Swat* Only for it to be smacked aside by the barrier around the fruit.
'Are you fucking kidding me?' Albert looked annoyed as he went back to sleep.
"Are you sure about this prince John Emberson?" Smith asked with slight excitement.
"Yeah." John shrugged with a smile.
"You understand what will happen once you back down?" The emperor asked seriously.
"Sure, go ahead. I don't really care about the R&D, the restaurant, grey zone, assassination etc anymore. I only decided to do this because I was under the orders of someone." The emperor knew something was up otherwise John wouldn't back down at the last minute especially when he had a mysterious backer.
"You know we won't hesitate to chain you up and rip you apart limb by limb as soon as the court is over right?" Steven asked John who grinned.
"Why wait until the court is over? Do it now." No one dared.
The emperor looked at Dexter and the 2 commandments sat by him. "You 3 agree with this?"
They smiled. "Sure. We want to rip him to shreds as much as every single person in the court does."
"Very well. I hereby declare…" Everyone got ready in their seats to launch forward and restrain John.
"…that from this day forth…" Merlin readied his spells quietly along with the several Magi's in the court.
"…Prince John Emberson will be now known as John Field, stripped of his position." Few people flashed across the courtroom racing towards John.
Just as their attacks, spells and restraints were about to land on him a wall of darkness erupted from John's shadow separating the attacks from John.
"Oh, I might have forgotten to say the name of my backer is, Prince James the 3rd." Everyone looked at the crown prince in shock to see him sat quietly and seriously in his seat while Tom who stood by him lowered his hand dropping the wall of shadows around John.
"James, what is this?" The emperor was angry as the people around John quickly moved back to their seats.
James' expression was very serious unlike how playful and immature he usually was. "I ordered him, your highness." Everyone looked at James having become stupefied. The boy who usually addressed the Emperor as 'father' as his birthright demanded now addressed the emperor by his title.
The emperor gritted his teeth while everyone in the hall began murmuring. "Explain yourself!" For the 1st time, the emperor was furious towards his beloved child.
The court was getting loud as people began murmuring in confusion.
"A few years ago, John came to me with evidence of some secret undercurrents of the empire." The court grew silent to hear the crown prince.
"I didn't really believe it until I saw the evidence of it with my own eyes outside one of the brothels." The hall was extremally quiet.
'Did this mean the crown prince was fooling everyone from the get-go?' Many of them thought.
"After a few more spying and some guessing we concluded who these groups were and their plans." James smiled.
"Remember the plague?" James' question caused everyone to frown as they looked at John who smiled.
"It wasn't John. Rather John was able to steal the antidote from them under the guise of the restaurant." Most of the court members looked at John in shock.
"The plague was Phase 1 of the mysterious groups 3 step program to kill someone very powerful." John began.
Everyone looked at the emperor in worry. "Not the emperor." John shook his head.
"Someone more powerful. Someone equal or close to the power of a god." People slowly started to comprehend where John was going.
"An apostle?" John nodded.
"What they wanted was the plague to spread to the Federation and the land of faithful, uncontrollably." James began.
"This involved a series of other complicated and intricate plans which would end up with most of the world dead, along with the beginning of the death of a very specific apostle. However, this was all changed due to John's keen observation and us stealing their cure and using it with John's food." Everyone was even more surprised.
"Now this group had changed their several steps programme thanks to my interference to a 1 step programme." John carried on.
"To bring that apostle here and kill them inside the empire away from the protection of their guards back at their HQ."
"Who is that apostle?" One of the commandment asked for everyone.
"The apostle of the Almighty One." Everyone drew in a short breath and held it.
"Who is going to kill her?" Another commandment asked.
A thing that most people other than a select few didn't notice was that the commandment, emperor and Smith didn't believe the story at all.
"Linda Storm, the woman who tried killing me at the banquet 2 years ago. Why and where else do you think all these assassination attempts on me has been coming from?
The bombing that killed my bodyguards, the banquet assassination, the assassination attempt outside the grey zone and just recently the assassination attempt inside the R&D." Everyone was surprised the hear there was an assassination attempt inside the R&D.
Before they could answer John spoke up. "I will tell you these assassinations are definitely not because I am the 3rd prince and most definitely not from anyone in this court, that I can guarantee."
"Then who are they?" James the 3rd smiled.
"A crazy but powerful group who seeks to kill all the apostle for an unknown reason, with the primary one needing to be the apostle of the Almighty one. Other than that, we are as clueless as everyone here, except for getting a few clues into what they are planning amongst other things." The hall came to life once more as everyone discussed what was going on.
--------------------------------
[A few hours later- Ez PoV]
I walked out with a smile feeling the link within every single court member. It was easy to make all those trashes believe me so easily only with the partial help of my award. But that wasn't the case for the commandments and quite a few powerful ones. They were too powerful for my award to even affect them as much as it affected those weak trashes.
If I had a 75% influence on the weak ones, then the commandments and few powerful ones were only under 0.5% or less influence. Hence the reason the commandment, emperor, and Smith knew what I spouted with James was bullshit.
The only reason Dexter, Titus and Maximus agreed to let go of my position was that I promised them that they will be on the winning side from the very beginning, I just didn't specify which winning side they will be in at the end.
Staying with me was a confirmed 'losing' move to their eyes and will earn the wrath of the emperor along with others.
This was a win-win situation for them.
I finally have no more need to work anymore.
After today all the credits of my work went to James the 3rd. Do I care? Please, as if I could care about these silly achievements. It was like an adult going to primary school and winning a competition with 8-year-olds. Or did I?
Meh, I have everything I needed for now.
Soon this world would rely on the internet. Unknown to them was that there was a practical lord of the internet observing everything they do on the internet. This way I had eyes and ears everywhere without having to be there.
"You punk! You are on our side huh?" Albert smiled happily as he placed his arm around me like we were old pals.
"Meh!" I shrugged my shoulders. They had pretty much won the game without lifting a finger.
Steven's group had 4 commandments in support and the crown Prince had 6 commandments now.
The only way to shift the balance in their favour was by earning the support of the court, which they have to work hard from now on.
As for me? I was essential to the crown prince alive until his enthronement. They would wait to dispose of me after that.
"Hey, how about you cook me some food for free since we are on the same side?" He grinned with his teeth.
'Should I punch and break a few of his teeth?'