Valerian was smiling and could not stop.
The Bishop was stunned by the way Valerian spoke about killing him and the soldiers as though it would be nothing even though he was greatly outnumbered.
"Wait, young Lord, where do you come from?" the Bishop asked with both his hands up to signal a pause.
"Insolent worm, you dare..." The gorgeous woman began to sound more and more like a demon every time she opened her mouth.
"Uriel!" Valerian quickly stopped her. "Be calm. I am starting to feel less like the master of the noble Princes and more like an owner struggling to restrain his rabid dog. Show some control."
After being chided by Lord Jata, Uriel humbly curtsied and apologised.
The anger in her voice was gone but she gave Daniel a look that told him, if she got the chance, she would kill him herself.
Pushing his thoughts away from the potential threat of the girl, he turned his attention back to Valerian.
"Master of Princes, are you a young king or perhaps a regent of a distant land?" He was trying to establish some dialogue and make it out of this situation alive.
"My empire is gone but a haven will rise from its ashes." The handsome lord said with a polite smile.
Daniel noticed the young man's ears and wondered if he could be a high elf of royal birth.
Could he be one of the royals who survived the Hundreds War and needed backers to rebuild his kingdom? Something clicked in Ferris' mind.
The boy said his empire! Who is this child?
"Are you done quizzing me? I am very tired and I am in a hurry to get to the capital of this Saras kingdom."
Valerian's tone genuinely sounded like someone who wanted to be on his way and was being delayed by trivial matters.
Daniel usually acted the same way to young priests in his sect that wanted to question him and seek their advancement in the Church.
The Bishop felt as though Valerian was the busy elder while he, a Bishop, was the annoying teenager who was eager to please.
"Is there anyway we can come to some agreement as well?" the Bishop asked.
"Really? Very well. What do you have to offer?" Valerian asked.
"I have access to vast wealth that..."
"Rejected." The divine boy said cutting off the priest.
"What?" Daniel was stunned.
"Do I look like I am in need of any wealth? Besides, soon I will have access to troves of this world's currencies. What you consider wealth will not compare." Valerian stated casually.
"I have many connections with numerous royal families, the churches, merchants and military officials. I would be happy to introduce..."
"Rejected. I am getting bored."
Valerian stated again but this time with growing impatience in his voice.
Strange gusts of wind began to move between everyone there but no one cared for the wind.
Not when compared to the scene being displayed between Valerian and Daniel.
"Lord Valerian, what do you want?" Daniel asked earnestly.
"To live unbothered by mortal filth. I require peace but only true power can provide that. Everything you are describing is merely luxury and a nuisance.
"What I want right now, is for the man in that gilded carriage to step out and face me. I can smell the blood of the vampires he has killed for sport. So I suggest we play a game. I have been asleep for a long time, my dear...uh..who are you? Eh it really doesn't matter. You will die soon anyway."
He spoke these words with a terrifying ease.
He sounded like this would be easy.
"As I was saying, I have been asleep for a long time and I wish to have a nice long stretch. So please, call your friend so that we may begin and in return I will allow you a head start while my subordinates and I slaughter your soldiers and treat young Peter over there."
He was smiling again. It was the smile of a sociopath!
"I...I am a Bishop of the Greater Pantheon. Do you not fear the retribution of god and the Holy Pantheon?!" Daniel blinked and it felt like Valerian disappeared.
"I do sense divine favour on you." The voice of Valerian came from directly behind Daniel.
Daniel slowly turned around and saw the young Lord and his guards standing behind the Bishop.
'When did they move?!'
"But I do not fear your god. He is too weak and surely would not make an enemy of me for a distant descendant of his."
For what felt like the hundredth time, Daniel was surprised by this foreigner.
How could he know that he was a distant descendant of the bastard demigod son of Mars on his mother's side? Even the Church did not know that.
It was why his father married his mother after making the discovery.
Daniel's father was a high ranking Duke in the Castellon empire, a continental superpower.
That alone guaranteed Daniel's influence and future on the Haze continent but his father wanted to have a foothold in the Churches as well.
The Duke turned the daughter of an average merchant into his mistress and claimed the bastard child of that relationship, Daniel, as his son and sent him off to join the clergy.
His bloodline and relation to the god Mars would make him a candidate for becoming a Pope or a Cardinal at the very least.
However if this fact was discovered before he became an Archbishop he would die at a mysterious assassin's blade for certain.
Becoming an Archbishop would allow him to have his own standing army of five hundred Holy Knights as well as a papal territory under his control.
It would also allow him to accept gifts from high ranking nobles such as the two thousand future "gift" elite soldiers, loyal to House Ferris, that would be able to protect Daniel from other ambitious men and women of the cloth.
The fact that this mysterious boy had discovered his most guarded secret made Daniel feel like he was living in a nightmare. Yes. It had to be a nightmare. How else could this be explained?
"Huh? Are you surprised? Did you not know or was it I that was not supposed to know?" Valerian asked honestly.
"Well, it seems your companion has not finished with what he is doing. That is disappointing. I guess we can just try to see." Valerian had a malicious smile on his face as he looked at the Bishop.
"See what?" Daniel asked in terror and shot a look at the captain of the troops he brought and was utterly stunned.
The captain, the troops, they were already dead. Impaled through the skull.
Sharp, long pieces of wood kept their bodies pinned to the ground to look as though they were still standing.
'When did they die?'
The villagers who had been watching this also noticed that most of their attackers were now corpses.
"My bodyguards are quite efficient. Are they not?" He laughed apologetically.
"I told you I have wasted enough time. Those gusts of wind were from my subordinates. I got bored and they acted. I am partially to blame. They seem to have been heavily influenced by my older self. It seems that Uriel is not the only blood thirsty subordinate I have."
Valerian chuckled again. He spoke like a father whose children were caught doing a misdemeanour and was more embarrassed than upset.
Valerian stopped chuckling and looked as though he had just suddenly remembered something.
"I am sorry, Mr Bishop. I seem to have neglected to answer your question. Pardon, my rudeness. I shall correct this oversight immediately."
"What question?" Daniel asked weakly as he continued to stare at the corpses of the soldiers.
"You asked what we shall see." Valerian said acting like he was confused then gave a wicked smile. "We have to see if harming you will trigger the so-called retribution of your Church and your ancestor. We shall see if Mars would dare provoke me for you."
The worst part of what Valerian said, was not particularly his words but his face when he said them. His gorgeous and malevolent smile did not waver.
It remained so innocent and constant that no one who did not know him would believe he was talking about committing terrors to try and trigger a god's wrath.