Everyone in the room turned their attention towards Althea who was holding a small bottle filled with pills. The pills were white in color and they looked lustrous and shiny as a pearl.
Taking out one pill from the bottle, Althea looked at Ryab with a grin. Holding the pill between her thumb and index finger Althea said, "I forgot to tell you one thing ah... Look, this pill is called Amplifying pill, this pill is given to the victim when administering the tortures. After taking this pill, the pain inflicted on the body will be amplified close to a hundred times. Not only that, no matter how much a person is tortured, this pill will make sure not to let the person fall unconscious due to pain. Instead, it will help you stay conscious all along"
Playing with the pill, Althea continued, "What do you think about this pill? interesting right! Since you are starting at this pill with such an intense gaze, I think you are interested in this pill, so I will let you try it out"
Ryab was speechless, he could only curse Althea inside his mind.
"Northem, fed him this pill before administering the torture", Althea handed the pill over to Northem.
"Yes, Young Miss", accepting the pill from Althea, Northem bend down to pry open Ryab's mouth to force the pill down his throat.
"Wait", Ryab cried out impatiently at this moment.
Realising that she had already managed to trap Ryab in a narrow alley, Althea's lips slightly curled up and she motioned at Northem to stop.
"What is it? spit it out fast so that we can carry out the tortures as soon as possible", said Althea with a tinge of impatience in her tone.
With cold sweat dripping down his forehead, Ryab uttered out word by word gritting his teeth, " Young Miss... asked, me, anything, you, want"
Looking at Ryab's current appearance, Althea knew that he had been scared silly by the torture methods she had explained earlier coupled with the Amplifying pill she just showed.
The Amplifying pill she just took out is actually the Earth-grade Reinvigorating pill she refined for herself to speed up the healing process for her spirit seed. But the Amplifying pill is not something she just made up but it exists, it's just that she doesn't have it in her hand right now, so she just took out reinvigorating pill as a substitute to intimidate Ryab and it really worked. Althea was very satisfied with it.
Now that everything went according to what she planned, Althea quickly concealed her mischievous smile and bluntly said, "I don't have time to asked you all the questions one by one. Just spit out all you know and if you dare try to hold back some..."
Althea fiercely glared and Ryab and continued, "...the consequences will be unimaginable. I think I didn't need to emphasize more on it right!"
"I..I.. dare.. no..t, Young...mi..i.ss", with a stamper, Ryab replied with an ashen face.
Althea waved her hand at Northem. Getting a hint from Althea, Northem quickly retreated behind Althea and handed back the pill.
Putting way the pill, Althea shifted her attention back to Ryab and with an indifference, she said, "You can start"
Quickly adjusting his posture, Ryab started to spit out everything he knew.
Hruth encountered Ryab while he was out on a journey thirty years ago. He saved Hruth from the Black tower assassins at that time and gained the latter's trust. Afterwards, Hruth learned that Ryab was a wanderer with no home, so he offered the position of captain of the guards after recognizing his talent and also gave the clan's surname, and thus from then on he was known as Ryab Baro.
But after Ryab confessed everything, it turned out that the Black tower assassins thirty years ago were hired by Southeast King Joryth Fasio and staged a chance encounter between Ryab and Hruth Baro so that the former would easily infiltrate into the Baro clan and stay rooted.
Althea knew that the Black tower here is one of the five great powers in the land of Dura. They are an organization that will do anything for money and their branches are spread all over the land like a spider web making them stand on equal footing with the other four great powers. She clenched her fist tightly inside her sleeve, 'President Mithan of Black Tower, one day I will eliminate this force of yours'
Looking at Althea's bloodshot eyes, Ryab shudder and could not utter a single word, he felt like a huge mountain was pressing on him.
Noticing that she has unintentionally released her peak divine level pressure, Althea withdrew the pressure quickly, "continue"
After the pressure disappeared, Ryab felt like he just escaped death and without dilly-dallying, he quickly said everything he knew.
It seems Ryab was only a small lackey of Southeast King so, he didn't know any important information. He was only responsible for reporting Hruth Baro's every move and he also used to intercept messages Hruth sent out. The letter Hruth sent out to Althea was also intercepted midway by Ryab but he didn't notice any abnormality in the letter so after reading the contents, he sent back the letter.
The Beast incident that took place months ago which nearly took Althea's life was also the scheme he came up with. Under his alias name Ryovi, he made a deal with the Mori clan that if they could incite the younger generations of the Baro clan to eliminate Althea during her stay in the clan, he will reward them with three high-class earth grade weapons to the clan.
The Mori clan happily accepted the deal since they had been eyeing the City Lord's position of Alfing Town. Since Althea is the only child of Duriaz, if she were to die, Duriaz might lose his rationality and neglect the duties of a city lord, and using that excuse, the Mori clan's leader planned to disposed off Duriaz and became the city Lord making Alfing town the territory of Mori clan.
So, the Mori Clan Leader after accepting the deal with Ryab, told his son Walion Mori of the plan. Walion Mori understanding his father's intention quickly agreed and went to the hollow Mountain range with peak high-level guards to train. There he stayed for a few days until he came across Baro Clan's younger generation members who came to the mountains to train. When both the parties met, they got into an argument regarding a spiritual herb which of course was planned by Walion Mori.
Then, Walion Mori mocked the Baro clan's younger generations of how weak they are and how the granddaughter of their leader Althea is a waste with damaged spirit seed and forever doomed to be a low-level mage. He also continued to mock them by saying that the younger generation of the Baro clan is not worthy to stand on equal footing with other younger generations of eight great clans of the Southern region.
The youngsters were mocked by Walion Mori using Althea's name. So when they return to the clan, they pour out all their anger and resentment on Althea and tricked her into going to the back of the Baro Clan's mountain which is also the outer edges of the Hollow mountain range.
"A perfect plan indeed. Even if investigated, no one would come to know that you and the Mori clan were the masterminds behind the incident" Althea said narrowing her eyebrows. It was obvious that she was so angry at the moment.
"I knew that Mori clan had a hand in the beast incident but I never thought there was another mastermind behind the scenes", Althea laughed. But her laughter only brought fear to Ryab.
"How di..did yo...u... know...thaa..at.. Mori.. clan, ...was..involved?", Ryab muster up the courage to ask Althea. Their plan was perfect so, how did Althea find out? No matter how much he racked his brains, he couldn't find the answers.
"You want to know", Raising her brows Althea asked Ryab.
Scared stiff, Ryab slowly nodded.
"Okay, if you really want to know, this lady will satisfy your curiosity"
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