Inhuman Warlock

Arthur stepped inside the hall, surprising everyone who hadn't expected him to be here. 

"Arthur? How come you're here?" Feronia asked, stunned to see Arthur here. 

She was already assigned to be here by the Queen. There wasn't any need for another Noble here. 

"Can't I be here?" Arthur asked, seemingly amused. 

He walked over to the sofa and sat on it, resting one leg above the other. 

"Can you bring some water for me?" he asked, glancing at the new maid. 

The maid bowed respectfully before she turned and left. 

"You can certainly be here, but I wonder if you would have come here for no reason," Feronia told Arthur. "Did you need them for something?"

"I guess you can say that. As you may have heard, Her Majesty assigned me the responsibility of finding more about the disappearance of Lucifer," Arthur explained. "I'm here regarding that."

"That's right. We wanted to approach you too. Did you find out where he is? What did Milena tell you about his whereabouts?" Salazar asked, not keeping his hopes high. He was already sure that Arthur was going to say that they didn't know. 

Still, there was a sliver of hope inside him which made him think that he might actually get some answers. 

"Regarding that, I have no clue at the moment. Even Her Majesty doesn't know about the whereabouts of your leader. She thinks that he ran away in fear," Arthur replied.

"Nonsense! Why would he run away in fear? And that too, without us? That's the stupidest excuse you people could have used!"

"Hey, we don't know what kind of person he was. We're going by our assumption. It's just that at this point— an assumption. That's why I was assigned this case to investigate the truth," Arthur replied, sighing. "So, let's not lose hope at this point."

The maid returned with a glass of water and gave it to Salazar. 

Salazar drank water before returning the empty glass to the maid. 

Sirius shifted his attention back to Salazar before he continued. "If I want to get the answers, I need to ask you a few questions. Only you can help me locate Lucifer and find the truth."

In the absence of Lucifer, he was sure that the only person worth his attention was Salazar. Caen and Heath didn't appear to be worth his time. 

"You might need to get to the truth, but not us. I think we already know the answer to who is behind all this. He disappeared in this place. And only you people are capable enough of doing it! No other enemy could have come here!"

"Now, Arthur. I don't know what you'll investigate when you already know the crux of the situation, but it doesn't matter. Just remember, if we don't get Lucifer back, there will be death and destruction everywhere. And I'm not talking about myself!"

Salazar threatened Arthur, frowning. 

"You think I was bad in the battles today? I was nothing! I'm not even strong enough to be a leader! Lucifer is a thousand times stronger than me. And there are hundreds of people as strong as Lucifer in the Warlock Council!"

"We kept avoiding the arrogance of the Divine Empire because we had high patience. You turned one of our envoys? It was fine. We didn't grow upset. But not with Lucifer. Just remember my words," He further stated, trying to intimidate Arthur to return Lucifer. 

He even lied a light about having many people as strong as Lucifer, but it wasn't as if anyone was going to know about it. 

He even warned of a possible future war as a consequence of this disappearance, not knowing how close the situation was to an actual war. 

"I don't take kindly to threats, my friend." Arthur frowned, getting slightly upset. "I know you're upset about the disappearance, but that doesn't mean we'll be scared of a threat! Here I am, trying to help you. But if you want to antagonize me, then just know it won't be good for anyone!"

Arthur issued a warning of his own. He opened his lips again to continue but stopped as he felt some vibration in his pocket. 

He brought his phone out of his pocket and picked up the call, "Yeah?"

"Huh?" 

Arthur's face went grim within a few seconds of him picking up the call. 

He wasn't the only one. Feronia's phone also started ringing at the moment. 

She also picked up the call. Her reaction was the same as that of Arthur. 

"Are you serious?" Arthur asked, standing up, shocked. 

"Alright. I'll be there!" he declared. "As soon as I take care of things here!"

He disconnected the call before glaring at Salazar. "You bastards! You really tricked us!"

"What do you mean? What did we do?" Salazar asked, confused. 

"Don't act innocent now! Here you are, threatening to attack us while your people have already started attacking us? Is that the way you want things to be done? Then so be it! Just know, you'll regret turning against me!" he raged. 

"Attacking you? What nonsense. We can't even contact our people while we're here. How would we even tell them to attack?" Salazar asked, confused. "Are you telling the truth? Warlock Council is attacking?"

Even he was surprised at how it was happening so fast. From the information they had, it was clear that the Warlock Council had no plans of attacking the Divine Empire in the near future. There was no way they could have attacked. 

As for the attack of Uprising, that was also impossible. They couldn't get here so fast! They didn't even know about Lucifer's disappearance. But if the attackers weren't those two, then who was it?

"I think he's lying. He wanted to blame us so he could take us out. Moreover, this story about the Warlock Council attacking this place is just to confuse us so we can't give our all when they try to kill us!" Caen let out, putting the pieces together.

Even he had seen the confidential data. It made evident that the Warlock Council wasn't going to attack. If they were going to, then why would Uprising even send their team here? 

They could have just waited in the background to take on an exhausted enemy who was left standing after the war. Why did they need to be first!

"I think the same. First, they took out Lucifer. And now they want to take us all out with excuses?" Salazar muttered. "If the Warlock Council was attacking us, we would have known! And as I said, we can't even contact them because of the jammers you guys use!"