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Chapter 123:

"The fuck is this bullshit?" He asked.

Theodore looked at him in confusion. "You don\'t know? You\'ve become the tragic hero who prevented a war. Articles and Videos like this are currently trending everywhere. The Valentino Family has confirmed what you said yesterday and thanked you for your help."

"Really?"

Theodore deadpanned. "Mate, look around you."

Axel looked around. As always, people were looking at him. But this time, he noticed a difference. Everyone\'s gaze was a lot friendlier, and for some reason, most of the girls were looking at him with this dreamy look mixed with pity that gave him goosebumps.

Axel raised an eyebrow. "I don\'t understand. Why are they making a big deal out of this?"

Theodore shrugged. "Well, you fake your engagement. And the war didn\'t happen. Of course everyone would be grateful."

\'Damn…\' Axel bit his tongue. In the interview, when asked why he had faked the engagement, giving the real reason, which was his wand, was not an option. So he had just lied that it was to prevent the war. In fact, he actually didn\'t give a shit whether the world was at war or not. He had just said it to dodge the question.

They war did not stop because of his engagement. The war actually stopped… because Axel had killed the Head of Mikhailov Family.

Sitting in the great hall, Axel was at a loss of words. Should he be clearing this misunderstanding? He felt like it would be worth it just to get rid of the weird looks he was getting from the girls. It was starting to creep him out.

Tracy had a worried look on her face. "Though, now that it\'s been revealed that Axel had been fooling the Mikhailov family, wouldn\'t they try to get even?" She asked.

Theodore shook his head. "The new leader is much more easy-going. So it\'s safe to reveal it now."

Tracy was confused. "But how did this happen? Aren\'t leadership changes like this quite bloody and violent? How come we never heard of it?"

Theodore was also at a loss. "It\'s quite a mystery. No one knows what actually happened, but one day the previous leader just died and it was announced that his brother had overtaken the position. From then on, the Mikhailov Family slowly started shutting down all of their shady businesses and started new ones."

"Axel, you\'re involved in all this, right? Do you happen to know how this happened?" Asked Tracy, turning to Axel.

??

For a moment, Axel was at a loss of words. But then he just shook his head innocently. "I have no idea."

He lied. Of course, he had a pretty good idea what had happened. After all, he was the main cause of all the changes. Though it wasn\'t something he could say openly, could he? In the first place, he hadn\'t even intended to interfere more between the Valentinos and the Mikhailovs. But the extenuating circumstances forced him to step in.

Axel recalled what had happened...

—Flashback—

In the Territory of the Mikhailovs, Axel looked at the place from a distance. He wanted no extra trouble. He just wanted to loot as much as the could and leave. He just wanted to get the resources to bring Daphne\'s memories back and also dish out a little payback while at it for revealing his identity to the world.

Of course, things didn\'t go as he had planned. There are some things that you just can\'t avoid.

Axel made his way to the main castle at top speed. But on his way, when he looked at the situation around him, his footsteps unwittingly slowed down.

There were people here. An awful lot of them.

This place was the place of residence of the Mikhailovs. So, only the most important businesses were situated here.

But then, why would they keep so many witches and wizards here? It didn\'t make sense. So, Axel checked the memories he got from Maksmilian. But the part of the memories he had managed to get from Maksmilian didn\'t have much information on this.

Only when he read the minds of a few of the people here did he understand.

Muggles...

Or more precisely, muggle slaves...

All these people. They had been kidnapped from the Muggle world and made into slaves, forced to work here under horrible conditions. Looking at their conditions, even Axel had to frown.

But, this was just the beginning. As Axel began to make his way deeper into the Mikhailov territory and read a few more minds, things only got worse.

Turns out, the Mikhailovs were experts at acquiring and training slaves. To the point that they were the world\'s biggest slave trader. There were various categories available here. Working slaves, sex slaves, warrior slaves, wizards, healers, potioneers... you name it. And they weren\'t only used here. They were traded all over the world.

Not only that... there are children as well.

Axel\'s fists clenched.

It\'s not like he wanted to take down one of the biggest syndicates in the world. It\'s just that he began to feel that, it would be nice if this stopped.

Really. He really didn\'t want to get involved.

Shaking his head, he made his way deeper into the place. The Palace was quite huge and grandiose, which was not a surprise, but it did make it more difficult for Axel to maneuver around the place. His current thoughts were to find the people at high positions as he would be able to extract the desired Intel from them.

Reading the minds of some of the slave-drivers, he understood the gist of the situation. Currently, all this hubbub is because the Mikhailov Family is in a state of war. Due to that, the security has been tightened and preparations are being made for a war against the Valentino family. Hence the huge amount of slaves.

Nothing affected Axel though. He only needed to look for Andrei Mikhailov, the head of the Mikhailov family and read his mind to get the location of the treasury.

But thinking is easier than implementing. The place was huge and Axel ended up wandering around without finding any higher ups in the place.

Only after a while did he find out that the higher ups of the family are currently in a meeting related to war plans.

....

In a room with an extremely luxurious interior, around a dozen men and women were present, in the middle of an extremely serious discussion. This is the High Table of the Mikhailov family, the leader of the Russian syndicate, and only the most important members were allowed to attend this meeting.

"Damn these Atlantians! Hiding this kind of technology…" muttered one of the members. The rest seemed to agree with the sentiment.

"Well, it\'s alright as long as we are allied, isn\'t it?" said another person.

"It is decided then. We will proceed with this plan," declared Andrei Mikhailov, the head of the Mikhailov family. "Contact Kraken."

And with that, the Mikhailov Family had finalized their plan to deal with the Valentinos.

But, not everyone was satisfied with the decision.

"Wait a minute, brother." interrupted Sergei, Andrei\'s brother. "Is this your plan?! Blowing up the whole Valentino Territory with an Atlantean bomb?!" He asked incredulously.

Andrei looked askance at his brother. "Yeah. That sums it up," he answered casually.

"Andrei! This is beyond sinister! Even for you! I will not support this plan!" Exclaimed Sergie, banging his fists on the table as he stood up.

Andrei rolled his eyes at his brother. "Come on, my bratan. It\'s a small price to pay if we can get rid of the Valentino Family. This is a one time opportunity."

Sergie immediately shook his head in complete denial. "Killing so many just to get to the Valentino Family? Have you gone mad? Not to mention the price we\'ll have to pay for it! Andrei, I\'ve been letting you do as you please for so long. But I can\'t let you do this," said Sergie resolutely. His brother was once again crossing all boundaries this time.

Andrei scoffed. "Oh? Listening to you, people would almost believe you had a say in the matter," said Andrei, drawing a few chuckles from around the table.

At that, Sergei pressed his lips into a line, but couldn\'t refute. That was true. His influence in this family has already fallen quite low and rarely anyone ever opposes Andrei.

"This is madness. Why doesn\'t anyone say something?" Demanded Sergei, looking around the table. The gazes that were returned to him varied from contempt and mockery to empathy and even sympathy. But as expected, no one spoke anything. Because everyone at this table was either on Andrei\'s side, or didn\'t want to be on his opposing side.

Even though he already didn\'t expect much, Sergei was quite disappointed with the response of certain people. "Bogdan? Anton? Anatoly? Say something. Nina? You too?" He said, looking at his wife.

Bogdan and Anton were good people, but with little power, so they only gave Sergei helpless looks.

His wife, Nina, held significant power here, coming from an influential Russian Family herself. So he expected a bit more support from her. But his wife only shook her head, as if tired. "Stop it already, Sergie. You\'re embarrassing yourself."

Sergie looked at his wife, hurt. Granted they weren\'t too close since their marriage was political, but they had still treated each other with courtesy until now.

Sergei\'s anger surged. "This is not happening on my watch."

Andrei got serious, dropping his playful demeanor. The air around him changed as he leaned forward. "Are you rebelling? You ungrateful fucker, do you realize that you have no power here? I can kick you out of the family right now."

Sergei paused at that, but then made his resolution.

"Then do it. Kick me out of the family, Andrei. I can\'t be a part of this anymore."

It\'s not like he hadn\'t already thought about leaving a hundred times. But he had held himself back because he had been trying his best to somewhat reduce the amount of evil the Mikhailov family had been doing. But what\'s the point of staying now? After today, he\'s going to have no say in any matter.

Andrei glared at his brother, finally showing his anger for the first time. "You wanna leave? Then leave! No one wants you here anyway. I have tolerated your whining, I tolerated your weak minded behavior, I was even generous enough to make the conditions of the slaves better on your behalf. I let you be a part of this family, even though everyone knows you don\'t belong. Just because you are my brother, do you think you can do anything?!"

Andrei leaned forward. "Let me make it clear. You are nothing without me, Sergie. We\'ve thoroughly pissed the Valentinos. Erasing them is important now. And if you really want to betray the family, and oppose my decision, then fuck off. You\'re no longer a part of this family!"

Sergie didn\'t say anything. He only looked at his wife. "Nina, get Lev. We\'re leaving," he said, moving towards the exit. Lev was the name of their only son. He felt sorry for dragging his wife and son into this but he couldn\'t bear to be a part of this evil family anymore.

Sergie had already reached the door. Though, his wife Nina didn\'t budge from her seat.

"Nina?" He asked, feeling something amiss.

Nina still didn\'t move, only looking at him with contempt. A strange atmosphere settled into the meeting room.

Andrei began to chuckle. "It has already come to this, huh?" He muttered, shaking his head. "Brother, looks like your wife won\'t be leaving with you," he said, and many of the members around the table began to smirk at him.

Sergie looked at his wife incomprehensibly. "Nina?! You..." Sergei sputtered. He couldn\'t understand why his wife would stay with the family if he was not going to be there.

Andrei got up from his chair and walked behind Nina\'s chair. "It\'s alright, Ni. You can tell him everything," he said, putting his hands over Nina\'s chair.

Nina looked back at her husband. "I\'m not going, Sergei."

Sergei looked stunned. "What?! Why?!"

Nina looked away from him, but her resolve was still firm. "I\'m staying because… Lev is the next successor of this family." she said, drawing exclamations from everyone in the room.

But Andrei merely nodded to affirm Nina\'s outrageous claim. "You heard her. Lev is now my successor."

Sergei was stunned to hear that. He couldn\'t understand what was going on. He could no longer process what was going on here. "H-How?" He stammered. Andrie was the head of the family. So of course, the successor was also going to be his direct descendant. How can Andrei declare Sergei\'s son the successor?

Andrei nodded at his Sergie.

"Well brother, you\'ve raised Lev well. He\'s far more capable than my other sons. So, I\'m thinking of making him my successor. It\'s not official yet since everyone thinks you\'re the father, but I\'ll make it official soon."

"What did you say?!" Suddenly, Sergie got a very bad premonition.

But Andrei just chuckled as he nodded. "Yep, you\'re not Lev\'s father, Sergie. You\'re actually his uncle," he said with a benign smile as he kissed Nina in front of everyone.

….

"Well, what a mess…" muttered Axel, skulking through the cloisters of the huge castle. He had been spying on the meeting, and, putting aside all the messy drama that took place, the things he learnt definitely made him serious.

\'Things are real here,\' he thought, his plans shifting drastically.

The Valentino Family and the Mikhailov Family.

The two are one of the most powerful forces of the world. Both are giants who have had plans to swallow each other for a long time. But they have always avoided confrontation because both are equally matched and one side can\'t win without getting equal damage from the other. That\'s why Axel wasn\'t much concerned about the whole war thingy. Even if a war starts, nothing major would happen immediately. It would be more on the level of small skirmishes and political warfare.

But…

If through some supernatural power, one can directly erase the other in one fell swoop... that is like a delicious pie that fell from the sky for the Mikhailovs.

Axel, along with the Valentinos had never considered that possibility, and that\'s why he wasn\'t particularly concerned about the matters between the two families. But it seems that this unrealistic case is actually going to happen. The Kraken is going to provide the Mikhailovs with a technology that could make that possible.

That\'s why Axel can no longer be a bystander. He has changed his plans according to the situation.

Reaching his destination, Axel looked at a particularly eye-catching pair of gilded double doors. These actually led to the room of the owner of this place, Andrei Mikhailov.

But unfortunately, the door was guarded by Andrei\'s men, preventing access. Without any delay, Axel got into action.

In front of the fancy doors, a silencing ward spread out in the area, after which the guards quickly fell one after another. Only after that did Axel become visible, covered from head to toe in a dark attire. Raising his hand, he casually knocked on the doors.

….

A.N.: POWERSTONES

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