"I don't care what the fuck you do, but I want him found yesterday. You understand? I am this close to murdering all the guardians I can find!" Gaya stomped the ground. She stood in the surveillance room in the dark forest and contacted all the subordinates at the same time, except Saber and Adelia.

"If he is in the Southern continent, I will find him," said Tiberius.

"My girls are doing everything they can, my lady," Sadie started, only to get interjected by Gaya.

"It's not enough. I won't meet Ghost empty-handed. That fucker Noah destroyed both the prototype and the weapon. Even the blueprints are gone. So the only way to turn this into a win is to find the man behind this weapon," Gaya was not playing around. If the subordinates were to meet her in person, there would be casualties in the castle. She was pissed at everyone, including herself. Thanks to Noah and his team, she lost the prototype, weapon, and the man who built it.

Like a cherry on top of a failure cake, Noah captured the orcs who survived the auction, including the leader, and brought them somewhere Gaya couldn't find. Even Lord Information didn't know anything about the orcs except they supposedly worked for the beast king.

"What about the guardian you flipped recently? If I heard you right, he is in Noah's elite unit. So how in the hell he has no idea about the inverter's location?" Gaya creased her brows. Everyone went silent, expecting Sadie's answer. By turning a guardian into their spy, Sadie outperformed everyone in the room. Even the Dark Queen praised her, which wouldn't happen so often. Through their new spy, they learned the locations of the guardian safe houses and how Noah operated in each kingdom. However, even Noah's elites didn't know where he kept Hammond.

"He has no idea, my lady. It seems like Noah doesn't trust his own people enough to disclose the location. We might have a chance if we tracked down the Han Torum dwarves," Sadie suggested.

"Do you think I don't know that? The vamps are searching for them as we speak. But those bearded dodo ducks are good at hiding. After Noah's little fiasco, they went dark. If they were good at something besides building, it's hiding,"

The subordinates nodded in agreement. After a few more minutes of roasting all the subordinates, Gaya dismissed them. When they were ordered to leave, they all heaved a sigh of relief. To them, the Dark Queen was more terrifying than the Dark Lord himself when she was angry. They could reason with the Dark Lord, who always remains calm and collected. But in stark contrast, no one could utter a word when the Dark Queen was pissed. At that time, the only way to survive her wrath was to keep their mouths shut and agree to everything she said.

"My lady," Azazel appeared beside Gaya after the mirrors went dark.

"What does he want?" asked Gaya without turning around to look Azazel in the eyes. Her full focus was on how to find the man who was responsible for building those weapons.

"Lord Saber says he has an update on the fourth armor piece," As soon as Gaya heard these words, she immediately turned her head toward Azazel.

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"Finally, some fucking good news. Put him through,"

Soon, Saber's face appeared in the mirror as though all the mirrors had emerged together to form a gigantic face. Judging by the ocean around Saber, Gaya could tell he was on a ship. She also noticed Shorty running around, so she guessed he was in Big Bertha.

"My lady," Saber slightly bowed.

"Tell me what you found about the armor piece?" Gaya didn't ask any useless questions like how are you or how is the journey. Instead, she went straight to the point.

"It's in the Southern continent, my lady. To be precise, it's in Miral. The man I interrogated told me his family helped bring in two crates of ancient artifacts to the Southern continent. Apparently, the one who hired him found these artifacts buried somewhere in the Ozer continent," said Saber.

"What makes you think these artifacts are the Dark Lord's armor?" Gay rubbed her chin in doubt. Nothing Saber said had actually pointed her to think these artifacts belonged to the Dark Lord.

"This man's ancestor who brought these artifacts to the Southern continent has left behind a ship manifest. In that list, he has written unknown metal pieces that attract lightning. His exact words were metal parts that attract crimson red lightning bolts,"

Gaya raised her brows as she realized why Saber had come to the conclusion that he did. However, she still had another question to ask.

"This man you interrogated, how did you find him?" asked Gaya. There was no chance for Saber to stumble upon a man who knew about the Dark Lord's armor piece. The past Dark Lord went to lengths to hide these pieces and ensured only Michael could find them. Granted, one of the armor pieces was found in ruin by others and almost auctioned out to a War God, but it was just a one-in-a-million occurrence. She doubted another one of the pieces might have been found by a human.

"Because he tried to sell this in the Aqua Palace," Saber slowly raised a broken piece of metal with a skull engraved.

"That is" Gaya's voice trailed off as her jaw dropped slightly. That skull in the metal piece was, without a doubt, the symbol of the Dark Lord. There was no doubt in her mind. If that wasn't enough, tiny bolts of crimson-red lightning danced around the metal piece in Saber's hand.

"One of my people was lucky to intercept the sale and inform me," said Saber.

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"It seems awfully legit to me. What about you, Azazel?" Gaya asked the demon butler. He focused his gaze on the metal piece.

"We certainly cannot neglect the possibility that this piece belongs to the Dark Lord's armor piece,"

"Hmm," Gaya nodded.

"Have you learned where these artifacts are in the Southern continent?"

Saber took a long deep breath before answering Gaya.

"About that, my lady. I have good and bad news,"

"Start with good news. I've been getting more and more bad news lately," Gaya sighed. She thought it'd be too easy for them to get the armor piece without going through some kind of trial. It was like the Dark Lord anticipated everything and designed the trials for them. They had found three armor pieces so far, and each of them came at a price.

"Well the good news is I've tracked down who owns these artifacts, the Salinators. One of the powerful families in Kingdom Miral,"

"Then what is the bad news? I assume it has something to do with why you can't go there and retrieve the armor pieces by any means necessary," said Gaya as Saber nodded.

"The heir of Salinators, Metilia Salinator, is married to General Quintus,"

As soon as Gaya heard the name Quintus, a light bulb lit inside her head. In all the chaos, she forgot about Quintus and Kingdom Miral's aggressive expansion. Thanks to Cain's surprisingly masterful tactics, they were able to stop Miral from waging wars on other kingdoms. Moreover, Quintus went dark after Michael killed Fabia Viridus. They hadn't seen Quintus since she turned him into a supersoldier using vampire strains. Without General Quintus, the Kingdom Miral completely ceased all its hostile activities. After Gisel and Maven merged together, they became a powerful kingdom itself, while Tiberius found his own kingdom, the freedom land, although he hadn't announced his land as a new kingdom yet. That left Prerid and the Trident of the Southern continent Qiven, Xoral, and Netis AKA the kingdoms ruled by kings instead of senates.

The last time Gaya heard from Caius, Kingdom Miral, and Kingdom Prerid was in peace talks. For some reason, Cain wanted the peace talks between them to drag on instead of coming to a solution. If he had thought, he could have ordered Aria to assassinate the senators of Miral and bring an end to the cold war, yet he chose not to.

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"I did some digging and found when Quintus married Metilia, the Salinator family gifted Quintus with priceless valuables and artifacts,"

"And you think these artifacts include the Dark Lord's armor piece?" Gaya tilted her head.

"Yes," Saber frowned. Judging by the dark lines on his forehead, Gaya guessed they couldn't simply go to Quintus's home and take the armor piece by force.

"Tell me what the problem is?" asked Gaya.

"Matilia is a regular customer to a noble bathhouse where one of Sadie's girls is working. To the rest of Miral, Quintus has taken personal time, but according to his wife, he disappeared along with many of the family artifacts. I broke into their home ad went through all their wealth but found no armor piece,"

"Which means Quintus has the armor piece," Gaya finished Saber's sentence.

"Are you sure, Saber?" Gaya asked.

"This is the only lead we have, my lady. I'd say we should chase it down,"

Gaya took a few long moments to think about this. By destroying the prototype and the weapon right under her nose, Noah caused a huge blow to her mindset. She started to second guess everything she had planned, which was very unlikely of her. It didn't only affect her but also everyone in the dark army.

"Go ahead, but if you sense something is amiss, get out of there immediately. We cannot deny the possibility this might be an elaborate trap designed by that son of a bitch, Noah,"

"Don't worry about me, my lady. I lived long enough to outsmart a human," Saber snickered as Gaya slowly shook her head.

"Do not underestimate Noah. I underestimated him, and as a result, I have failed the Dark Lord,"

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Saber was actually surprised to see the graveness in her voice. To be honest, he had never seen her like this.

"I will take your advice to my heart, my lady. Now with your permission, I'd like to dismiss myself,"

"Talk to Tiberius. He was tracking down Quintus, and he might have an idea about Quintus's location," said Gaya.