The Leader of the Russian faction was having a big headache regarding what to do next.

Although he was doing his best to retreat his troops and survivors from all the bases throughout Russia and move them to Moscow, this required a great deal of time and energy. Even if Eduard Valentinovich was willing to literally let the enemy destroy a great part of the effort he had put in all this time in exchange for a guaranteed victory, it did not mean that it was easy for him to make such a decision.

Because of the enemy invasion, Russia was not only losing bases and buildings that had taken months to raise but they were also killing soldiers and brave soul evolvers.

Besides, the various Russian leaders might not mind the death of a few thousand normal survivors but they would certainly feel their hearts bleed if they lost tens of thousands, or worse yet hundreds of thousands in a short period of time. Without survivors there were many factories that would suffer, production would plummet, and the fortifications and development of the faction would face major stagnation for an unknown amount of time.

Even if Eduard Valentinovich was confident about the victory of his faction after Khristina’s reminder, this did not mean that he was happy with the outcome; this was because even if they won the price to pay was simply too high!

“Do you think there’s any method to force that brat to step back?” 

The hands of the beautiful Khristina paused for a second after hearing Eduard’s question. She soon resumed her massage, and after thinking about it for several seconds said carefully: “As I understand it, this boy named Bai Zemin had no intention of ruling China in the past. The real reason why he build up strength and grew powerful was exclusively to find his family who was hundreds of miles distant…”

“Mhm…” The Russian Leader fell into deep contemplation as he listened to her words before nodding still without opening his eyes, “Attacking Bai Zemin’s family will make him back down if he feels they are in trouble and it will certainly buy us time… the problem is that brat wasn’t a political leader in the past, he was just a student. If he goes berserk and ignores everything else it will be a big headache dealing with him later.”

“That’s a fate we can’t run away from.” Khristina sighed. She stopped her massage and said in her sweet voice, “No matter what we do, clashing with the Chinese faction is an unavoidable fact at this point, which at the same time means we will have to clash with that little monster. The really important thing is to minimize our losses as much as possible.”

Eduard Valentinovich opened his eyes and sighed. After a long time, he finally said with some bitterness, “If I had known at the time that the damned monkey surnamed Liang and that stupid prince of the sea race would turn out to be so useless, I wouldn’t have joined hands with them. Because of the incompetence of that bunch of good-for-nothings I now have to spend sleepless nights.”

Eduard was not weak at all, quite the contrary; he was extremely powerful. However, he was cautious by nature so although in his heart he felt that he was definitely not weaker than the Chinese Leader he still did not want to risk it until his victory was 200% confirmed and with no severe losses on his side. At the end of the day, he also had to watch his back against some of his subordinates who were waiting for the right moment to take him down.

Khristina looked at him with strange eyes and no one knew what she was really thinking when she heard his words. Eduard Valentinovich did not find her silence weird as she was rather quiet to begin with, and taking advantage of the moment he asked a question that took her by surprise.

“By the way, there is a girl in the enemy faction with Russian features… Evangeline? I think that was her name.”

Confused as to why he would suddenly mention such a thing, Khristina stared at him in puzzlement.

Eduard stood up and gently stretched out his arms as he said lazily, “Forget it. I must be overthinking things recently.”

Before either of them had a chance to say anything else, a skinny man dressed in a blue robe with a variety of engravings on the surface and a golden-colored wand stepped into the spacious hall under the guidance of a beautiful blonde maid.

“Oh? Gerard, this is quite a rare sight.” Eduard smiled slightly as he sat down and motioned the man to sit where Colonel Roman had been minutes before.

However, the man named Gerard shook his head lightly and bowed slightly, “Your Majesty, I won’t take much of your time so I’ll give my report first.”

Eduard Valentinovich did not get mad at the other person, he was already used to the rather eccentric personality of the man in front of him. Besides, Gerard was loyal and hardworking not to mention that he was a Third Order soul evolver whose magical power was capable of turning a city into debris and provoking a massacre with his skills; he was the terror of any army.

Gerard pointed his wand at the ground and said in a somewhat apathetic and dark voice, “Soul Projection.”

The floor in front of Eduard and Khristina suddenly began to ripple more and more rapidly, like a still lake suddenly being whipped by the fall of dozens of small stones with shorter and shorter intervals between the fall of each stone.

The floor that seemed to have become a lake suddenly released a faint pale white radiance that gradually grew into a powerful milk-white glow. After a few seconds, the light receded and with a diameter of approximately 2 meters, a kind of circular screen appeared on the floor.

On the magic screen could be seen the image of a rather small army leading what appeared to be hundreds of thousands of people. These people were clearly weak, and the old ones would occasionally fall into the snow only to never get up again.

“This is…” Khristina opened her beautiful blue eyes slightly and whispered with visible surprise as she stared at the magic screen.

The Russian Leader narrowed his eyes slightly. After a few seconds, he raised his head and said calmly, “Gerard, would you care to explain?”

In fact, both Eduard and Khristina were already well aware of what was going on, but Gerard’s next words completely confirmed their thoughts.

“It looks like the enemy has split into two groups. One group is probably continuing to move north while this group we’re seeing is moving south.” Gerard waved his wand and the magic screen suddenly began to get blurrier and blurrier, the images to disappear, and the floor to gradually return to normal. “I was watching for a while and it looks like their goal is to send the technology they stole after raiding Irkutsk. It’s probably less than 7000 men but I can’t confirm this information 100%.”

Suddenly, Eduard leaned back into the back of his chair and a big smile began to form on his face. He burst out laughing as he said aloud, “Khristina, looks like the heavens are smiling on us the pure Russians after all!”

A few seconds later, Eduard slowly stopped laughing and the smile on his face gradually disappeared. His clear eyes flashed with coldness as he asked in a chilling voice, “Gerard, can you confirm if the one leading them is Bai Zemin?”

“The one leading the army seems to be the archer who disappeared for a few months before suddenly reappearing.” Gerard waved his bony hand and said in a raspy voice, “There is also the father of the enemy Leader, whatever his name is.”

Eduard immediately smiled. His smile was as bright as the sun as he looked out into the snow-covered outside.

“Looks like the sun is about to rise for us.”

Khristina looked silently at the man in front of her before asking curiously, “Your Majesty Eduard, will you attack the enemy troops heading south?”

“It is nothing. I’ll just ask Bai Delan here for some imported vodka. Perhaps his son will want to behave himself better then.” Eduard smiled slightly before adding, “But it’s not the right time, not yet.”

Khristina raised an eyebrow, but despite her curiosity asked nothing. She had long ago understood that the fewer questions she asked the better off she would be.

Although she had earned the trust of the person in front of her with great difficulty and effort over the years, Khristina understood perfectly well that the person called Eduard Valentinovich was a man who would not commit himself to anyone and was capable of sacrificing even his own blood at the first moment of doubt and suspicion that appeared in his heart.

To Khristina’s surprise, however, she did not need to ask anything as her doubt was cleared up the next moment by Eduard himself.

“Let’s wait for our young Transcendent Leader to enter our garden first, and we will take advantage of the moment to politely invite his father to visit Moscow… If Bai Zemin by some miracle of life manages to get out of that place then we can negotiate if he is in good condition, if not…” Even without him finishing the sentence it was evident what his thoughts were.

Khristina Ilyinishna slowly closed her eyes as dozens of possible developments and futures were analyzed in a matter of seconds by her gifted brain. 

Bai Zemin was powerful, there was no room to doubt it. However, even after knowing several of his feats, neither Khristina nor anyone else believed that he would get out of that place alive after entering. 

In the hypothetical and miraculous event that the enemy Leader actually made it out of there alive, his entire army would have already been destroyed, which would mean a great fall in power for the enemy faction. Not to mention that Khristina refused to accept that Bai Zemin could get out of there in one piece and without losing most of his fighting strength.

Now, even in the most surprising and unlikely future in which Bai Zemin got out of that place alive and still had enough power to raise hell, he would only be able to listen and obey once his father fell into the hands of the Russian faction.

Khristina slowly opened her blue eyes and looked at the smiling Eduard.

thiŞ​ 🇨​🇴​🇳​🇹​🇪​🇳​🇹​ 🇸​🇹​🇴​🇱​🇪​🇳​ 🇫​🇷​🇴​🇲​ ⓝⓞⓥⓔⓛⓑⓘⓝ

‘I guess this is checkmate, once again.’ She sighed in her heart.

In all her life she had never seen the person in front of her loss, not even once. Even if it was a mere board game with the odds stacked against him, life itself and fate seemed to be on the old Russian leader’s side as he always managed to emerge victorious in the end no matter how bad the weather played against him.

* * * * * * *

Really thank you very much to all those who send gifts to the novel and support with valuable Golden Tickets. I hope we can all keep it up <3

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.