30 - Truth

Finally, the servant girl could no longer deal with it, and she yelled out from fear, "It was the blood order! They took my sister! I had no choice!"

Tears were already streaming down her face as she revealed why she had betrayed the royal family.

Hearing this, Xu Xin loosened his grip, but he didn't let go.

"Do you love your sister?" His cold voice seemed to chill her bones while his hand and icy inner energy actually did.

By now, the girl was weeping, "Yes. Yes, I do!" Her voice struggled through her sobs.

Suddenly, the killing intent vanished without a trace, and the icy inner energy in her body converted to watery inner energy and started to heal her injuries.

"This world is a cruel one, and the next time someone from your family is threatened, find a way to destroy the one who took them instead of bowing down to them like a disgusting coward.

Nobody likes a person who can't protect their family, but everyone hates the one who betrays their family even more."

As he said this, he looked at Xiao Wei with a you-know-what-I-mean look, which everyone clearly saw and understood.

It was clear that Xiao Wei had betrayed his family at some point in the past, and though they didn't know what Xu Xin was talking about, the eyes of the king, queen, and Xia Yue lit up as they realized almost exactly what he meant.

They knew he was talking about the fall of Xiao Xin, and though they didn't have any specifics, they now had some clues that they could go off of.

Hearing his words and obvious meaning, Xiao Wei got nervous, though he tried to hide it as well as he could.

Xu Xin had managed to do something that only Xiao Xin could've done, and he was now starting to think that this boy really was Xiao Xin, and he didn't know what to think because if it really was him, then how did he restrain his killing intent so well while in the carriage?

There were so many unanswered questions in his mind, and he was starting to get extremely nervous, because Xiao Xin very clearly knew the circumstances of his 'betrayal', and it would be all too simple for him to explain it to those who weren't in the Xiao family.

Everything he had seen so far of Xu Xin only made him more confused, but now that they were in the lair of another dragon, they couldn't fight here no matter how much they wanted to until all the facts were revealed.

Nobody had even managed to keep track of how fast all of these situations had changed, and in less than a minute, Xu Xin had completely changed everything in this room.

He had convinced a stubborn princess to go somewhere and get protection without hurting her ego, unveiled a spy, and revealed a stunning truth about his brother, all smoothly and without much resistance.

It was as if the flow of conversation and thoughts within the room belonged to him and that he could manipulate it however he pleased.

At the same time, he felt as if everything was in his control, and he liked it this way. Despite being one of the weakest in the room, he controlled the flow of energy in this room and how everything was happening.

But it was bound to not last as the king spoke, breaking the tone of the room. "What information did you reveal to the Blood Order? Since you confessed, if you tell us, we will lessen your punishment."

He knew exactly what Xu Xin wanted to do, but that wasn't what was important right now, as the information that was revealed from the meeting hall of a royal household could change everything.

Let alone the fact that she could have leaked what they had just said, which could change the destiny of the continent, there were several things in this room which had been said that could completely change the situation of this kingdom, such as where they were moving their troops and where they were sending their strongest people.

If the strongest people were sent somewhere and the enemy knew where they were going, they could have them assassinated quite easily since they wouldn't have any backup.

Hearing this, the girl nearly broke down once again as she yelled out uncontrollably everything that she had done wrong. By the end, it was almost entirely unintelligible sobs.

Hearing her words, everyone wasn't able to maintain their composure as the queen instantly yelled out, "Send words to everyone to instantly return back here. This is a rank one order.

Spread news that the Blood Order has waged war on the entire continent and we need to start the fight now before they get any stronger or weaken us even more!"

Only Xu Xin retained his calm attitude as he looked around the room in anger. It seemed that the Blood Order was making a bigger move than he thought, as they had already infiltrated the kingdoms and were clearly making big moves.

Infiltrating the kingdoms and their highest levels in order to find and assassinate their highest ranks was something that was an endgame part of the time before a war, and if they had already started doing this, then the kingdoms needed to start fighting them a while ago, and they hoped that they weren't too late to send this news.

Everyone knew that there would eventually be a war with the Blood Order, but nobody expected it to be so soon and already in progress. Xu Xin had unintentionally started a war with his simple exposing of a spy.

But a war was within his goals, so it didn't really matter that it started this early. His overall goals were to destroy the Xiao kingdom and then cause the Blood Order to collapse.

And the person he hated most, Xiao Wei, he had a special fate in mind for him.

Xu Xin wanted Xiao Wei to feel the fear of being chased by death, slowly, agonizingly, slowly stripping away everything you love as you know you just can't escape. He wanted Xiao Wei to give up hope and succumb to fear and despair before he died, so that he could have some semblance of the feeling that Xu Xin felt that night.

As he thought about this, a creepy smile covered his face, but in everyone's scramble, nobody noticed this smile except one person: Xiao Wei.

However, just as suddenly as it appeared, that smile vanished without the slightest trace.

All Xu Xin did from then on was just sit in a chair, waiting for everybody to calm down once again.

Only about an hour later did everything start to calm down, and during this time, Xu Xin didn't move a single muscle, as if he was a statue with his eyes closed, but he did cultivate quietly, with golden Qi floating into his body, converting to icy inner energy and refining his body.

As everyone finally calmed down, Xiao Wei had already been sent to a guest room, while Xia Yue and Yue Ning had stayed in the hall since they were used to directing people.

The odd one out in this situation was Xu Xin, who had no relations to anyone here but didn't leave.

It was clear to everyone that he had something to say, but the current situation was too important to listen to what he had to say right this moment.

As such, all he did was wait.

...

Four hours later, everything had been taken care of, and everything that could be done had been done, and this kingdom had requested that all of the high level fighting powers of the other kingdoms gather here since this was near the stronghold of the Blood Order.

Finally, the Queen spoke up, "You've been waiting for quite a while, boy. What is it that you need to say?"

Without even opening his eyes, Xu Xin spoke calmly, "Bring Xia Yue and Yue Ning here first and make sure Xiao Wei is nowhere near here. If you can, bring Fan Yuan here as well."

Then, he simply continued to quietly cultivate as if he was sure that they would fulfil his requests.

As he expected, Xia Yue had privately told the King and Queen not to underestimate Xu Xin, which was why they would even consider what he had to say in the first place.

They didn't much care for him not using Xia Yue's formal title since he probably wouldn't use it anyways based on his personality even if he knew it, but they were curious when he said to bring Fan Yuan as well.

After all, he was supposed to have just met her, yet he spoke as if it was actually important that she was there even though he hadn't known she was even here before today.

However, they quickly responded to his requests and brought everyone here while taking Xiao Wei somewhere specific claiming that they thought something was amiss and he needed to be protected.

As soon as Fan Yuan, the last person to arrive, entered the room, he instantly opened his eyes and started to speak.

"Xiao Wei is the traitor. He went to the Blood Order and told them who Xiao Xin's fiancée was, set it up for them to meet in secret so that they could threaten him and make him stop attacking their ranks in secret.

Xiao Wei then took a group of people to that area to see the meeting and claim that he had betrayed the kingdom, and he did this with unknown motives.

Xiao Xin was then forced to go back to the castle where his fiancée was being held captive, and he was captured because of it.

When he woke up, he was in the dungeon with his fiancée by his side, but she was quickly taken by Xiao Wei and poisoned, and Xiao Xin was forced to watch as she died in his arms.

He then went crazy and destroyed the entire dungeon, only stopping when the king arrived and poisoned him with the core crippling poison, at which point he ran away.

Xiao Xin is dead now.

As I am sure a lot of you have figured out, I was once Xiao Xin, but that name now disgusts me, so I am Xu Xin from now on."

(Xin was his given name that was given to him by his mother, so he kept it, whereas Xiao was his surname, which was the part which disgusted him, leading him to change it.)

He spoke without the slightest bit of hesitation, because even the slightest stop in his speaking would allow people to question him, and he needed to paint the full picture without giving anyone a chance to question him.

However, as he finished speaking, the whole room was completely dead silent.

Looking at everyone's faces, he was easily able to tell who had already suspected him and who hadn't, but unexpectedly, nobody was more shocked than Fan Yuan.

She had met in person with Xiao Xin many times on account of them being the number one and number two geniuses, and they had even fought more than once, but she never expected this to happen to him, and even with their friendly rivalry, she was saddened to hear what had really happened to him.

She knew that he was not the type of person to ever betray his family or his kingdom, no matter what was offered in return or what kind of threat was put in place.

As such, when she heard that he was being hunted for betraying the kingdom, she was certain that it wasn't that simple, and hearing his words, everything actually seemed to line up perfectly, because Xiao Wei had already explained earlier the circumstances of his 'betrayal' in other areas where Xu Xin wasn't present, yet he knew this anyways.

However, her line of thoughts was cut off by Xu Xin's apathetic voice, "Xia Yue, it's your turn now. Say what happened that night with the Blood Order attack."