Chapter 103: Peter Got into Trouble

On this day, Peter Clark, brimming with pride and accomplishment, finished packing his belongings. He intended to return to the Clark family to claim the authority that was rightfully his. He summoned a family carriage and was about to depart from the city gate of the royal capital.

“Wait!” Peter suddenly halted the coachman. Just as he was about to exit the city, he suddenly felt his heart racing with alarming force. This familiar sensation made Peter aware that danger lay ahead on his return journey. He believed he still needed more preparation.

He immediately ordered the coachman to turn back and head for the academy.

This infuriated Andy, who had been secretly following them. He cursed under his breath, “What the hell is this old bastard doing? If he didn’t deal with him properly, he might as well die early and reincarnate into a good position.”

Yet such curses were impossible to carry out. In the royal capital, where monitoring wizard arrays were present, acting with open hostility carried considerable risk. Since they knew of his plan to leave the city, they had to wait for the proper moment to strike in the open fields.

...

Peter returned to Grim Academy and immediately began gathering the academy’s family disciples who were closely tied to their father-son lineage. Soon he had assembled more than twenty individuals, including two bronze wizard disciples. Peter quickly explained his purpose for returning to the family and declared that he wanted them to accompany him as witnesses to his assumption of power.

These family disciples were filled with excitement. They were Peter’s loyal supporters. Should Peter become clan leader, they would gain substantial benefits and their standing within the family would rise dramatically. They agreed with enthusiasm.

While Peter was assembling these family disciples, Flura received the news as well. Some Clark family members in the academy had already been bribed by her. When they learned that supporters of Peter were gathering, they naturally reported the matter to Flura.

Upon hearing the report from the Clark family disciples, Flura smiled faintly and said indifferently, “Let them go their own way.” This left her supporters, who had been waiting for her orders, feeling disappointed.

In truth, Flura had prepared everything long ago.

As soon as Professor Hill departed, Flura had learned through the Hive of his arrangements. Although this old man felt discontented by her heartless conduct, she had not been overly surprised. She had anticipated such a day for a long time and had prepared countermeasures against Hill Clark long before.

However, she received word that Professor Hill had already sailed from the continent of Toron and vanished into the vast ocean. Thus, this contingency could only be exploited by his son, Peter Clark.

As long as Peter was eliminated, she would face no further obstacles in controlling the Clark family’s power. She could be certain that no one in the Clark family would discover it was she who had killed him. She had already chosen a perfect scapegoat, enough to clear her name completely.

She had long enlisted through the Hive the renowned fugitive dark mercenary known as One-Eyed Sherlock in the Kingdom of Eiran. Sherlock had agreed to attempt an assassination of Hill Clark for the Hive when necessary, provided they offered sufficient generous rewards. Now she merely needed to change the target. With the task’s difficulty reduced, Sherlock was only too happy to accept. He further informed Flura through the worker bees that he would act immediately the moment the target left the city of Prontera!

...

More than twenty Clark family disciples escorted Peter’s carriage with great fanfare to the city gate of the royal capital. To win over public support, Peter had also invited the two bronze-grade family disciples to share the carriage with him.

The carriage had reached the halfway point out of the city when, while Peter was chatting and laughing with the two family wizards, he suddenly froze. His face turned deathly pale.

“Turn around! Return to the academy—quickly!” Peter ignored the puzzled gazes from the two family wizards and suddenly commanded loudly. For at the instant of leaving the city, he felt another heart-pounding sensation, even more intense than before. He believed it was still unsafe to take these family members out of the city.

He felt he needed to return for more thorough preparation. Though the other family disciples were bewildered, since Peter was soon to become clan leader, no one dared to defy him. Soon they turned the horses and headed back...

Far behind, Andy and Katherine followed listlessly while cursing Peter under their breath.

At the city gate, an elderly farmer seemingly preparing to depart with a carrying pole suddenly froze in place. Upon closer inspection, one would notice that one of his eyes was completely empty and hollow, as though blind.

Beside him stood a young girl dressed as a village maiden. Together, they appeared like a father and daughter selling specialties in the city. Originally in line to leave the city, this pair of “father and daughter” exchanged a few hurried whispers, then, as if having forgotten something in the city, they did not proceed but returned together.

...

Upon Peter’s second return to Grim Academy, a short, slender, pale-faced man was strolling about the academy, occasionally muttering to himself while commenting on the surrounding buildings. This man was precisely the Whisperer Alvin. Now he had also become an honored student of Grim’s outer academy, though his admission slot had been acquired through a magic stone donation.

This time he had entered Grim Academy bearing the mission of the Azure Phoenix Society. Yet Alvin did not hasten to begin the organization’s tasks. He felt that since he had finally arrived at Grim Academy, he should first attend to some private matters...

After all, his strength was evident; even if he delayed completing the task, no one in Prontera would dare to criticize him.

Although wars raged across the continent of Toron, the number of wizards who perished in battle remained few. Thus, Alvin expended great effort to collect each formal wizard’s corpse. Up to this point, he had merely amassed seven bronze wizard-level bodies. Naturally, these corpses, refined into corpse puppets, had received his careful nurturing.

The problem he faced now was: the Stein’s body he had collected in Dallas City contained lingering obsessions, preventing him from enhancing the corpse puppet’s strength through various methods. This time arriving at Grim Academy, Alvin intended to seize the opportunity to resolve the obsessions within Stein’s body.

He knew that this body harbored hatred that could not be released, directed at a man named Peter Clark. Alvin had easily learned Peter Clark’s position as an outer academy student. However, further information proved difficult to obtain quickly.

Since he was engaged in private affairs, he had to exercise caution regarding any impact, making it unsuitable to enlist the Azure Phoenix Society’s assistance in his inquiries.

As Alvin wandered the academy pondering where to seek information on Peter, he heard a sweet, melodious voice from behind.

“Student, please hold on!”