326 The Matriarch’s Hidden Trump Card
Yale was still hidden in the crowd that had started moving towards the places where the disturbances were being provoked.
However, that crowd didn’t manage to accomplish anything because everyone stopped to move a few seconds after they started to move.
“The more you move, the quicker the poison will spread on the body. If all of you remained on the spot, you might have lasted some more minutes.”
Yale had poisoned all the crowd in the time he spent hidden among them. The effect of the poison was only putting them into a deep sleep, but without feeling a great pain or without Yale giving them the antidote, they wouldn’t be able to awaken in a day.
The only bad part of that poison was that it could only affect those at the Elder Rank or lower.
In a normal environment, it would have been difficult for Yale to make so many people drink his poison as he had done, but since he was under the water, he could merge the poison with the water thanks to Water Control and make everyone absorb the poison without them noticing anything.
“What happened?”
The matriarch couldn’t hide her shock when all her subordinates fell asleep at the same time.
However, in the short moment she divided her attention, Aiwai wounded her again.
“You don’t have time to worry about others, dirty fish!”
The matriarch was better at long range battle than in melee battle, which made that battle extremely difficult for her.
“You… Don’t even think to leave alive today…”
Aiwai attacked even more fiercely after hearing those words.
“You know how to bark, but you can’t bite. You are the one who will die today!”
Aiwai wasn’t only at the 2-star Sage Rank, she was a Divine Beast, which made her far more dangerous than an ordinary 2-star Sage expert. Even a pink-tailed mermaid could only be compared with a beast at the level of a Frost Winged Wolf.
The matriarch had a purple tail, so she was even weaker than that making that she was far weaker than she should when battling against someone who was only one level higher like Aiwai.
“A barbarian like you dare to speak so arrogantly in front of me… Wait, stop!”
While speaking the matriarch noticed that someone had freed Kaigur and swam away. The one who rescued Kaigur was Yale who went there while the matriarch was distracted.
“It seems that I need to use my trump card. I can only do this once in a year. You shall be proud to experience it!”
The matriarch felt that she couldn’t continue to hold back more if she wanted to survive.
“Go and kill the one who saved Kaigur, after doing that bring Kaigur to me, and then you must kill yourself! This is an Absolute Order!”
That was a Forbidden Skill of the Mermaid Race that very few mermaids in the story managed to execute. It was a fearsome skill that could force complete obedience of others, even enemies, but it could only be used once every year by someone like the matriarch who was fairly talented with that skill.
In fact, she became the matriarch because she used that skill to manipulate the previous matriarch.
“Killing my little brother? You are dreaming!”
The matriarch was unable to avoid Aiwai’s attacks because she never expected that Absolute Order wouldn’t work with Aiwai.
In fact, the skill worked but was nullified instantly because the order of the matriarch included something that Aiwai couldn’t do.
Aiwai couldn’t kill Yale, that was impossible since the moment she formed the Soul Contract with Liye, and a Soul Contract made by someone at Liye’s level had more than enough power to dispel that kind of mind-controlling skill if it opposed to the Soul Contract.
A normal Soul Contract would only block the part regarding Yale, but not those unrelated to that, but the matriarch was far unlucky of having used her once-in-a-year trump card with the worst possible combination of target and order.
Besides Aiwai, the only person who could have endured Absolute Order was Yale because that skill counted as an illusion skill.
Moreover, to use that skill, it was needed that the target was extremely near, so the matriarch could only use Absolute Order on Aiwai.
“Why didn’t work? This shouldn’t be happening!”
The matriarch felt as she was experiencing a bad dream when Aiwai continued attacking disregarding the Absolute Order.
Yale smiled from the distance when he saw the face of the matriarch. He knew from the start that the matriarch had that skill and that she would make that order to Aiwai.
The reason for having that knowledge was that he saw the future after the strategy planning started, and everything worked exactly as in the vision. However, in his vision, the plan ended in failure despite everything going well in most of it.
After seeing that vision, Yale should have discarded that plan and then made the one that Liye devised since seemed the most logical option after seeing that vision, but in that vision, Yale noticed something that could make the plan turn from impossible to a plan that was just the opposite.
The matriarch seemed desperate, but she still had another trump card that she had been secretly executing the whole time since Aiwai appeared. Even the failure in Absolute Order didn’t matter as long as she used that trump card.
Yale knew very well that it was impossible to stop that trump card unless the matriarch was killed, but Aiwai couldn’t do that in time, and that was already proven in Yale’s vision.
The trump card had a lot of consequences for the matriarch, and she was only using it because there wasn’t any other way to continue with her ambitions.
“I admit that you are strong, but you aren’t strong enough to kill me in time… Now, it is already too late! As the matriarch of the Mermaid Race, I order that all your lives become a sacrifice for the Mermaid Race!”
The bodies of the mermen and mermaids in the ground started to lose blood that was going towards the matriarch.
At that moment, everyone awoke from Yale’s poison due to the immense pain.
“Matriarch, why?”
Everyone was shouting that by Spiritual Sense while they were losing blood all their blood and dying.
“You are only pawns that serve to turn me stronger. Your lives mean nothing to me.”
The order of the matriarch affected to all the mermen and mermaids, including those in the areas where the disturbs were happening and the three at the Grandmaster Rank.
Those three were unable to last a bit more than the others, but they were also doomed.
“Matriarch, you betrayed the Mermaid Race!”
The matriarch smiled when he heard that.
“I don’t care for the Mermaid Race. Once I use all your life force, I will be able to obtain the full power of the World Sea Pearl, and then I am sure that no one would be able to stop me in this ocean.”
The matriarch would have liked to obtain the Sea World Pearl without losing all her pawns as they were useful, but she decided just to obtain new ones later on because it wasn’t like if there weren’t more mermaids in the ocean.
Swordmad’s group stopped to attack those three after seeing that situation. There wasn’t any reason to continue that battle.
The three mermaids at the Grandmaster Rank ended dying while cursing the matriarch.
Kaigur saw the whole scene with hatred in his eyes, he thought that the matriarch was only evil towards those with the Sea Race Bloodline, but he never thought that she could even kill without blinking all the mermen and mermaids that were fully loyal to her.
Since Kaigur had the Sea Race Bloodline, he wasn’t affected by order of the matriarch. It was as Yale said to him from the start, he hadn’t been in true danger of dying in any moment.
“It worked! This is my victory!”
The matriarch was extremely happy while all her people had been exterminated by herself. Moreover, all the blood of the deceased mermen and mermaids had disappeared without anyone noticing where that mass of blood had gone.
“It is as I guessed. Merumi didn’t die! She was just hidden in a place where I couldn’t detect her. However, you all are too naive! There is a forbidden skill passed down matriarch to matriarch to use the lifeforce of the members of the Mermaid Race to summon and punish the mermaid appointed as the next matriarch. Since the moment she was appointed as my successor her only fate was death!”
That skill existed in the case of someone appointed as the successor of the matriarch trying to kill the matriarch after obtaining the support of the crowd, but it had never been used because it was too evil. It was just a method the matriarchs had to save their lives in case of revolt.
“Now, Merumi is inside the sacred chamber, and the World Sea Pearl will absorb her life! Once someone is inside, it is impossible to open the sacred chamber from the outside, and Merumi is in a deep sleep due to the effects of the punishment summon! She is already doomed!”
Aiwai tried to attack her after hearing that, but a barrier protected the matriarch.
“Useless! The World Sea Pearl had put a barrier outside the sacred chamber. You won’t be able to near me because I am inside the barrier and you outside! I won’t be able to exit the isolated area until the absorption process finishes, but that is just what I need!”
Kaigur felt depressed as he thought that everything had ended at that moment.
“I am sorry, I didn’t know about this kind of power…”
Kaigur felt that everything was his own fault for not knowing such important information.
The others also feel frustrated seeing how their almost successful plan had turned into a big failure.
“Everyone, why are you with those long faces?”
Yale said that through spiritual sense, he didn’t try to block the transmission and let the matriarch hear it.
“Yale, the plan failed, my sister is dead, and when the matriarch obtained the refined World Sea Pearl, we won’t be able to stop her.”
Kaigur felt that maybe Yale was underestimating the power of the World Sea Pearl, but Yale’s smile didn’t disappear.
“She had a hidden trump card that changed everything so easily, but she wasn’t the only one with a hidden trump card. This is our victory.”
At that moment, the barrier broke at the same time that the door of the sacred chamber was destroyed.