33 Risen#re

Telamon's face cramped as he tried to maintain his perfect smile, "The stage is yours," he said, unwillingly paying no heed to Lirian's insult.

Lirian took a step forward and spoke directly into the microphone, "Oh, it was you Telamon, why didn't you say so?" he sneered slightly as he said Telamons name, but quickly hide it with an innocent-not-so-innocent expression.

Lirian wanted to grab the attention of the world with this, he knew that he couldn't make outright accusations so he had to be smart and use more subtle tactics.

For now, all he needed was to plant the idea that something was going behind the scenes between him and Telamon and let it take root in the eyes of the nobles.

He chuckled and decided to stop taking direct shots at Telamon, for now, otherwise, the grand speech that he just came up with was going to be unceremoniously stopped.

Once more he heard the audience go crazy because what he did this time was a hundred times worse, he addressed Telamon by his name directly, not even the emperor would call him by name in the company of others.

He could feel the anger in Telamon, but more so he could feel the gluttonous appetites of the reporters, wetting their lips and fixing their camera lenses on him for they had found a scoop, several scoops full in fact.

"The headmasters' words are a reminder to us all about the unfortunate consequences our actions can bring when dealing with a superior existence," he admitted sincerely with a small smirk, surprising everyone after his insult they expected him to continue but instead he showed a semblance of respect.

"That brings us to something very important, a question that we must all ask ourselves at some point within our lives,"

"As cultivators, we all eventually hear the term superior existence, a superior existence is one who stands above us, is one who acts as both a bridge and a blockade on our road to ascension,"

"But, 'What does it mean to be a superior existence?, one might ask," he asked with a rare solemness to his voice

"'What does it mean to you?', you might ask yourself," he said changing his tone into a little more than a whisper, but he could feel the ears of everyone straining to catch his every word.

"But what you need to ask is, 'What does it mean to another?"

"And finally, 'What does it mean to the empire as a whole?"

"Some would say that it is power, to rise to seventh-grade and stand above all others..." he looked on with a disapproving smirk.

"In the old world your thinking might have been right when the worlds were isolated and not united..." he chuckled slightly.

"If you think that breaking the barriers of the accords is the answer then you would be wrong as well, even if you are one of those rare geniuses that enters into the third accord it is not enough,"

"Then what might the answer be, if it is not strength, you are probably wondering?" he spoke with deliberate slowness, keeping them on the edge of their seats.

"While strength is most certainly a requirement, it does not have to be your own strength you use, it can be the strength of another that you purchase or take for yourself and bend to your will,"

"There are two more things that one needs to be truly superior to another, and it does not matter whether you are an ordinary mortal or god, for this will always remain true no matter the situation..." he could feel the suspense of the audience in there held breath and after holding the answer hostage for a second longer than they could bare he continued.

"What you need is knowledge,"

"Knowledge that others do not want you to have, Knowledge that others do not know you have, and you need the wisdom to use that knowledge to slowly bend and crush those who think themselves to be 'superior beings'," he finished with an icy edge to his voice while curling his small hands into a fist for all to see.

It looked almost cute, but the words that came before it painted a contradicting picture.

Feeling the tension in the room he built up, Lirian chuckled innocently, he knew that his message was received loud and clear and that he had to ease things up a little before jumping into the real stuff.

Mordred sat in the audience with cold shivers, "Holy crap, he just went into full on demon Lirian mode and switched to lovely Lirian in an instance," it was scary for him, it was as if someone just killed someone in front of him, then smiled at him and asked him what's his favorite cut of meat, while staring at the dead body.

"Unfortunately, that is not what this is about," Lirian said acknowledging that he had strayed a little off topic.

"We are all here due to the death of a candidate, a candidate who was famed during her time in the academy and it is indeed unfortunate that she will not live to become a pillar of the empire," Lirian sighed softly.

"But before I speak about Ilma there is something else that I would like say,"

"I have a story that I would like to share, I hope you will all be willing to hear me out to the end," if Lirian could see he would have seen tens of thousands of heads bobbing up and down repeatedly.

"It's a story that reminds of the fate of candidates, it's a story about a dagger, a dagger we know as 'King Killer', it was once just a simple piece of ore it was mistaken as a useless lump of rock and tossed into a sack of coal...." Lirian began.