Zahard remained silent. His expression didn’t change, nor did he make any attempt to answer. Even after death and taming, it seemed a part of his loyalty toward the Florathi still lingered.
The others, however, didn’t share that stubbornness.
"The Third Priest ordered us to assassinate Eleanor Weiss. He told us it was a direct command from the World Tree. As for why that order was given, none of us were informed," Beila answered calmly.
Isaac looked at him with mild curiosity. "You’re answering surprisingly easily. I thought Emily would have to use her Spirit Element to make you cooperate."
"There isn’t any reason to resist anymore. We’re already under your control. It would be foolish to create unnecessary hostility when the outcome won’t change," Beila replied without hesitation.
"Is that so?" Isaac asked.
A powerful telekinetic force slammed into Beila’s stomach before he could say another word. His body folded forward as the invisible pressure crushed into him, forcing him to nearly kneel. The moment his head lowered, Isaac stepped forward and drove his foot into Beila’s face.
The kick launched Beila backward several hundred meters before he crashed onto the ground. A loud crack echoed through the clearing as his nose broke, and blood immediately poured down his face.
Isaac lowered his leg without changing his expression. His calm gaze swept across the members of the Florathi team, and there wasn’t the slightest hint of satisfaction in his eyes. He hated these people with a burning passion, almost as much as he hated Beroga, Ki Beli, and Mother. They had tried to harm the people who belonged to him.
At least Beroga had decency to act with a backbone. The man fought openly, admitted his intentions, and never pretended otherwise. Beila, on the other hand, had just spoken as though the Florathi had simply abandoned him, as if that somehow erased his own choices.
Isaac raised a hand, and soft healing light enveloped Beila. The broken nose straightened, the bleeding stopped, and the bruises disappeared within seconds.
"Any more news?" Isaac asked calmly.
Beila gritted his teeth as he climbed back to his feet. He had no intention of provoking Isaac again after experiencing that sudden attack. He still didn’t understand why Isaac had singled him out, but it was obvious that saying the wrong thing would only earn him another beating.
"You shouldn’t go to the Florathi Kingdom," Beila finally said.
"What do you mean by that?" Isaac raised an eyebrow.
Zahard and X-019 both looked as though they wanted to stop him from speaking further. Emily noticed it immediately, and faint strands of Spirit Element tightened around the two of them, preventing either from interrupting.
Beila glanced at them before continuing. "You were planning to seek protection under the Seventh Queen, weren’t you? She’ll die soon. If you arrive after that happens, her protection will disappear along with her, and you’ll have already made an enemy of the Third Priest’s faction."
Isaac’s expression grew slightly more serious.
"She’s going to die? Is this related to some factional conflict? There’s no way another Florathi could openly kill one of the Emperor’s queens. If something like that happened, wouldn’t the Emperor come out of seclusion himself?" Isaac asked.
A strange expression appeared on Beila’s face. "I... don’t know how she’s going to die. I think it might be because of a hidden struggle between factions, but honestly, I can’t say for certain. Nobody knows."
Isaac frowned. That answer raised more questions than it solved. If Beila didn’t even know the cause of her death, how could he sound so certain that it would happen?
Before Isaac spoke again, Beroga answered from the side.
"It’s said that the Seventh Queen can see the future. Quite a few of the futures she predicts turn out to be wrong, but she always seems convinced that they’re correct. She’s perfectly sane in every other aspect, which makes the whole thing rather strange," he said.
He folded his arms while looking toward Beila. "If she predicted her own death, then that’s probably what he’s talking about."
Beila nodded. "That’s right. One of the spies working for the White Spear Faction managed to discover it. After that, the information slowly spread through the upper ranks. At this point, it’s practically an open secret that the Seventh Queen believes she’ll die soon. Because of that, she’s been trying to gather as many talented people as possible. You’re not the first person she’s tried to recruit recently."
Isaac considered everything in silence before asking another question. "She can see the future, but most of those visions are wrong? How exactly does her ability work?"
"I don’t know. Nobody ever explained it to us." Beila looked genuinely confused.
Beroga took over instead. "Nobody really knows the mechanics of her ability. Information about it has always been tightly controlled. The Purification Cult invested quite a few resources investigating her when news of her Talent first appeared."
He shrugged. "Eventually we confirmed that the overwhelming majority of her future visions were incorrect. Once that became obvious, the Cult lost interest. Even the Emperor stopped paying attention to her after that. The Seventh Queen is probably the most neglected of all his wives. Most people believe the Emperor simply concluded that her ability wasn’t useful enough to be worth his attention."
"Is it possible she’s hiding something? Maybe she deliberately gives everyone false predictions while keeping the real ones to herself," Isaac said.
"No. We’ve already considered that possibility. We tested her through multiple independent sources over many years. The conclusion was always the same. Her ability genuinely shows incorrect futures most of the time," Beroga replied.
Isaac’s expression became slightly strange. System abilities weren’t supposed to work like that, as far as he knew. An ability either functioned correctly or it failed entirely.
If future sight depended on probabilities, then the System should simply reveal one possible future or refuse to show anything at all. Showing false futures made no sense.
Even stranger was the fact that the Seventh Queen apparently trusted every vision she received. According to Beroga, she had never once questioned whether her ability itself was malfunctioning.
Isaac silently organized those thoughts in his head.
’Strange.’
The single word echoed through his mind. It wasn’t merely unusual. It felt fundamentally wrong, almost as though everyone was missing something obvious.
"So, are you still planning to meet the Seventh Queen?" Beroga asked.