Chapter 642: Lyra’s Queries
Lyra sipped her genisan-flavored coffee with graceful poise, her violet hair flowing over her shoulders like velvet. The faint clink of her cup meeting the table echoed softly in the room as she looked up at Max with composed determination.
Max, on the other hand, leaned forward slightly, his gaze sharp. "So, what did you want from me?" he asked at last, his voice calm but firm. "You didn’t come all the way from the Middle Domain and secretly help me in the Lower Domain just out of kindness. What do you want in return?"
His question wasn’t cold, just realistic. He knew better than to believe someone at her level would move pieces on the board without an endgame in mind. Lyra nodded, acknowledging the truth in his words.
"I need your help," she said bluntly, without a hint of hesitation.
That caught Max off guard. What could someone like her—a princess of one of the most powerful first-class forces in the Middle Domain—possibly need from him? Still, he listened, silently urging her to continue, because deep down, he already knew that whatever she needed, it might just benefit him as well.
After all, he wasn’t naive. He understood his situation perfectly. At any moment, he could be branded a deserter by the Black Tortoise Nation and put on their kill list. Without protection from a force as powerful as the Great Ruler Empire, his life in the Middle Domain would be one long chase. So he was ready to hear her out.
Lyra didn’t waste time. "I won’t beat around the bushes," she said, her tone suddenly firmer, the air around her seeming to sharpen. "I want you to join the Great Ruler Empire and help us secure a spot in the top ten of the Divine Mandate Grand Tournament."
Her words dropped like a weight into the room. Max blinked, surprised, not because he was unwilling—no, he had been half-expecting something like this—but because he hadn’t expected such a force to be in need of outside help.
’So, they really are desperate,’ he thought to himself. That was the only explanation.