Chapter 169 - Liberation

"This discussion is over, then. The next time I will meet you will be the last time. You will give up your body for me to control. Your soul shall fizzle out and begone from the world of the living." Thanatos added. 

Yin Sohaya did not say a word nor retort anything back. He knew that it would be useless to try and reason anything with Thanatos. He just turned around and ignored him. 

After Yin was woken up by the glare of the sun staring directly at him, he got up and noticed some that he was tearing up while he was asleep. "Eh?" Yin wiped them off with a piece of cloth.

"Bad dream?" Suna checked up on him and asked him. "Y-Yeah, I guess you could say that.." Yin replied back. "Yin is probably scared to death for the decisive battle a month from now, is that not right, Yin?" Zachary teased him. "Oh? Passing your fear onto me now, are you, Zach?" Yin said. The two were butting heads already first thing in the morning. 

The Khalil residence was the Six Blades' main base up until after the siege on the main hive. "I wonder how the hideout is holding up with us being gone for this long…" Suna was curious. "Do not worry, I send out rookie Slayers to clean the place up and tidy it a bit for like once a month ever since we decided to camp it up out here!" Luken said as he made his presence known. "Is that really a good use for their time?" Zachary asked. "Hmm. Probably not, but still, they are on standby anyway. We tried to have Ignis Silva and the Inferno Garden train the rookies for a bit, that lead to them not wanting to continue being a Slayer anymore…so, I guess cleaning up over there would be better than the psychological torment they had to endure from hearing Ignis." The Commander said comically.

Emperor Nicholas called for an emergency meeting once more with the Commander, Gavin Khalil, Ignis Silva, Kai Xin, Fen Kaori, and Vale Ashford. But now, the Emperor personally requested for the second in command of the Primal Hounds, Faust Keisuke to join in on it. As well as Shaheen Patel, the leader of the Enforcers. 

"You look like you have put on quite a bit of weight, Shaheen!" Luken jokingly exclaimed at him. The head of the Enforces, which are the ones keeping the peace within Niflheim, rolled his eyes and sighed. "Why must you torment me every single time you speak out, Luken?" He retorted back.

The Emperor clapped his hands one time to get the attention of the others and to make them stop bickering amongst one another. "Everyone, settle down." He said, clearing the room of any other excess noise or voices that were not his. "A month from now, the day of reckoning shall be upon us. It is not only a simple mission or expedition. No. The very fate of mankind relies on our collective effort to win! If we lose then it will signal the end of us all, a million years of fighting against these winged harbingers, with them and us locked in an eternal dark age – it will finally be over soon! But for it to end, victory must be guaranteed." He said the last line while looking intently at the Commander. 

Luken looked back and nodded his head. "We will not disappoint you nor anyone else here in this country." The Commander said. "I expect positive results from your leadership in this mission, Luken Regalia, do not falter. I have called this meeting in order to announce the structure of the mission itself." 

He motioned for Shaheen to step up to the stage with him, and he did just that. "Everyone, I am certain that you already know who this is - Shaheen Patel, the S Rank Earth Enforcer that has been the head of the Enforcer division in Niflheim. I plan to leave Niflheim to him temporarily when the mission begins." The Emperor's words signaled a few shocked expressions and noticeable gasps among the members there. 

"Where will you be, your majesty?" The Serpent Summoner asked him. "I shall be personally accompanying you lot to the main hive of the Angels, where else would I be?" Emperor Nicholas grinned as he said that. "W-Why would you be present during the mission, sire? It will be the most dangerous expedition the Corps will ever have to date, I worry for your safety." Ignis said to him, but in reality, the SS Rank Fire Slayer was just worried that the High Council might swoop in and try to assume control from Shaheen Patel's grasp. 

The Emperor kept on grinning. "I am a fighter as well, Ignis. I understand your concerns and uncertainty of whether or not my capabilities still hold up in my old age, but keep in mind that I led the Six Blades back in my youth, I am no pushover nor will I request to have special treatment or some kind of dedicated healing Slayer assigned to me." Emperor Nicholas was being modest, in fact, he could still be one of the strongest Slayers in the country, but he had to give up his rank and position in the Slayer Corps when the inevitable crowning of him and his Wilhelm bloodline came to be.

"I guess I cannot argue with that. Heh." Luken just shrugged his shoulders. "As the Emperor for a few years now, I have been subjected to numerous criticisms and riots from the residents of Niflheim. They spoke ill of my actions and said they were not enough to stop the conflict and win against the Angels, the same type of words that were said to the late Basilisk Slayer from when he was still with us. Keep in mind that I am not doing this to showoff that I, the Emperor himself, has descended from the throne and will fight to show that I am competent." Emperor Nicholas said. "I seek no glory nor will I gain any from joining the battle. What I wish to do is to finally charge into battle carrying the bodies of every dead Slayer there is from the first day of me as the Emperor." He cleared his throat.

"I wish to repent. Luken! This is a command from the Emperor himself, let me fight alongside you all. It is the least I can do for the ghosts of the many yesterdays that have gone by." Emperor Nicholas ordered the Commander. 

Luken lit up a cigarette and grinned as well. "You will be assigned to a section of the Corps where your abilities will be viable for. I will not treat you as nothing more or less than a Slayer." Luken muttered.

"Thank you, Luken." The Emperor showed gratitude by bowing to the Commander himself. "Can you not smoke in here?" Ignis Silva said to Luken as he covered his nose. "I can and I will, my friend." Luken retorted back 

Gavin took the main stage as he was about to brief them about how the mission will go. "First things first, I expect you all to work with one another despite your obvious hatred, differences, and altercations you might have had against each other in the past. This might not need to have been said at all. But I do not want egos to clash and result in a shitty situation, you got that?" The Serpent Summoner's green orbs stared daggers at both Luken Regalia and Ignis Silva. 

"The mission will be called 'Liberation', Operation Liberation's main goal is the burning of the main hive and the extermination of every single Angel plaguing the area. The team compositions will come shortly after this." The Serpent Summoner said.

"Operation Liberation, huh? Not bad." Kai Xin said under his breath. "Each of the top ten Slayers in the rankings will command ten particular squadrons, it will not be divided into affinities, rather, it must be divided evenly. Each squadron will need to be able to do the bare minimum when it comes to combating the Angels, and that is the ability to burn the hives, the ability to exterminate the Angels, and the ability to work together and make use of each other's abilities in order to achieve positive results." Gavin Khalil said. 

"Who gets to choose the groups and whatnot?" Ignis Silva immediately raised his hand and asked a question. "Excellent question, I personally think that it should be a task for the SS Rank Slayers, as there are no longer SSS Rank ones left alive, as my brother has passed on already. So, the ones in charge of the squadron compositions will be Luken Regalia of the Six Blades, Ignis Silva of the Inferno Garden, and Fen Kaori, the Allcaster. Any objections?" 

There were no objections and disagreements from the participants of the meeting, they were all on board and trusted the decisions of those three.