Chapter 955 Making Demands

Chapter 955 Making Demands

Alex kept himself from replying that he would like to see him try. He had questions he wanted to ask before he started antagonizing him again.

"Would you mind giving me an actual seat instead of me sitting on these books? It's not that I'm not comfortable, but I doubt you want me to damage them," Alex said, pointing under him.

Merlin nodded, his face still stern, and as soon as Alex lifted his ass, he waved his hand at him, pushing the books away carefully, before a bland-looking brown wooden chair appeared in their stead.

Alex looked at the uncomfortable seat and chuckled.

"Sure. That'll do."

He sat on the chair, looking at Merlin with a shit-eating grin.

"Now, as I was saying earlier, what are you doing still alive, Merlin? Forcing yourself upon your descendants is a far cry from the righteous front your legend says you upheld."

"Child, speak not of matters you know nothing about. I am not forcing myself upon anyone. Each Exarch chooses to let me in of their own free will. And I don't push them out of their bodies, either. Howard is still somewhere in here, probably waiting for you to leave."

Alex looked around with a curious gaze, but he couldn't sense the other mind. It didn't help that he was an unwelcome guest inside this man's head, though.

"Whatever you say. But that doesn't explain the soul snaring. Seems a bit of an excessive measure to take on people under you, no?" Alex asked, trying to look outraged.

But his acting skills were less than adequate, and Merlin looked unfazed.

"Do not presume to understand my motives, young one. I have lived almost a thousand years, and your mind could not begin to comprehend the dangers humanity has faced in the shadows before you were even a drop in your father's sac."

Alex snorted at the comment.

"Wow. If the historians knew you had a foul mouth like this, I wonder if your legend would have caught on as it did," he chuckled.

"Enough taunting and verbal scrimmage. What do you want?" Merlin snapped, pulsing his mana out again.

Alex felt his mind tug slightly backwards, as he was almost expelled, being caught off guard.

He could feel his body getting further and further, and the connection between them was slowly becoming tenuous. He couldn't play around too long before his mind retracted on its own.

If it wasn't that the natural magic of the world had waned so much over the last millennia, Merlin was almost sure that Howard could have reached close to his height in power at that same age.

"What do you think of this young man? You keep tabs on people of potential around the world. Did he seem like one of your potential powerhouses?" Merlin asked, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

Howard sat on the chair before Merlin, scratching his chin for a bit.

"I think I saw him in a report a little while back. Something about displaying strange powers. We thought he might be a lycanthrope, given he was shifting into a beast-like entity.

"At first, we thought we might have let a family of lycans slip through the net during the great hunt, and that they might have moved overseas. But with further digging, we couldn't find any other like him. So we ruled out lycanthrope," Howard said, thinking back to the report.

"A shifter, then?" Merlin asked, looking slightly confused.

"We ruled that out as well. He maintains the same appearance the rest of the time, making him unlikely to be a shifter. After all, they can't stand wearing the same skin too long."

Merlin sighed tiredly.

"Do you think his threats hold any weight?"

Howard's face became glum.

"Very much so, venerable Merlin. He has already killed many, and we fear his actual kill count may be higher than what we can confirm. He is already marked as a level-three threat."

Merlin's face darkened.

"Mark him level five, but note him as 'keep tabs.' I don't want us to conflict with him just yet. Making a powerful enemy at this moment is not in our best interest."

Howard bowed, before he retracted from the mind space and returned to his body.

As Merlin was left alone, he sighed again, looking dejected.

"What in the gods has been unleashed upon our world? Where do all these monsters come from, and why are more powerful people being born? Is the world really ending?" he mumbled.

His gaze went to a scroll in a corner, which was unrolled and displayed inside a glass case.

'Let's hope they were just the ravings of a crazed woman on death's door...'