Chapter 750 - Meeting

"H-How... how did you...?" The grandour asked nervously, staring up at the old man standing in front of him. Eisen glared down, locking eyes with the fire giant, "How? It's the true mountain-splitting blade, obviously. It makes sense that you wouldn't realize it, since you apparently only use a mockery of the sword art created by my dear friend."

The grandour's teeth rubbed against each other, as if he was trying to grind them into dust, before slowly standing up again, "A mockery? All I did was make it my own! I am the grandour, the lord of all fire giants, including you!"

"You can't even stand before me without your knees shaking in fear, and you think you can call yourself my lord? Admit it, you useless brat. You know it to be true. I am Eisen de Grandour, son of the first Grandour, and the first man that reached the peak of the world." The old man said in a clear, unwavering voice. But the current grandour clearly didn't want to admit it, as him and Eisen were locked in what was essentially a staring-contest, until a group of giant guards came along, surrounding Eisen and blocking the way between him and the grandour.

The old man closed his eyes for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts. He wasn't a child anymore, so he should stop reacting to these things with nothing but anger. And on top of that, he had recently taken the position of King again. While to players, he was nothing but another, albeit highly-accomplished player, to the people of this world he was the ruler of a country. Maybe he should really act like it for once.

In an instant, the demonic blade in his hand disappeared, before he simply snapped his finger while spreading out his elemental mana. The whole arena, in nothing but a few moments, started to transform into Eisen's domain, with golden crystals growing from the ground paved in shining metal, flames burning inbetween the cracks spread throughout. The old man dropped backward while a throne was magically appearing right behind him. He sat down, watching as more masses of rock, metal, and golden crystals grew out of the ground around him, turning into impish, demonic creatures that stood by his side.

"I am sick of this." Eisen said in a blunt tone, while his 'True Demon's Spawn' surrounded the guards called by the grandour. They were all in this old man's domain now, meaning that he could do practically whatever he wanted in this space, "Step in front of me." The old man said in a commanding tone, watching as the guards that had surrounded him stepped aside, before the grandour came to him, dragging his feet. Obviously, he didn't actually want to do what he was told, but he had little choice given Eisen's abilities of influence.

The two men looked into each other's eyes for a few more moments, Eisen's glowing golden eyes practically burning the grandour's flesh and soul. Soon, he finally dropped to his knee, and looked up at Eisen while lowering his head, "Y-You are the true Eisen de Grandour."

"You admit it this easily all of a sudden? Didn't you do everything in your power not to?" He asked, while the grandour stayed silent under the pressure created by Eisen's glare, "We came here as a delegation of peace, in the hopes of being able to work together with you. In the end, this is still my homeland. I thought that maybe it would be the easiest to cooperate with you, being a fire giant myself, but now this happens? Someone from your country tried to kill my grandson in a most vicious way, and you turn around and accuse me of fabricating it."

"I apologize greatly, but please believe me, I am not behind the attempt at your grandson's life."

Eisen looked at the man that kneeled in front of him, and angrily averted his gaze, allowing the grandour to slightly relax. The old man closed his eyes, and started to think about what should be done now. He didn't want this situation to escalate any further. The creation of his demonic domain, the throne he was sitting on, as well as summoning his demonic spawn were all done just so that he could stop whatever the grandour was trying to do, reversing the situation to put him in absolute control of what was going to happen. All these things helped increase the influence given to him by his royal and demonic titles.

"If you want to prove that you had nothing to do with it, then have your men assist us in trying to find who it was," Eisen said, since that was the most important thing to him at the moment. Kiron seemed to be feeling better now, but that didn't change the fact that his life was legitimately in trouble. If Kiron had fallen fully unconscious in response to the poison instead of the half-conscious state that he was in, then even Eisen's influence wouldn't have done anything on him. He would have had to basically fill Kiron's body with a constant amount of health potion until he managed to create an antidote for that huge amount of poison. Even just thinking about this now made him furious again.

"Grandfather. I'm fine, you don't need to worry about me right now." The voice of the crystal half-dragon explained, as Kiron walked up right beside Eisen. It was the first time that Kiron stood beside him like this, even when Eisen was in this form. Usually, he only activated his true demonic form together with gigantification, after all.

The old man turned his head toward his grandson, and looked him in the eyes. Although he himself felt nothing but anger, Kiron, the actual victim of the situation, said that he was fine, with that genuine expression on his face. And Kiron himself wasn't particularly good at hiding his emotions either, so he most likely wasn't just acting like it. In an instant, Eisen managed to calm down. The heat that permeated throughout the arena after the old man spread his domain slowly disappeared, instead becoming a cool, relaxing air. Turning back toward the Grandour, Eisen let out a sigh, "Since my grandson is so kind, I'm going to look past what just happened. I still expect you to help us, obviously. But it is more important that he is fine. And beyond that... I think it's time for us to finally have a proper conversation."

Raising his head, the chief of the fire giants looked at the old man, still sitting on the throne that he had created for himself a few moments prior. He was calm, even smiling lightly, but still gave off a pressure that told the grandour that it would be nothing but a bad idea for him to try and deny Eisen's requests.

---

"Finally, here we are. Let us begin." Eisen said, as he was seated in the grandour's meeting room, sitting across from this giant table from him. Most of the things here in this country seemed to be carved directly from rock. It was the easiest way to go about things, after all. Of course, the surface was smoothed down, treated properly, and hardened so that it wouldn't break even under a giant's strength, so it didn't look like it was directly carved out of rock, but it was interesting for Eisen to see the way that giants did things now. Of course, it didn't seem like they were wasting any sort of space either. The thick table was actually mostly hollow, and within it were the official archives of the fire giants' domain. And currently, it seemed like there were a few scribes seated within it to transcribe the meeting that was about to happen. Obviously, Eisen made sure to record this conversation as well, just so that there wouldn't be any issues later if the grandour did try something again.

"Right... erm, is something wrong?" The Grandour asked a bit confused, seeing that Eisen was continuing to stare at the surface of the table in front of him, even though there wasn't even anything there. The old man quickly shook his head, "No, nothing is wrong. Rather, I was admiring the craftsmanship and general engineering of this space." He explained, and the grandour nodded slightly, "Of course, this space is a few thousand years old, and we did not shy away from continuing to improve on it."

"I would be surprised if you did. Actually, I'm pretty curious about the craftsmanship of the fire giants. It's one of the reasons why I'm here, actually." Eisen explained, and the grandour looked back with a frown, "What do you mean? Haven't you mastered all sorts of craftsmanship and techniques of such there are? The giants' craftsmanship was one of the first you must have learned." He pointed out.

"I thought you heard a bit about the situation. My experience has been taken from me, together with all my memories from before some months ago. It's the same with Jyuuk, Brody, Xenia, and Evalia. Although, we have found a way to recover our memory, for the most part. By interacting with people or places we had once known, some of our memories related to them return. Just on my way to this city, I coincidentally met with Khan. I asked him to show me his swordsmanship, and I was able to recover my memories of him and the mountain-splitting blade." Closely listening to the words of the man sitting across from him, the grandour looked down at the table, "I thought those rumors were just fake. It wouldn't be the first time people pretend to be one of you five. Rather, a group of people claimed your names, saying they had been 'cursed' to have lost their strength."

Eisen raised a brow, "What kinds of people would do something like that? Isn't it obvious that people would notice that they were fakes?"

"...Not particularly, actually. All five of you tend to disappear from time to time. Sometimes a few years, other times a few decades. There was even a period of five thousand years where you yourself had seemingly disappeared." The Grandour explained, surprised that Eisen himself didn't know this. It seemed like rather common knowledge to him, after all.

"...I left my kingdom alone for five thousand years?"

"Of course not 'alone', you always had trustworthy retainers. Especially considering that you could make immortal people of metal, it didn't matter much for how long you were gone. Even when you were there, you famously didn't care for the throne.. None of you five ever cared for your responsibilities, rather doing whatever you wanted instead."