Death Mage with an SS-Rank Talent

The cultists arrived at Kraken City once the signal was given.

"Big Three, how can we find the prison. From what I knew, not even the supreme had any idea where the prison was truly located. He only located the general area, which is the Kraken City and its surroundings".

"Where should we start our search? Also, if the alliance catches on to us, then everything would be for nothing", Big One said.

From the start, he was against this plan. He didn't want to rescue or silence the supreme. It was for his selfish reasons that he tried to delay the time.

With the Supreme gone, he could solidify his position, and to do that, he needed resources. He was aware of some of the Supreme's hideouts, which others were unaware of. He was slowly raiding them, trying to compensate for what he lost due to the supreme giving away details of operations regarding not just him, but all five of them.

Big One wanted to use this to reduce the power of the other four and size the leadership of the Cult. He always wanted to eliminate the Supreme and seize his place, but he was weak.

So, when the alliance caught him, it provided a way for him. The spot is open, and his competitors are scrambling to protect their assets, while he is trying to consolidate his power slowly.

He had to take one step at a time because, once the other four found out what he had been up to, they would fight to the death to stop him from achieving his goal.

It was going as planned. He diverted everyone away from the genuine efforts to rescue Supreme at first by causing chaos, and no one in the cult is sane enough to say no, but things didn't go as planned.

Alliance was partially blessed by luck, which caused them to lose a lot on a half-finished mission. A lot of cultists were either killed or captured due to a small mistake.

Big One believed this could be used to his advantage by turning their eyes towards finding the one who caused the failure. However, Big Three was more intelligent than he was.

To be successful in life, one has to accept what they lack, maybe not to others, but to themselves. It is the only way one can prepare to move forward, or they would be dragged back in life.

He knew that he lagged behind Big Three when it came to Intelligence, but he was a step ahead of her when it came to cunning.

He used the failure. He pointed out that they have to make a statement, by killing the person who made their mission a failure, whether directly or not, it wouldn't matter. Making a point was all that mattered, or at least that's what he sold to others.

He used the other four to search for the person who caused the failure. It was a subtle way of slowly erasing their power while consolidating his power.

It worked well for a time, but that turned against him, as Big Three saw that the only way to establish themselves was to rescue or silence the Supreme, to which the other three agreed.

There was no hesitation on the faces of the other three, as Big Three explained how things were done. They accepted the plan. So, he couldn't say no to the plan, and raise suspicions in their minds.

They may be less cunning and less intelligent than he, but they are not idiots. If he says no to such a good plan without a reason, then they would catch on that he was doing something wrong.

That would make everything he worked for a waste. He couldn't let that happen. So, he let things move as Big Three planned, while he made his own plan behind everyone.

As Big Three planned, the cult used all their connections to cause a commotion, big enough to catch the alliance's eyes, but low-key enough to say that they were doing something in secret.

The Alliance won't always purge spies inside or the Cult.

Known spies were useful for identifying any spies hidden in their organisations or to feed false information to their enemies.

Just like the Cult let the Alliance spy get information about the ruins to divert their energy and use Supreme as a bait to get rid of a lot of powerhouses, but that failed. Though a few died, the number was still lower than what they hoped for.

As the alliance watched, they found that the cult was indeed looking for something, something important to cause a ruckus.

They believed that the cult had found some clues to enter the ruins without disappearing from the face of the world, forever. It was something that the alliance couldn't ignore, but there was no way that the alliance could extract everything about this "key" from the captured cult pawns.

They never had the entire knowledge to begin with. So, the alliance had to send more people to the ruins in order to find out about this "key".

It was not just the thirty that they sent. There were others from other regions as well. They took a few from each region and sent them to the ruins, so that no region would face a lack of personnel.

It was for that very reason that even students like Aaron and Mary joined the team. On other teams, there were other students as well.

Though the cult had expected that the alliance would send even more personnel, which would have made the plan scrap, the Big Three and others continued with the plan.

At first, it was a problem for him, but now this plan is crucial for him.

While the others would be busy either rescuing or silencing the supreme, depending on the condition, he would make his moves.

Once this mission was done, neither the supreme nor the alliance nor the other four would come out on top. Only he does.