985: Lights On. Drum Rolls. Brumm.

Lights On. Drum Rolls. Brumm.

The audience couldn't believe Eren would use Grim Pillar Town as a threatening tool.1

At this point, the pillars in Grim Pillar town kept on growing as more and more pillars would get erected overnight by some unknown entity. All these pillars were dedicated to rankers who were perceived to be Eren's enemies directly or indirectly.

Nobody wanted to meet such an end where their remains would serve as an art collection for someone else. Nobody wanted to be an inspiration for their future generation by claiming a pillar in the Grim Pillar town for themselves.

Even Expert-ranked entities in the audience didn't dare make any noise because they knew someone like them had once messed with a certain wrong guy. They didn't want to follow in his footsteps.

Eren flashed a graceful smile as he observed the pin-drop silence. He took a fresh nightly breeze into his lungs before speaking up.

"It is not what you think. I am not here to advertise my city. Frankly, I don't need to grow my city any further anymore. In contrast to unstable exponential growth, the stability of the growth achieved so far is more important.

I don't want to hire anyone else in my guild either. At least for now. I never wanted a massive number of members added to my guild's roster anyway. So there's that.

Furthermore, I don't want to inspire any of you either. That job is for people like Grandmaster Amory. Frankly, I don't want there to be more rankers like me."

Eren's voice was calm but domineering. As it came from a position of confidence, nobody dared to ask him any questions regarding whatever he had said.

Eren took a brief pause before speaking further.

"Let me clarify why I'm standing in front of you. I want to use this platform to convey a message to some people who think that I or my city are easy targets."

Eren's presence almost disappeared all of a sudden which made it eerier for people close to the platform. His emerald green eyes shone with exceptional brilliance as he spoke directly to his enemies who were watching this concert from a distance.

"Whatever you might have in store for me, know that what I have for you is much worse."

Eren was not only talking to House Slughorn, House Remus, Demonmir's faction, or the Escalon guild. He was also referring to cultists and the royal scion of Layos who wanted to target him for assimilating Healers' Nirvana into his fold. He knew almost all of them would be watching live coverage of the event from their base. So he used the event as a way to announce a threat.

Normally, Eren wouldn't have let his enemies in on what he was doing. He would prefer to strike them when they were unaware of his actions. But that only worked with rankers with some kind of background who knew how to operate in groups and whose moves could be predicted.

Eren knew that his strategy needed to be changed when it came to handling cultists and the masterminds behind them. He needed to act as a dominant and unstoppable force in front of them. All so that when he does act on his warnings, it serves as a deterrent.

Eren didn't know how much success Kirin was about to achieve in eliminating the cultists and the royal scions from Layos. But he was sure that she would deliver on his promise soon enough.

Eren looked at the people surrounding him one more time before concluding his statement. This time, he sounded more like a cordial host.

"I think that's about it. Thank you for giving me the chance to speak. I'm sure you are eager to listen to the stars of the show. So I'll take my leave without further ado. Please enjoy the rest of the evening."

Eren bowed in front of his audience. Lightning streaks surrounded him and took him into their embrace. When they dispersed, he disappeared, leaving behind a sea of silent spectators.

Then a surge of excitement passed through the crowds as they started screaming random things out loud. They were waiting for the performers of the evening to take the stage.

***

Lights on. Drum rolls. Brumm.

The sound of a strange musical instrument was heard by the audience as they watched a demon suddenly appear onstage. It was a fretted instrument with six strings and some sound-element runes that amplified its output. The runes were in sync with the sound-element arrays spread across the field, sending sound waves in all directions.

The female crowd in the audience got goosebumps just by listening to the sound of that device once. The rest got utterly intrigued by the sound as well. They did not think that they had heard the sound of this instrument anywhere in the kingdom of Edinburgh.

The demon, in his complete human form, was seen wearing the instrument on him with a strap that stretched across his torso from the waist to the left shoulder. He called it the guitar.

He did not seem to have any stage fright or first-time jitters. It was as if making his audience mad for him and his songs wasn't new to him.

This white-haired demon had a wild air about him. He was wearing a very vibrant-colored, lapel-collared cardigan atop a black sleeveless tee. He had matching slim-fitting dark leather pants and black shoes that complemented his overall appearance.

DUN. DUN. DUN.

Argo smiled brightly as he looked at the crowd in front of him. He inhaled the air before producing a mysterious riff from his guitar that made the audience turn wild just listening to it once. From the moment they heard it, every listener knew that the riff was going to stay in their heads forever from this moment onwards.

Argo handled like a maestro. There was a sense that he'd done this countless times through one of his demonic possessions. It was as if he had lived one of his previous lives as a well-known artist in some distant world away from the land of Anfang.

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