As Arad looked at Noel’s determined eyes, he could already tell that she was of the fourth type of people. This woman doesn’t bend herself for society and the world; she bends them to her will. Her power might not be great, but her potential is as high as it gets.

Arad patted her on the shoulder, "For now, get back to your seat. We have an important topic to discuss."

"As you wish, Master Arad." Noel gave him a deeper bow, and quickly returned to her seat with a happy grin on her face. Li gave her a long stare, and then whispered in her ear. "Hoi! What gotten into you? What was that about?"

Noel looked back at her, then frowned. "About me being able to protect you from him, forget it. Even if we all in this room banded together, he won’t be able to protect anything from him. He is that strong." They both had seen Arad’s power against the moon elves, but none of them could fathom the extent of his might. But Noel understood through her draconic blood that he was far above them, on a whole other dimension of power.

"Are you sure? Queen Cerilla is a demigoddess, and we have an archon here. Aren’t they able to kill even gods?" Li whispered again, and Noel quickly shifted her gaze to Mathilde, "Whispering won’t work here, you heard her, so what do you say?"

Mathilde was silent for a second, and even Arad wanted to hear her answer. She knows of his power, knows that he is AO, so what would she think?

"Me? Fighting Arad? I already did that and Lost. Right now, and for the endless future, I won’t be going against him." Mathilde replied with a smile as she threw a glance at Noel. "I bet you could already sense it. My divine magic is arrogant and burns brightly around everyone; even my now goddess, Cerilla, is looked down on by me."

"Yeah." Noel could clearly see Mathilde’s magic. "But the moment Arad showed up, your divine magic cowered back to the ground in obedient submission. You aren’t just serving or respecting him. You actually derive pleasure, enjoyment, and purpose from devoting yourself to his service."

Arad sat on his large couch and then looked around. "She didn’t arrive yet... what is taking her so long?"

Mathilde quickly looked at him, "She should be here any minute now. When I told her about this meeting, she said that she would ask some friends about the situation. It isn’t that we don’t trust your info, but we should check for details. That Hermit isn’t strong enough to fathom the situation if it were on a universal scale."

"You’re right. If he can’t look into my power, then he might be underestimating the threat of a race of worms that is feeding on the world tree roots." As Arad said those words, Cerilla, Jasmine, and Li paled like snow, "What?!"

None of them had heard yet about that, and so this came as a shock to them. "Wait, what are you talking about? Worms feeding on Yggdrasil’s roots?!" Cerilla cried, "Sylph didn’t tell me anything."

"Yeah, she should’ve told her." Jasmine added, "Are we sure that is true? If it is, then the entire universe might be endangered. If Yggdrasil dies, many worlds would just shut down."

Seconds later, the guest finally arrived, and it was none other than Dendron, the Spirit Queen protecting the Tree of the Mortal World. She approached the room’s door, looked at it, then shrank to fly through the keyhole.

"Arad! I’m stuck! Help me!" She had started getting bigger too quickly, and so, her hips got stuck in the keyhole. Arad looked at her with a tired face, and then waved his hand. "If you’re playing like that, then the situation isn’t so bad after all."

Dendron stayed silent for a second, then sighed. "You’re not fun at all." She then flew out of the keyhole, flew above everyone, and then finally landed on the table.

She patted her clothes clean, then looked at everyone, "I investigated the situation on Arad’s demand, and found a few interesting things. Those worms are real, they are like pests, parasites that feed on Yggdrasil’s roots, and they are everywhere."

Arad nodded and lifted his head. "This is the topic of this meeting. How to deal with those worms before they hurt Yggdrasil and threaten the balance of the worlds. They were discovered in the world where Tina is training,"

It was then when Li stopped him. "Wait a minute, Lord Arad. There are other worlds?"

"Hundreds of billions of them. Some have life, some don’t." He replied calmly and turned his attention back to Dendron. "Tell me the details of what you found."

Dendron started flailing her arms, jumping around, making weird faces as she explained how ugly the worms are, how they moved, and how they latched onto the World Tree’s root to suck the untried out of them. With each world, everyone got more and more worried, and eventually, Mathilde was the one to break their silence.

"Spread across many worlds, multiply at high speed, can easily bite through the hard roots, and are even showing some sense of tactical intelligence. Can they be abominations?" With those words, the room grew silent for longer, but then, Dendron spoke with her usual cheerful voice.

"Not quite right, they have abominable blood, but aren’t true abominations. It was confirmed by death that their souls belong to the mortal world, but their bodies don’t." She wiggled her arms. "They are powerful monsters, but nothing we can’t defeat. The only problem is that there are a lot of them everywhere. They seem to be able to use Yggdrasil’s passive space magic to travel between worlds using her roots, so getting rid of them won’t be easy."

She then turned around and looked at Arad with a smile. "So, this is an official request from Yggdrasil to you. Can you get rid of them?"

Arad leaned back and started thinking. "So, what reward would I get for that? You know it won’t be easy going around several worlds and cleaning the roots without burning everything to the ground."

She stopped moving for a second, "Now to the fun part." She jumped onto Arad’s face and crawled to sit on his head. "For finding this infection early, Yggdrasil said that you can have me. Feel free to do with me whatever you like. If you managed to find the source and learn where they came from, she would grant you all the Tree Maidens. And lastly, if you managed to get rid of this mess before it turns ugly, Yggdrasil said she’ll use her authority to set you above all spirits as their Fae Emperor."

As the room remained silent, Cerilla was the first to speak. "Wait, what do you mean by a Fae Emperor?"

Dendron smiled, "Just how it sounds, whenever Arad sets foot in any world that has a Yggdrasil World Tree, all spirit queens in those worlds must serve him with their bodies, souls, and will. So from now on, in those worlds, becoming a spirit queen means giving your loyalty and obedience to Arad."

"Let’s leave the matter of rewards for later. I can’t just let them weaken Yggdrasil, as that risks the very foundation of the universe. I’ll get rid of them as much as I can." Arad leaned back, and Dendron jumped down to sit on his nose. "Yggdrasil has her own way to keep them at bay. You don’t have to rush anything. So take your time and prepare well."

"Dendron is right." Jasmine rubbed her eyebrows. "This would be a headache, especially for us Dark Elves who are going to build a kingdom at Yggdrasil’s roots." She threw a glance at Li and Noel. "For now, let’s deal with those two first."

Being addressed, the two flinched for a second. When Arad looked at them, both started sweating. "Li was your name, right? You look a bit injured and drained." Arad asked, and she tried her best to answer, but due to how nervous she was, she kept stuttering and making no sense.

"I’ll explain, Lord Arad." Noel gave him a bow. "When we declared that one of the princesses would be sent to marry you, the princesses fought among themselves to decide who would go. All of them had wanted to go outside the kingdom, explore the world, and marry the strongest and richest man in the world." She threw a glance at Li, "We also got info that you prefer strong women, and so, what was supposed to be a political debate that considers the capital value of each of the princesses had turned into a barbaric, free-for-all brawl. My Lady Li here was the last one standing."

Arad gave Li a stare. "From her build, I assume she is mainly a kicker."

"Indeed, as you can see, my Lady’s legs are well developed, while her upper torso is sadly neglected. I’ve heard a saying in humans about skipping leg day in training; my lady did the opposite. She trained nothing but her legs."

Noel lifted her hand and slapped Li on the chest, causing her to start coughing. "But sadly, as you can see, that had left her as flat as a washboard. But, do not worry, I am here, and so are all of those beautiful women behind us."

"If she is a kicker." Mathilde smiled as she licked her lips. "Would you mind leaving her for me? I’ll see how good she is."