Back then, Rhea and her future husband both had two rings and could take on some pretty profitable missions—if they weren’t afraid of dying, of course.
He was part of a big clan from his Empire. She had a really useful blessing and was from the rare Mystic class; she could’ve joined any major clan and gotten a bunch of missions.
So, the two of them focused on stacking up resources.
After saving up a lot, they used the underground market to buy an artifact from another planet—one that was banned across the entire Earth.
With some help from the underground, they found someone from the New Arcadia Empire who also wanted to escape—to the Solar Federation Empire, in his case. The guy had tons of enemies and was being hunted down. So, the plan was for both of them to swap identities, pretending to be each other.
The risks were insane. Obviously, they didn’t look alike physically; their blessings and classes were also completely different. And most importantly, each Empire had a distinct energy signature.
The only way to make it work was: they both had to live in hiding, stay away from people, and avoid any kind of fighting or missions. According to the rules of both Empires, if they started a clan and led it, they could get away with that.
If their clan got officially accepted and its members completed a set number of missions each year, the leadership wasn’t required to go on missions or enter the training universe to expose themselves. They could just focus on admin stuff and live isolated from the world.
Starting a clan wasn’t easy. First off, they needed a *ton* of money. And they had to find people willing to join a fresh new clan where the rewards and gear would be way worse than what mercenaries usually got.
Now, about the other guy—they actually got lucky. Physically, he was only level one, but he had a weird blessing that let him mimic someone else’s blessing. With a few tweaks and by staying under the radar, he could pose as a mercenary in some small city without problems.
On Rhea’s side, things were slightly easier. The guy she was replacing was practically unknown. Even during the rookie introductions, he didn’t stand out and got knocked out of the tournament in his first match.
He had no family. And everyone who’d interacted with him closely had recently died on a mission.
So in short, the Empire itself was going to be the hardest part. But they knew the system. The powerful were arrogant and didn’t care about nobodies. If he just stayed low-profile, everything would be fine.
The identity swap went smoothly in the beginning while they tied up all loose ends. Their connection to the Divine Protection Universe didn’t change at all, and they kept receiving the same rewards. Then, they spent nearly a century grinding and gathering resources until they were finally able to found their clan.
Rhea was always great at recruiting people. Once they had enough resources, it wasn’t hard to find folks willing to join her clan.
Time passed, and they finally got to live a hectic but super happy life. Their two kids were born and raised with all the love in the world.
Meanwhile, the Azure Haven Clan kept rising in status every year. The big reason was that they became incredibly valuable when it came to getting info on the other Empires.
They provided solid proof that they could get access to secret info from the enemy sides. Everything they gathered helped their own clan and boosted the whole New Arcadia Empire.
More than once, they revealed secrets that helped the military’s high command big time. Of course, they were thoroughly investigated—before and after—but nothing ever came up that proved they were traitors.
In the end, it was quietly assumed they had spies working across the border for the good of their Empire; nobody really knew how they pulled it off so flawlessly.
A spy was insanely valuable. He kept delivering info that only someone important and living in that place could possibly know—clans, rules, people with strong blessings. All of it top secret, but he knew because he’d lived there for a long time, and had even been part of a major clan.
Everything was becoming more and more solid—perfect, even.
But then, one day... everything changed.
A new supreme artifact was discovered and claimed during a mission by the Solar Federation Empire.
The powers of these artifacts were always wild and impossible to predict. They’d show up like random miracles, and what they could do could change everything. Whenever a new one appeared on Earth, even other planets would get nervous and start digging for details.
Luckily, those two had way deeper connections in the underground than the Empire they lived in—they got insider info before even the military did.
A spy from New Arcadia was caught in Solar Federation territory. Rhea got a terrible feeling and paid the underground for every piece of info they could find.
...was the one pretending to be her husband.
The moment they found out, everything was about to collapse. So, her real husband decided to return to his homeland. That way, when New Arcadia started investigating, they’d trace it back to him—but wouldn’t be able to find him.
Rhea would just say that her husband was indeed the one using his blessing to gather intel from other Empires. He’d recently traveled to get new info and hadn’t returned yet.
Yeah, it was forbidden to travel to another Empire. But powerful people broke the rules all the time. As long as they couldn’t prove he was betraying his home, the worst he’d get was a punishment.
But what nobody could’ve guessed was that this supreme artifact could identify spies.
So... New Arcadia would know for sure that it was him who got caught. And that would be the end of everything.
A few years went by...
Rhea raised their kids and kept the clan going on her own, all while hoping that one day her husband would come back.
She couldn’t even find him in the Divine Protection Universe. It was pretty clear he’d been captured and was living through hell. But she was calm—he wouldn’t be killed, and the truth wouldn’t be exposed. He had way too much info about the other Empire.
Among High Humans, using artifacts to read memories only worked for recent stuff or broken fragments. After that, the person would die, and everything else would be lost. It was better to keep him alive, locked up, and slowly get info out of him.
Some unexpected news started spreading across the top powers of the New Arcadia Empire—and everyone celebrated like crazy.
But for Rhea, that was the most painful day of her life.