Chapter 201 199: Awakening

"My lady. You have received an invitation from our esteemed guests. Lord Ashira is asking for your presence in his chamber." The maid bowed. Lately, this has become a trend with Neah and those who served her.

"Tell him I'll join him shortly. I am trying to finish my work right now." Neah's cold words caused the maid to shiver but leave.

Neah sighed as she felt the maid's presence disappear from behind the door. It was the fifth time this day. People generally came to disturb her but stopped short once they reached her door.

Neah looked toward Howl's silhouette lying at her side and sighed. Howl had yet to wake up and it had been a week already.

Neah did not want to leave Howl alone but she had no other choice.

"I'll be back soon. Get some rest while you still can." Neah's lips touched Howl's forehead in a blessing motion. Magic rushed around Neah to form a protective barrier.

It was only then that did Neah turn away and start walking outside the door.

"Guards, keep watch on my room. No one is allowed to head inside." The guards were frightened as soon as Neah ordered them. Their unwillingness to look Neah in the face spoke volumes about their fear.

Had it been any other time, Neah would have stopped to assure the guards that she had their best interest in her heart.

But she could not even bring herself to act this time.

"My lady. Lord Ashura and Lord Alester are waiting for you inside." The guard bowed to her before Neah dismissed her.

The room had a gloomy atmosphere and Neah felt at home there.

She even welcomed Lady Karin's startling presence inside the room.

"You are finally here. Close the door and take your seat. As will begin shortly." Lord Ashura patted the seat at his side.

But Neah was not in the mood to humour him. She felt bitter about being kept in the dark about this whole thing.

And she could tell that she was the only one who was in shock.

"What happened? Are we waiting for someone else?" Neah asked as she took the seat beside Lady Karin. The conference table was large and had a lot of empty seats available.

"We're waiting for Lord Baron Clement. He has something very important to tell us." Alester sounded confident in his words.

His words finished as soon as the door entered and a white-faced Lord Clement entered the room.

"Ah, Baron. How nice of you to join us today." Lord Ashura sounded anything but pleased to see the man.

Neah knew her feeling had been right. Lord Clement was bad news and it was lucky that Neah never trusted him.

"I don't know what happened. It is not my fault that the monster decided to go on a rampage. I tried to stop it but it did not listen. It had so much magic." Lord Clement sounded wrecked and scared.

Neah narrowed her eyes as she watched no one else loom confused.

It solidified the feeling she had been having about the monster.

No. The killer.

The reason the killer had never been caught was that he had a lot of background help. High-level help at that.

"Lord Clement, what is the meaning of this? Tell me that I'm reading this situation wrong." Neah's voice almost had a begging tone to it.

She felt betrayed by her closest companions. She had trusted Lord Ashura. Trusted him enough to listen to him and stop chasing after Maria for a while.

"The situation escalated more than we wanted it to. The creature turned out to be more powerful than we could have expected him to be. I'm afraid that even the upper realm can not stop its rampage once it awakens." Lady Karin spoke.

Neah's temper erupted.

"Can someone tell me what is going on here? And start from the beginning because I seemed to be missing some facts. What is that creature Where did it come from? Why did it take Shou with him? Neah exploded.

Her rage made the other three flinch. It was just a slight reaction on their part but Neah caught it.

"That creature is an experiment we did to bring our lord back. The body is a vessel that contains our lord's reincarnated soul inside it. It's using Albest technology to extract enough magic for a reincarnation ceremony." Lady Karin explained.

Neah did not know why she even felt surprised at the news. Of course, Lady Karin was involved with all this.

She had to be since she was the node's guardian.

"And Maria? Where does she fit in all this?" Neah asked? She asked because she was tired of all the secrets.

"The oracle. No, our lord's daughter had enough blood magic to be able to complete the binding ceremony and bring our lord back. She was the perfect sacrifice. Had our plan gone through, there would have been no need to involve Albest." Lady Karin started.

"But of course. That bitch foiled our plans. I always knew Silvya was bad news for us. She managed to cause us trouble even in our death. Had it not been for her, our Lord would not need to have this abomination of a body." Neah had never seen Lord Ashura rage like this.

Not only did he sound bitter, but he also looked red in the face.

His words also made things clearer for Neah to understand. And she felt foolish for not connecting all the dots.

No wonder that creature had seemed familiar to her before. It was because she had seen and felt that magic before.

"You intended to sacrifice Maria for my brother. That creature is Nick. You did that to my brother." Neah whispered.

Betrayal bled through her words. She could not believe what she was witnessing.

"He was your brother and we did our best to bring his soul back intact. But I'm afraid that we made a mistake. The magic has twisted our lord's soul into a shell of its former self. And we've also lost control over it." Lady Karin explained.

It did make sense for her to be involved in all this. It had been weird that Lady Karin had not Interfered even when her territories had been threatened.

"We cannot allow that thing to live. I'm going to stop it. It is no longer a living being and it dared to take Shou away." Neah spoke.

Her words carried a finality to them. She did not expect anyone to object to her decision.

But Lord Ashura looked like he was raging at her words. She no longer recognised the kind man who had helped her in her times of need.

???????????????? ???????????????????????????? ???????????????????????? ???????????????????? ???????? ????????????????????-????????????.????????????

"We cannot do that. Our lord is our only chance to be free of the upper realm's chains. We cannot risk it. I cannot risk him dying. And we still have a chance. If we feed the oracle to him, we can reverse this problem." Neah felt her brain stop working.

Her horrible feeling finally came true.

"So it was you. You were the one who made her run away." Neah's anger was nearing its peak. She could feel the magic slipping from inside her core.

It felt even more dangerous as the resonance began. Even could feel the node exploding inside her and connecting with her core.

The magic did not feel like her one but it felt overwhelming.

"T-That magic? H-How do you have that magic? It should not be possible. Y-Your brother is supposed to be the one-" Ashura did not finish his words before he had Neah at his neck.

She did not even look around her as she held Ashura at his neck. She wanted to snap his neck.

"Don't you dare? She's mine. MINE. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" Neah could feel Ashura's struggle.

She had never felt this out of control or powerful before. She felt like she could do anything.

"We made a mistake. Our lord's soul was never inside Prince Nick. What should we do now?" Lady Karin sounded almost nervous and afraid for her life.

Neah did not care even a bit. She only cared about Maria.

"We can't do anything. We have to sacrifice Lord Ashura if we want to calm Neah down. You know how our lord got in these times." Alester replied.

Their voices sounded saturated in Neah's ears. But these parents did not matter to her.

No one else did other than Maria.

"B-But she had the soul of our Lord." Lady Kari. Sounded disappointed.

"Yes. But unfortunately, it would only carry magic. Neither memories nor personality matters once a person dies. Even their former ties do not matter. Once a soul dies, they are a new person." Ashura sounded sad and scared as well.

"Find a way to save Shou and kill that creature. Or you will be next." Neah did not know where she was getting all this confidence from.

The other two looked worried but Neah was not giving them an option.

"I don't think we can. I'm afraid that you work up at the wrong time, my lord." Lady Karin said.

Her fear drenched her scent. But she was not the one Neah was talking to.

And the shadow did not take long to show himself as well.

"Welcome back, my lord. Allow me to take care of this matter." Trishula stepped outside of the shadows in all his glory and Neah felt her temper calm down .