Chapter 30: Aden Gains A New Hunter

While the meeting held below the castle, a beautiful woman with striking violet eyes and flowing purple hair rested on the marble railing, her bored eyes scanning the kingdom.

Her cheeks rested on her milky white arm, as she let out a sigh.

“This is so incredibly boring,” she mumbled.

The whole kingdom had been in a massive state of unrest and as such, she was essentially locked inside the castle for her own safety.

“This is even more boring than being with that Redwyn”

Her eyes rolled as she recalled the boring conversations the Redwyn’s first child would occasionally force her to listen to in the name of ’Couple bonding.’

The distant screams of the citizens reached her ears, but the profound boredom she experienced drowned it’s supposed effect.

“Dumb people everywhere,” she sighed. “The threat is gone so why are they still screaming like fools?”

“That’s because they aren’t privy to such information, darling.”

Her head turned to the source of the soft voice, a small smile forming on her face as she saw the speaker.

“Hello, Mother,” she greeted as she walked into her embrace.

The pair stayed in that position for a moment before they separated.

“How are you?” Castilla asked, her delicate fingers brushing some strands of hair behind her daughter’s ear.

A groan left her lips as she slumped on the chair.

“I’m bored,” she whined.

Castilla’s expression softened slightly then she sat next to her.

“How did your visit with the Scribes go?”

Her nostrils flared slightly. “The Scouts are idiots. They reported a ’dead zone’ with zero signatures.”

“Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen with an incident of that scale?” Castilla responded, a caring smile on her lips.

Her daughter suddenly stood up with a serious expression.

Castilla’s expression turned confused. “Elara?” She called out.

Elara hummed as she buried her head in a large drawer, the rustling of papers traveling round the room.

Castilla barely suppressed a chuckle at the comical scene but she refrained from making any comment.

Castilla watched as Elara smoothed the massive parchment onto a mahogany table. It wasn’t a standard map; it was a Resonance Topography Chart, covered in complex wave patterns and ink that seemed to shimmer with its own light.

“The Council is mourning a tragedy, Mother,” Elara said, her eyes scanning the ink lines with frightening speed. “But they’re ignoring the math.”

She pointed to the center of the desert—the crater where Aden had just stood.

“Look at the ’Soul-Breaker’ impact zone. Based on the atmospheric pressure and the heat generated by a Seventh-Stage collapse, the ash should have settled in a perfectly symmetrical radial pattern. Gravity and physics demand it.”

Elara traced a circle around the crater, then tapped a specific section on the eastern edge.

“But here, the ash is three inches thinner. The wind didn’t move it. Something displaced it. Something with a physical mass but no thermal signature walked through this sector exactly four hours after the explosion.”

Castilla leaned in, her brow furrowed. “A survivor? The Scouts reported—”

“The Scouts reported what they were trained to see,” Elara interrupted, her voice dropping to a sharp whisper. “They look for fire, for blood, for screams. They don’t look for the absence of sound. Mother, look at the Glint-Hawk logs.”

She pulled out a second sheet—a log of the bird’s heartbeats.

“When the bird passed over this ’empty’ spot, its heart rate dropped from 180 bpm to 40 bpm for exactly three seconds. The bird wasn’t scared. It was tranquilized by a frequency it couldn’t understand. A Void-frequency.”

Elara looked up, a dangerous spark of excitement in her violet eyes.

“There’s someone out there who’s managed to mask his presence so expertly that even the world doesn’t acknowledge it.”

Her finger pointed towards the map. “But logic does.”

Castilla exhaled with a tired look. Her forehead pressed on her palms before she asked:

“So what do you want to do?”

Elara’s expression brightened.

“The purification ceremony”

Castilla sighed again. “Your father is going to be against it, you know this.”

Elara sat next to her mother with an expression similar to a shady dealer.

“This isn’t a normal situation, Mother. The level of Dissonant Ash in that area nearly rivals the ones recorded in the Great Demon War.”

“And we both know that Dissonant Ash is extremely poisonous. The winds could blow those particles into the capital and even more casualties will be recorded.”

Castilla catched on. “And since you’re of royal heritage, your purification abilities are heightened towards them, and you’re planning to use that as leverage against your father.”

Elara’s pearly white teeth showed as she nodded.

“A good plan, no?” She asked excitedly.

Castilla stared at her daughter for a moment before sighing for the umpteenth time.

“I can see why our strategist comes to you for tutoring.”

Elara stuck out her tongue. “Don’t worry, I know my limits. If the person I’m heading out to find proves to be beyond my capabilities, I’ll call the whole operation off immediately.”

Castilla took a look of someone who was contemplating, but she already knew it was futile.

Still, she had to show some sort of resistance else what kind of mother would she be?

“One condition.”

Elara’s ears perked up.

“You go with the Shadow Guards.”

Elara groaned, her head bouncing against the soft cushion as she leaned backwards.

“They’ll just get in the way~”

Castilla shook her head. “That’s the only way you’ll have my approval”

Elara whined some more before her eyes widened as an idea struck her.

“What if I take Redwyn’s first kid? He’s strong isn’t he?”

Castilla stared at her, deadpan. “He’s your fiancé and you don’t even know his name.”

“I do, I do. So can he come?” Elara deflected.

“No. That man would jump into a pit of lava if you promised him a peck. What makes you think I’d consider him?”

“At least Daren treated me normally” she mumbled with an annoyed expression.

Castilla’s expression grew stern. “His name is not to be mentioned in this household.”

“But—”

Elara kept quiet after seeing her Mother’s strern expression.

“I’ll go with the Shadow Guards…”

Castilla hummed in satisfaction and patted her head. “That’s my daughter.”

Elara’s expression brightened as she rubbed her head against her Mother’s soft hands.

Inwardly, she had already decided to escape the senses of the Shadow Guards but she decided to give her Mother a sense of security first.

Her face buried in the nook of her Mother’s neck, she promised:

’I’ll find you, whoever you are, and I’ll find out what makes you tick’

***

A shiver suddenly ran up Aden’s spine as he entered the bar.

He looked around promptly as he rubbed his neck.

“I’ve been shivering alot lately, could it be a fever?”

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