Chapter 80: 80

Lying down in her bed, Michelle closed her eyes as she reflected on everything that had happened since she woke up. If she understood correctly, Alexander had discovered the size and location of her birthmark and had made her uncomfortable so that she would ask the Archduke to check the back of her head, where the birthmark was. But she couldn’t comprehend how he had found out. When he had restrained her, he went straight for the back of her head, which meant he had known where it was from the very beginning.

“What are you thinking about, Michelle?” Cold Flame’s voice broke her out of her thoughts. “Is there something more you find suspicious?” he asked with a tilt of his head.

Michelle kept her eyes closed as she sighed. “Alexander Terce is suspicious. That’s the least I can say.”

“Why?” Cold Flame was confused. “Because he let you notice that he had discovered your birthmark?” he asked.

“No…” Michelle shook her head. But she didn’t feel like explaining to Cold Flame, so she just returned to her lazy resting.

Knowing what his contracted master was like, Cold Flame knew Michelle wouldn’t tell him anything more, so he connected to her memories and went through the most recent ones to find out what she was thinking. Then, he also understood why Alexander could be considered suspicious.

“What are your plans now?” Cold Flame asked after a while of silence.

But Michelle just shrugged. At the moment, she had no plans. Well… She had a few plans, but first, she wanted to wait for the Archduke to return and explain to her what was going on. Only then would she proceed. The plans weren’t anything really important, so they could wait for a while.

Already used to Michelle’s laziness, Cold Flame curled up next to her on the pillow and joined her in lazing around until the Archduke returned, without even getting out of bed to eat all day, since, as a cultivator and quite a strong beast, the two didn’t need to eat as much as others.

When the Archduke returned, it was already dark outside, so they decided to discuss things the next day.

The next day, Michelle woke up quite early and changed her clothes. Then, after having breakfast with the Archduke, he led her to the office to talk. One of the rules in their family was not to talk about serious business in the dining room. The rule was broken sometimes, but the Archduke still insisted that the dining room was a place that should be kept peaceful, without any pointless talk about work, so Michelle abided by the rule. In the end, it wasn’t difficult, and it made some sense.

After sitting down in the Archduke’s office, Michelle waited for him to speak. To explain to her what was going on with the birthmark on the back of her head.

“Did you ask Cold Flame about the mark?” he asked. When Michelle nodded, he continued: “I went to check the full version of the prophecy and wrote it down…” He took a folded slip of paper from his spatial ring and put it down on the table. “It’d be better for you to read it yourself.”

Michelle took the paper and opened it. The Archduke’s handwriting was terrible, but she was able to read it: “A child will be born with a mark upon its head, hidden beneath the hair of a color unseen before. A birthmark, dark as storm clouds, which the world shall not see until the time is ripe. They shall walk unnoticed for many years, but in their veins shall run the blood of fate.”

“When bloodshed sweeps across the land, they shall stand at the heart of it. Their path will intertwine with the turmoil, and their presence will shape the course of events, for the tides of destiny cannot ignore them.”

After reading the prophecy, Michelle calmly folded it to its original state and put it back down on the coffee table. Her purple eyes closed lazily as she leaned her back against the couch and let her head fall back against the headrest. She had just about enough.

One prophecy caused the Hilberg family to come down to the Land of Exile to bother her, and though it was easy and even quite amusing to take care of them, she wasn’t really interested in more trouble like that.

And the second prophecy actually said that she would be at the center of a bloody turmoil. That meant trouble and annoyance at the highest level.

The Archduke remained silent as he watched his daughter worriedly. He understood Michelle’s character and knew she wouldn’t be happy about a prophecy like that, but the prophecy came from the leader of the heavenly realm’s Divination Sect, whose prophecies were never once wrong.

Finally, after a long while, Michelle opened her eyes, which were bright red at the moment, and spoke up: “Father, since we now know the content of the prophecy, I can go on with doing my things, right?” she smiled as she stood up.

Clearly seeing how angry Michele was, the Archduke just nodded. “As long as the mark on your head isn’t discovered, the powerhouses won’t pay much attention to you, so you can do as you like.”

“Good!” Michelle smiled. “I’ll go now. I’m going to the Beltrez mansion for a while. I’ll probably come back with her, so please have the servants prepare a room for her, preferably close to mine, since she’s a friend.”

With that, Michele left, went to get Cold Flame, and on his back flew straight into the garden of the Beltrez mansion, not caring about the dignity of nobles or such things.

“What’s the meaning of this, Young Lady Grace?!” one of the servants exclaimed. But Michelle just shot a glare at her with her scarlet eyes, grabbed Ivona’s hand to help her get on Cold Flame’s back, and picked up Ivona’s dog by its collar, putting it in front of her. Then, Cold Flame flapped his wings and flew away.

Ivona was shocked by Michelle’s sudden appearance, but she didn’t protest and got on Cold Flame’s back. She was fed up with her hateful family and wanted to get away from them as fast as she could. The only one in the whole family that she loved was her dog, Blackie, and he was leaving with her, so she had nothing to worry about.

She also knew that what Michelle did, basically kidnapping, was utter disrespect towards the Beltrez family, but she didn’t mind. She took it as a small revenge for neglecting her over the past years. Staining their reputation just a bit was nothing compared to that.

Michelle glanced at Ivoan sitting behind her and smiled a bit, the redness in her eyes retracting a bit. “I hope you don’t mind that I took you without prior notice!”

“Not at all!” Ivona shook her head. “Are we going to the Archduchy?” she asked as she held onto Cold Flame’s feathers so she wouldn’t fall off as he flew at high speed through the white clouds.

Michelle nodded: “Yes!” She continued: “You said you wanted to persistently cultivate. No one will bother you in the Archduchy, but you don’t really have to be in a rush. Kieran said he needs around half a year to reach the required power to leave this place. And I also have some things I want to master before going to the lower realm.”

“I’m glad then!” Ivona smiled, lifting a brow when she saw the red in Michelle’s eyes, but she didn’t comment on it, since she knew that Michelle was a mysterious person. “I was worried I was holding you back!” she added.

Soon, Cold Flame landed back in the Archduchy, and, holding Blackie, Michelle hopped off before offering her hand to Ivona since she wasn’t used to getting off beasts as big as Cold Flame was at the moment. Ivona did take her hand just in case she lost her balance, but she showed surprising smoothness as she jumped down.

“Are you practicing martial arts?” Michelle asked as she led Michelle to the mansion entrance.

Ivona nodded slightly. “But I’m just self-taught, so I’m not really good at combat.”

“Self-taught?” Michelle raised a brow. “How can you be self-taught in martial arts?” she asked curiously.

“Well… One of my brothers threw aside a book about hand-to-hand combat, so I picked it up and started secretly learning. I wasn’t really good at it, but training at least made me somewhat nimble, so I’m not as useless as normal Young Ladies my age.” Ivona explained as her gaze roamed over the walls of the Archduchy.

It wasn’t that old of a mansion, and though it was luxurious, the luxury was hidden in the simplicity of the decorations, so it was both elegant and discreet. It was clear that the person who designed it had a very refined taste.

“That means you are talented,” Michelle said matter-of-factly as she led Ivona to her room. “Learning martial arts without any guidance, from a single book, which was probably discarded because it was bad, is quite a feat to achieve. And from the way you move, you must have achieved a level where, even without your spirit energy, you could remain untouched and be able to escape if a few bandits cornered you.”

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