Murmurs spread through the chamber...
Bang!
"That's insane!" Neol roared, stepping forward, finally unable to hold back. His voice cut through the hall like a blade of glass. "You're talking about killing them! They are still family! Have we really fallen so far that we can even consider destroying our own flesh and blood through such underhanded means!? What four great families? What bloodline unity!? Isn't this all a joke! We really are just slaves!"
The elder glared at him! "Brat! Don't forget your position!"
Neol didn't back down at all! They had crossed a line!
"They're still family! This is against the rules!"
"Family? Heh!"
Another elder scoffed after hearing this. "They abandoned us first! They left us all to die and suffer the consequences of their desertion! They are nothing but selfish children!"
"They ran away knowing full well the damage it would cause!"
"I agree! They've already proven themselves unreliable, we need to do this for the family!"
"Right! How can the lives of a few destroy the lives of the many! Family first!"
Hearing the many voices, Neol clenched his fists.
"You're just afraid!" He roared!
Silence spread through the hall.
After what felt like a lifetime, the patriarch, Lilly, and Luna's father, slowly raised his head.
His venomous eyes settled on Neol.
"…Enough!" He spat.
He raised his hand and signaled two people to the side.
Two guards immediately stepped forward, and before Neol could even react, his arms were seized.
"What are you doing?!"
He struggled.
"This decision hasn't been finalized!"
"You can't—"
"Remove him!" The patriarch's voice was emotionless as it crushed Neol's final spark of hope.
The guards dragged Neol toward the exit.
"This is madness!" He roared while struggling.
Never in his wildest dreams did he expect the Patriarch to kick him out of the meeting for those few words. This family was truly rotten!
His voice echoed through the hall as he was forcibly taken away.
"Those two will die if you do this! You'll regret this! You'll all regret this!"
Bang! The doors slammed shut behind him!
The chamber fell silent.
At the edge of the hall, Nellio closed his eyes.
It wasn't only Neol that felt that way, no, many of the younger generation felt the same uncomfortable feeling right now. Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do…
"…What a mess." He muttered.
The debate resumed…
* * *
Deep beneath the surface of the earth, the prison lay buried beneath sheer silence.
The distant arguments from the ancestral hall never reached this place. Down here, only the faint drip of water and the occasional hiss of a dying lantern disturbed the darkness.
The twins' cell sat near the far end of the corridor.
They seemed to be alone…
Lilly and Luna remained curled up against the cold stone wall where they had settled down earlier, the chains restricting them resting loosely across the floor.
For a long time, nothing moved, but just then, after an unknown amount of time—
A soft sound echoed through the hallway.
It wasn't the heavy boots of the guards, no, it was something lighter, more measured…
The twins slowly lifted their heads to find a figure approaching from the distant darkness.
At first, he appeared only as a thin silhouette beneath the lantern light. Then the faint glow revealed an elderly man leaning slightly on a long cane. He was an old man with white hair. His body was small and frail, making his many layers of clothing look very overwhelming. He wore two robes, the inner one blue and the outer one white. He wore a large azure mantle and a detailed white cloak with a hood and a strangely shaped cape.
The moment his eyes lifted towards the twins, the air seemed to constrict.
Both Lilly and Luna could feel it, the air became heavy.
The Ancestor had arrived in person!
The avatar overseeing the family gathering was not him. Just like Nellio and Neol, he couldn't stand the greedy hypocrisy of his own family! But unlike them, he had long stopped caring. If it weren't for certain special reasons, he wouldn't have appeared at all.
Lilly's eyes widened.
She recognised him instantly!
"…You?"
The old man raised a wrinkled finger to his lips. "Shush, little one..."
His voice was not much more than a whisper.
With a series of slow movements, he tapped the iron bars with his cane. A faint ripple of spiritual energy spread through the cell, briefly silencing the runes carved into the walls.
Only then did he step closer, entering the cell directly.
For several seconds, he simply looked at the twins. He seemed to be thinking about something, but at the same time, he seemed to be waiting.
His gaze lingered on the heavy collars around their necks.
"…So, it has come to this…" He sighed internally.
Lilly quickly scrambled forward, the chain at her ankle scraping loudly against the floor.
"Please! Ancestor!" she blurted out. "You have to let us go before it's too late!" It was a naive attempt.
The old man's brow twitched slightly.
"Too late, hm…?"
"Yes!" Lilly's voice trembled. "If Petra finds out we're here, she'll—" She stopped herself from finishing.
In fact, Lilly didn't know what Petra would do.
But the old man already understood, causing his cloudy eyes to narrow slightly. After a moment of stillness, he opened his eyes and smiled strangely.
Luna, meanwhile, had not moved at all.
She didn't seem to care about the old man at all.
If Lilly was an energetic little bunny, then Luna was a solitary stone. Despite being twins, there was a sharp contrast between them. Right now, it was obvious that both girls had their own ideas.
Luna sat quietly with her back against the wall, watching him with an expression as cold as ice. She was detached, not unlike her father. In her eyes, she had long since stopped caring about the Azurefell Family. if it weren't for Lilly, she would have handled matters on her own.
One needed to remember that Petra would never leave these girls completely unprotected!
They definitely had the means to fight back, but how many of those means to use were up to them.
The ancestor noticed her gaze and shook his head.
He could tell that these girls had completely diverged from how they used to be a few years ago.
They had both grown up, becoming almost unrecognisable.
For a moment, something like 'approval' flickered across his ancient eyes.
"…Good." He mumbled under his breath, stepping slightly closer to the girls
"I came here to make a bet. Are you interested?"
Lilly blinked.
"A bet…?" Her frantic mind was filled with confusion.
The old man nodded.
"If that child, Petra, does not come for you… I will help the two of you escape."
Lilly's face scrunched up in confusion. "W-what? Why…?"
"But…!" the ancestor calmly continued, "in return, I want something if she doesn't appear…!"
His gaze sharpened.
"When you meet Petra again, you must ask her not to interfere with the Azurefell Family! Not only that, but I also want her to leave the capital and avoid it in the future!"
Lilly stared at him in disbelief.
"…Why?"
The old man did not answer immediately.
His eyes swept past Luna, who had a very different expression than Lilly.
It seemed as if this girl had a much sharper mind than he had originally predicted. And indeed, unlike Lilly, Luna understood what the old man wanted, or at least what he wanted her to think he wanted.
As for the truth? He wouldn't say! Because the real reason could not be spoken so easily...
In truth, when he had attempted a simple divination earlier, 'something' had appeared surrounding the Azurefell Family. He couldn't see its full form, not yet at least, but it appeared as a massive and unstoppable black shadow. It loomed overhead, slowly 'encroaching' and inserting itself within all divinations that were performed from the Azurefell Families' ancestral land like a scar!
As an analogy, if you were to use an old camera to take a picture and see an 'error', this 'error' did not originate from the location of the image, instead, it lived in the camera, existing as a constant! Currently, he felt as if this 'camera' represented the Azurefell Families Residence, and the 'error' was the quickly 'approaching' Petra!
Even thinking about it made his fingers tremble.
He didn't understand how such a thing was possible, but he felt an instinctual fear towards this shadow. The last time he had felt such fear was many centuries ago, the day he encountered the Guardian for the first time!
But this…
This 'presence' was worse, far worse!
He quietly exhaled.
Lilly didn't understand his meaning, but Luna definitely did, causing her eyes to narrow slightly. She didn't know how strong this old man was, but she was sure that he was stronger than Petra. As for what he was worried about, she had her guesses. Since this old man was so cautious, that could only mean that the thing inside Petra's body was far more terrifying than she had originally thought!
The reason Luna knew about it was because Petra had never tried to hide it, at least, she didn't stop herself from occasionally mumbling chuunibyou stuff about it…
The ancestor slowly continued speaking.
"I have watched over this family for a very long time."
His voice carried an unusual sense of bitterness.
"The current generation disgusts me a lot more than it disgusts you." He glanced towards the ceiling, where the meeting above was coming to a close. "They chase power, they cling to the old ways, and they worship the Guardian like frightened little animals, but they do not know that the noose has already been tied…" His fingers tightened around the cane. "None of them understands what 'that thing' truly is! Their graves have already been dug, yet they crave for more. It's like a curse, a long-forgotten curse that can no longer be tracked back to its origins…" He sighed.
Lilly swallowed hard.
"…You mean the Guardian is not from our family?"
The old man nodded faintly.
"It was brought over from the main family when we came to the Cross Continent, but it was never meant to become like this..."
His voice softened.
"Long ago, it was something entirely different, not the silent puppeteer that it is today..."
"But centuries of greed turned it into… this. To be completely honest, I'm not even sure myself what to call it. Back then, I was asked to bring it along, but it didn't show its true colors until much later…"
"Before you two, I was the only one without any direct connection to the Guardian. I don't know how that little girl cut off your connection with it, but it's an unimaginable blessing for you!"
"Cherish it, because soon, I suspect that it might act against the Azurefell Family and end our bloodline."
He looked back at the twins.
For the first time, genuine sadness appeared in his old eyes.
"You two were never meant to be prisoners in the family."
His gaze lingered on the large metal collars.
"…If things were different, perhaps you could have escaped long ago, no, perhaps my sister could have as well... But it's too late now, far too late… I did try, but even with my best efforts, it would take far too long." A faint tremor passed through his hands. He didn't seem to be talking about the present.
"But I'm too late, much too late, so helping you is the last thing I can do…"
Luna's expression remained unchanged.
She wouldn't fall for this old man's sob story, even if it were true.
Feeling something, the ancestor suddenly stiffened.
His eyes flickered towards the corridor, only to hear several footsteps approaching from a distance.
Many people were approaching…
"…What a shame, truly a shame." He straightened his back with a desolate frown.
"It seems our conversation must end here…"
Before leaving, he looked at the twins one last time.
"…If you have the chance…"
His voice lowered to a whisper.
"Run, run as far as you can...! The Guardian is not as simple as you imagine! Take that little girl and leave the continent! Go find a place that won't have many people and hide there until you're strong enough to protect yourselves!" Then the old man vanished into the void as several figures turned the corner and aggressively burst into the prison cell!
-
BANG! The prison door was violently smashed open.
"Separate them." A voice spat.
Lilly's mind, suddenly overwhelmed, went blank.
"What—w-wait!" Two guards grabbed her arms!
She instantly struggled.
"Let go of me!"
The chains rattled loudly as they were unlocked by a third guard. She fought against them to no avail.
"Luna! Luna—!" Lilly screamed out, but Luna did not move, she simply watched as Lilly was dragged down the corridor, kicking and screaming.
One of the guards standing nearby hesitated for a moment.
He looked back at Luna, who was as still as a stone, then back towards the screaming Lilly.
His brows furrowed.
"…Was this really the right choice? What are those old men planning…"
No one answered him, his words didn't seem to be heard…
Bang! The door slammed shut!
The cell fell silent…
Luna, silently gritting her teeth, slowly lifted her head, revealing a pair of ice-cold, bottomless blue eyes that rippled in the darkness like the deepest abyss.
If any of the others were here, they would find that they were shockingly similar to Petra's.
* * *