Chapter 1471: Unforgiving Endless Strings of Fate

Moments Before Hayashi’s Report...

Hayashi stood with both hands folded behind his back, his grave expression deepening the chill within the room. Ashworth remained a few steps away in unusual silence, while Ryuzen and Yuzuki stayed beside their father, both having long since abandoned any hope that Danny’s death would yield an ordinary explanation.

Sienna had examined the body and found nothing that satisfied her.

Beside her, Dravenna watched the corpse with folded arms, with a still patience that suggested she would have preferred the dead man to answer for himself.

Lucienne watched them with the faintest smile upon her lips.

Her smile though was very little amused the Monster anymore—

Fate could be so ravenous and cruel in its need to keep every thread within its grasp that even she could appreciate its cruelty. Whenever some insignificant life strayed too close to a buried truth, Fate would sever that life before a word escaped.

Danny Maxton had earned Fate’s attention to suffer precisely such an end!

Only Danny had known everything surrounding the accident ten years ago, from the orders given to him by the two families beforehand to the deeds committed afterward.

In certain matters, he had known more than those who arranged the murder, for Danny had been upon that road when it happened.

So had Pemberton, and the two had witnessed something neither the Maxtons nor the Heavenchilds had ever been told— something completely out of possibility!

Whatever they had seen had frightened them enough to keep the secret between themselves for a decade.

Both understood the families they served too well to entrust their lives to loyalty alone.

Within those old houses, a person who knew too much seldom outlived his usefulness, and they had kept that secret against the day their masters decided to dispose of them— it was something so carefully concealed between them and they might yet buy them their lives with it one day should the two houses turn against them.

Pemberton, however, had died at Danton’s hands before he could make such a bargain.

Danny knew who had killed him, and afterward, he alone carried the secret they had hidden.

He had begun seeking an audience with his father, intending at last to tell Grandpa Maxton and Harold what had happened upon that road, but the Ryujin Tiamats took him into custody before his father and brother answered.

Now he lay before them, with the words he had guarded for ten years still unspoken.

One could say Fate had used Danton to eliminate Pemberton for it and executed Danny itself!

Lucienne’s smile faded as her gaze returned to the corpse.

His flesh bore neither a wound nor the taint of poison; even his Soul remained untouched yet that same Soul bore no memories of this life as it drifted into the Reincarnation Cycle.

A man who had been breathing had ceased to live, and whoever had brought about his death had left nothing for them to find.

Lucienne felt a faint shiver at the thought.

Danny’s passing meant little to her, but the haste with which Fate had silenced him was another matter.

Phei possessed Slave Marks and once he placed one upon Danny, threats and questioning would become unnecessary, for he could search the man’s memories and uncover what he had spent half a lifetime concealing. Danny could have lied until his throat bled; his Soul would still have yielded its secrets to its master— he was a mortal and unlike Marcus who was a Progenitor who Fate could impose its concealments Phei can’t see past unless he wants to kill Marcus.

Fate knew that as well as Lucienne did, and it had refused to let the Young Dragon draw near enough to claim Danny.

Her gaze sharpened as she considered Eira’s account of the accident.

The Fairy had entered the past and watched those events unfold, yet what she had witnessed differed from the vision later shown to Phei. Her sight was far beyond some crude divination pieced together from uncertain omens. She had looked upon the past itself, and something powerful enough to conceal a part of it had determined how much she would see.

In the history Eira witnessed, Aldrich had never been inside the truck.

The Goddess’s uncle had been absent from the cabin throughout those harrowing moments before the collision, yet Phei had seen him (Aldrich) beside Pemberton and Danton as they bore down upon his parents. Aldrich had watched those terrible seconds unfold, powerless or unwilling to prevent what followed, while Phei and Melissa survived an attack intended to leave far fewer people breathing upon that road.

There was more that Eira had never witnessed:

A Dragon’s roar had torn through those dying moments, laden with such ancient sorrow that Lucienne could almost imagine its echo lingering within Phei’s Soul. A Phoenix’s mournful keening that had risen with it, grief and desperation entwined in the plea they had carried to him:

Find your sister.

Beneath those words had come a warning whose meaning remained far more obscure, and perhaps far more dangerous: Stop HER.

Whoever HER was, Eira had heard nothing of her.

That part of the past had been hidden from the Fairy altogether, while Phei seemed to have forgotten it despite hearing the voices himself. Lucienne doubted such forgetting had come naturally. Something had allowed him to witness the warning, then buried it beyond his recollection, leaving whatever his Soul had managed to retain.

That remnant seemed to be stirring still in Phei’s Soul and subconscious.

Phei no longer remembered the plea to find his sister, yet something within him continued to draw him toward it. He probably believed each step had been his own, and perhaps it had. Fate seldom needed to compel those it could guide through longing and instinct.

A path opened at the proper moment, a chance meeting, a desire for a sister whose beginning had been forgotten; any one of them could lead a person where force would have failed.

And just like that Phei had found himself a little sister— a Dragon one at that.

The ancient Ice Dragon had entered his life within the Primordial Frozen Zone, and before those around him understood how deeply their bond had grown, he had already claimed her as family. His protectiveness had become fierce enough that Lucienne found the possibility almost cruelly amusing.

Had his Soul somehow remembered the plea when his mind could not?

Whether the Ice Dragon was the sister those voices meant remained uncertain, but the tenderness with which he had taken her beneath his care made the thought difficult to dismiss.

Lucienne could sense Fate’s influence throughout his life, guiding him through encounters he believed to be chance. She had lived long enough to recognize it, having watched too many chosen lives gather impossible happenings around them, too many small accidents alter the course of an age.

What troubled her now was the desperation.

It had risked leaving them this baffling corpse rather than allow Phei to discover what Danny and Pemberton had witnessed.

Was Fate against Phei or guiding him? Or was it against him while guiding him into becoming its pawn?

Her attention drifted toward Sienna, who was speaking quietly with Ashworth while Hayashi listened.

Whether even the Nether Goddess understood how deeply Fate had entangled itself in this matter remained uncertain. Age and power could grant a being sight beyond that of countless others, yet even Sienna might find her gaze thwarted where something greater—(such as Fate)— had chosen to draw a veil.

Lucienne turned from the corpse to Anahita, who stood a short distance behind her, silent and watchful.

"Make your move," Lucienne said after studying her for a moment.

Anahita lifted her eyes toward her, a trace of hesitation crossing her face as she asked, "Now?"

Lucienne’s answer came without delay. "Prepare now, we act in a few days."

Anahita already knew what awaited her, and Lucienne had no intention of revealing every peril along the way.

She certainly would not tell the Fallen Angel that Phei had enslaved Marcus.

The Angel Progenitor bore the Cosmic Dragon Slave Mark, and whatever reached his ears might eventually reach the very Dragon the Heavenchilds still believed they were watching unnoticed.

Most amusing of all, Phei probably knew of Anahita’s existence already, the monster reckoned.

Lucienne chose to leave that discovery to the Fallen Angel herself, preferably at a moment when it would funny. There were few pleasures to be found in explaining such things beforehand, especially when Anahita remained so earnestly occupied with what the Young Dragon had become.

The Fallen Angel’s gaze drifted toward the distant heavens, and Lucienne had little difficulty discerning her thoughts. Phei had returned changed, World Essence had flooded the island, and something Angelic had awakened around him. Anahita had begun to suspect he had somehow become an Angel, though she could scarcely fathom what kind.

She could search every Angelic lineage she knew, every heavenly bloodline spoken of beyond Earth, and every forgotten race named in the records of ancient Realms; none would lead her to a Genesis Angel.

Even with her life at stake, even if someone threatened to drag her before Luciffer herself unless she named what Phei had become, she would never arrive at the answer.

The thought brought a faint curve to Lucienne’s mouth, though the remembrance of Luciffer soured her amusement soon enough.

’Ah, that appalling woman.’

The Fallen remained irritating even in memory. Anahita noticed the change in her expression and wisely held her tongue, merely inclining her head before turning away.

Whatever had kept Lucienne waiting until now, she had made it clear that she would wait no longer.

Danny had been the last witness to something even the Maxtons and Heavenchilds did not know. If Fate had become desperate enough to silence him before the Young Dragon could read his Soul, then whatever lay within that buried memory had to be worth fearing.