Chapter 51: The Mother’s Return

The nightmarish memory woke Orson up as his eyes snapped open. The first thing he saw was a woman with that same silver hair. His eyes were still blurry from being closed for three days, so the woman’s face did not register. But another image surfaced in Orson’s mind.

Miri.

He shot upright from the bed and looked at the woman in front of him.

Lenora was a bit startled by the way he moved, and as he got up, she heard one name from his mouth.

"Miri?"

Orson looked like he had seen a ghost. His face was pale. Lenora looked at him, a bit on edge by the way his face looked. She immediately tapped a button behind his bed to call for a healer.

Orson’s eyes focused back as a new sensation hit him. The room he was in smelled strange. Not that he minded. He was in a white room that looked strange, and he was on a bed. Thanks to his memory, he knew this was a hospital. But then again, knowing something and seeing it are different.

Orson looked around the room before realizing the woman with silver hair was his wife. He looked at her, and she looked back at him.

But this time, Lenora realized something. When he looked at her, that warm, cold feeling she got was gone. Now he just looked at her. His eyes were cold and devoid of warmth.

Why was he even looking at me like that? It’s not like I care how he looked. But still, that look is unnerving.

And she had just told herself to give the marriage a try with resolve. But now that one look made her throw all that resolve down the window.

And who was Miri? He was mumbling about her in his sleep anyway.

Her thoughts were all in knots from just that one look.

Weird. Lenora had always prided herself on being clear-headed, even when the arrangement came that she was to wed Orson Graves. Even though she was crippled, she looked down on men like Orson who had everything handed to him but chose to leave it all. And marrying her felt like he was looking down on her—like the Storm Saint is nothing but a pitiful human with no power to her name.

That was why she had researched him and found out about Corvin and his other friends. They liked to go into breaches to scavenge astral cores of normal beasts.

So she formed a plan to kill Orson.

It was simple, really. Orson was a mundane human with no power and with a wild streak for danger. So she gave miss baker one of her blades. It was one of the most powerful blades she owned. It could sell for billions. She was planning to sell it and move far away, but she chose not to.

Saint weapons, or rank four weapons and above, are very powerful, but they come with a burden. That is why lower-rank Awakened do not like to use them. And finding a way to increase their own blade up a rank—but weapons made from a rank four monster are more powerful than weapons that were just fed a rank four core to increase. So she took one of her blades—the so-called Storm Blade.

There were two blades called that. The one she acquired in killing a Dark One—Storm Wrath.

That battle was a disaster that Lenora did not want to remember. And gaining the blade—it was powerful, but it had a curse. It slowly poisoned your mind with illusions.

At first, it felt like nothing, and Lenora was too prideful, thinking she was stronger than the blade. But she learned the hard way just how powerful illusions were when she also destroyed a whole district.

The blade tricked her with illusions that looked real, and she could not tell which was which.

Even after letting go of the blade, it did not stop. But Lenora was not weak.

But what happened if you gave that blade to someone like Orson? He would die not knowing why. And the best part—you did not need astral energy to activate the blade’s curse. But even with that, the curse would hold you when you touched it. And even if the curse did not kill him, Awakened would be greedy if they found a Saintess weapon in Orson’s hand.

Lenora just looked at Orson’s back.

I mean, I could not be blamed for what happened, she thought. I mean, I made the plans before I met the guy and had given the ring in which the blade was to my maid, Miss Baker. But after the marriage, Lenora realized she judged him too quickly.

He looked too calm and mature for his age. And when he carried her into the home, she forgot all about her scheme to kill her husband, until she saw the ring on his hand when he came home last night. She wanted to tell him to be careful back then, but she forgot.

I mean, the man should be grateful she had not killed him. But he was giving her the death glare, and she didn’t like it one bit.

Orson, meanwhile, looked at Lenora as her silver hair blew in the wind. Lenora had no idea, but Orson was able to put everything together.

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Meanwhile, in the middle of nowhere, there was only water all around. A transport landed and hovered over the ocean. Sen was inside the ship. He just wanted his blade, and having waited for a day for his mother, he decided to go home to find her. And a one-day trip had turned into two days.

And with what he was hearing on the news about a beam of light shooting to the sky—it had been five years and no one had been able to find out the mystery of the breach.

But now, after the weapon that everyone heard about was in the realm, people did not blindly go, but some did. But now there was lightning shooting into the sky that caught the attention of a lot of people, and the Eternal Breach would soon be bustling with a lot of guild members.

Sen looked at the comms as his younger sister continued to talk a mile a minute.

"Sen, I heard that Banabas was being called to go in."

Sen was surprised. "Wait, one of the government Saints is being sent too?"

"Yeah, I know, right? The news feed has only been busy about the breach since this morning."

"Well, I’m almost home since Mom is not at home yet."

Just then, Sen felt a pressure wash over him as a woman’s voice said in a small, sweet voice, "Wow, I thought you would be gone, that I would have a reason to miss you. But then again, I knew my thoughts would be nothing more than a dream."

Sen was shocked by the tone. "Mom?"