Chapter 530: Co on, it’s ti to leave.
Strax returned to his mansion at dusk. The sky was tinged with orange and purple, and the wind carried the scent of the distant forest, mixed with the perfu of flowers from the garden.
As he pushed open the front door, he was greeted by an unusual silence—the kind of silence that precedes chaos. His footsteps echoed briefly on the marble floor of the main hall, until he turned the corner into the living room and was t with a scene worthy of an ancient tale: an assembly of imposing, exotic, and dangerous figures, all waiting for him.
Beatrice, arms crossed, in her impeccable uniform and stern gaze.
Monica, sitting quietly on the sofa, knitting on her lap, as if it were just another ordinary afternoon.
Samira, with her feet up on the table, sharpening a dagger absentmindedly.
Cristine leafed through a floating grimoire at her side.
Rogue stood sulking, arms crossed and an expression of pure provocation on her face.
Daniela stood in a corner, observing everything with analytical eyes.
Cassandra smiled with a glass of wine in her hand, as if she were in a play.
Bellatrix, with her regal grandeur and draconic features, stared at him like a queen awaiting a war report.
Xenovia was just sitting there, doing nothing.
Kryssia, her aura still charged with celestial energy, maintained the posture of a sentinel.
Frieren, leaning against the wall with a slight lancholic smile, seed to know more than she was saying.
Lithara and Nyx sat side by side, exchanging inaudible comnts between enigmatic smiles.
Kali was absorbed in her clearly improvised blood painting on the wall.
Ouroboros, in her semi-human form, absentmindedly twirled her hair with her fingers.
Tiamat stood in the center, with a presence so dense that the atmosphere seed to bend slightly around her.
And Scarlet, sitting on the arm of the sofa, looked directly at him with a crooked smile.
Strax stopped at the entrance to the room, looked at them all for a mont, and let out a small sigh, the shadow of a smile appearing at the corner of his lips.
“The family has gotten huge…” he comnted, as if talking to himself, but loud enough for everyone to hear.
Scarlet laughed. “It’s your fault, you reckless dragon.”
He gave a short, genuine laugh for the first ti in a long ti.
“Yeah. I admit it.” He took a few steps forward, observing each one with the care of soone assessing his own kingdom. “But I won’t be long. I just need answers. And maybe… blood.”
There was a subtle murmur of unease, but he raised his hand.
“While I’m away…” he turned to Monica “…you’re in charge.”
Monica’s eyes widened. “? Again?”
Before she could say more, Rogue stepped forward, visibly upset. “Wait a minute, why is she in charge? Since when is Monica a general of anything?”
Strax raised an eyebrow, without even changing his tone. “Is anyone here more responsible than her?”
A mont of silence spread through the room. Everyone began to exchange glances until, almost at the sa ti, all hands turned to a single person.
“Frieren,” they said in unison.
The elf raised her eyebrows, smiling charmingly, almost innocently. “Technically, yes. But I haven’t slept with anyone. So don’t throw responsibilities at , I’m tired of being responsible.”
Strax smiled, satisfied with the answer. “Exactly. Frieren is a guest. She is not responsible for any of you. Monica, on the other hand…”
He pointed to the woman sitting quietly on the sofa, now clearly uncomfortable with so much attention.
“She cooks. She washes. She sews. She takes your temperature when you’re sick. She listens to your outbursts. She wakes you up from nightmares. She stops fights. She puts out literal and emotional fires. Does anyone here want to try to dispute that resu?”
Everyone looked at Monica.
Silence reigned for a few seconds, until, as if rehearsed, they all said in unison: “It makes sense.”
Monica snorted and sank into the sofa, crossing her arms. “This is turning into magical-emotional abuse…”
Beatrice, with a small smile, placed her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “You’re the only one everyone listens to, Mom, even when they’re trying to kill each other. That’s rare around here.”
“Exactly.” Strax nodded, satisfied. “And if everything goes wrong, she can use the enchanted broom to restore order.”
“I knew that broom had a military purpose!” Kali exclaid, almost happily.
Scarlet laughed.
“So that’s it,” said Strax, becoming serious again. “I need to leave before the trail disappears. Caelum won’t wait. Neither will my mother, if she’s there. And if it’s not her…” he looked at Xenovia “then it’s soone very dangerous, manipulating mories that should be buried.”
Xenovia nodded slowly, her expression hardened. “Caelum needs an answer. But be careful, Strax. There are things there that have been sleeping since before ti recorded nas. Even for you, it won’t be easy.”
He looked at her with respect. “Nothing worthwhile ever is.”
Then he turned to the group, now a little quieter.
“I trust you. And trust Monica. As bizarre as that sounds out loud.” He smiled.
Monica shook her head, resigned. “Just bring back a souvenir this ti. Nothing that explodes, please.”
Strax walked to the exit, and before going through the door, he turned once more.
“If anything happens, you know what to do. If all goes well… I’ll be back with answers.”
Rogue shouted from the back, “And if it goes really well?”
Strax blinked. “Maybe I’ll bring my mother over for dinner.”
Chaos and shouts of “WHAT?”
Chaos erupted like a contained explosion.
Voices overlapped. Lithara knocked over the teacup floating beside her, Rogue stamped her foot as if the floor had insulted her honor, Cassandra nearly choked on her wine, and even Bellatrix frowned—which was the equivalent of a scream of shock coming from her.
Strax, still standing in the doorway, raised his voice firmly, silencing the crowd like a storm silences the world before the rain:
“My mother’s body… is not in the coffin.” The silence that followed was absolute.
Scarlet was the first to move. She slowly rose from the arm of the sofa, her crooked smile gone, replaced by an attentive and somber gleam in her eyes.
“I forgot to ntion,” she said, her voice low but clear as steel. “Strax and I sensed her aura sowhere in Caelum. There’s sothing there. Sothing ancient… and familiar. It was clearly her presence.”
Daniela’s eyes widened for a mont. “That’s impossible! Her older sister died years ago!”
“No, it seems that Scathach is far from dead.” Scarlet shook her head, now serious. “That bitch isn’t easy to kill. Even when I heard of her death, I doubted it… but now…”
Strax crossed his arms, staring at the floor as if fighting against mories that ca back with the force of a storm.
“When I went to the tomb, it was closed. The seals were intact. But the coffin… was empty. As if she had never been there. Or as if soone had removed her without violating anything.”
Cristine, who had remained silent until then, spoke, the grimoire floating restlessly beside her.
“That would require a great deal of power to be done so easily.”
“Unless it was her herself,” murmured Xenovia, her eyes fixed on Strax. “Her mother wasn’t just any sick woman, her illness was infinitely impossible to cure, no one could… maybe she managed to heal herself even after death.”
Nyx leaned toward Lithara and murmured with a crooked smile:
“I bet ten echoes that this is a trap set by so strange entity trying to ss with his emotions.”
Lithara replied with an even more sarcastic whisper: “I bet twenty that it’s soone who kidnapped her and is now using her body to create sothing scary.”
Kali interrupted, dark ink still dripping from her fingers. “This is so tiring… a dragon attack out of nowhere, then sothing like this… oh, how tiring.” She muttered angrily.
“It’s really strange,” Monica muttered from the sofa, already massaging her temples.
Strax took a deep breath. “I don’t know what I’ll find there. But I can’t ignore this call. If it’s her… if it really is… then the story isn’t over yet. And there are too many unanswered questions.”
“What if it’s not?” asked Daniela, with the most pragmatic tone in the room. “What if it’s a trap set by sothing trying to use your connection to her against you?”
“Then it will be the last trap that thing will ever set,” said Strax simply, his eyes burning with determination.
Tiamat approached, as if drawn by the thread of blood between the past and the present. Her voice, always low and reverberating, seed to resonate within their bones.
“In either case, Caelum becos the key.”
Scarlet, now beside Strax, placed her hand on his shoulder. “Shall we go? We need to get there and cause so serious chaos before anyone knows we’re coming.”
He nodded, and for a mont, the aura around him changed. Older. Heavier. As if for a brief second, Strax seed much more serious.
“We have a lot of work to do, and as I said, only Scarlet, Tiamat, and Ouroboros are coming with .”
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