“Princess Neah, we saw the beast heading toward the center city. What should we do? Do we try to stop it?” the guard posed in front of Gerna’s princess asked. He held his posture rigid but did not look the princess in the eye.

He could not look the princess in the eye. It would be too much and the princess was too angry to even bother with small fries like him. He would only be killed if he was lucky, he did not want to see what else she could do to him.

Not that he would blame the princess for her foul mood. Someone had managed to injure Howl to the verge of death. Their second in command was still fighting for her life, without any guarantee of waking.

“Keep tabs on that monster. Don’t let it out of your sight but do not try to engage it yourself. Try leading it toward the outer fields where we can take care of it” the princess commanded. Her eyes did not stray away from the female in the adjacent bed.

She knew she needed to get up and prepare to take the monster down, but she could not pick herself up. Howl’s unconscious face stopped any attempt she made.

“Princess, bad news. The M-monster had made contact with Albest's representative. We don’t know what the representative was doing outside but we have a crisis on our hand.” those words finally dragged Neah out of her slump.

It was one thing for the monster to head toward the civilization, it was entirely different for it to target a diplomat.

She had left Master Ashura in charge of the diplomats so she was somewhat secure in their safety. But she could not help but feel helplessness build inside her heart.

The beast was not as mindless as she had thought it to be. It had enough situational awareness to go after the real heavy hitters.

And then there was the familiar magical presence the beast gave off. Neah felt like she should know to who that presence belonged. But the answer escaped every time she tried to narrow the suspicion pool down.

‘I wonder what you would have done had you done in my place, Maria?’ but there was no answer.

“Everyone, it’s time to move. Do what you must to ensure everyone’s safety. Someone, go a locate Alester as well. We will need his help” the soldiers watched in mute amazement as the princess called for the teen.

It was a well-known fact that the princess could not stand Alester for some reason. For Nead to call for him was a big enough deal to get people talking about it.

But Neah could not help but take a step back. She felt as if danger was just about to start and she needed to be careful. This felt like a declaration of war.

And inside her blood, she knew. The demonic war had started. The node’s power inside her was restless and there were only a few powers left in the play.

Out of the ten known nodes, four had already lost their powers to their current holders. One had been sealed off. But there was no information about the other five.

But what she did know was that Albest had a hand in all this. Neah had contacted the other kingdoms to know the current status cue. But no matter where she contacted, she could not escape the clutches of Albest.

..................

“Magnificent. So this is the beast that had resulted from the amalgamation of our technology and the Node’s power?” Alester watched the old man from Albest watch the approaching beast in fascination.

He had never really liked Albest royalty, nor their nobility but he did understand why Ashura wanted to work with them. They had the best technology available on any continent. Even Gerna was no match to them in that regard.historical

“We are eternally thankful for your support and patronage in provisioning us with funds as well as people to experiment with. The beast grows stronger day by day. It will not be long before our master makes a come back” Ashura assured.

The sugary sweet words pouring out of the old man’s mouth made Ashura gag. He did respect the elder but he did not like his methods.

The elder was not someone who held on to his ideals. He would take any and all ways to make sure he would succeed. That was the same reason he had taken over the royal family, won the princess over, and helped set it all up.

The only wrench in his plans had been Lady Silvya and her fury. The female had messed up a lot of things for them when she had enacted her plan. It had set off a motion of events that could not have been foreseen.

It had led the oracle away from them.

“But, would it really be alright? Don’t we need the oracle to make sure it’s our master that comes back? We can’t really risk it now” the diplomate asked but his eyes did not move away from the incoming beast.

Alester felt sick at the magic approaching them. It was far from clean. It was revolting to his senses and he wanted to shut them all off and have a nice and relaxing sleep.

But he could not do that. Not now when he had to keep an eye on the diplomat as well as Ashura’s cunning ways. He could see that the elder was planning something.

“Hey, look. Is that beast carrying a child with him? Is it even safe?” the girl from the diplomate’s side asked. Ashura had almost taken her for a doll but it seemed as if she could speak.

But her words did cause everyone to turn toward the beast to observe. And just as the girl had pointed out, there were a small child in-between the beast's claws. The kid was being cradled in those huge claws and Alester frowned.

He did not have a good feeling about it. Even Ashura looked startled at the news but he held himself back from commenting. Something weird was happening around them.

“I’ll go check it out. You all stay here” Alester informed before he leapt up. The kid had looked familiar and Alester had a bad feeling about it.