Chapter 409 Chapter 203 Feast (II)
Heavy footsteps echoed on the palace floor. Verafia’s long, delicate eyelashes lifted slightly, and Marquis Mays, with a faint smile on his face, entered her line of sight.
Beneath the crystal chandeliers, the noisy banquet suddenly fell silent. The crowd parted to make way for the Marquis. It was clear they held respect for Mays’s lord, and even more so for the legendary figure who had once experienced the Demon Race War.
The Marquis nodded and smiled at the invited guests. After walking to the head seat, he turned to face everyone and laughed heartily:
“I am deeply grateful to all of you for accepting my invitation to come to Lorinc… The banquet today should have started upon everyone’s arrival. However, Mays has been remiss in his hosting. Please forgive me.”
In the banquet hall, a middle-aged man dressed in luxurious attire, clearly possessing considerable Dou Qi cultivation beyond his noble looks, replied with a smile, “It is already our honor to serve Elder Aig. Why must you say such things?”
Marquis Mays smiled and glanced at him, nodding gently. “I originally invited everyone here precisely because of the heretical cultists in Lorinc and my father’s injuries. Today, although the shadow of the cult has not yet dissipated, my father’s injuries have already healed, and therefore…”
“Lord Marquis, since you have gathered me, a dying old man, why not let me meet your friends and colleagues?”
A voice, aged and frail but not without a hint of vitality, carried through the hall.
Verafia couldn’t help but turn her head slightly. In the corridor of the banquet hall, accompanied by Yagmein, an old man with white hair and beard, but dressed in a crisp outfit, walked in. It was the former Marquis Wade, whom she had treated yesterday.
“No…”
Verafia murmured softly, her delicate, slender eyebrows furrowing slightly.
Yesterday, to counteract the life-poison trace of Wade’s “Creation Divine Spark,” Anderdun had left behind corresponding Death Magic.
However, she could not sense any corresponding Death Magic at all. Instead, the old man’s body was brimming with life force, like a surging tide, very unlike someone nearing their end.
Besides Yagmein, his eldest son, the old Marquis Wade, a man she had known casually a hundred years ago, was also accompanied by several figures cloaked in dark robes, but strangely, even Verafia could not see through them.
“Veer…?” Ignet noticed the girl’s slightly lowered gaze and asked.
“It’s nothing…”
Verafia shook her head. She gently lifted her cheek, her scorching gold eyes scanning the night sky outside the tall glass windows. Whether it was an illusion or not, a thick black curtain seemed to be pressing down, covering the two heavenly bodies like frost.
“I just feel something is wrong. Ignet, ask Little Fei to come over quickly… en, bring your sister too.”
The figures in black robes surrounding Wade, whom even Saint Rank individuals like Duke Cambell found difficult to see through, caused them to frown slightly. Marquis Mays maintained his smile and raised his gaze. “Father, what do you wish to say?”
“Lord Marquis, are these the allies you’ve gathered under the pretext of my injury?”
Wade, with his white hair and beard, casually swept his gaze over the attendees. As the former Marquis, he could naturally recognize that the people invited by Marquis Mays clearly represented almost all the famous and ancient families of the vast Southern Territory.
The old Marquis’s gaze was like a cold sword. He suddenly sneered, and his voice thundered:
“Eggesti, your courage has grown bolder. You dare to openly form factions in our ancestral castle. Next, are you planning to rebel against His Majesty?”
A wave of murmurs swept through the entire banquet hall. All the forces present clearly had considerable dealings with Marquis Mays… and naturally, they had vaguely known about the true intentions behind the Marquis’s powerful swordsmen. However, none of them had expected Wade to expose it so unceremoniously.
Although the world knew that Marquis Mays’s biological father was a staunch member of the royalist party during the reign of the Sacred Sword King, such a blatant tearing of ties represented a situation where there would be no room for reconciliation!
Marquis Mays’s expression remained unchanged, only a smile lingered. “This is merely a normal banquet to celebrate your recovery, Father. Why do you say such things?”
Suddenly, a cold laugh came from Yagmein, who was clad in black long clothes. With an imposing presence, he stepped forward.
“Celebrate Father’s recovery? Humph, Eggesti, what is it you still intend to conceal at this moment?”
As Yagmein stepped forward, Wade slightly bent, covering his mouth with his hand and coughing.
Marquis Mays merely glanced at him, his gaze indifferent.
“Yagmein, I respected you as my elder brother in the past, but don’t forget who is the head of the family and the Marquis. Besides, what do I have to conceal? Don’t forget… it was I who woke Father. And where were you when Father was injured?”
“You call it treatment, but it’s actually imprisonment. Do you think everyone else is blind?”
The atmosphere grew more tense. For Yagmein, since it was time to settle things, he no longer had any reservations:
“Furthermore, you dare to say you woke Father? Heh… ridiculous. If I hadn’t been alerted, you would have truly deceived me – you unfilial wretch, you dared to implant Death Magic within Father!”
Marquis Mays watched as Wade’s body hunched over, his coughs intensifying, and a hint of pain appeared on the old man’s dry, withered face. However, in this tense atmosphere, no one paid it any heed.
“Then before me…”
Yagmein’s expression grew smug, as if victory was assured. “Naturally, Father has used Douglas’s Life Divine Medicine today to erase all of the Death Magic you, the wicked one, had planted! Eggesti, what other plans do you have up your sleeve?”
“Douglas’s Life Divine Medicine? Heh, no wonder Father’s life aura is so vigorous. You want the fully restored him to defeat me… Yagmein, I overestimated you. From a hundred years ago until today, you are still the same useless person who only knows how to rely on Father’s power.”
For some reason, the Marquis’s expression made Yagmein feel a trace of unease. He berated, “Bold thief, you dare to spout such nonsense when death is at your doorstep!”
“…Not only that, I originally thought those beside you would at least be the King’s blades. But it seems they wouldn’t look down on someone like you, a wretch.”
The Marquis withdrew his indifferent gaze, suddenly flicked his long robe, and held a sword in his hand. “Then, Yagmein, what is your crime for colluding with the dark cult!”
Yagmein, clad in a black long robe, was startled by the Marquis’s sudden dazzling aura and took a step back. At this moment, the entire banquet hall erupted in an uproarror.
The middle-aged man in the black robe, his face filled with humiliation, cried out in a low voice, “Father!”
But there was no response as expected.
Yagmein turned his head in astonishment. In his eyes, Wade was hunched over, and bright red blood was coughing from his lips, but beneath his robe, his life force burned like a blazing sun.
Within the old man’s body, his flesh and blood, his bones and form, were rapidly growing and mutating at unimaginable angles within this “creation”-like flame!
