“Don’t you think it’s finally time for you to say something?” Blood lord Raynolds asked with a smile.
During the past year he flew over rather often to have a one-sided chat with Henrieta Hubert, but despite her mostly sitting unmoving in the meditative position with her eyes closed, he very much enjoyed these meetings. If Musa was here he would’ve been shocked to realize that his ‘old master’ that was responsible for grooming the new deep-cover spies who were later planted across the territories of the Immortal Alliance was actually one of the most influential people in the Blood immortal realm – Blood lord Raynolds.
One couldn’t really tell his age from his looks, but if he was a mortal person he probably would be around fifty or sixty years old. Obviously the Blood lord being an immortal made the age irrelevant and even despite his looks when he visited this lady with the ice-cold attitude his steps were as lively and light as those of a sixteen year old.
He did have a son, a young and promising Nascent soul stage genius that had taken liking in the Hubert family’s girl. It was his wish for the mother-daughter pair to be brought away from the rest of the Hubert family so he could ‘work’ on their relationship and actually the old father was amused by the idea. He kind of wanted to see if Jay could manage to conquer Alice’s heart ‘the old fashioned way’ and thus seal the relationship between Raynolds and Hubert families forever. It would’ve been an unprecedented event in the history of immortal realms and the Blood lord itched to see what kind of impact it could have at the ever lasting war between the Immortal Alliance and the Army of Freedom.
As expected, the young girl was the least of the problems in this humorous plan. She practiced like crazy in order to increase her strength and shortly after the arrival to the Blood immortal realm had her Nascent stage tribulation. In fact, that was the moment she caught Jay’s eye. He already had a plethora of beautiful girls in his life and discarded them like empty bottles, but Alice practicing so diligently was what young master Raynolds found irresistible – he felt they had too much in common and wanted to make her his life long partner.
Of course, the ‘life long’ part was regarding her life and after giving birth to few geniuses there was no telling how long her life would last, but that was what he would worry about in the future. For now he only knew he wanted her.
His passion got ignited even more when he came up with a plan how to break the girl – he offered her freedom if she could defeat him hundred times, of course, them both sparring and using purely physical abilities. Obviously fighting with the full power of a Nascent soul stage cultivator didn’t make any sense.
At first Alice was as weak as a chicken, at least in Jay’s eyes, but in few months she transformed into a living fury that could go against any man. Even though a fighting genius like Jay was still out of her reach, he was curious how far she could grow and his feelings increased with every punch she threw his way.
No one asked for Alice’s opinion who hated everyone in the Blood immortal realm to her bones. Despite her fiery character she wasn’t stupid – she knew that the Immortal Alliance will sooner and later make a deal with the Army of Freedom and she and her mother will be set free, but the time she spent here was not to be wasted.
She already decided she was done with the alchemy and set the main goal of her life – to eliminate the cursed Army of Freedom once and for all. And for that she needed an actual strength. Fortunately the love stricken young master Raynolds appeared and offered himself as a target dummy and, while cultivation alone was fine in order to get stronger, to actually ‘win’ Alice needed combat practice and the guy was perfect for that. She guessed that he was not at Kevin’s level, but probably not that far behind, so she didn’t worry about loosing to him every time. After all – if she could defeat a guy like this, she could pick up her mother and simply leave.
Madam Hubert behaved much more strangely though. Obviously she knew the Alliance was doing all they could so she could be peacefully traded over, but in more than a year of captivity she hadn’t said a word and only opened her eyes when Alice was allowed to visit her. It was surprising for the guarding immortal, Catrin Banes, that the mother never talked to the girl, but the look in her eyes gave away she was experiencing a myriad of emotions every time, thus she was not cold as a stone and only to pretended to be one. This revelation was what fueled Raynolds’s new ‘hobby’ – pestering the Hubert family matriarch.
It was kind of all mixed together – teasing her, making her worry about her daughter’s choices in addition to futile attempts to convert her. The immortal had a lot of free time on his hands and he gladly flew over to observe his son’s progress as well as ‘talk’ with the non-responsive captive.
“Really … by now you should’ve realized it’s just a matter of time till your daughter falls for my son. And that is if it hasn’t happened yet! You of all people should know how unpredictable a maiden’s heart is!” Blood lord Raynolds continued, “Why don’t you ask her what she thinks? Maybe she has already made up her mind? You know, my youngest son is a prodigy and you should be happy he has taken liking in her. Trust me, he’ll make her happy!”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
The Blood lord didn’t mind when there was no reaction from the captive no matter what he said. It always went like this so he took out a bottle of alcohol and a couple of glasses from one of his spatial rings and sat next to Catrin Banes.
As usual they were in the pavilion Henrietta Hubert was held in under the strict eyes of Catrin Banes. Of course, the immortal was not what prevented the Hubert family matriarch from leaving – it was the peculiar rune formations Blood lord Swan set up more than a year ago. Technically by using purely brute force Henrietta could break through them, but from what she guessed the guarding immortal had the ability to neutralize her in an instant if she tried.
She was kind of thankful the pavilion was constructed with large windows so she could observe her daughter’s every step from the distance, but it seemed that from the outside no one could tell what went on in there. Obviously nothing ‘went on’ except for the times Raynolds visited – the two immortals, the captive and the guard, were sitting unmoving under the dim light of the few lighting formations. Today though they had a visitor who filled the two glasses, one for himself and one for Catrin Banes, and continued with the brainwashing.
“I’ve already told you that just because of Jay you and your daughter have proper living conditions in addition to Alice having unlimited cultivation resources. And that includes my son as the sparring partner!” He closed his eyes, slowly savoring the taste of the strong alcohol, and repeated, “Really, why don’t you ask her what she thinks?”
Actually Henrietta didn’t need to ask her daughter anything. She knew her well enough and easily guessed the reason for the crazed cultivation. It did pain her a bit she didn’t decide to follow her footsteps, but Alice had always been more similar to her father and the talent for alchemy didn’t have she, but Claude.
Truth to be said Henrietta found it amusing how this abduction set everything in place for the next generation – Alice, who was always more forced than willing to practice the alchemy, finally found her true calling and Claude, well, Henrietta will focus on grooming him upon their inevitable return. Indeed, she would be the one to teach Claude since she was the true alchemy genius in the Hubert family, despite her roots being from the Crescent immortal realm.
It was many millennia ago when she met Henry and fell in love for the man so much she discarded her own family ties and took his name. In fact, not only his family name – she was originally called Gladice, a name she deeply hated, thus she didn’t bat an eye and changed it to Henrietta. It might sound silly, but she wholeheartedly wished she could devote her life to the man she loved and changing her name was the proof of that not only to herself but to the whole world.
Henry didn’t mind. At the time he was the Hubert family heir and kind of had to study the ‘boring’ alchemy science, but after meeting Gladice, or later – Henrietta, he finally found a reason for doing it. He had never been as good as her at it, but it became his hobby and them practicing together brought them even closer. It was paradoxical that the true cornerstone of the strongest alchemy clan in the Immortal Alliance was a woman the clan head married during his youth, but it never mattered to the two lovebirds who stayed together for many millennia without even a though of having another partner.
Indeed, with such parent pair as role models it was basically impossible for Alice to fall for a random clown from the Blood immortal realm, no matter how good the guy was. But Henrietta knew there was some truth to what Raynolds said – a maiden’s heart is unpredictable. That is why she had to finish the current project as soon as possible before Alice did something stupid – she was worried that her daughter could think of a way to kill the Blood lord’s son and had to act first.
She did have a plan. In fact, according to an ancient theory many years ago she developed a peculiar technique, but never actually practiced it. That is – up until they got abducted. The essence of the theory was that the body of an immortal alchemist would serve as a crucible and their cultivation base as a fire or a burner, and the Qi in the surroundings along with the endless amount of particles of every element could be transformed in any pill the alchemist wished. According to the theory only such pills could be considered of the immortal level, but what Henrietta currently worked on was not a pill.
She realized that what she was currently concocting within her would be considered illegal in the Immortal Alliance, but she couldn’t care less. If the old geezers couldn’t timely make up their mind and save them, she had to do something herself. So what if she stepped ‘a bit’ on the corrupt path and created something that could kill an immortal or two? Her and her daughter’s lives were on the line!
In a year she had created something that could kill anyone, even an immortal, but the problem was that it was not enough to extinguish a nascent or an immortal soul. But exactly that was the true goal of her latest creation – she needed to kill her jailer in body and soul to make sure she and her daughter could escape. It was highly likely that if she dealt with Catrin Banes the old fashioned way, the immortal’s soul that would inevitably escape could trigger one of the many formations surrounding their prison and that in turn could disable her or even trigger Alice’s or her death. After all they were created by the damned runemaster Swan.
“You know, a couple millennia ago I would’ve gifted Alice to Jay and had my way with you. After all you are an extremely attractive woman. And a smart one, so I hoped you could at least appreciate the honesty and effort I put in to make our two clans become related.” Blood lord Raynolds said and suddenly a smile bloomed on his face.
This was the rare occasion when Henrietta had a reaction to what he said and actually opened her eyes. Yes, her look was full of scorn and yes, her look would kill him if she had that ability, but her having a reaction surely pointed out that he finally pressed the correct button.
Indeed, even though Henrietta fully focused on the process within her and completely ignored the Blood lord’s gibberish, him saying a complete nonsense triggered a short snort and the scornful stare. She clearly knew that if this happened a couple millennia ago Henry and his friends would’ve charged over and destroyed the place disregarding the consequences, maybe even the whole Blood immortal realm. It was only the worry of his favorite child’s well being that held him back this time.