It was a new day in lionheart house. The duke saw himself in the mirror, compared to his wife his ageing was much clearer. He now fashioned a full beard with small rectangular glasses. His squarish face was much more prominent. He turned back and saw his wife deeply asleep. His habit to wake up before his wife hadn’t faded now but the sight of his half-naked wife was too pleasurable to give up. she had wrinkles on her face but a matured woman sleeping in a provocative outfit had its own beauty especially in duke’s eyes. Today was important as delegates from the neighboring schwarz kingdom were coming for trade agreement renewal. Some time later the duchess woke up, but found her husband was not in the room to see her changed. Discreetly even beretta enjoyed duke’s perversion, she was happy that even after years the duke lusted after her old body and changed before him for his pleasure. Today’s change however was very boring as duke wasn’t there to drool over her. She changed into her commoner outfit and went to wake hades.

Sometime later 2 carriages arrived in the duchy, and three people stepped out of one. These were the delegates from schwarz royal family. They had to delay their arrival by a day due to bad weather, needless to say duke wouldn’t be able to meet them after beretta was done with him yesterday. The three delegates covered their face with a cloth attached to their hats and had a slit for their eyes to see and produced a paper with royal emblem of schwarz. A maid escorted them to the open Poarch on first floor where the duke was waiting for them. The delegates removed the cloth which covered their face and the two came in. one of them remained behind as he wasn’t someone duke was familiar with. The older one among the delegates introduced himself and the other.

“Go to the garden, your presence is not required here”

The third delegate was a son of a marquis of schwarz who wanted to visit the barren lionheart region. The son of marquis was a smug fellow, with a long nose and triangular face, his gaze constantly turned towards the maid’s butt as she escorted him to the garden. While engorged in admiring the maid before him he saw a commoner looking old woman playing with a child. She was wrinkly yet beautiful and packed, the marquis’ son was lusting after none other than beretta, the lady of this house. After reaching the garden the maid went back to the castle, she had no interest in serving the schwarz delegate. Normally this behaviour wasn’t ignored but schwarz desperately wanted to use the iron mine of lionheart which was recently found so the marquis’s son had to tolerate such cold shoulders. He was quick to make his was towards the region he saw the commoner lady playing but no one was there. Then at a distant corridor the young boy once again ran and then he heard her “young duke, now please wait”

‘She must be a maid’ marquis’s son ‘Lou’ thought to himself. He silently ran to the open space at the end of corridor, the young duke quickly passed through, ignoring him and ran into the grand door before him. Lou made his way to the door and beretta soon came there too, seeing her Lou lost all control.

“Do you know a boy running through here? Where he went?” beretta sweetly asked Lou. She didn’t know his identity and simply thought of him as a guest. Lou pointed to the door and said “here” beretta smiled and went to open the door, but Lou had pointed to the opposite door, he threw a green powder at her head and as beretta entered the room she found her consciousness fading. She was fallen on the floor, Lou quickly followed behind turned her face up dropped his pants and said “sorry I can’t have such an old cow for wife, but to pass up on you would be a shame” Lou had become lost in his lust. He got on beretta and ripped her shirt, the collar remained but her breast became visible. Before Lou could lift her gown, hades was behind him, he hit him with his hand, but Lou didn’t budge, he slapped hades and ordered him “sit down before I kill you”

A fallen hades saw a stranger lifting his mother’s gown, in despair his eyes turned darker, a sharp pain ran through his head like something was pushing against the inside of his brain and wanted to come out and in that desperate moment he raised his hand and Lou was smashed against the wall. There was another stranger in the room and he had lifted Lou and smashed him against the wall and ripped his hands in Lou’s chest. The new stranger wore clothes like a butler, he had black eyes with bright yellow pupils and a sharp gaze. His hair was brownish red, and he just stood there expressionless with Lou immortal danger. Suddenly the duke reached there and the stranger butler said to the duke “ah!! About time you got her duke” his voice echoed in duke’s mind, it was the same as the spirit which had bought hades’ soul to him six years ago, he was also hades’ guardian. Then he saw beretta on the floor unconscious and hades’ clenching his head like it would burst. He was looking at his mother’s face and crying.

“Why are you here and what is this” the duke approached the butler dressed spirit in anger and was about to grab his collar when the valet dressed spirit disappeared. The duke turned his gaze towards the third delegate and saw a piece of cloth in his hand. The scene was clear to duke, the spirit was guarding hades who must have jumped at the third delegate to protect his mother who was making a move on his wife, the spirit had no reason to harm her as it could have done that any time. After this realization the duke suddenly released that this third delegate had made a move on his wife, her shirt was torn, hades was crying on his mother’s chest, an anguished filled frown appeared on the duke’s face, and he grabbed the criminal’ neck and was about to break it but was held back by the sudden apparency of Lou’s partners.

“Duke, he is royalty, his death will bite you back.”

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“You realize what he did?”

“He must have hit the kid, the mark on his face is clear, but please let him go, it….”

Lionheart had no choice, he needed the schwarz’s help and had to reluctantly let him go. “We will punish him accordingly and this matter won’t come out please find it in your heart to forgive this miscreant” the schwarz delegate pleaded the duke of lionheart, who picked his wife and child and went away. Lionheart needed to coordinate with schwarz kingdom because the royal family of Frontera was not a big help to duchy. Frontera was a very small kingdom and was already considered to be on its way to doom, many predicted the struggling kingdom would soon be surrendered to surrounding kingdoms and be wiped off sicaria.(the continent)

The delegates weren’t told about him putting his hands on the lady, the duke didn’t wish for such thing to get out. The incident was concluded as the 'delegate of schwarz in a drunken state had hit the duke’s son.'

“Lou has ruined the negotiation, what now” said the second delegate.

“Now, we play the long game” the senior delegate was extremely disappointed with turn of events and prepared to leave the duchy, the incident broke down equal status, the two parties had and allowed duke to turn a favorable condition for himself regarding mine usage.

The duke then returned to his room where his wife was asleep and then looked out the window and saw hades looking towards the vast Greenland. He was sitting on a bench, the duke got up. His son had witnessed a very traumatic experience and needed some support. Suddenly the same dark spirit appeared behind him, the duke ran towards the porch fast but till he reached there the dark spirit was nowhere to be found, looking down in the spirit’s place was Lou’s head. The duke was astonished as he had let Lou go but somehow his head was lying before him, and before Lou’s head his six-year-old son hades was sitting with his back to Lou’s dead head and his father and then in a calm serenading voice hades spoke “don’t be too surprised father, he didn’t deserve to live after that” hearing him a chill ran through the duke’s spine, while hade’s spoke in a normal voice, he could tell that the hades before him was not the same kid he had bath with yesterday. There was something awfully different about his son now.

The duke slowly approached his son ignoring the fallen head in the path and asked him “what you just saw today, are you alright.”

When the duke came before him, he saw tears in his eyes dripping down and then hades said, “I remember everything now, seeing mom and being helpless to aid her bought me back.”

“You might want to take a seat duke, the story’s long Afterall” from behind him the dark spirit spoke, the duke turned and saw the dark cloak of spirit disintegrate and the same man who had restrained Lou before appearing before him. The spirit introduced himself as ‘Ruben’ guardian of hades. It was time the duke learned the truth about his son and the Ruben started narrating.

“I come from a different world duke, a world that was constantly riddled with war, had no concept of order, beings of our world continuously fought each other. It was said that our world was cursed to forever remain devoid of love. In such place, our fellow people either followed the strong or killed them to become stronger ourselves. We ate who we defeated and took what we want. In such order less world one pair emerged who went on to become the first lovers of our world and also the first rulers. Eight of us spirits including me, became the first lovers’ apostles who sought to establish order in a constantly war waging world. The eight of us apostles were titled as the ‘council of Tartarus’. After some time, our mistress announced that she, was now with a child. A bright future was upon us, the war plagued world was soon going to have a indomitable proof of love born in the world. The council was ecstatic, but some weren’t. thousands of winged warriors descended from the sky splitting it open, they wanted to kill our masters and the love they had. They wanted our burning world to burn forever, a pregnant mistress was unable to defend herself against such force and was stabbed through the stomach, in her dying breath she managed to expel her child’s soul, the council of Tartarus burned their spirits to tear the fabric of reality and allow the orphaned soul to escape. I was ordered by my master to bring hades’ soul to the next world, and I bought him here……… then I met you and gave hades to you.

Ruben was sounding depressed, lionheart was visibly shaken at such a revelation, a world that was always burning and knew nothing but war, the duke then said to Ruben “your world sounds like a hellish place to be.”

“It was” hades spoke finally after silently listening to Ruben tell some truth to the duke.

“Now that I remember everything about my other parents completely, it continues to hurt my head, all memories my mother ever had are flowing into me” the young duke was referring to his first mother who bore his soul. He always knew about them and himself, but it was very hazy as a child’s brain physically was not capable of making sense of such complex information but now that was not the case.

The duke then looked at the spirit and questioned him “was it you who killed this schwarzian?”

“On my lord’s order yes” Ruben replied with a smile on his face.

The duke sighed and placed a hand on hades shoulder and said, “you are still my son.”

Then hades frowned and retorted “and mother’s favorite still”.

it was here when Ruben told lionheart about his idea to establish a 'ivory magic tower' with students he found on the continent to help the duchy. The tower Ruben made would go on to become the greatest strength of frontera in the future.

After this discussion, both father and son went to beretta who had beginning to wake up. As soon as beretta opened her eyes, she saw hades holding her hand, confused she asked, “what happened”. she didn't seem to recall anything about Lou. The duke and hades already decided not to tell beretta anything, hades said “you fell down mom, I was so scared then daddy carried you back here.”

There were tears in hades eyes and seeing her son cry beretta got up and hugged her son and said, “thank you for helping mommy”. The duke then intervened “it was me though”.

Beretta ignored the duke and kept hades close to her. Following this, beretta forced hades to sleep with her for some nights which was very difficult for duke since she wouldn’t wear those provocative dresses, he smuggled in.