Villain: The Play of Destiny

At the end of the fourth day inside the world of Aerzaar, Keith brought everyone back to Gaia, right inside the Lounge they had disappeared from.

It was almost 6 pm, and when Keith checked his phone, he already had a couple of missed calls from the little Princess.

He did not call her back. Instead, he checked on her location and found out that she was already in Essra and inside the Tower.

"Avriel is here." He informed the ladies before he walked out, followed by Kiara.

The two of them took the lift down to the ground floor and then headed into the waiting lounge from there.

The Princess was sitting on the sofa, holding a tablet in her hands, excitedly looking at all the publicly announced projects that were being worked on here at Essra Space City.

"Lord Keith!" The girl immediately got up on her feet when he entered the room, and Keith smiled at her.

She was fourteen years old now, and already blooming into a gorgeous maiden. And somehow, her smile had managed to stay just as bright and innocent over the years.

Her two Shadows, Leah and Bonnie, the twins, were as always by her side, and Sir Aulon had come as well as her Protector and Knight.

"19 minutes." She told him, and he chuckled at her words.

"You have grown stronger." He complimented her, and her smile brightened at his words.

For a girl of fourteen, being at the Peak of Nascent Profound Realm was a great achievement, but he was not really surprised at her progress.

As a Heroine of Destiny, she had her merits and blessings, and she was special enough to catch his interest.

Then again, there was a very different reason why he was actually interested in her. One that was very special.

"Sir Aulon." He greeted the Protector, and the man deeply bowed to him.

"Lord Erebus!"

"The attendant will lead you to the Guest Wing. Avriel will be staying with the family for the next few days."

"I understand." The man had no opinion about the matter, and he humbly nodded his head to the arrangements. "I wish to talk to you about a few matters."

"I will talk to Lord Keith about the matters of concern. You don't need to worry." Avriel cut him off, and Aulon looked a little troubled.

"Princess..."

He tried to speak again and reason with her, but Avriel sent him a glare and he wisely shut up.

"I will see you later." Keith meaningfully nodded to him, and Avriel cutely furrowed her brows at his words.

However, she did not say anything and obediently followed him and Kiara, chatting with the latter as they walked over to the lift.

"You have changed." She suddenly said, and Kiara was a little surprised at her words.

"How so?" She curiously asked.

"You seem to ooze an aura of Nobility, and it is suffocating." Avriel smiled. "You are a lot like Lord Keith now."

"Well, she is my daughter."

Avriel froze a little at his words, shocked to the core, and it did answer the questions that were running through her mind.

"You have been having glimpses in your dreams lately?" He asked, and everyone in the lift turned to look at him curiously.

"Yes." The Princess honestly admitted, and he gently caressed her head.

"And your memory has been growing sharper, along with your sense of sight. And you have been having headaches?" He teasingly asked again, and the girl cutely furrowed her brows.

"Yes." She nodded, now feeling a little worried.

However, more than her, the Shadows by her side were worried for her as they were not aware that she had been going through such things. She never told them or anyone else.

"There is no need to panic. You are only awakening." He flicked her nose, and she did not mind it in the least.

Her smile returned to her face and she curiously looked at him, waiting for him to explain the things to her.

"Won't spoil it for you. The changes will take about a year to complete, and you will get all your answers then."

"And if I insist on knowing about these things now?" She asked, and Keith smiled at her.

"It will come at a price, Princess."

"We will talk about it later." She nodded to him and then looked at the door of the lift that opened.

"Avriel!" Ingvild happily stepped forward and hugged the girl, and then the two friends enthusiastically started chatting with each other.

"You look tired." The pearl-haired girl curiously commented, and the Carmilla Princess smiled at her.

"We have been training with Brother." She told her and did not say anything more about it.

Ingvild took Avriel with her to greet the rest of the family, and Keith met the eyes of his curious daughter.

"What is she?" Kiara asked, remembering that Keith once told her and Rebecca that Avriel was not a simple Esper.

"Patience." He flicked her nose and then planted a kiss on her forehead.

When they arrived at the Main Lounge, the Valois Princess was happily chatting with Amira and Riena, both of whom looked quite tired, but they still had smiles on their faces.

He excused himself to his room, where he took a quick shower, and then he sat down at the table to study a book on Magical Crafting.

It was the one he had bought from the System Shop after finishing the earlier one on Forging and Smithing.

Immersed in the new knowledge he was learning, the passage of time went unnoticed by him. However, when the door to his room was suddenly knocked, he answered it immediately.

"Come in."

He did not take his eyes off the pages, but already knew who it was, and when she came to stand behind him, he constructed a chair of Crystal Element for her to sit upon.

Avriel curiously looked at the words on the pages, which seemed a little familiar for some reason, but she could not understand even a bit of it.

However, as curious as she was, she stayed quiet, not willing to disturb him any more than she already had.

Keith kept her waiting for half an hour before he took his eyes off the pages and then closed the book, making it magically disappear, which made her gasp in surprise.

"Where did it go?" She curiously looked around the room as she asked the question, and only when she heard him chuckle did she return to look at him.

"It's not in the room anymore. So, what do you need to talk to me about?" He told her and then asked what was going on.

"Two things." She beamed a smile at him.

"First, we will talk about the matter that Sir Aulon is worried about." He told her, and she pouted at him before nodding her head.

Keith noticed that her smile became a little strained, and he already had a guess now of what this was going to be about.

"A few months ago, when I returned to France, Sir Aaron asked for my help to gather a group of new Espers that had surfaced in Russia..." She started by telling him how they formed a team and decided to go and recruit the new Espers. "We were late though. There seems to be a Hidden Organisation that is recruiting Espers as well, and we crossed paths."

"There was some trouble?"

"Yes." She nodded. "Their methods were extreme, and they made the young Epsers fight with each other, telling them that only those who manage to kill, at least, one enemy will survive and will be recruited. They made the young Espers fight each other to death, and only three survived. When I arrived, it was already too late, and..."

"And you read their minds."

Avriel stayed silent and her brows further deepened.

"They were not good people." She told him. "None of them. They were all crazy and chaotically evil."

Keith patiently listened to her and let her take all the time she needed.

"And the organisation that was there to recruit them was that of Assassins." Avriel clenched her fist and met his eyes. "I ordered my men to kill them all."

There was a pregnant silence in the room that followed, and finally, after a minute, Keith smiled at her.

"Why?"

"They were a potential threat. And they were planning on kidnapping me in the future."

Rebecca's teachings were indeed very effective, and the girl had grown quite decisive now.

Keith knew that she could not yet read all the memories of the people, and the information she must have learned was because she had managed to read the thoughts that ran through someone's mind when they fell to the enchantment of her eyes.

"I did not manage to gather much information from the Assassins, except that I was their future target and that they were planning on infiltrating the Esper Association."

"They did not know about your Powers."

"No, but they knew I was an Esper."

Keith nodded to her words and then narrowed his eyes.

"Did you manage to take them all out?"

Avriel lowered her eyes and shook her head.

"The young ones were killed. I killed them myself, but two Assassins survived and managed to escape."

"How?"

"There was another person in the Shadows that we had not picked up on. It was Damien Eisenhardt." She frowned.

"The missing Esper?"

"Yes." She nodded to him. "I could not read his mind, and his face was covered as well, but I recognised his Powers. He constructed a tall metallic wall and caged us, and then escaped with his two companions before we could break through."

"Companions?" He smiled. "So he was recruited by that Assassin Organisation and is now an Assassin."

"Yes."

"I see." He smiled in his heart.

It was not news to him, as he was already aware of all these things.

And Damien was always meant to become an Assassin. After all, this future Child of Destiny was going to become an Assassin Landlord one day as his Plan of Destiny geared up.

There were still a few years before it was going to happen, however, considering that things were changing, Keith could no longer be certain that Destiny's Plan for Damien had not changed.

"Sir Aaron blamed me for the failure of the Mission. And he is concerned about what sort of teachings you and Lady Rebecca are giving me."

"Isn't that ironic?" Keith chuckled in amusement and leaned back in the chair. "He has started considering you a threat."

"Yes." She nodded to him, having realised it already.

"Do you regret your decision to kill those people?"

"No." She replied without any hesitation. "But it did not feel good to take a life." She sadly said and kept her head lowered.

"That's a lie."

Her body tensed at his words, and he smiled as she slowly raised her head and met his eyes.

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