Chapter 405: Sleeping Dragon (2K Words)
Later, at House Morgenstein...
Beatrice lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling as she gave everything that had happened throughout the day some thought.
She was considerably calmer now. Just like the others, she had also succumbed to her emotions being altered.
But strangely enough, that calmness only made something else bother her even more. Which is that; everyone had accepted it too easily.
Her family had gone all the way to the Stark Estate with every intention of confronting those responsible. Then their anger simply began disappearing.
And it wasn’t only them.
By the time they returned, reports concerning Dark Nova’s revelations during the live broadcast were already beginning to thin out across news networks. Some channels had even moved on to entirely different stories, which was definitely not normal.
A scandal involving a public figure as prominent as Ethan Stark wasn’t something that should have simply died down within such a short period.
Even though Beatrice felt strangely peaceful about everything now, it didn’t mean she couldn’t recognize how unnatural it was.
"Something isn’t right..." Beatrice muttered.
[Because something isn’t.]
Beatrice’s eyes widened. She immediately sprang from the bed and spun around, her eyes rapidly searching every corner of the room. "Who was that?!"
There was silence for a moment before the same unfamiliar voice spoke directly into her thoughts.
[I am the goddess, Atia.]
Beatrice froze in shock.
[And you and I will accomplish many things together.]
———
A few days later...
The curtains suddenly drew open, allowing the glow of morning sunlight to enter the room and splash directly across Ethan’s face.
"Rise and shine, handsome." Hayley’s voice accompanied the sudden brightness.
Ethan’s eyes slowly fluttered open, revealing draconic slits surrounded by a reddish-amber hue, before returning to his normal human eyes.
He blinked a few times before slowly sitting upright on the bed.
Ethan was shirtless, wearing nothing but black trousers beneath the sheets that fell away from his upper body as he sat up.
Safe to say, he was back to normal. The injuries sustained during his battle with Dark Nova had completely healed over the past few days. His missing arm had fully regenerated, and even the eye Norman had damaged had been completely restored.
Hayley stood beside the now-open curtains with a grin on her face. "You dragons really do know how to sleep."
Ethan gave her a tired look as he adjusted himself on the bed.
"Well, we both got tired of waiting for whenever you planned on waking up," Hayley added. "So I’m getting you up."
She then gestured towards the door as they both heard the sounds of approaching footsteps.
Isabella arrived with a smile on her face, holding a tray of food in both hands.
She was currently wearing something borrowed from Hayley; the typical white camisole the Luna often wore around the house, accompanied by a pair of bum shorts.
"Hey, babe." She said.
Ethan’s expression softened immediately, smiling at the sight of his wife.
Hayley had arrived at the estate about thirty minutes after the battle incident three days ago.
Considering the state of the Stark Residence after everything that had happened, Ethan and the rest of the household had temporarily moved over to House Arcorys.
Although King Carson had offered to accommodate everyone at the Royal Palace for as long as necessary, but they ultimately chose to stay with the Arcrorys instead.
However, since arriving here, Ethan had spent practically the entire time asleep, barely budging even once.
Although, considering he was a dragon, it wasn’t particularly strange. Dragons naturally enjoyed long periods of sleep and could remain asleep for considerably longer periods if nothing disturbed them.
Everyone knew there was nothing wrong with him, so they simply allowed Ethan to sleep for as long as his body wanted.
That was until this morning.
Isabella walked further into the room with the tray, which carried several meatloaves alongside other foods specifically chosen to appeal to Ethan’s appetite.
She placed it on the bedside table before sitting beside him on the bed.
"How are you feeling?" Isabella asked as she gently held his cheek. "Sorry we had to wake you."
Ethan shook his head slightly. "It’s fine."
He still looked somewhat groggy as his eyes moved between Isabella and Hayley. "How long have I been out?"
"Three days," Hayley answered.
Ethan’s eyes widened slightly. "Okay...That’s awfully long."
"Yeah, but you needed it." Isabella said.
She then added, "Eduardo says the house should be finished later today."
This news was one of the reasons they had chosen to wake him.
The reconstruction of the Stark Residence had already been ongoing throughout the past few days.
The workers handling the project had come from an extension of Mr. Chang’s construction company; the same company currently carrying out much of the construction work at Stark City.
Among the workers sent over were several Caster Class Awakened possessing the requisite magical skills and spells for large-scale construction and structural restoration.
With magic involved, rebuilding the destroyed manor was possible in that short time frame.
For the past few days, Eduardo and Valerie had been overseeing the reconstruction project back at the Stark Estate, ensuring everything was restored properly while Ethan recovered at the house arcrorys.
Isabella remained seated beside Ethan as he began eating, although she had taken it upon herself to slowly feed him the food Hayley had helped teach her to make earlier that morning.
Apparently, the two women had prepared everything specifically in anticipation of waking him up.
Ethan didn’t complain. He ate while the three of them chatted about everything that had happened throughout the last few days, occasionally opening his mouth whenever Isabella brought another piece of food towards him.
At some point during their conversation, Percival heard Ethan’s voice from downstairs and immediately made his way up to the room.
On arrival, Percival first enquired about his health and whether he was feeling alright after the battle. Once Ethan assured him that he was fine, their conversation naturally moved towards everything that had happened following Dark Nova’s broadcast.
Percival explained what had happened at Clustervayne Guild.
The attack from the other guilds had caused considerable destruction to different sections of the property. Thankfully, the damage could be repaired, and arrangements had already been made for the Guild to undergo reconstruction as well.
It was next on the queue. Once the workers finished rebuilding the Stark Residence later today, the required Caster Classes and construction workers would be redirected towards Clustervayne to begin repairing the damaged sections of the Guild.
Stark Industries fared considerably better throughout the entire incident.
Although several properties had been targeted during the chaos that followed the broadcast, Eduardo and those fighting alongside him had prevented a lot of things from sustaining serious structural damage. There were broken windows, damaged entrances and several other things that needed repairs, but nothing significant enough to put any of the properties out of operation for an extended period.
Then, somewhere in between their discussion, Hayley mentioned something else. "Oh, Mr Nathan’s here too."
Ethan made a weird face.
"He popped up at the front door an hour ago" Isabella added. This was another reason they had decided to wake him.
Ethan sighed and shook his head.
——
A while later...
Ethan walked up towards the open doorway of Mr. Marvin’s study, where Hayley said his father was waiting at.
Nathan was standing, with hands held behind his back as he silently stared at the different portraits hanging around the room. Most of them were of the late Mr. Marvin, alongside several others taken throughout different periods of his life.
Ethan stopped at the doorway. And for a few seconds, he simply watched his father from behind as Nathan’s eyes continued moving across the portraits.
Then Nathan spoke. "Did he at least live you a good life?"
Ethan then walked into the study. "Yeah. He was a great guy." His eyes briefly moved towards one of Marvin’s portraits. "The closest thing I ever had to an uncle."
Nathan smiled a bit. "Yeah..Marvin was a good man."
After a while of silence, Ethan glanced at him and said, "That’s one method to suddenly disappear, by the way."
Nathan immediately understood what his son was talking about and sighed before finally turning away from the wall.
"I didn’t think things would get as bad as they did." He said. "I thought my presence would only complicate the situation further, I didn’t expect the entire thing to turn into an outright battle."
"Hm.. " Ethan muttered, saying nothing more to it.
Nathan also did not bother mentioning that he was the reason the outrage against the Stark family and properties, had died out.
However, after a brief moment of silence, Nathan then said "My time on this continent is coming to an end. So I’m here to continue our conversation about that alternative you mentioned."
Ethan sighed, then said, "That alternative is me."
Nathan looked at him, puzzled. "In what sense?"
Ethan was quiet for a moment, unsure how exactly he was supposed to explain this.
Nathan stared at him before adding, "Ethan, yes, I can tell you’ve grown into a very powerful dragon. But you’re nowhere near powerful enough to do anything against the dragons on the Dragon Continent."
"No, not that." Ethan shook his head. He thought for another second before asking, "How knowledgeable are you about gods? Deities in general."
"Not very." Nathan replied. "I’ve never particularly believed in any of them, but I know a few."
"Okay." Ethan nodded. "Do you know of any deity with the title Spirit King? Or King of Spirits?"
Nathan narrowed his eyes slightly as he thought about the question.
Eventually, he shook his head. "Not exactly. The only deity I know that probably fits that description would be Mundus, who is revered by some demons as the god of the Dead...Is that the Spirit King you’re talking about?"
"I don’t know." Ethan admitted.
Nathan’s expression became even more puzzled. "What?"
"Look, you’re going to be the only other person aside from a certain crazy mage who knows this information." Ethan paused briefly before continuing. "But I may have come to possess some of the power of this Spirit King."
Nathan seemed surprised.
Ethan knew for a fact that there was no divinity within him, nor had anything ever indicated that he had somehow become a god.
However, he also couldn’t ignore what was becoming increasingly obvious about the Spirit King. Which is that by every indication available to him, the power associated with that title belonged to a deity.
Merlin had made different inferences towards it during their conversations, and perhaps the most obvious evidence was the simple fact that Ethan possessed a Blessed.
Blessings were something only deities could grant. Yet Ethan had somehow been capable of granting one himself. The system also had limited information regarding this spirit king, but pretending that there wasn’t some form of divine power involved would have been unrealistic.
"I don’t know exactly what the Spirit King is," Ethan continued. "But everything I’ve learned so far points towards it being some kind of deity. And somehow... I possess part of its power."
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Accept my Apologies Guys! I have a rough written outline for about 30/40 chps and planned to have dropped up to 3 chps today before daily reset but work did not let me.
But I’m working on putting them up soon.