Ava clenched her jaw. "I don’t know what you are talking about."
"Hmmm...." He nodded. "Though I am curious what would happen if they discover about your existence."
"What? Who?"
"The one from the nightmare realm. She— She has something in her that was quite similar to yours. She’s probably the one who birthed you."
She blinked. Then she blinked again.
What the hell was this guy talking about?
"Or she must have devoured your mother."
"Shut up," she glared at him. "I am leaving this realm now. So get away from me."
Once again, she tried to teleport away but the man once again found her. Not fun, she thought.
"It seems that you are adamant about running away. This makes me think that you are planning to— "
**BANG**
Before Ava could understand what just happened, the man’s body was thrown away from the impact. Ava froze. Her eyes widened when she saw Matthew reveal himself not far away from them. She looked around and realized that it seemed that they are in another space!
Was this Matthew’s doing!?
How could he separate space?
"What a greeting..." the man snorted. Ava felt Matthew stand behind her as she looked at the man who just used his hand to wipe the blood trickling down his mouth. "Rude but still... the same. It pains me to see that even in a different realm, you are acting as you used to thousands of years ago."
"What are you doing here?" Matthew asked. "You shouldn’t be here."
"And so are you."
"I am not a guardian."
"No, you are not."
"I can do whatever it is that I want."
"Ah..." the man narrowed at Ava. "I understand now."
"You don’t understand anything."
"I do. Oh... I do," the man said. "Though... your greeting is still a bit rude. I believe you owe me an apology."
"I won’t apologize for saving the woman that I love."
"Love?’ the man snorted. "I didn’t know that an entity like you knew... what love is. Perhaps it comes with age? Your kind would go senile with age, no?"
"You must leave this place," Matthew responded.
"Oh... I already know about the other worlders," the man said. "We saw one. I must say you found quite a partner. Offending someone like Aliah isn’t going to give you anything good."
"Aliah..."
"She is the current head of their kind. Notorious for being savage and petty, the woman had ruined realms."
"And you are just letting her do that?"
"We are not allowed to intervene in the affairs of the occupants of the realm."
Matthew narrowed.
"What does that mean?" Ava asked. Why does it seem like the man knew about that woman?
"Though she pushed the world to the ruins, she didn’t ruin it herself. She just give them the bullet that they needed. She didn’t pull the trigger or provide the occupants the gun," Matthew said. "Aliah of the Nightmare Realm. She is someone who loves destruction but she hated it to do all the work. So, she creates chaos, provoked the other party, and schemed to make them destroy each other. I have heard of her."
"You did?" the man asked, surprised. "That’s a little surprising considering you never removed your eyes to your — " the man looked at Ava. "Beloved woman."
For some reason, the man’s words made Ava shiver inwardly. She couldn’t help but think that it has a deeper meaning than what she originally thought.
"We should leave..." Matthew held Ava’s hand. "You have no business here..." he was looking at the man.
"I don’t. But I do have business with her. After all... she’s family."
Almost immediately, Matthew pulled Ava behind her, protecting her from the man.
"Calm down. I don’t intend to hurt her."
"She is not a guardian."
"I am well aware. Moreover, her blood is tainted. She cannot be one of us."
"Tainted?"
"She has the blood of the other realms. A demon and someone from the nightmare realm. Maybe even celestials. A freak of nature."
"Don’t you dare say that."
"You asked. I answered. Don’t you dare bite a cake if you didn’t want to know how it tastes."
Matthew clenched. "Her mother— "
"At first I thought it was Aliah... but how could you accept someone with her blood? I do not know who her mother is but I know that her father committed atrocities in the past. Falling for an occupant was a sin. Perhaps..."
"My father fell for a human?" Ava asked. That.... That doesn’t make any sense. However, she recalled Matthew’s conversation with her father. Her father mentioned something about them... doing something to her mother. And that same they might do it to her if they found out about her existence.
For some reason, she couldn’t help herself but think that it might be the other guardians who took her mother. After all, they forbid guardians from falling for any occupant of the realm.
She took a step back.
"Did... the guardians..."
"We would never do that. Though... we punished the guardian who would do something so illogical. We cannot touch the occupants of the realm."
Ava nodded. For some reason, she doesn’t really believe any of that.
"We should leave," Matthew said again. He glared at the man. "You are not to see her again."
The man only smiled without saying anything.
Seeing this, Matthew and Ava held each other’s hands before they vanished.
This time, the man didn’t follow them.
"Were you able to follow her?" Ava asked when they arrived on the Lycan’s Plane.
"Yes."
"And?"
"They are staying in the Southpole, working with humans."
"What?"
"They are... and have been helping the humans with tech, exploration outside of space, and other stuff. In exchange, the humans provide them with a space for their stay. The place was a no-fly zone and was heavily guarded by the military."
"That— Do you think the humans are aware that they were not from this realm?"
"They should be."
"Then... what are we going to do about it?"
"There are a total of ten public incidents where Hybrids and rogues have attacked humans since the reveal. We knew it was just to spice things up. As usual, she was manipulating everyone behind the scenes." Matthew sat on his chair.
**BANG**
"Where is— Ava!?" the Shaman walked towards Ava. "You are back."
"Uh.... Yes, I am."
"I finally found some entries of a woman named Aliah from some Egyptian scripts."
"Thanks to me, he was able to translate everything," Baba said as she walked inside the room. "I am glad to see that you are fine," Baba looked at Ava.
"Why wouldn’t I be?" Ava asked.
"Simply because you have met with the woman named Aliah."
"What do you mean?"
"We believe that Aliah had been secretly manipulating people to experiment on the limits of humanity. Her first appearance started in ancient Egypt where a woman named Aliah was found in some of the entries in the scripts about science, embalming, and some other experiments." The Shaman said.
"Then, we found notes of some of the most notorious women in history. Blood Countess Elizabeth Bathory, Mad Monarch of Madagascar, Ranavalona, Catherine de Medici, and the notorious Russian female serial killer and noblewoman of the 18th century, Darya Saltykova. It was said that all of them... had one thing in common." The Shaman continued.
"All of them had mentioned the name at one point in their lives. All of them showed appreciation and admiration for Aliah." Baba said.
"That’s — " Ava frowned. She recalled most of these women because the majority of them were witches. For instance, the blood countess was a real blood witch who bathe in the blood of virgin girls thinking that it would make her younger.
Well— it did make her younger but blood magick had its own consequences and since It wasn’t natural, the effects usually don’t last that long.
The others that Baba mentioned were either witches or suspected witches who were killed for their magick. Naturally, the humans thought they were serial killers because they are unaware of magick and the supernatural world.
They were killed for that very same reason.
"So... she wanted to summon a celestial, right?" this was their previous assumption. "Why didn’t she do it in the past?"
"We believe that she tried to do it in the past but failed. The black plague and other tragedies might be something that she did to try and create enough sacrifice for whatever it is that she’s going to do."
"Sacrifice?" Matthew frowned.
The Shaman nodded. "I figured that she might be summoning someone from the higher realms because of the killings. If she wanted to summon someone from the lower realms then she didn’t need to manipulate people into killing their own race. Moreover, she had the time to summon someone since she had been here for a very... very long time. Why didn’t she do it?"
"What was stopping her?" the Shaman continued.
"She was looking for the perfect vessel," Ava said.
"Precisely." The Shaman said. "And the reason why she just revealed the existence of supernaturals might be because.... She just found the perfect one."
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