"It's no one's fault," Amelda raised her voice and turned her gaze towards the guard standing in the doorway.
"Kim, take the day off" the guards left the dining hall after bowing in her direction.
The joyous laughter vanished away as silence occupied the hall.
"Is it true young master Noah that young master Ghost is a friend of House Kane? I heard from our spies that he has seen with Elder Walter at the auction house"
Samuel changed the topic to make the hall lively again. A few sounds of gasps could be heard in the hall. Most of the family members knew how hard it is to establish a connection with any of the Noble families in Royal land let alone becoming a friend of House Kane, one of the most powerful families in Royal land.
"Then he made an enemy out of House Fisher and probably House Oswen too" Alicia snickered. Every pair of eyes landed on her expecting an explanation for her statement. Diana's heart skipped a beat hearing her son has made an enemy out of two powerful families. If Noah pissed off any of the noble families, he had his family and Guardians to protect him but her other son had to face them alone. This made her motherly feelings to protect her son erupt in her heart. Two decades ago, she utterly failed as a mother, she wanted to redeem herself yet she wouldn't be able with Skyhall in her way. Until Skyhall exists, her son would always be in danger unless she never reveals the fact that Ghost is her own son.
Neither her family nor Ghost was strong enough to take on the Skyhall, she knew this and this was the only thing keeping her from reuniting with her son.
"I heard he and the daughter of the second Oswen brother have some bad blood between them. Hence, he made an enemy out of House Oswen"
"What's her name?" Andrews asked,
"Celina, Celina Oswen.Since he has reached the Core Formation stage, he would either fight Celina or her fiance, Alex, Alex Fisher. By allying with House Kane, the rival family of House Fisher, he is already on the bad side of House Fisher. Unless he loses to either of them, he would be in trouble with those families" Alicia explained.
"Do you think either of them can defeat him in the championship tournament?" Natalia asked. Although Alicia didn't want to believe it, she thought either Celina or Alex would be able to defeat Ghost. In her mind, only Noah could defeat him among the same generation as Ghost.
"No. I saw each of them fight. They can't defeat him" said Noah, recalling the time when he fought with Ghost against the Core Formation beats inside the Nether Realm.
"If it wasn't for the stupid rule that guilds cannot compete in the championship tournaments, brother Noah would have defeated him," Maisy said as many of the family members nodded in agreement.
Rowena saw the uncertainty in Noah's eyes for the first time. Rowena trained with her little brother and she could tell that even though Noah was at the Body Strengthening stage level 10, he could beat anyone below Core Formation level 5 yet he seemed uncertain about defeating a Core Formation level 3 cultivator.
Diana heaved a sigh of relief thanking the rules preventing the guardian guild from competing in the tournaments. The last thing she wanted was her two sons fighting each other. If they were to face Skyhall in the future, her children must stand together rather than against each other.
"Noah, do you think you can defeat him if you fought him in the tournament?" Rowena calmly asked.
"I'm not sure. I have a feeling that he hasn't shown the full extent of his power to the world yet. The tournament will be a good place to study him"
"If that's the case, I'm sure the Guardian guild is already putting up a file on him. Places like the Guardian guild dont like to deal with the unknown"
"What about Skyhall?" Sabrina asked while Rowena took a sip from her wine glass.
"Unless one reaches the Fusion stage, Skyhall wouldn't care. We have bigger fish to fry" her face showed no expression, neither arrogance nor pride could be seen in her eyes. If Alicia was cold, Rowena was colder.
However, she loved her family the most. If she had to choose between Skyhall and her family, she would choose the latter in a heartbeat. When came to know about the assassination attempt on her sister and mother, she personally hunted down all the known associates of Giles and Jacobs without showing them a shred of mercy.
"I don't want any of you to fight with Ghost," Diana said. It didn't sound like a request but rather like an order. Noah saw her looking at him when she talked. He frowned because, in his mother's eyes, he saw something that's more than gratefulness of Ghost saving her and Sabrina.
"Allying with Ghost, a 5-star Alchemist and a prodigy is good for Winston Family" Diana quickly said before her children started to doubt her.
"I agree with Aunt. If it was up to me, I would have given him the banner of the Winston family as a token for showing our gratitude" some of the elders nodded in approval.
Yet Noah seemed to disagree with Andrew.
"Noah?" Andrews noticed Noah's silence and called out his name to hear his opinion.
"I think the Winston family and Ghost has some conflict of interests" Noah took a sip of wine before continuing,
"I don't think selfish people like him would not bring any benefits to the Winston family"
"Selfish?" Diana frowned,
"Yes, he could have joined the Guardians and helped many with his talents yet he chose to get richer"
"And he stole my dragon," Maisy shouted, punching the table with her little fist.
"Noah, he saved Sabrina and Aunt on the same day. I don't see how that's selfish" Andrews said.
"I am grateful for what he did, there's no denying that. But didn't Sabi say it was the dragon who came to her rescue first" besides Noah doubted that Ghost might have something to do with Jacob's letter because Noah doubted that Giles would be stupid enough to put his name on a letter that completely incriminates him.
Yet he wasn't completely sure about that and Giles turned out to be guilty when Rowena went on her killing spree. Although Giles escaped, Noah knew it was only a matter of time before he found him.
"Of course he came to save the dragon and ended up saving Sabrina," Alicia said. After hearing their words, Diana stomped the ground as the ground trembled,
"Stop it, all of you. We will not forget what he did. If it wasn't for him, Sabi, Andrews, and I'm wouldn't be here. I don't want to hear any of you speak so ungrateful ever again in my house!" the entire hall went dead silent seeing Diana's domineering face. It wasn't often she would lose her cool like that.
On top of that, this was the first time they saw her raise her voice at Noah.
Even Noah himself was stunned to hear her.
"Enough of this. Today's a celebration so let's celebrate" Amelda quickly tried to elevate the mood in the hall.
**********************************
Inside Peyton's manor, Xanali and Peyton were staring at a table full of documents.
"So Connor lost him?" Peyton creased her brows as Xanali shook her head.
"Ghost has been using teleportation scrolls to travel between kingdoms, Peyton. How could Connor follow him? However despite him using teleportation scrolls, I'd say Connor did a good job providing us with all this information on Ghost"
"Teleportation scrolls huh. I wonder where he is getting all those rare scrolls" Peyton rubbed her chin while Xanali put Michael's portrait next to the portrait of a question mark.
"Lucifer said he's giving the criminals two months. Ghost went into seclusion at the same time. Lucifer came just a few months after Ghost made his appearance at River Town. We don't know anything about him before he came to River Town" Xanali kept listing out facts to Peyton.
"Few days before Nightcrawler was killed by Lucifer, Ghost came to Flamefair" Xanali paused for a moment,
"Where are you going with this Xanali?"
"I think Ghost is working for Lucifer" Peyton just stared at all the documents at the table, pondering about what Xanali just said.
"Everything you said might be just a coincidence but, we can neither confirm it nor deny your doubt. I like your theory, we just need more solid proof" Peyton was desperate to find Lucifer so she could hunt him down. His accusation of them killing the nobles almost jeopardized the whole operation and brought down the wrath of a guardian captain.
"Allocate more resources to Connor and bring us the best teleportation expert in the guild. I want to know every move Ghost makes"
"As you wish. Also, I want to put a surveillance team around the Sunrise sect"
"Go ahead but be careful. A Soul Refiner is living there"
Xanali nodded with a smile. She then quickly stacked all the documents on the table neatly.
"Let me guess, you were invited to Noah's birthday party"