Novel Full Chapter 324: Truth
Nobody moved and nobody spoke.
The silence stretched for several heartbeats, heavy and suffocating despite the spacious dining room.
Then Lyandra sighed, the sound carrying years of buried secrets.
“Yes.”
The single word hit like a physical blow.
Luna’s breath caught, her silver eyes moving between her parents and Damian with shock written across her face.
Damian opened his mouth to ask more, but Lyandra raised her hand.
“For details, you should ask your father.”
Her voice was quiet, almost defeated.
“He never told me everything. Just… pieces. Enough to understand why you needed protection and why we had to keep it secret. But the full story…”
She looked at Alaric.
“That’s his to tell.”
Alaric waved his hand.
A bottle of Phoenix materialized from his spatial storage, the expensive liquor appearing alongside a glass. He poured with steady hands, filled it to the brim, then drank the entire thing in one smooth motion.
The glass clinked against the table as he set it down.
Then he met Damian’s eyes across the table.
“Seventeen years ago, Lyandra had been going through a difficult time.”
His voice was steady and controlled, like he was giving a military report rather than sharing family secrets.
“She’d been frustrated, desperate to find answers about why we couldn’t have children. For more than a year, she visited healers across the Federation, trying different treatments, different specialists, anything that might help…”
Lyandra’s hands clenched in her lap, old pain resurfacing.
“During that period, I was stationed at the S rank portal near the Bloodworth Family’s estate in the far North.”
He paused, refilling his glass.
“While I was there, I befriended someone. The Young Lord of the Bloodworth Imperial Family… Darius Bloodworth.”
Luna leaned forward slightly, her silver eyes fixed on her father’s face.
Damian sat perfectly still, his crimson eyes showing nothing, but his hands had tightened into fists beneath the table.
Lyandra’s expression shifted as memories clearly started surfacing.
“Darius Bloodworth was one of the greatest talents the Imperial families had ever produced.”
Alaric’s voice carried genuine respect.
“And I mean a real talent, not the inflated reputations most Noble heirs coast on. He was younger than me, but he was already the Head of his family. An SS rank awakener before he turned thirty.”
He took another drink.
“Unlike the other Imperial families who focused on politics and accumulating wealth and power in the safer regions, the Bloodworth family thrived on combat. Their patriarch was originally from the Northern Region before the portals opened. He was adamant about protecting the North since it was his homeland, the place where he’d built everything before the world changed.”
Alaric’s eyes became distant, looking at something only he could see.
“So while other Imperial families established their power bases in the other regions where life was easier, the Bloodworths chose to build their estate near the frontlines of humanity. Right where the portals opened most frequently, where the fighting never stopped.”
Luna glanced at Damian, her Empath ability picking up the storm of emotions he was carefully suppressing.
“I’d fought alongside many Bloodworth family members over the years. Saved quite a few of them when portal breaks got out of hand… Darius first approached me to thank me for helping one of his cousins during a particularly nasty incident.”
A ghost of a smile crossed Alaric’s face, sad and tinged with loss.
“But somehow we clicked. Our conversations extended day by day. He knew about Lyandra and me struggling to have children because I’d mentioned it once while drunk after a successful mission when I came out of the portal where he was stationed to protect against Monsters escaping to human world”
He laughed, the sound hollow.
“Darius joked that he’d never told anyone outside his closest family circle, but his wife was expecting twins. He said if I was that desperate, he could give one to me after they were born.”
Another drink.
“It was just a joke. Something said between friends over alcohol and exhaustion… Neither of us took it seriously.”
Alaric’s hands tightened on the glass.
“Then the day came when he became a father. There was a massive celebration planned to commemorate the birth of the sons of Lord Bloodworth. The patriarch was so happy that he invited all the other Imperial family heads and their patriarchs, practically every major power player in the Imperial council.”
His voice became quieter.
“He invited me as well. Not as a representative of anything, just as his friend. Someone he wanted to share his joy with.”
Alaric set the glass down, his eyes meeting Damian’s across the table.
“I was going to attend that celebration sixteen years ago.”
He paused.
“But…”
The world seemed to stop.
Damian’s breathing became shallow, his crimson eyes locked on Alaric’s silver ones.
“What happened that night…”
Alaric’s voice cracked slightly before he forced it back under control.
****
[Sixteen Years Ago – Inside the Portal]
The younger Alaric Valcor sat in his temporary quarters, personnel files spread across his desk.
His silver hair was shorter then, cut in the military style that marked him as active combat personnel. His face carried less weight, fewer lines carved by years of responsibility and fatherhood.
He reviewed portal rotation schedules with practiced efficiency, noting which teams would enter the S rank portal over the next week.
’Darius won’t stop bragging about how beautiful his wife is.’
The thought came with amusement.
’Says she’s the most beautiful woman in the Federation… We’ll see about that. No one is more beautiful than my Lyandra.’
He set the files aside and stood, stretching muscles that had been sitting too long.
The portal exit loomed outside his window, massive structures of metal and reinforced barriers that humanity had built to contain the dimensional tears threatening their world.
Alaric moved toward the door, planning to leave the portal, intending to arrive at the celebration early.
Then the portal’s emergency systems began screaming.
WEEEOOOOO WEEEOOOOO WEEEOOOOO
The sound was different from standard breach warnings.
Emergency extraction protocol.
Someone was coming through from the human world, moving fast, their Aura signature spiking to levels that suggested they were burning life force just to maintain speed.