Punishment and Truth!

Then, his smile turned demonic, and he announced in a loud voice, "Your punishment is to watch your son die in front of your very own eyes."

Adrian lifted his leg before crushing Kane's head in front of Martha's very own eyes.

Clack...

Splash...

Brain matter mixed with blood splashed on Martha's face as she cried in a loud voice, "NOOOOO!!!!!"

Martha's expression disappeared, as if her soul had left her body. She just stared at her son's headless corpse with a blank look on her face.

"W-what happened here?" Harvard Blake questioned as he witnessed the scene in front of him. He was not home all this time, as he was busy handling his merchant business outside. He had just returned, and the scene he saw was not something he would have ever imagined was possible. Adrian was smiling menacingly with blood covering his clothes. Martha was sitting in front of a corpse whose head had been bashed in, staring at it with a blank expression.

"So, you were not home all this time. That's why I didn't see you come out even after all this commotion. Well, as you can see, I killed your son. And now I can't afford to leave witnesses, so you both would have to die now," Adrian answered with a demonic smile like that of a maniac.

"W-why? You killed Kane? But why?" Harvard questioned, with a terrified look on his face. He could sense that something was wrong with Adrian.

"Why? I don't have the time to explain the reason to you. Why don't you just die quietly?" Adrian replied, wearing the same smile on his face.

After finishing speaking, Adrian appeared in front of Harvard in the blink of an eye and grabbed him by his neck. But before he could squeeze the life out of Harvard, he heard some words that grabbed his attention.

"F-Freya is not my wife!" Harvard shouted. After noticing that Adrian had stopped, he continued, "A-and I'm not your father!"

"What? What do you mean?" Adrian questioned, sounding confused. He couldn't understand what this bastard was trying to say.

"First promise to leave me and Martha alive, only then will I tell you the truth about you," Harvard Blake answered, with slight trembles in his voice. Although he was trying to hide it, he was terrified right now. He could only think of this to save himself and his poor wife, who lost her only son from this monster.

"You are not in a position to negotiate, you know that, right? I can just kill you and be on my way," Adrian replied nonchalantly, seeming to not care about it.

"If you weren't interested, you wouldn't have stopped just now after hearing my words. Just promise by swearing on your mother's name, and I'll tell you the whole truth about your mother," Harvard spoke, gaining some confidence.

"I can just make him speak with torture, but that would be a useless effort on my side. Let's just promise for now," Adrian thought before swearing, "Alright, I, Adrian Blaze, son of Freya, swear to spare Harvard Blake and his wife on my mother's name." After finishing, he looked at Harvard before speaking, "Are you happy now? Now tell me what you were talking about."

"It happened when I was traveling near the kingdom's borders with my cargo. While traveling, my men and I heard the sounds of swords clashing. As we moved forward, the sounds became louder. After moving forward a bit, we came across a scene, with around 50 men dressed in black like assassins lying here and there. Only one of them was left fighting. On the other side was a man, who was wounded and poisoned badly.

We understood what had happened there. After fighting for a bit, the last assassin was also defeated by that man. But afterward, he fell on his knees. When we approached to help him, it was already too late. The poison had spread across his body, seemingly knowing that himself. He pointed to a certain direction where an unconscious woman was lying. Before dying, he asked us to protect his wife and child.

And that woman was Freya, your mother, who was pregnant with you. After several days when she woke up, she had forgotten her memories and didn't seem to remember anything. I wanted her to forget the painful truth of losing her husband. So, I introduced myself as her husband and sent her to the place where you live now." Harvard finished the story.

"Oh, so you're telling me that you're a virtuous man who helped me and my mother. And not only that, you didn't even touch her even after seeing how beautiful she was. You helped a stranger without any motive behind. Is that it? Are you seriously telling me to believe all this when I know what kind of a man you are? Or do you think I was born yesterday and you could fool me?" Adrian questioned with an incredulous look.

"Now tell me the real truth before I do something that I might regret doing," Adrian ordered with a threatening look in his eyes.

Harvard understood the intent behind Adrian's words. He had added some lies in between to improve his image so that his chances of survival could increase, but alas, this monster caught on to his lies so easily. Now, without any choice, he came clean, as lying another time would mean certain death.

"The story about how I found your mother is all true, but the reason I saved her was because of her beauty. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life, so I wanted to help her, and through that, I would enter her heart by marrying her. But when I found out that she had forgotten her memories, I changed my plan and introduced myself as her husband. To not let her reject me, I told her that she was a maid in the past. All was going well, and when you were born, she began to take care of you. After finding my chance, I entered her room to make her mine. She was sleeping on her bed, and when I approached her, I froze like a sculpture of ice. When I woke up, a month had passed. I found myself in front of a mage from the empire who told me what had happened.

He told me that she possessed the ice phoenix physique, which carried unnaturally high yin energy. If someone with bad intent approaches her, he will get frozen by that yin energy. That is also the reason for your mother's illness. Her body can't handle that much yin energy; that's the reason her condition worsened over time. I was afraid of getting frozen again, so I sent her away to the place where you currently live," Harvard explained.

"So, that's it. This was the reason why no healer was able to identify the cause of her illness," Adrian thought before questioning Harvard. "So, do you know the cure to the illness?"

"That mage told me that drinking the blood of the red fire dragon will cure her. But you also know that a dragon is a majestic being whose blood is not even possible to get now," Harvard answered, seeming to please Adrian with his obedience.

"Alright, I shall uphold my promise," Adrian announced.

Hearing Adrian's words, a smile appeared on Harvard's face. But before he could thank Adrian, the world seemed to be turning upside down as if the floor was getting closer to him. But he quickly realized that he was beheaded by Adrian, and in his last moment, he only saw a sarcastic smile on Adrian's face before his consciousness faded.

"Of course, I was talking about the promise to end those who hurt someone precious to me," Adrian muttered, with a nonchalant look.

"Now, let's put an end to her (Martha's) agony and return home. Mother must be worrying about me," Adrian muttered before ending Martha's life with a clean strike.

Afterwards, Adrian disappeared, leaving behind three corpses and a mansion stained with blood.