Elara stared at her sister in utter confusion, her eyes filled with unfamiliarity and even a hint of hatred. She couldn't understand why her sister, who had always doted on her, not only refused to help her this time but even struck her.
Ember's attention was entirely fixed on Julian, so she didn't notice the look in Elara's eyes—and even if she had, it wouldn't have changed her mind.
But Elara had already lost all reason. The death of her beloved and the "betrayal" by her sister made her feel as though the entire world had abandoned her.
And the root of all this misfortune—was Julian.
Her eyes burned with hatred, as if she wanted to devour him alive. Word by word, she said, "One day, I will kill you. I'll kill you and your fam—"
"Shut up!"
Slap!
Before she could finish uttering the word "family," Ember's palm struck her face again, hard.
"Julian, she—"
"Ghehe~"
A chilling, bone-freezing sound reached her ears.
'Gengar!'
That name instantly flashed through Ember's mind.
Julian's white Gengar was rarely seen in public, and very few people knew anything about it. But Ember had once explored a Top-tier secret realm alongside Julian, and they'd had a good relationship, so she knew exactly how terrifying that Gengar was.
When it came to assassination ability—below Champion tier—whoever Gengar wanted dead, would die.
Blaziken's reaction speed was already incredibly fast, but compared to Gengar's, it simply wasn't enough.
Thud!
Elara collapsed to the ground.
Blaziken's fist had already shot forward but came to an abrupt halt. Ember was now right beside Gengar, and Blaziken feared accidentally harming her.
Seeing that her sister's chest was still rising and falling—clearly still alive, likely only put to sleep by Gengar—Ember finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"Thank you," she said.
Julian looked at her expressionlessly. "This is the last time. If you want her to stay alive, you'd better erase every memory she has of Theo."
He didn't have many friends, but Ember, Rowan, Asher, and Pierce were among the few he truly acknowledged as such.
Not to mention anything else, just two years ago, when he was kidnapped by spies from Wyvernia, these four had risked their lives to infiltrate the country and rescue him.
Although he had ultimately escaped on his own, he still valued their willingness to help.
When it came to enemies, Julian never showed mercy.
But with friends, he was more than generous.
Otherwise, given the words Elara had just spoken—threatening his family—it would have been a miracle if Julian had let her live even a second longer.
"Let your Metagross handle it. Ela has been spoiled by the family since she was a child, and over the years, she really has become a bit too willful." Ember looked at Elara, who was now unconscious, her helpless expression tinged with heartache.
Metagross floated over to Elara, its psychic energy seeping into her mind. It began erasing everything related to Theo and the entire Dawson family from her memory.
Given Metagross's control, once the memories were deleted, they were gone for good. There would be no risk of them resurfacing due to emotional triggers.
After removing all memories connected to Theo and the Dawson family, Metagross fabricated new content to fill the resulting gaps.
Only Psychic- or Ghost-type Pokémon were capable of such memory manipulation, and even then, it demanded immense skill and precise control over their powers.
A single mistake, and instead of erasing memories, they could quite literally bore a hole through someone's brain.
When everything was done, Metagross quietly floated back to Julian's side.
Ember gestured for Blaziken to carry Elara home.
"Elara was engaged to Theo from a young age, and their feelings for each other have always been strong. That's why she reacted so intensely to his death."
Worried that Julian might still hold a grudge against Elara, Ember softly explained the situation.
"I'm not that petty," Julian replied flatly.
Hearing that, Ember rolled her eyes and shot back irritably, "Not petty? Remember when we first met and I teased you a few times? Look how you paid me back!"
Julian looked a bit embarrassed, then muttered in irritation, "Pierce, that traitor…"
"But don't worry, my feet were clean."
"F**k You. I don't care how clean they were—you still made me drink your foot-wash water!"
Just thinking about it made Ember grit her teeth in anger.
"If I hadn't run into Pierce a few months ago and had a few drinks with him (he's got a terrible tolerance, by the way) I never would've found out about that incident."
She was a stunning beauty, yet she had drunk a man's foot-wash water.
Damn it, shouldn't it be men drinking her foot-wash water instead?
"Did he also tell you that he dipped his feet in it too?"
Ember: (╬ಠ皿ಠ)
Damn it—so it was two men's foot-wash water!
Ember felt her stomach churn at the thought.
"Pierce! That bast**d—I swear I'm going to beat him to death next time I see him!" Ember roared furiously.
As for why she wasn't threatening Julian—well, if she could actually take him in a fight, she would have pinned him to the ground long ago.
"Pierce should be in Orient City right now," Julian said.
He had recently seen a post on his social media feed—a photo of Pierce posing in front of one of Orient City's iconic skyscrapers.
Before long, Blaziken returned, accompanied by an elderly woman leaning on a cane.
"Grandma, why have you come out?"
Ember hurried over to support her.
The elderly woman's name was Rose Hearth, née Turner.
"Great-aunt," Julian greeted politely.
She was the younger sister of his maternal grandfather, Harold Turner, which made her his great-aunt.
That also meant that, technically, Julian and Ember were distant cousins.
For major aristocratic families, longevity and survival depended not only on their own strength but also on the alliances they built. After all, if a family one day fell from power, having reliable allies could mean the difference between extinction and preservation.
And the most reliable allies were naturally those connected by marriage.
Thus, intermarriage among aristocratic families was extremely common.
For instance, a family might have three direct male heirs, each marrying women from three different powerful clans. Similarly, the daughters might be married off to other influential houses as well.
Because of that, the relationships among major families were tangled and intricate—a web of alliances and rivalries stretching across generations.
It wasn't unusual for a family you disliked to turn out to be one your ancestors had once married into.
This great-aunt of his had once been in love with someone. But due to the arranged marriage between her and the Hearth family, she had been forced to give up that relationship. As a result, her relationship with the Turner family was rather strained.
Julian had only accidentally learned about this during his last visit to his grandfather's home.
Today was the first time he had ever met her in person.
For descendants of aristocratic families, falling in love freely was a rare privilege—something that existed only in two cases.
The first was if one's strength and talent were so exceptional that the family had no choice but to compromise for you.
The second was if you were a complete nobody—a weak, insignificant branch member whom the family didn't even care about. In that case, forget "free love"—you could die out there and no one would even bother to look for your body.
For heirs of aristocratic families, free love was a luxury.
Still, when weighed against the benefits and protection they received from their clans, the personal sacrifices they made were considered negligible.
The Hearth family, however, was one of the few noble families where women could become clan heads, and Ember was the current successor of the Hearth family.
She was precisely the type whose own strength and talent allowed the family to compromise. It was unthinkable that someone like her could be married off or given away at the whim of the family elders.
*****
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