Forbidden Relationship

 A green serpent crawled out from the severed upper part of Old Daran's body. As soon as it moved away from the corpse, it grew and changed shape until it assumed the size and shape of his previous body. But unlike his earlier self, Daran was very weak now, and it would take a long time to recover to his peak.

"Tower Master, I'm sorry for causing trouble. It was my mistake not to investigate the situation further. How was I supposed to know that that bastard Omar had such a close relationship with those girls?"

"On the contrary, the situation has become heated enough for Rafael and me to sign a 300-year peace agreement that involves all the Masters of our two groups."

"That long?"

"The agreement didn't include you and the new Masters, but I managed to include Jhon, Zhang, and of course Omar as well. That means that right now, you're the only one who can freely cause trouble for the Order. But we must avoid that."

"The Red Sage's group was growing too fast, with this deal, they won't be a problem, and we can always recruit more Masters…"

"Leave the recruitment of new Masters to me, I want you to leave Asshai for a while, and start recruiting new apprentices around the world. Try to find more children with special physiques."

"Leave it to me, Master of the Tower, now with your permission, I need some time to recover from this resurrection method."

The Master of Beasts turned to leave, then stopped with his back to Daran and said: "Daran, one more thing..."

"Yes, Tower Master?"

"...Congratulations on becoming a Master."

A look of surprise followed by a big smile, Daran was being recognized for the first time in the Garden of Beasts. This was something he had longed for since he joined the tower when he was young. All his efforts and sacrifices had finally paid off. In a low tone, he said, "Thank you, Tower Master."

As soon as the Master of Beasts returned to his own laboratory, he summoned one of his beasts, unlike the previous ones, this one seemed very fragile, it was small, the size of a 6-year-old child, it had a giant brain exposed in its skull and a single eye in the center of its face.

When the beast appeared, its master gave it an order: "Show me the future!"

The creature's single eye widened and began to glow, but less than 10 seconds later, black blood began to leak from the eye, and the creature let out groans of pain.

The Master of Beasts' face distorted, and nine other shadows were quickly visible as they separated from his own shadow. But they quickly returned to one as he calmed down.

"Still no vision, huh?" The Master of the Garden of Beasts whispered that, after another failure to observe the future, he now needed to work with the information he had before such a problem began. The problem was that the further away, the more incomplete it was...

***

 In the Master of Whispers' tower, a huge ritual was taking place after the auction had ended. At the center of this ritual was Master Odin. One of his eyes was completely black, and soon it began to bleed heavily as well. The Master of Whispers interrupted the ritual as he empathized with his senior... Master Odin could use his ability as a Shadowmancer to see the past, present, and future of the Shadowlands. But now, besides not being able to see the present and future anymore, even looking into the past was costing him a high price…

Seeing the Master of Whispers' face, he spoke in a tired tone: "Mazda believes the culprit is the Red Sage, and he already has a plan in motion to return my powers."

"You don't plan on killing him, do you?"

"Of course not, if Master Mazda's theory is correct, then his blood has a high value in rituals. It could even allow our abilities to see beyond the Shadowlands."

"If that's true… Wait! How much blood has Master Mazda's messenger collected so far?"

"Two messages… Only two…" Odin said in a drawn-out and regretful manner.

"Hm, well, his group has always been in Asshai. It's normal. But now they're going to conquer a Great Dungeon, and they also have their expedition through the Shadowlands…"

"Exactly, we just need to be patient, when the time comes, we'll have large quantities of his blood, and best of all, without having to make any effort or risk breaking our people's neutrality…"

***

 Meanwhile, a certain Court Jester, who was always smiling and meticulous, now had a distorted face.

Just like the Master of Beasts and Master Odin, his vision of the future had been completely erased. And worst of all, the future was slowly changing... In a completely new direction...

***

 Garden of Beasts - Madame Zirya's Laboratory.

Jhon was hugging the Master of Plague from behind, his chin touching her neck, and his cheek was glued to hers, as if it were nothing. If anyone in Asshai did that, they would soon be poisoned to death due to the toxicity of her skin. During the moment of affection and care, the two observed a glass tube while continuing a conversation...

"…But in the end, I had to reveal to Rafael about our relationship."

"You told him about—"

"No! Just about the two of us. It was necessary due to this complicated situation between our two groups."

"I also need to tell you something, Jhon…"

"Hm?"

"Daran is alive…"

"Shit, seriously?"

"Yes, my husband kept this a secret to facilitate the agreement between him and Rafael."

"That means he wasn't part of the blood contract, right? Is he going to seek revenge?"

"Probably not, my husband plans to do something big, he used the Eye of Ash for many centuries and discovered an opportunity to become stronger, this will happen in about 270 years or so. But since Ash stopped seeing the future, he's been insecure about causing big changes in the city."

Thinking about the Eye of Ash, one of Zirya's Husband's Beasts, Jhon kept a serious look, even though she was his wife, Zirya had only seen 5 of the 10 Beasts that the man controlled. And all of these 5 were one more dangerous than the other. He needed to make sure Rafael didn't seek revenge as well…

"I'll keep Daran's secret for now, but we need to speed things up. How long will this method last?"

Madam Zirya, still looking at the glass tube, said: "Another 80-90 years, after that, we need to get him out of the Shadowlands."

"In 50-70 years, my soul should be strong enough for my innate spell to have the effect our purposes require. Are you sure you can create the beast we need?"

"I'll need some rare ingredients from Shadowlands, We'll have to take turns collecting them."

"It's best if you stay here. Once my task in the Distortion Dungeon is complete, I'll collect them all for you. And don't worry, I'll have the power I need when the time comes, and then we can finally be together." Jhon said confidently, as he hugged Zirya even tighter, and together, they looked at the fruit of their love, their son, inside the glass tube that kept him safe from the curses of Asshai, the advance of time, and other dangers like the possessive Master of this Tower who was still unaware of their forbidden relationship…

****

Special thanks to the Patreons:

Sage's Supporter: Jan, Vinnie, frimorigo, Leery Falcon, Parsa, Scott Robertson, and Pato Senalima!

Magical Apprentice: Axel Bour, Gabriele Sulpizio, Takatchi, mandeep singh, Austin, Kobe Robertson, Paul Gaslac, and Niteo akuma!

Senior Magic Apprentice: Cole Bromley!