Interstellar Beast Master-Chapter 97: Solace Verge II
The mask came away in one smooth, measured motion.
Anastasia lifted it free and lowered it to her side, her expression as still as a frozen river.
Her face was sharp, elegant, and cold- the kind of beauty that didn’t invite affection, but commanded attention. Pale radiant skin without blemish, a mouth set into a permanent line of disinterest, and piercing eyes that gleamed with dangerous intelligence.
After her alteration with the Nanotech Blood Serum, her entire body and skin radiated immense beauty and life as anyone looking at her would do a double take!
The power hidden in her small body was even more glorious as she easily beat Serena, an Initiate Interstellar Beast Master, in a contest of strength. Where her power lay could not be gauged accurately as with her mask off, the other pay of eyes in the room seemed frozen for a second.
Veylen Draas blinked once, and for the first time, the sea in his eyes shifted.
He leaned back slightly, a faint smile touching his lips.
"The masked one," he said, his voice low, almost amused, "is a beauty, it seems."
His hand gestured smoothly to the chair opposite his.
"Sit."
Anastasia didn’t hesitate.
She crossed the room, each step crisp, deliberate, unhurried, and settled into the chair with fluid grace, mask still dangling from her fingers.
Veylen Draas, without breaking eye contact, reached beneath the gleaming marble desk and produced two glass cups. He set one before her, the other before himself.
He glanced toward Rebecca Kain, who still lingered by the door.
"I’ll take it from here."
His voice was polite, but final.
Rebecca’s mouth twitched with hesitation, but Veylen didn’t repeat himself.
With a breath she didn’t want to release, Rebecca Kain gave a small bow and turned, leaving the room as the doors whispered shut behind her.
Silence returned, thicker now, charged.
Behind Veylen, his Sea Dragon moved.
The massive beast lowered its serpentine head, the delicate feelers trailing like mist across the air. Its jaws opened slowly, no sound, no roar, only a gentle stream of vibrant blue liquid light poured forth.
It flowed impossibly from the Sea Dragon’s maw, descending in a slow, controlled stream until it filled both glass cups perfectly.
The liquid shimmered with a radiance like captured starlight in water, illuminating the table in a faint, hypnotic glow.
Veylen Draas lifted his glass first.
Without a word, he extended the second toward Anastasia.
She accepted it, fingers brushing the cool glass.
He tilted his cup slightly in a mock toast.
"To clear intentions."
Clear intentions? He was using this to say the both of them should be truthful?
She said nothing.
The Sea Dragon shifted behind him, coils moving like a slow tide, and Veylen Draas leaned back in his chair.
"So," he said, voice casual, yet every syllable razor sharp, "what are your aims? What are the Judge’s aims?"
Anastasia didn’t flinch.
She met his gaze, cold to cold.
"To hold Guardians accountable," she replied. Simple. Vague. Just enough to give nothing away.
Veylen Draas’s smile widened faintly.
He stroked a hand along the scaled head of his Sea Dragon, the creature rumbling deep in its chest, the sound resonating through the floor.
"I see."
He studied her, those sharp blue eyes running over her with the slow patience of a predator appraising its prey.
"Let me guess the whole story, hmm?"
He set his glass down softly.
"In the past... a Guardian did something to you. You and that Judge. Something unforgivable. You carried that vengeance like a sickness, waited, bided your time. And now, after years, a decade maybe, your Interstellar Beasts have grown powerful enough. Powerful enough to make a statement. To strike back."
His fingers tapped once against the marble.
"It has to be against a Skyglass Heights Guardian. A real one. Someone with weight. So... who is it?"
His smile sharpened.
"Who is the target of the vengeance you and the Judge have spent your lives shaping?"
The air between them pulsed.
Anastasia’s lips barely shifted, her expression carved from ice.
He thought they had spent years or even a decade planning and plotting for revenge? Hah!
She let the silence stretch, long enough to press back against his probing words.
Then she answered.
"You guess well," she said coldly. "But many things are wrong."
A pause.
And then, with deadly calm, "But even if your words were right... so what?"
She leaned back, lifting the glass but not drinking from it.
"I didn’t come here to share old scars. I came to see if the Beast Masters of the Hollow Stacks had any guts."
Her eyes cut into him like scalpels.
"But all I see are cowards. Hiding underground while the rest of the Hollow Stacks suffers. Hiding here, playing at civilization while the city burns above. Tell me..." Her voice dropped lower. Sharper. "Am I wrong?"
...!
For a moment, the smile faded from Veylen’s face.
He picked up his glass and stood, his form tall and unhurried, a slow inevitability in every movement.
He lifted the glass to his lips, drank the shimmering liquid in a single smooth motion, and set the glass down with a hollow clink.
Then he spoke.
"You do not know the things we’ve done."
His voice was soft now.
No less dangerous.
"If you look past your rage, even slightly, you’ll see it."
He gestured, a wave that encompassed the world beneath them.
"We’re not hiding. We’re building."
He took a step forward, the Sea Dragon rippling behind him like a living tide.
"We are leading a revolution."
...!
Anastasia’s eyes sharpened.
The word crashed into the room.
Revolution.
It wasn’t said lightly.
It wasn’t a threat.
It was a promise.
Veylen Draas stood there, quiet and towering, the architect of something vast and unseen.
Anastasia felt it then, not fear, but apprehension.
Beneath Solace Verge, something deeper stirred.
A slow, gathering force.
And she wondered...
Had she and Damian found unknown beings that could actually help them...
Or something much more dangerous?
