"Though using her power to place a permanent barrier over her daughter’s soul came at a cost, the cost was the potential. Over time, her own powers started to weaken—slowly at first, but then more rapidly, until they could no longer match their prime."
The Duke listened intently, his chest tightening with every word. He could already guess where this was going, but he needed to hear it.
"The barrier she placed no doubt was extremely powerful, but your wife became weak. Her power drained with every passing day, and I’m sure I don’t need to explain the rest," concluded Ashok.
The rest was well known, the Duke’s wife was captured at the hands of the Pirate King. From there, her fate worsened. She fell into the hands of the Bandit King, a man even more vicious and calculating.
Her strength, once formidable, had slowly drained over time, leaving her weakened and vulnerable. In the end, it was the loss of her life force that claimed her. and then fell into the hands of the Bandit King. She died losing all her life force.
Even her last words were a warning, but the Duke in his grief, desperation, and his daughter never got the time, or perhaps the clarity, to fully comprehend the depth behind them.
Everyone in the room was silent. The Duke, Cassius, and the Head Butler were lost in their own memories of the Duchess, each man reflecting on the sacrifice she had made.
Ashok, however, stood quietly, his gaze shifting between the men, his mind already turning to the demands he was about to place on the Duke.
"If there was a Barrier around the Young Miss’s soul, then how come she is in this state?" asked the Head Butler bringing the other two out of their stupor. The question was simple yet confusing.
"Even though the soul was protected, the mind was not. The mental attack was leagues above what your Young Miss could handle, and that brought her close to a half-dead state,
The witch, unaware of the state your daughter was truly in, used herself as a medium to connect the entity’s soul inside your daughter’s body, thinking she was dead.
What the witch didn’t realize was that your daughter’s soul was still lingering inside the body, held within the barrier, and when the witch connected the entity’s soul to your daughter’s, she did so without accounting for this crucial detail."
Ashok continued "The mental attack had already weakened the defenses of the body as well, and the barrier around her soul, while strong, wasn’t meant to protect against the kind of intrusion that followed.
In the end, Your daughter could not protect herself from this foreign soul entering her body in a half-dead state. And thus, the entity took over."
The Duke’s voice trembled with disbelief as he asked, "By ’took over,’ you mean the foreign entity had control over my daughter’s body?"
Ashok nodded "Yes."
The Duke’s brow furrowed in confusion, his mind racing with questions. "But how come I never noticed any change in my daughter’s behavior?"
His voice was strained, desperate for an explanation. "How is it possible that all this time, she’s been under the control of this entity, yet she never showed any signs of it?"
"Because the possessed time was very less, once your daughter’s subconscious mind started to heal, even just a little bit, she immediately began to fight the foreign soul that had taken control of her body.
A battle between two souls is something that the body simply cannot endure, and as a result, it falls into a comatose state—a kind of preservation mode, if you will.
Your daughter being born a supernatural was already strong, when it came to the soul, and with your wife’s barrier protecting her from the entity’s attack, she started to fight the entity with whatever she got." Said Ashok.
The Duke and his two aides stood silently, gazing at the girl lying in a deep sleep, her expression peaceful despite the chaos happening inside her body. There was a sense of pride in their eyes, knowing that she had fought so hard to protect herself.
But Ashok, as always, refused to let the moment linger too long.
"Though your daughter started a war," Ashok said, his tone sharp and cold, "that was a foolish move."
The three men turned toward him, their expressions confused and a bit alarmed at his words and the Duke asked "What do you mean?"
"Do you think in a war you can win with only a strong defense, without a proper offense?" Ashok gestured toward the comatose girl. "That is the condition of your daughter."
"There are only two reasons why she is still surviving now. The first is the barrier your wife placed, which is protecting her soul and keeping the entity’s attacks at bay. Without that, she would have been consumed long ago.
The second reason is that, as the natural owner of the body, she has a slight advantage in this battle—an advantage that gives her a glimmer of hope. But that advantage is slight—it is not enough to turn the tide.
Her natural offense is pathetically weak in compared to the entity. She may have the advantage of the body, but the entity she’s up against is in a league of its own. And with her weak offense, that advantage is quickly being worn down.
At the end, The entity will find a way to break through. It’s only a matter of time" concluded Ashok.
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The Duke stared at his daughter’s weakening form as he asked Ashok, his voice thick with anxiety "How much time does she have left?"
Ashok gave an exasperated shrug as if the answer were obvious. "How can I tell that without looking at the mark?"
"Mark? What mark?" The Duke’s confusion deepened, and he turned to the Head Butler and Cassius.
Both the Head Butler and Cassius exchanged confused glances, their brows furrowed in unison. Neither of them had heard anything about a mark, and they were just as lost as the Duke.