During his flight back though, Gerald experienced another episode of headaches and had to make an emergency landing. His mind was filled with sounds and pictures of death, seemingly from a single battle, from the viewpoint of the ones dying.

The pictures were a mess, overlapping and interfering with each other, mixing with various feelings and emotions, primarily the dark ones like anger, rage, and fear.

It lasted for quite a while and Gerald's pain increased so great that he held his head in pain and rolled on the ground, barely holding it together.

Then, the thing he saw was his own face! He was looking at himself from below, from the ground up. He saw his own mouth move and speak, but he didn't understand the words.

Then a sword rose to the sky, reflecting the sunlight and… Nothing. The visions were no more.

Gerald shook his head, still muddleheaded and confused, his emotions, heart rate, and breathing all out of whack. He was sweating profusely and wiped his forehead as he tried to make sense of what just happened.

"Was that… Did I just…" he mumbled incoherently, but then firmly shook his head, "No... It couldn't be, I must have been imagining things. I need to get back and take a rest… I must…"

He soon rose back to the skies, the warm wind blowing through his hair and clearing his mind.

Gerald returned to the Black Onyx mansion sometime later. The butler Sebas Tian quickly came to welcome him and tell him the news: They had a guest!

It was Tabbris Northendark, and he came to visit a few hours prior. The butler explained that the man was already told Gerald was absent, but he insisted on waiting for his return.

So, after discussing the situation with the ladies, Tabbris was allowed to stay and was treated as a distinguished guest. He was quite popular and well-known after all.

But Gerald didn't bother to care and went to take a rest, not even announcing his swift return. Only after the butler mentioned it casually a few hours later did the rest of the inhabitants learn of it.

Tabbris insisted to have a meeting with him, so Xilia led him to Gerald's room, but he didn't answer. It happened a few times before when Gerald was too engrossed in his research or experiments and completely zoned out, so she simply opened the door instead of waiting outside.

To their surprise, they found Gerald sleeping on the bed peacefully, however his bare back and upper torso were covered with fresh wounds.

"This looks like claw marks!" Xilia gasped.

Tabbris took a closer look and confirmed her suspicion, they were indeed claw marks!

'What could possibly wound him like this? Even a normal sword can't pierce his skin!'

Their chatter woke Gerald up and he rubbed his eyes in a bad mood. He propped himself up and looked at them. "What do you want?" he asked, clearly irritated they disturbed his rest.

Xilia tried to explain, but Tabbris stopped her and bowed slightly, "Sorry to disturb your rest, Gerald, it wasn't on purpose! But since you are awake I can say what I came here for…"

He brought forward a small chest and opened it. "My father wished to apologize and has sent me to give you a few gifts… We didn't know what would be to your liking so I brought you these few things here for you to choose."

Gerald took a glance inside the chest, and although there was some nice stuff, it didn't move him too much.

"Magic equipment? Precious stones? Gold?" Gerald spoke out loud and then turned to look at Tabbris, "Listen, no offense, but I have no need for any of these… If you wanna apologize just say so, there is no need to send me these trinkets."

Though the things were nice, they were worth maybe a couple of hundred gold coins each. He didn't need money anymore and the things didn't really suit him.

"Not to your liking?" Tabbris frowned a tiny bit, "But father insists we have to gift you something… How about this, you tell me what would you like and I'll see what I can do?"

"Really? Anything I want?" Gerald asked doubtfully. Why did they have to bother him so much? It's almost as if he was forced to accept their gift.

'It's not some sort of weird trap, is it?'

"Well, it's not anything but… I'll do my best to fulfill your wish!" Tabbris promised, his face looking determined and serious.

Gerald lifted his eyebrow and then walked around the room in a circle, thinking of what to ask for. He had no need for more wealth, but what about knowledge?

"I would like to know what your sister was doing at that lake, and how to replicate it!" he eventually requested.

However… Tabbris immediately shook his head and said, "I'm sorry, but that's a closely guarded secret, and without His Majesty's permission we can't share it… I'll have to ask you to choose something else."

"A powerful secret, huh?" Gerald rubbed his chin, "Now I really want to know… But okay, since you can't say it… What about your, Falcon Dance Combat Art, was it? I would like to learn that!"

Tabbris blinked in disbelief, he was absolutely shocked! "That's it?" He then shook his head and chuckled, "Of course, it's not a problem at all!" He took the booklet and handed it over to Gerald.

"I always carry this thing with me, it was the first Combat Art I learned after I started cult- Ahem! After I began my training when I was young." He almost let a word slip out of his mouth, but luckily he stopped himself in time.

Gerald didn't notice anything unusual, nor did he care. He only had eyes for the Falcon Dance instruction book and nothing else! "Oh!" He suddenly remembered something and flicked his finger.

Bang!

"Aaaah!" Xilia jumped up in fright as a bloody corpse suddenly materialized in front of her and fell heavily to the floor.

"This is… An Orc?!" Tabbris opened his eyes wide in shock. He then looked at Gerald and his seemingly fresh wounds and immediately connected the dots in his mind.

"Yup! I reckoned you would be interested in knowing since your family seems to have close ties to the King and all..." Gerald explained. "I found this fella and about a hundred of the little pests in a forest, thought someone should know…"

"A hundred?" Tabbris repeated his words in a whisper. He was currently crouching above the Orc and examining the wound on his chest. The metal plate was the thickness of a finger but it was still pierced through. The entire armor was bent and deformed, bones broken, and skin cracked. And he was seemingly flattened from a heavy impact!

It was almost as if a mountain was dropped on him!