'What have I done?'

Nora now downtrodden, made her way back to the guestroom. She had no clue what possessed her at that moment, something far too primal for a cultivator. Something had to be done about it. There was nothing worse than losing one's ability to think during a battle, let alone a small confrontation. What if she lost her temper at someone weaker than Mirlie? It only took a small slight for her to go nearly berserk! She needed to figure things out...

-

The terrified sobbing still continued to echo throughout the mansion. Following his promise, Sev carefully approached Mirlie, "You've gotta calm down, everything's alright. No one's going to hurt you." each word followed by a quiet step towards Mirlie, trying his best to avoid scaring her off. As he approached, he stretched out an arm, gently holding Mirlie by the shoulder, "I'm here for you, let it out, let it all out... We can talk after..."

As soon as Sev comforted Mirlie, she stepped forward and embraced him. Crying into his shoulder as she tried her best to calm down...

It had taken several minutes before Mirlie completely calmed down. Regaining her senses, Mirlie told Sev and Lucius everything. How the encounter started, the Newborn Revenants who set up the ambush and how she had been blindsided by the Horseman of Conquest.

When Mirlie mentioned Revenants, all it took was a silent exchange between Sev and Lucius before Lucius bolted out of the mansion and out of town.

Being one of the Saints of Death, Lucius had experienced countless encounters and fights with all kinds of undead. Revenants were one of the easier kinds of undead to track. Much like Sev's new Shroud-Wights, Revenants and specially Newborn Revenants were partially tied to the spectral plane.

Although the link was far weaker with Revenants, they still lived a pained existence as they were rejected from the normal world, causing them to leave an extremely faint trail of darkness wherever they passed.

If Lucius could track where the Revenants came from, there may be a chance at finding Percy...

-

Nora sat waiting in the guestroom. She wanted to do something, to help out, but deep down she knew that the best course of action would be to wait for Sev to settle everything.

She tried to contemplate what could be have caused her to lose control but she couldn't put her finger on it. It couldn't possibly be her bloodline, she had already mastered the ability to restrain the urges that powerful bloodlines provided. Anyways, they would never full control someone, only tempt them, persuade them, never outright possess them...

The only lead she had happened to be the nine purple cores which had replaced her previous single core. They were far more mysterious than anything else she had so far encountered. She couldn't even understand the runes inscribed onto the individual cores!

She continued to contemplate, the two puppies as comforts, eventually she tired of contemplated and simply waited, and waited, and waited. Time seemed to slow as she continued to wait. After a while Nora eventually got tired of waiting and tried to open the door, after this long decided that if it would speed things up, she would try to help herself, yet, the doorknob wouldn't budge. As she looked around, the many candles surrounding the room had frozen, no longer flickering and standing completely still.

Nora began to panic, she was still on edge from earlier and didn't know what to do. Desperately she tried at the door, nothing. Until she heard a voice, a mysterious voice...

"Ooo... I've always loved puppies..."

"Why are you here!" angered at what the mysterious being had caused her to due, Nora shouted, "What have you done to me!!!"

"I merely granted you a gift. You've already failed once, I was rather looking forward to the company..."

"What do you mean failed once!?! What is this gift?!?"

"In due time, in due time..." an awful chuckle followed the vague words, slowly fading into obscurity until the candles began to flicker, the puppies beginning to move, and most importantly the doorknob easily turned...

"I've already failed once? Wait... she couldn't possibly mean... oh god... that can't be!!!"