THE GENERAL'S DISGRACED HEIR Chapter 357: EXPLOSIVE CONFRONTATION

"Explain?" Flas surged higher around her form. "Explain why you hid your deteriorating condition? Why you didn't trust enough to help? Why I had to learn from LUNA that you've been dying by inches all this ti?"

Tears glimred in her eyes, catching the firelight and transforming each droplet into a tiny inferno. The raw pain in her expression belied the fury in her voice, revealing deeper vulnerabilities beneath her commanding presence.

From deeper in the laboratory, a sound of muffled laughter grew progressively more pronounced until it erupted into full-throated cackles. Yue, her childlike form doubled over with mirth, wiped tears of amusent from her eyes while her daughter Litty stood beside her, trying and failing to suppress her own giggles.

The fla-wielding woman—Elara—whirled to face them, her expression darkening further. "What exactly is so amusing about this situation?" she demanded.

Litty imdiately ducked behind her mother, feigning sudden interest in a nearby alchemical apparatus. Yue, however, seed entirely unintimidated by the display of elental fury.

"Oh my," Yue managed between chuckles, "I had no idea your condition was this serious!"

"My condition?" Elara's flas dimd montarily in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

Before Yue could elaborate, movent from the shadows caught everyone's attention. A slender woman with golden eyes stepped forward, her human appearance slipping away like a discarded cloak to reveal sothing far more primal. Her teeth elongated into razor-sharp points, and claws extended from her fingertips, gleaming like polished obsidian in the laboratory's uneven light.

"So," Luna growled, her voice carrying harmonic undertones that no human vocal cords could produce, "you planned to steal my master from ?" The shadows around her feet writhed like living things, responding to her agitation.

"YOUR master?" The words ca from a new figure who seed to materialize from the very air itself. With platinum-white hair that floated as if underwater and skin so pale it appeared translucent, Vespera advanced into the confrontation. "If anyone has claim to David, it would be ." Her voice carried a seductive lody that seed designed to enthrall, yet beneath it lurked sothing ancient and dangerously powerful.

"Both of you presu too much," Elara retorted, flas reigniting around her hands as she faced the newcors. "David is not property to be claid."

As the three won squared off in increasingly hostile postures, the man at the center of the dispute—David—attempted to intervene, only to stagger slightly. A strong hand steadied him from behind, belonging to a bronze-skinned figure with an aura of divinity that even Maya and Zack could perceive from their hiding spot.

"Nasty won you've collected," Kaelith observed with a mixture of amusent and disdain. "Though I suppose that speaks to your particular taste."

David smiled weakly. "You haven't seen the others yet."

"Others?" Kaelith's expression shifted from smugness to genuine shock before he could mask it.

Whatever response he might have offered died unspoken as his form began to flicker, his substance becoming increasingly transparent. "It seems my ti in physical form is expiring," he noted with evident frustration. "I cannot maintain this manifestation without natural mana sources to supplent your own."

He fixed David with a stern gaze as his body continued to dissolve into motes of golden light. "Try not to die while I'm indisposed. I have invested too much in your survival to watch you perish now." With those parting words, his form collapsed entirely, the light streaming back to the ornate bracelet on David's wrist.

David held up the bracelet, studying it thoughtfully as the three won continued their increasingly heated debate behind him. The tal glead with internal light, pulsing gently like a heartbeat.

Can you still hear ? David directed the thought inward, an experint more than an expectation.

Of course I can hear you, fool, Kaelith's voice resonated directly in his mind, startling despite his suspicion that such communication might be possible. Did you think I would abandon you to those harpies?

How is this possible? David wondered, turning the bracelet to catch the light. You couldn't speak to telepathically before.

The closing of your dinsional fractures has altered our connection, Kaelith explained, his ntal voice carrying the sa arrogant tone as his spoken words. Your essence is no longer leaking across realities, which allows for more stable communication between us. You should be grateful for the improvent.

David suppressed a smile. So you're saying I no longer need the bracelet? I could just drop it in the nearest disposal chute...

The bracelet flared hot against his skin. You ungrateful whelp! After everything I've done—

"David!"

Three female voices called his na simultaneously, interrupting the telepathic exchange. Elara, Luna, and Vespera had apparently reached an impasse in their argunt and now looked to him for resolution, their expressions ranging from expectant to demanding.

David sighed deeply, running a hand through his hair as he surveyed the destruction around them—shattered equipnt, scattered papers, the door embedded in the opposite wall, and the two wide-eyed alchemists peeking around the corner who thought themselves hidden.

"I don't suppose anyone's hungry?" he offered with a weary smile. "Perhaps we could continue this discussion over breakfast?"

From the doorway, Maya turned to Zack with wide eyes. "Did we just witness what I think we witnessed?"

Zack, his scholarly reserve finally abandoned in the face of overwhelming evidence, could only nod mutely.

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In his office atop the Guild's central tower, Archmage Vernathan winced as the building trembled beneath him for the third ti that morning. His quill left an unfortunate streak across the funding proposal he'd been ticulously crafting for the past hour. With a resigned sigh, he set the ruined docunt aside.

"Yue again," he muttered, reaching for a crystal ball on his desk. The sphere flickered to life, revealing an image of the west wing's smoke-filled corridor. "Of course it is."

He rubbed his temples, feeling the familiar headache building. The last quarterly budget eting still haunted him—three hours of explaining why replacing an entire laboratory wing was "necessary expenditure" rather than "gross negligence." Vernathan glanced at Yue's latest research summary: Stabilisation Applications.

"This invention had better be revolutionary enough to convince the Board to cover these damages," he sighed, making a note to increase next year's maintenance budget. "Perhaps I should just allocate a separate 'Yue Destruction Fund' and be done with it."