Villain: The Play of Destiny

"What was his name?"

"Damien Eisenhardt," Avriel replied to him with a smile, no longer upholding her princess-like persona as she sat on the couch cross-legged, happily running her fingers through the black cub's fur.

"But he never gave you his name." Keith smiled back at her, and Avriel embarrassedly lowered her head.

"I read his mind." She meekly said. "And he has had such a pitiful life. I..."

"I doubt you wanted to bring him on your side because you felt sad for him." Keith suddenly said, which froze Avriel, and then her beautiful blue eyes narrowed at him. "You wanted him on your side because you saw through his potential, and you believed that you could control him." He kept looking into her eyes as he laid out her true intentions very clearly before her.

Avriel felt her heart constrict at his words, and then simply lowered her head, breaking the eye contact. She did not know what to say to him, and as she was searching for the right words, he spoke again.

"There is nothing wrong with it, Princess. We don't have to care about everyone, and we all look after our interests in different ways."

"Do you think I am a bad person, Lord Keith?" She lightly asked and then raised her head to look him in his eyes.

"Do you think I am a good person, Princess?" He questioned back with a playful smile, and the girl with pearl-white hair smiled back at him.

"No." She shook her head.

"That's rude." He narrowed his eyes a little and it prompted her to break out into melodious giggles. "As for your question, no, you are still not bad enough. It is something that you will have to work on if you ever want to become someone who rules over people."

"And how should I approach it?"

"By becoming stronger, of course. You are already blessed with an intelligent mind, and as you grow older, you will become more calculative."

"These are not things that an adult should speak about to children, Lord Erebus." She brightly smiled at him.

"You said it yourself. I am not a good person." He said and then got up from the couch. "Do you want to stay at the Castle or the Manor?"

"The Castle. I don't want to intrude." She replied to him, and he knew exactly what she meant by her words.

If he took her to the Manor, there was a possibility that she would enter someone's mind even if she does not mean to, and she did not want to risk learning some of his secrets.

He was not worried about it. He had already provided all the ladies of his household with Isolation Bands, the same ones he had given to Yingying, Minami, Celine, and Ginara to guard against Kylian Dusk's X-ray vision.

These bands were going to protect their minds from someone intruding on them, and Avriel had a long way to go before she could get past those Isolation Barriers.

"Alright." He nodded to her. "Qingyue already stays here with Ayesha. And Rebecca will be staying here too from now on. She will be responsible for guiding you in your telekinetic powers and anything else you wish to learn or wishes to teach you. She will be your Teacher from now on."

"Thank you."

"You are welcome." He walked past her but then stopped, making Avriel curiously look up at him. "There's something you should know."

"Yes?"

"You will lose your emotions if you try to control the minds of people around you." He smiled at her. "You are not strong enough to try that just yet."

Her beautiful eyes widened in horror at his words, and her body lightly trembled in fear.

"Be careful." He patted her head and then walked out of the room, leaving the little girl drowning in fear of what might have happened had she given in to the desire of controlling the minds of people around her.

Avriel turned to look at the door Keith had closed behind him, and she had this urge to go after him, stay by his side for a while longer. But she knew he was going to see his grey-eyed wife, whom she had met at lunch earlier.

Keith was indeed going to see Qingyue.

His dear wife had asked him to come to her room as she needed some help with something, and he knew that she was just burning with curiosity and needed some answers to her questions.

"Hey." He smiled when he found Ayesha and Nana present in the room with her, and they were all discussing something and Nana seemed to be taking notes of it as well.

"Keith." Qingyue happily stood up and approached him, and then grabbed his hand before making him sit next to her on the couch.

"Yes?" He asked with a smile.

"Tell us about Aura Souls!"

"What do you want to know about them?"

"As much as you can tell us." Nana smiled at him and then sat down on the rug, ready to take notes.

"Is it about what you saw yesterday?"

"Yes. We want to know how your Aura Soul Beasts were fighting on their own." Ayesha nodded her head.

"You know, you could always wait and find out about it on your own." He teased them, and all three of them shook their heads.

"Now." Qingyue clearly said, which made him chuckle.

"Alright." He nodded his head. "You do remember that I told you that a person's Aura Soul Beast is their beastly personification? It depends on their personality, both sides of it. The one that they develop and the one that they are born with."

"Yes." Qingyue nodded her head and Nana was already taking notes.

"Aura Soul Beasts are mysterious phenomenons. They are also your will and the reflection of your current state of mind and body. What you saw yesterday, where my Wolf was fighting against her Dragon was a reflection of our wills as well as the state of our mind and body in that battle."

"You were not controlling and commanding them to fight against each other?"

"No." Keith shook his head. "We are not strong enough to use them like a weapon in battles."

"So, it is possible?" Ayesha curiously asked.

"Yes."

"And what happens when the Aura Soul Beasts chip and eat away each other?"

"It is only possible if the difference in your strength and will is too vast. If that is the case, your Aura Soul Beast would devour the opponent's Aura Soul Beast, leaving them depleted of their Aura. And it can also do physical harm to a person if you can control it and command it to do so. After reaching a certain Realm, you can even send your Aura Soul to a specified distance away from your body or make it fight alongside you as your most trusted companion."

"Wouldn't that mean that you could use your Aura Soul Beast to kill someone?"

"Yes." He nodded his head. "But as we are right now, our Aura Souls fight on their own and can not separate from our bodies, and the results are determined only by the state of our mind and body during the battles."

"What's the point of all of this?" Qingyue frowned. "There has to be a reason why it is part of nature."

"There is." Keith nodded to her. "Your Soul and Mental Strength increase with every win where your Aura Soul steals the opponent's Aura Soul by chipping it away during battles. You can think of it as a contest of Wills. A loss can shake your Will, thereby harming your mental strength, and a win can give you confidence, boosting your mental strength. Similarly, how well you perform in a battle, despite a loss, can boost your mental strength too."

"The strong devourer the weak." Nana nodded her head as she penned everything down, and her words made Qingyue frown.

"Well, devouring a very weak will is not going to be beneficial to you after reaching a certain point," Keith informed them.

"And it is because it will give no confidence by defeating or killing someone who has no chance of winning against you. Right?" Ayesha guessed and smiled when Keith nodded his head.

"What would have happened had you not conceded and lost against Mother or won against her?" Qingyue asked.

"She's not my enemy. And the result would have not harmed our Aura Souls much. It was never about pride, nor did we have anything to lose in that battle. And most importantly, both of us had no intention of harming each other. All we wanted was to test each other and our powers."

These were reasons why he stopped the battle from escalating, but they did not need to know about those things.

"So how you feel about your opponent can influence the fight of your Aura Souls." Nana nodded and noted this piece of information down.

"Yes. How you feel about your opponent and the battle itself can influence the fight of your Aura Soul. There would still be slight harm, but it can be neglected. And there are benefits too. If a good spar can increase your confidence, your Will strengthens too. However, if your pride is at stake, even if it is someone you care about, your Aura Souls would suffer great harm." He meaningfully said as he looked into Qingyue's eyes.

"Hmph!" And she folded her hands on her chest, understanding what he was saying.

If she and Rebecca fought against each other in the future, they can harm each other's Aura Soul as their pride would be at stake.

It was all about whether the loss would weigh on your heart or not and if you could cope with it or not.

The three of them stayed silent and went over his words, understanding how Aura Souls worked.

"And you can recover from your losses by winning?"

"Yes." Keith nodded to Ayesha who had raised the question.

"Does it also depend from opponent to opponent? Because you might be very confident against someone but not as confident against another." Nana frowned and asked.

"Yes. And if you feel utterly hopeless against someone you count as your rival and your pride is at stake, your Will would be very weak when fighting against that person. It is also called a Heart's Demon, and the harm to your mental strength can hinder your Cultivation."

The girls tensed up at those words as they finally how serious it was.

"Anything else?" Ayesha asked after a while.

"Yes. Since my Aura Soul is a Wolf, I have a certain affinity for being accepted by all Wolf Beasts. They would be more trusting of me, but there is no guarantee that they won't harm me if they really want to."

"I don't like snakes." Qingyue immediately shook her head, and Keith only smiled at her words.

Her Aura Soul was a serpent, and though she said that she did not like them, he knew that once she gets acquainted with some, they would become her favourite Beasts.

"I will wait for you to try keeping one and then tell me if you don't like them."

"Never keeping a snake." She shook her head and then looked at him curiously. "Wouldn't it make sense that your Aura Soul was a Cat beast? You have always gotten along well with them."

"That's not how things work." He shook his head. "Besides, I get along with all the animals very well."

The three of them could not really deny it as they had never seen any animal resist him or show dislike for him.

It was not something they could say for themselves, and all three of them felt a little unhappy at his boasting.

"Anything else?"

"You already know that your Aura Soul can protect you. Defend you against powerful attacks, and you can use them to harm your opponent too." He shrugged. "Also, as you grow stronger and your Will strengthens, your Aura Soul can evolve."

"Evolve?"

"Yes. But a Cat Beast would remain a Cat Beast. A Wolf Beast would remain a Wolf Beast. A dragon will remain a dragon."

"A normal Wolf can evolve into a Dire Wolf but not become a Dragon." Qingyue nodded her head in understanding.

"Yes."

All three of them seemed happy to learn this piece of information. It was because they were worried that some Aura Souls would have an advantage over the others, and the gap would only grow as they grow stronger.

But since Aura Souls could evolve, even a Serpent stood a chance against a Dragon.

"Tell us more." Nana excitedly asked.

She loved learning more about Cultivation, and now that she was hooked on this subject, she wanted to know everything there was about Aura Souls.

"If you want to learn more. You will have to find it out yourself." He grinned at her, which prompted her to pout at him.

They had learned enough for the day.