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At this point, Disha came rushing into the living area of the mansion allotted to them by the king. The first thing she noticed was Donovan\'s hand which was still stuck between the wall. She immediately went over and helped him out, only to be smacked on the face by him.

"Argh!" 

This wasn\'t the first time Donovan had raised his hands on her. In fact, ever since they decided to abandon the mistress, Donovan had been getting physical with her every day. Still, her love for him had blinded her. She could not see that to him she was just a tool with which he sometimes had moments of pleasure. 

Other than that, Disha did not mean jackshit to him. Especially since he didn\'t have any use for her. Any use that a street whore could not have fulfilled. 

Disha slowly got back to her feet but this time before she could even take a step in his direction, Donovan looked at her with bloodlust. Within a fraction of a second, Disha knew that something had pissed Donovan beyond any limit.

She just stood frozen at her feet as Donovan began walking towards her. Fear had shrouded her unlike ever before. However, she was pretty sure the feelings she was sensing were not real but a fabrication. After all, she would never be scared of Donovan. She loved him too much for that. 

"At least their skill is still working," He mumbled before slumping down on the chair, releasing Disha from the clutches of his newly learned skill, "But the skill might be the only thing working within this damned syndicate!"

The skill Donovan had been given was one of the five rarest skills ever. "The mark of fear" was a skill, even the most skilled fighters and magicians had a hard time countering.

After all, it was a skill that slowly crept up to the opponent and by the time they realised what was going on, they were already too deep within the skill\'s effects. And all it took for the skill to activate was a moment of physical contact. It could be a handshake, a slap or even a sexual contact.

As long as the skins come in contact with each other, fear would dominate the mind of the other being. Donovan had been depending on this skill when he said he would tame the mistress. Once she was in his clutches, she would have never been able to escape from him ever.

But his plans had failed miserably. Donovan had hoped that the nobles would be able to kill Ashton during the examination and make it seem like an accident. With Ashton out of the picture, the Mistress\'s heart would belong to him. However, the tables were turned on them harder than he had ever seen before.

Not only did those fools were not able to kill him, but they also ended up dying themselves. Since their top-class plan failed, Donovan issued a bounty over that bastard\'s head, but so far, even that did not seem to be working for him.

He waited and waited, but since nothing came out of the bounty despite several attempts, Donovan decided to end Ashton\'s life himself. However, the Conundrum immediately put a halt to his plans. Afterwards, he was told to wait, while they figured something out. 

The wait was excruciating and he was worried too. Despite telling them everything about Ashton, they were still viewing him as a kid. That was their worst mistake. Donovan knew, regardless of what the conundrum thought about time being on their side, it was actually on Ashton\'s side. 

After all, the growth Ashton had shown had never been seen before. The more time they gave him, the stronger the would become. However, the Conundrum seemed to have either forgotten his warning or they just simply didn\'t care about his plans. 

The Conundrum had only one agenda at this point, to eliminate any threat to the throne. Since, Donovan had made it clear he was not going to kill the Mistress and tame her instead, their use for Donovan was rapidly fading away. Hence he was repetitively being told to stay silent. 

While on the other hand, it wasn\'t like they had forgotten about the mistress either. With Donovan no longer by her side, she should have been an easier target to assassinate. After all, Donovan was both her sword and her shield. Without him, she was at her most vulnerable, just like a wounded might creature. 

However, a night creature was also most dangerous when they were injured. Thus the Conundrum was not taking any hasty steps to get rid of her. They had to come up with a proper plan first. For this purpose, all of the members were testing the limits of their intelligence. 

Still, no matter what type of plan they came up with, their plans ended up getting rejected by the head of the table. By this time, even the members were getting frustrated. However, the Head had made it clear that they wanted a perfect plan.

If the head could find errors in their plans, then the mistress would be able to as well. And just in case she survived, she would not hesitate before launching an attack on the capital by herself. This would also give the other nations a wonderful opportunity to invade their kingdom and claim their prizes from themselves. 

Thus, the plan to eliminate the mistress had to be perfect. Which, much to the head\'s dismay, none of them was able to offer till now. Also, there were people within the Conundrum who still did not trust Donovan. So he was not included in this process of planning.  

Even so, the time to take some action against the mistress was drawing closer. Within the next year, the mistress would be killed and the threat to the throne would be no more. It wouldn\'t matter whether the king would like it or not. 

***

At the same time, within the academy...

"Venom? Where the heck did you heard that term?" Rose playfully asked Ashton, "I assume you\'re not planning to make some, are you?"

"Quit playing. If you want money in exchange for information, just tell me how much." Ashton muttered in annoyance. 

"Oh, boya... you hurt my feelings. Do you think I will only trouble you for money? Is that how lowly you think I am? I\'m no whore for money." Rose mumbled in an exaggerated dramatic tone while clutching her chest.

"Yeah... you should have joined a drama class." Ashton shook his head, "Will you tell me or not?"

All of a sudden Rose got silent. At least she appeared she had when in secret she was talking with Lucifer. She just wanted to make sure that Ashton was ready to listen to what she was about to tell him. Only once she got the green signal from him, did she proceed to answer Ashton\'s query.

"Tell me boya, how much to know about how our world and we, werewolves, Vampires and undead, came into existence?" 

Ashton opened his mouth to answer her, but then quickly shut it back. In his sixteen years of existence, not once he had heard anyone talk about what actually happened on earth. All he knew was some sort of virus appeared on the planet and turned more than half of the global population into the creatures that now reside on the planet. 

However, he had no idea where the hell such a virus came into the world in the first place. He turned his clueless gaze over to Rose, who was slipping blood as usual. 

"No idea, huh? Let me give you a clue." Rose smirked and pointed towards the ceiling. 

"The ceiling?" Ashton mumbled in his confusion.

"Sometimes you really make me question my sanity... think beyond!" 

"Wait... the space?"

"Uh-huh." Rose nodded before gulping down the rest of the blood, "More like a space rock, a meteorite. Now you might want to question, how did the virus survive in space or more importantly, why did it not get burned away while entering the planet\'s atmosphere. Right?"

To be honest, none of that even entered Ashton\'s mind. Still, he nodded along. 

"The answer is pretty simple. It wasn\'t a natural phenomenon. Or in other words, someone intentionally designed that meteor as a means to spread the virus the moment it entered the atmosphere of the planet."

"Wait what?"

"Aliens, do exist boya." Rose said with a smile on her face, "Aliens who got bored as humanity achieved some semblance of equilibrium. So they decided to stir things up and threw a rock at them. But they did not want humanity to get wiped out completely, so they gave them a weapon to get rid of the virus and the creature that evolved, thanks to the virus."

She continued, "That weapon was called the Venom. It isn\'t a poison, but a chemical weapon that if used correctly, could have wiped the creatures who evolved due to the virus. Sadly for them, before they could get to the substance needed to turn venom to the most lethal weapon, the mutants, as they used to call us, overwhelmed them completely."

"And they decided to flee rather than stay and fight." Ashton completed the sentence, "But how do you know all this?"

"How else? One of the aliens told me."

"You know an alien?"

"You do too..."

"What?" Ashton was baffled, he had never known an alien but then it clicked him, "Lucifer...."