Wife of Patriarch Mallard Trenel, mother of Gaius Trenel and grandmother of Leocadius Trenel.

A virtuous wife, a woman of n.o.ble heritage and model mother - but today she wore a black veil over her still beautiful and youthful face that looked like she could be Gaius' younger sister. She was also covered entirely in black from head to toe in a long black dress and with a black silk manteau draped around her shoulders to protect her from the cold autumn winds.

She was standing outside Mallard Trenel's private training chambers at the moment, standing perfectly still as she humbly awaited her husband to complete his daily practice. She stood demurely, gazing lovingly at her husband of 50 years who was still vigorous in his advanced years and looked to be only growing stronger with every pa.s.sing year.

As was his habit, Mallard would train for nearly 3 hours every morning in his nearly 1 acre large training grounds. Only, today he had been held up with Duke Leanne's meeting together with the other family heads and had come back in a daze. Unlike the usual though, he had not spoken to Patricia to download what had happened for her to settle all the matters arising.

Normally he would entrust everything to her, but instead, today, he seemed distracted and frustrated. The moment he had returned, he had brushed aside everything - including his doting wife who practically ran the entire family for him. For the Trenel family, the one who truly held the reins of power was Patricia.

Whether it was the family's businesses or the household affairs; whether the appointment of district personnel or counterattacks against rival factions. Whether military matters, social matters or even the dealings which involved topics which could not be discussed openly in the light...

Everything single one of these was presided over by Patricia Trenel, and Patricia Trenel alone could decide on these!

Of course though, she alone would not be able to manage all of these duties. And that was why she had quickly split off subdivisions of the flesh trade to Gaius and Leocadius while managing the bulk of the business herself.

All without the knowledge of her upright and pious husband!

In fact, Mallard Trenel almost didn't do anything for the Trenel family except strive to increase his personal power as a deterrent to any other parties who dared cross their n.o.ble house. And that was enough. He just needed to be strong; strong enough that the threat of him moving was enough for Patricia to be unshakeable as the iron-fisted Empress Dowager of Gorun City!

Everything had been going perfectly well for her and the family for the past 40 odd years. Of course there would be the occasional challenger to the slave operations or a nosey new investigator prying into her business. But all of these had been summarily taken care of with the cooperation of the city guard and the Laughing Man.

Yes, all had been going swimmingly - until recently.

In the past few days alone there had been heartbreaking news, a devil invasion and some major blips, one after the other!

And to top off her foul luck, today when Duke Leanne summoned all the family leaders, she had specified for only the Patriarchs to be in attendance - leaving Patricia completely out of the loop, as if though the Duke were beginning to be more wary of her!

And so she stood quietly outside the entrance of her husband's training area, waiting for him to finish his 3-hour session of practice. She gritted her teeth in aggravation and rage at being humiliated like this, having to wait here and furrowed her brows deeply - but all these were hidden under her dark veil, unseen to those around her.

She maintained a calm exterior with her hands joined together and folded in front of her waist, a model wife waiting patiently to see her husband and comfort him in these trying times!

And in the eyes of the servants and slaves milling about, Patricia Trenel was the perfect woman!

But right now she did not give a flying f*** what they thought, for she was full of anxiety and worried sick over the entire situation she and the family were in... One that she could not allow to come to the attention of her naive and justice-seeking husband!

She ground her teeth together and felt extremely stressed when she thought about the string of events that led up to today.

First and worst of all was the devil invasion. As the Trenel family's wealth depended mostly on slavery, the invasion had taken a great toll on their prosperity as both the slavers and the slaves were mostly wiped out!

What happened next was far, far worse. She had broken down and wept openly when she found out the news of how both Gaius and Leocadius had fallen into depravity, choosing to share a bed with the devils! And as a result... On the same day, she had lost her only son and only grandson, leaving her essentially childless and without any future in the Trenel family despite her unopposed stranglehold of power.

And just today she received countless reports from all over the city of more than a quarter of her slavers' dens being raided and torched to the ground, with all the slaves set free to tell the world of their plight - all perpetrated by a rogue group of bandits called the Sand Crabs led by a boy named Lars, happening out of the blue!

...Which, along with the more than six hundred children rescued by the troublemaker "Lord" Mikael, would soon reveal the trail of breadcrumbs all the way back to the Trenel family... And herself!

'This string of bad luck all seemed to start that day, with that one tiny incident that wouldn't have come to my attention were it not for the fact that I was nearby the quester's guild when it occurred...' She couldn't resist her nervous urges anymore and began biting her thumbnail under her veil as she recalled the event that seemed to trigger it all. A newbie quester had dared to stand up to one of the third-party "recruitment" teams.

She had heard a commotion in the quester's guild a few days back and sent her maid to find out what happened.

And now that she thought about it... The newbie quester was also a golden-haired incredibly handsome boy! Her eyes sparked with flames of rage as she realised that it was the exact same person who was antagonising her today - the boy named Lars!

At that moment, she heard the sounds of movement and wind cease as the white-haired Mallard landed on the ground in the middle of the sprawling training field. He had completed his practice and was covered in sweat.

Patricia smiled as she saw he was done and entered the training grounds to meet her husband. And as he walked over to the resting area, two servants rushed over to pa.s.s him some towels and a bottle full of a cooling energy drink.

"My dear husband...!" Patricia called out lovingly - though she grimaced as she spoke the revolting words to her block-headed husband.

'If only he were sharper and more ruthless... Like that Farhan Jamal...' Her eyes glittered as she looked at her lawfully wedded husband, though her thoughts were actually fixed on another man.

"Ahh! Patricia! I forgot to meet you after the long boring meeting this morning! You know, Duke Leanne and all those old fogeys are such a bore! I wish I could have just handed over all this tedious work to you, but instructions were instructions..." Mallard spoke casually.

After his exercise session, the Patriarch of the Trenel family looked to be far more relaxed and as if a burden had been lifted off his shoulders. The training-freak always only had one thing on his mind - training, training and more training!

And so when he debriefed Patricia about the morning meeting, he could only tell her some bits and pieces of inconsequential information, things that were of no value at all - even missing out the most important portions such as news about the hostage exchange being planned for to recover Leocadius. Astrid Estreya and Natalie Sarouneh!

It was almost as if he had forgotten completely about this world-shaking piece of information!

However, it soon became apparent that the message about Leocadius HAD completely slipped his mind - along with the important fact of Lars being the near-Mythical realm Mikael's disciple.

And this fact of his absent-mindedness and lack of care towards the family's affairs or important matters caused neverending grief to his dedicated wife; leading to the current rift between them - though it was a rift that he was not aware of until today.

When Patricia left her "beloved husband"'s presence to return to her duties as a model wife, she was seething inside, deeply resentful of her lot in life that led to her being unable to take over the family completely. At the same time though, she was glad that he hadn't asked more and had dismissively asked her to "take care of everything, as usual."

Even when she had mentioned how there were attacks by rival factions on the family business operations, he had not even asked a single thing about it, merely grunting as he picked up a cultivation manual on the Universe's Laws and waved her away.

She let out a soundless bark of laughter as she thought about the flippant man. Would he even notice when his entire family was crumbling around him? Maybe he would - but only because that would affect his precious training grounds and training hours, right?

With such a useless man at the head, it was just a matter of time until the family collapsed! She alone could not hold the weight of the entire household and businesses on her own - which was why she had roped in both Gaius and Leocadius to run things together.

But to her sorrow, it looked like she was on her own once more in this lonely road to supremacy.

When she returned to her room, she sat on her bed and laid one hand on the wooden frame of the structure to open a secret compartment. Out of the secret area, she withdrew a tiny wooden whistle, one which looked completely unremarkable.

She then blew on the whistle - but no sound was released. At least, no sound which could be heard by the naked human ear.

Then she replaced the whistle in the hidden cubbyhole before closing the panel and ensuring there were no signs of a compartment there in the first place.

She walked over and sat down at her embroidery table, then began gracefully forming a beautiful tapestry of colours and cloth with her hands.

It was only moments later that she heard a voice speaking from seemingly nowhere.

"Mistress Trenel. What is your command...?" An impa.s.sive and indistinct voice spoke, one that was so average and normal that a hearer would be hard-pressed to name any distinctive features or recognise the voice even if it were heard time and time again.

Patricia released a sigh of relief when she heard the voice of her most loyal subordinate; the only one that she seemed to be able to trust in her entire life! Her tight neck and furrowed brows seemed to relax - just a little - as she relayed her appreciation and instructions to the leader of the Celestial Shadows, House Trenel's underground arms and legs!

"Truly, Boa, without you... What would I do...?"

"Mistress, you are like a G.o.ddess of wisdom! Even without us, you would still be reigning as a queen over Gorun City and someday, the entire Kingdom of the Sands!" The voice replied unabashedly, though with the lack of inflection in his tone, it could be mistaken as sarcasm.

Patricia did not take it that way, however. She instead smiled gently and felt comforted.

"Boa, who is available for a mission...? I need you to take out some wild dogs who think they can take on the dragon just because she is sleeping..."

"Mistress, I, Stars Boa am always available to do whatever you bid! Unfortunately though, all our Grandmaster combatants were either crippled or killed during the recent clashes with the devils and the Four Paths of the Underworld... However, the Master level Evisu of the Moon, Abba of the Sun and Dee of the Earth are still ready to move at a moment's notice!"

The owner of the voice stopped to catch his breath before continuing, "I take it mistress' meaning is those curs who have treaded on the serpent's tail... The Sand Crabs and the foolish boy Lars...?"

Patricia paused for a moment before nodding.

"Yes..."

Patricia's hand movements changed at that moment as she continued her weaving and sewing. Her fingers danced across the surface of the cloth sharply and aggressively, as if though she were a sword dancer flitting through a battlefield of enemies - and reaping a life at every flick of her fingers!

Then abruptly, she stopped as she panted, trying to catch her breath after the furious spurt of speed and emotion.

And the snake empress of Gorun City spat out the two venomous words that had ended so many lives and destroyed countless families.

"Kill them."

It was only silence that responded to her as she continued her embroidery, now smiling pleasantly as she calmly continued her homemaker's artwork.

Once more, she was Patricia Trenel, the beautiful, humble and demure model mother and wife.