- In Marvel: I Start by Marrying Scarlett Witch [Complete]
- MWM Chapter 542
To be honest, after traveling together for some time, Leo found himself growing fond of Serana, the intriguing vampire noble.
Of course, it wasn’t the kind of fondness that suggested romantic interest; he simply found her to be interesting company.
“Serana, how dare you betray me as well! Bring them back here, all of them!”
Harkon’s furious shout echoed through the icy storm.
Hearing this, Serana quickened her pace, running even faster.
“You can fly! Let’s fly out of here—they can’t keep up with us except for my father!”
Once they reached the outside of the castle, Serana urgently called to Leo.
Leo chuckled, not disagreeing, and with a wave of his hand, he summoned a cloud, carrying both himself and Serana away from the castle.
By the time Harkon led his vampires out of the castle, all he saw above was a starry sky—no trace of the two figures remained.
“Wow, I didn’t think your flying magic could be this fast! Now even my father won’t be able to catch us,”
Serana exclaimed as she marveled at their speed, which was ten times faster than when they had first come.
Once they were far enough from Castle Volkihar, Leo brought the cloud to a halt, then turned to Serana.
“It seems like your father doesn’t care much about you after all. What will you do now?”
“I thought that after a thousand years, he might have changed, that he would have reconciled with Mother. But it seems I was too naive. He’s gone mad, completely consumed by power and ambition.
I want to find my mother and ask her why she didn’t keep her promise to release me from the seal.”
Serana’s face showed a hint of sadness.
Leo took the opportunity to ask,
“Do you have any idea where your mother might be?”
He had delved into Serana’s memories before and knew that she did not have any specific knowledge of her mother’s hiding place, but he thought that as her daughter, Serana might have some hunches.
This way, he could follow her to find Serana’s mother and uncover the whereabouts of the last Elder Scroll.
“I’m not sure. She never told me. Before sealing me, she only mentioned that she would take the other Elder Scroll and hide in a place where Father could never find her.”
Serana shook her head.
Leo encouraged her,
“Try to remember any details about your time with your mother. Maybe something will come to mind.”
“Hmm… my mother, she was such a gentle person, always planting beautiful flowers. She was a skilled alchemist and loved me dearly—we could talk about anything.
But after she started fighting with Father, we grew distant. Every time I tried to find her in the castle’s back garden, she would sternly send me away.
Oh, right, the garden! Before Mother took me away from the castle, Father angrily sealed off her beloved garden, saying he would never go there again.
Do you think she might have hidden in that garden all along?”
Serana’s eyes lit up as she recalled the garden.
Leo nodded,
“Let’s go check it out and see.”
“Thank you, Leo. We’re strangers, yet you rescued me from my seal, escorted me home, didn’t take any gold, and nearly got killed by my father. Now you’re even willing to help me further.”
Serana looked at Leo with deep gratitude.
She thought that most people would have fled as far away as possible after what had just happened, yet Leo was still willing to risk returning to the castle with her to find her mother.
Leo’s response was straightforward:
“Your father wants to blot out the sun and kill all humans. As a human, I can’t just ignore that. Helping you is also helping humanity. In return, I hope you’ll hand over the two Elder Scrolls to me to stop your father’s plans.”
“Of course. When we find my mother, I’ll convince her to give you that Elder Scroll and help you stop my father.”
Serana nodded earnestly, then handed the Elder Scroll on her back to Leo.
At this point, she had come to completely trust him.
“All right, just one more to go,”
Leo thought to himself, holding Serana’s Elder Scroll.
If they could find Serana’s mother and obtain the last Elder Scroll, that would be ideal.
If not, he would eliminate Harkon and his vampires and then decide, based on the elves’ response from Alinor, whether or not to take further action.
After handling these matters, he could head to the Isle of Artaeum to study magic with the Psijic Order.
And, of course, he’d need to pay a visit to Solstheim and face off against the first Dragonborn. According to Alduin, that individual and Hermaeus Mora once collaborated to create a shout capable of enslaving dragons.
When they returned to Castle Volkihar, Harkon and his vampires had already gone back inside. Leo and Serana quietly flew around to the back of the castle.
“There it is!”
Serana pointed to a sealed-off, overgrown garden below, and Leo guided the cloud down gently.
“This place has been completely ruined. It looks lifeless. We used to come here as a family for walks after meals, and Mother once filled this garden with the most beautiful flowers from all over the continent.
If she saw it like this, she’d be so upset…”
Serana’s voice grew melancholic as she recalled the garden’s former beauty while looking at its current desolate state.
After wandering around the garden, she arrived at a large sundial in the center, her expression puzzled.
“Something feels off. The decorations have been removed deliberately, the dial is misaligned, and I can sense traces of my mother’s necromancy magic here.”
“This is probably a hidden magical mechanism,”
Leo replied, using his spiritual senses to scan the sundial. He quickly discovered an underground passage beneath it.
“I think if we find the missing decorations, we might be able to activate—”
Before she could finish, Leo interrupted by smashing the entire sundial into dust with a single stomp, revealing the hidden passage beneath.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. Let’s just go inside—maybe Mother is down there,”
Serana muttered, slightly exasperated.
Sometimes, she wondered who was truly human here; even the strongest warriors she had encountered lacked the sheer strength that Leo possessed.
With a single stomp, he had shattered only the stone sundial without disturbing anything else—a truly terrifying display of power.
If all humans outside were as powerful as Leo, even with the sun blotted out, her father might still struggle to defeat them.
They descended into the pit, pushed open the iron door of the passage, and delved deeper into the castle’s underground.
Like the place where Serana had been sealed, her mother had filled the path with traps, draugr, gargoyles, undead creatures, and various magical traps.
But Leo easily dispatched them all along the way, without a single delay.
(End of chapter)