?Chapter 451:


    Meanwhile, Elliana and Adah returned to their mansion, where the Four Guardians waited with weing smiles.


    They approached, clearly hoping for conversation, but Elliana’s mood had darkened beyond social pleasantries. She fixed them with a sharp stare. “I’m battling serious anxiety right now and need absolute silence. Stay vignt, but don’t interrupt me.”


    Without waiting for acknowledgment, she climbed the stairs with measured steps.


    Adah followed closely until they reached Elliana’s door, where Elliana turned with a raised hand. “Adah, I need to face this alone.”


    Adah searched her friend’s troubled expression. “Elliana, what’s eating at you?”


    “We’ve survived countless separations and hardships before, Adah, but this feeling is different. Something massive approaches—I can sense it building like pressure before a storm. I need space to think it through properly,” Elliana exined, her voice carrying unusual vulnerability.


    Adah’s brow creased with concern. “Are you dwelling on the uing confrontation with ze Wraith over the Lunathorn? Worried we might not just lose, but lose everything—including our lives?”


    Elliana’s head moved slowly from side to side. “I wish I could pinpoint it that easily. My thoughts feel scattered and chaotic. I need to find my center again.”


    Adah reached for the door handle. “Then rest and restore yourself. I’ll stand guard right here. One word from you, and I’m inside.”


    Elliana managed a grateful nod before disappearing into her room. Adah pulled the door shut and positioned herself like a sentinel, her expression hardening into marble determination.


    Elliana possessed an almost supernatural intuition that had guided them through dangerous waters countless times before. Adah had learned to trust those instinctspletely. Perhaps they stood on the precipice of something far worse than they had anticipated.


    Inside her room, Elliana remained motionless for several heartbeats, attempting to wrestle her racing thoughts into submission, but the restlessness wed at her from within.


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    The air felt thick and oppressive, driving her toward the floor-to-ceiling windows where she released thetches with trembling fingers.


    Night air rushed past her, catching her long hair and sending her dress billowing like dark wings, while warmth crept across her skin in gentle waves.


    Heavy rain had hammered the city the previous night, and brilliant sunshine had dominated the day, yet now clouds massed overhead once again.


    The gathering darkness promised another deluge building with inevitable force.


    Podgend seemed perpetually caught in this cycle of storms, each one more relentless than thest.


    The room’s stuffinesspeted with the muggy outdoor air, neither offering the relief she desperately craved.


    Frustration mounting, Elliana sealed the windows again, activated the air conditioning, and copsed onto her bed, squeezing her eyes shut in search of the meditation that usually brought peace.


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