Chapter 407 The Person from the Hope Family Who Should Indeed Die
"I need you to help hold her body steady and sit her up."
"No problem."
Isabella helped Kennedy sit up.
Louie began treating Kennedy.
"The twelve great families inherited powers from their ancestors, and as far as I know, the Powell family, as the Phoenix clan, controls the power of rebirth and immunity to fire," Louie said.
Isabella's brow twitched slightly at his words.
Actually, ever since learning she was from the Powell family, she had roughly guessed the reason for her rebirth.
Once every hundred years, the family produces someone who can possess the power of rebirth, and she was that lucky one.
Louie seemed to have already figured out certain things. He glanced at her, "Ms. Powell, I've done a reading for you. In this life, you won't die young like before."
Isabella: "......"
"Thank you for taking the time to do a reading for me."
"You're welcome."
"Ms. Powell, if you want your romantic fortune read, you can come to me, too," Louie added.
A few minutes later, Louie finished treating Kennedy.
"Done." Louie put away his medical tools.
Isabella hadn't reacted yet. "That's it?"
"Opening up the body's energy channels isn't really complicated. The hard part is calculating life and death probabilities. As long as my reading is correct, naturally, there's no problem."
Isabella raised an eyebrow, "You can do it like that?"
"She should wake up soon. Opening the energy channels will stimulate her consciousness to some degree."
"Ms. Powell, my task is complete. We, fortune tellers, are naturally weak, so I need to go back and rest."
"Okay." Isabella nodded. "You go ahead. I'll take care of her from here."
Louie nodded slightly at her and left the hospital room.
Just as Louie said, Kennedy did wake up.
Though it was in the evening when she woke.
"Feeling any better?" Isabella asked her.
Kennedy opened her eyes to see Isabella.
She lay there blinking, feeling like some kind of change had happened in her body, as if a surging power was moving around inside her.
"What happened to me?" she asked Isabella.
"Louie came by, so from now on, you can practice ancient martial arts."
——
The Hope family's hospital.
Orville lay in bed with lifeless eyes.
Although his life had been saved, his foundation was destroyed, and he could never practice ancient martial arts again.
Garth pushed the door open and saw that the food on Orville's bedside table remained untouched. His eyes darkened. "What? Are you trying to starve yourself to death?"
Orville didn't even look at Garth and said nothing.
Garth's face darkened as he strode over and shouted sternly, "I told you not to touch Kennedy. Didn't you bring this on yourself?"
Orville clenched his fists and looked up at Garth with red-rimmed eyes.
After a long moment, he said hoarsely, "Why?!"
"Why does Isabella dare to treat me like this?"
How... did she dare?
"Why?" Garth sneered. "Because she can kill you with one hand."
Orville gritted his teeth so hard he nearly drew blood from his gums.
Just then, two elderly men walked in.
They were Tyler and the second elder, Leandro Hope, from the Hope family.
Hypnotists were rare, but fortunately, Leandro was a top-level hypnotist.
Both Leandro and Tyler had white hair but were in good spirits, their eyes showing a ruthless edge.
One of them spoke, "Tomorrow is when the Powell family publicly announces Ms. Powell's daughter's identity. Once that's over, we'll take Isabella's life."
Orville looked at Leandro and Tyler and shouted, "Tyler, Leandro, you must help me kill her. She has to die, she must die!"
He had become a useless person. His life had no meaning anymore. Isabella must die. He wanted Isabella to pay the price.
Orville's eyes were full of hatred.
"Don't worry," Leandro stroked his beard. "Although Isabella is dual-trained in hypnosis and ancient martial arts, she's still too young."
Like ancient martial arts professionals, hypnotists also needed time to cultivate their psychic power.
The longer a hypnotist practiced, the stronger their abilities became.
He was ninety-two years old. Dealing with an eighteen-year-old girl would naturally be no problem.
Hypnotists had their own information network. As far as he knew, among hypnotists, the most talented were Mirror and Verity.
Mirror and Verity were from The Whispering Sect.
"By the way, Leandro, didn't you say a while ago that Verity appeared in Regal City?" Tyler asked.
"That's right."
However, mentioning Verity made Leandro's expression somewhat complicated.
Because he heard that Verity had been put under Nightmare Mesmerism and still hadn't woken up.
Verity had actually fallen victim to Nightmare Mesmerism!
What did this mean?
It meant that the hypnotist who put Verity under Nightmare Mesmerism was far more powerful than Verity!
Apart from Verity's boyfriend, Mirror, he couldn't think of anyone whose abilities surpassed Verity's.
This obviously couldn't have been Mirror's doing. Supposedly, a few days ago, someone saw Mirror around Central Promenade. Why would Mirror come to Central Promenade? This was also puzzling.
In any case, when he learned this news, he found it hard to believe.
The seven great families and thirty-six noble families were all familiar with the top experts from The Whispering Sect. Leandro himself had even fought with Verity before.
That was seven years ago. Verity was only 27 at the time, while he was 85 years old.
As for why he fought with Verity, it was because back then, almost all the families wanted to recruit Verity. After all, hypnotists were rare, and having one more hypnotist in the family meant one more trump card. Verity's talent was truly outstanding. It was while trying to persuade Verity to join the Hope family that Leandro fought with her.
The result was that he nearly died at Verity's hands.
If Verity hadn't lacked killing intent toward him, he wouldn't be alive today.
Verity's hypnotic abilities were terrifying. Even now, thinking about it gave Leandro chills.
But not everyone was like Verity and Mirror, becoming top hypnotists at such a young age.
Normal hypnotists at eighteen years old would basically only have mastered some simple techniques in hypnosis, which weren't hard to break.
"After the news about Verity falling under Nightmare Mesmerism got out, the hypnotist community has been somewhat unsettled lately," Leandro said. "Everyone's speculating about who the hypnotist is that put Verity under Nightmare Mesmerism and what level their abilities are at."
The only way to judge a hypnotist's abilities was through confrontation.
"Keep an eye on the news in this area," Garth said. "If there's a chance to convince such a powerful hypnotist to join our Hope family, it would be the highest honor. Maybe in the next noble family ranking competition, the Hope family's ranking could move up several places."
Leandro nodded. "Naturally."
However, the immediate priority was to kill Isabella after tomorrow's banquet, where the Powell family would publicly announce their daughter's identity.
Isabella dared to cripple someone from the Hope family. She truly deserved to die.
——
What happened at Radiant University had naturally spread throughout the noble circles.
The fact that Radiant University had a dual practitioner of hypnosis and ancient martial arts from an ordinary family background attracted the attention of many nobles, including the seven great families.
Some wanted to protect Isabella.
Inside the Howard family's castle.
At a family meeting.
"A dual practitioner of hypnosis and ancient martial arts, if properly cultivated, will have immeasurable prospects! I suggest you do whatever it takes to get this girl to join our Howard family!"
"Exactly, she has such good genes, but comes from an ordinary family. She definitely won't pass up the chance to join the nobility. Now is the best time!"
"But she crippled Garth's son, Orville. Garth has already said that after the Powell family's banquet ends, he wants her dead!"
"Then protect her from Garth! That way, she'll definitely remember this life-saving grace and willingly serve our Howard family!"
"Are we really going to make an enemy of the Hope family over this girl?"
"Why not? It's just the Hope family. Should we be afraid of them?"
For hundreds of years, all the major families had spared no effort in cultivating their core members.
And a family's status often didn't depend on how many members it had, but on how powerful its strongest members were.
Take the seven great families, for example. The elders of the seven great families were all roughly equal in strength, but the family heads' abilities varied greatly. The reason the Powell family could firmly hold the first position among the seven great families was that no one in the other six families was a match for Gwyneth.
The Puckett family was a perfect example.
If Gwyneth wanted to destroy the Puckett family, kill Delmar, or kill Wilford, it was just a matter of a moment. Even if everyone from the Puckett family mobilized, they couldn't stop Gwyneth.
And any elder from the seven great families could single-handedly destroy any of the thirty-six noble families.
One against ten, one against a hundred, one against a thousand, even one against ten thousand—this was the huge advantage brought by a gap in power levels.
As they knew, Verity, the number one-ranked hypnotist, could completely hypnotize a thousand people at once with her power alone. What terrifying power that was.
Hypnotists were rare, and dual practitioners were even rarer—one might appear once in a hundred years.
"Many times, the difference between families is created this way. We must spare no effort to recruit talent to keep our family prosperous!" the elders earnestly advised.
The rankings of the thirty-six noble families were all earned through secret battles and struggles. Every election, all families went through a major reshuffling. For example, half of the current thirty-six noble families had pushed out previous families to get their positions.
Rankings affected the distribution of benefits, so they had to compete. Otherwise, they would accept poverty.