Svetlana was right.

There really was something bizarre happening with the Doxon family and the one to blame was none other than Hal.

Let’s recap.

Hal had a plan to take over the Doxon family but did not want to do so with the cooperation of his grandfather who he knew only wished to control him.

Hal wanted his control of the Doxon family to be absolute.

He had no intentions of going through some annoying secondary channel who would have some misguided thought that he/she could veto his (Hal’s) ideas or plans.

And then Hal wondered, how could he do it.

How could he have absolute control?

And then he got it…

His Devil seed in Sapphire city.

The one whose corruption had so far spread past the Kirsten Barony and towards other baronies in the Cruz county.

However, there came the issue of connecting the members of the Doxon family to the Devil seed. Every member except Svetlana and Kirill.

Svetlana because he wanted things relating to her to be done personally by him and Kirill because he feared, and quite rightly so, that the Ex-duke was way more dangerous than he looked.

It was best to leave him out.

At least for now.

Anyway, back to the plan.

There was the issue of distance between the Doxon Duchy and Sapphire city in the Silva Duchy which is where the only other one knowledgeable in Devil spells among his forces came into the picture.

Hal ordered Arya to begin the making of Devil pellets which were basically pills that had been created through energy gotten directly from the Devil seed in Sapphire city.

Yes, Hal had an apparition or copy of the Devil seed within him but not only was it not the same as the real deal, but he also lacked the necessary skills of Devil Alchemy needed.

Skills that Arya possessed from her time with the Devil tribe in the Dystopian continent.

This was what Arya reported to the Alchemist Organization branch in the Silva Duchy as a personal project.

She returned to Sapphire city where she marveled at the progress the Sapphirine cult was making in regards to getting the faith of the Sapphirine Prince all over Cruz county.

Anyway, thanks to Hal, she was not only able to locate the Devil seed which was only visible or accessible to Hal but she was also able to harvest its energy and began refining the Devil pellets.

It took her four months to refine all the pellets that she would need and never stopped even when news that Hal had disappeared reached her ears in Sapphire city where she stayed all through refinement.

Why should she stop?

Never once did she doubt her master would return and reward her for all her efforts.

Anyway, once the pills were done she traveled to the Doxon Duchy where she met up with the cousins, Ivan and Artyom who Hal had allowed her to be able to contact telepathically.

The battle between the two factions was more than underway at that point and they had tried actively to involve Kirill’s faction to further accommodate Hal’s vision, all of which he had transmitted directly into their heads when he told them they were just his pawns and playing roles.

It was actually easier with Hal’s disappearance.

At that time, Hal had been gone for four months, and without active evidence that he was still alive, many of those in Kirill’s faction were already questioning if he was still alive and could still continue to be the banner of their faction.

Not even Kirill had an idea where the young man was.

Sure, he could have been in seclusion, cultivating but that was a little hard to believe when his last known location was an exploding tomb.

An explosion that had been strong enough to kill a Semi-saint.

Those in Hal’s camp believed he was still alive, especially the duo of Ivan and Artyom who felt their connection, as well as their pain, would be gone if he was truly dead.

Anyway, not even Kirill could keep the members of his faction believing his grandson was still alive.

The old man felt that this was probably another part of Hal’s ploy and mysterious plans but even he no longer saw any use stopping either Ivan or Artyom from becoming Duke.

After all, without Hal, who else was there to carry on the main family line of dominance in the Doxon family if not those two.

He had begun to accept that while he would never smile and encourage them and still hated their guts, he might as well revert to how things were before Hal showed up and gave him hope of not passing governorship to those two bozos.

His acceptance of things came in the form of him going onto seclusion three months after Hal’s disappearance.

With Kirill no longer taking an active part in his faction, the faction members had begun to consider switching to one of the still-active factions.

Taking their time to pick out which of the two looked more like the winning side.

After all, there were advantages to being known to have actively supported an aspiring Duke as when he is in the post, he is less unlikely to forget you.

It never hurts to have the Duke of the Duchy on your side.

Anton Antonov who supported Kirill and Svetlana in their time of need can testify to how advantageous it was…

Likewise, Kohen and Elian (Svetlana’s brothers) who forever lost their father and Sister’s favor can attest to what happens in the case of the reverse.

By the time Arya arrived at the Doxon Duchy with the pills ready, all factions were involved in the quest for who would be Duke after Svetlana. If it would be Ivan or if it would be Artyom.

The two had made sure every part of the Doxon Family was involved in one way or the other.

They made sure to instigate those who were apartheid and simply preferred to sit on the sidelines and await the end and the result.

Hal’s plan had been totally focused on misdirection.

While they were all focussed on battling one another on behalf of whoever it was that they were supporting, Ivan and Artyom fed them the pellets.

The insidious nature of the pellets was such that if someone was fed the pellets by someone they trust, the pellet would latch onto that trust and use it for camouflage.

Not even the saints of the family could sense the seeds before ingesting them as long as they were fed by someone they trusted.

A devious take on the term ‘Blind Trust’.

And that was where the plan was difficult and why it took time for it to succeed.

That said, the difficulty was eased with the fact that after ingesting a pellet served by a loved one, the pellet would affect the ingester passively and make them more than willing to feed others the pellets.

And that was why the plan started with both Ivan and Artyom having dinners with those in their factions who they knew considered them trustworthy.

These individuals were their fathers as well as the elders who had supported their fathers since they had first tried for Dukedom themselves years ago.