Capítulo 220: [Chapter 220] Willing mountain side Imperial
"…Whew!"
Neris blinked, letting out a short sigh.
As soon as she touched the membrane, she felt a strange sensation, as if her body was being sucked into somewhere. And immediately after, she saw people. A lot of people.
And their sins. Their actions. Their love. Their survival.
It was like a spectator who had taken a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of a theatrical stage. No one knew of Neris's existence, and her actions had no effect on them.
But she saw all their pained faces, their laughter, and their anger. And she now knew who they were.
The man with the azure gem-eye. The master of the lynx who betrayed the other two, Bisto.
The man with the gray gem-eye. Perhaps he was Palos, who had a lover or wife somewhere and was killed by Bisto's hand.
The woman with the violet gem-eye. She was Elandria, who passed her power to the platinum blonde girl, allowing her to escape, and closed her own eyes alone.
If Cledwyn was a descendant of Palos, she could also understand why his territory was called 'Maindelant'.
Maindelant. An old word meaning 'the land of the Main'.
And 'Main' meant fairies in many languages.
Neris stumbled back from the shock, even after taking her hand off the membrane. Cledwyn held her tightly.
The dragon spoke sadly.
Long ago, I ruled the world for a long time. Humans, who were inferior to their more noble brethren and weaker than their more distorted brethren, were only able to form a few small villages. They rose up with the gem-eyed heroes at their center.
The citizens of the empire learned that the time when the evil dragon ruled was an era of chaos and misery.
Humans were among the weakest of the many races. They were inferior to the wise elves, the holy pegasi, and the free fairies, and weaker than the hateful orcs, the cunning Nodels, and the regenerating trolls.
Moreover, above all of them was the evil dragon. The evil dragon did not tolerate humans trying to exterminate other races.
Naturally, humans were unhappy. As soon as their numbers increased slightly, they died. They died of starvation, disease, and monsters.
Six hundred years ago, three heroes rose up, unable to bear the situation any longer.
Bisto was the prince of a powerful human tribe. Elandria and Palos wandered the continent, saving people and living. Humans, who followed them and grew in number, gathered to defeat the evil dragon.
And they won that battle and prospered in this world. The races that sided with the evil dragon disappeared.
The dragon murmured sadly, like a song.
"I didn't hate humans, but humans' perspective would have been different. Although unlike Bisto, who completely disguised himself as a human, the other two were persecuted by humans because of their interspecies bloodlines, but they wanted to save humans."
So the three of them would have joined forces. They might have promised to make all other races disappear, so that humans could have the world to themselves.
However, Elandria and Palos, who had actually met the evil dragon, changed their minds. Perhaps they finally realized that other races were just living their lives.
Bisto killed them all, along with the evil dragon. And he called his own followers the remaining two heroes, and spread that knowledge to the world.
Neris recognized Elandria and Palos from the imperial portraits among the men near Bisto's camp. And the man in white clothes was probably the first Pope in his youth. She could recognize him because there were portraits of the first Pope in every major temple.
The couple looked at the dragon beyond the membrane. All sorts of odds and ends were scattered around him. A small quill, spilled ink, a bloodstained sword, someone's red cloak, a twig…
The dragon looked at his true form sadly and said,
"Humans couldn't have fully mastered the power of fairies. It seems the seal was broken once. As I remember, all these things were swirling in the air, carried by the wind, when I fell asleep."
If time had stopped, then the falling motion would have stopped too.
"But the seal returned to its original state. Someone must have tried to use my power. But they failed… and the child of Elandria is safely here."
"Great Dragon."
Neris finally couldn't help but ask.
"Can you tell when the seal was broken?"
"Recently. Winter has come and gone about eight times. If the child of Bisto has both Palos's power and Elandria's power, he will have a power great enough to shake the timeline of the entire world, so it's a stroke of luck that you haven't been destroyed."
****
The magic circle engraved on the wall emitted a dark light.
The room, painted entirely in plaster, had only one decoration. A giant lynx flag on one wall. The dark black lynx, embroidered with gold thread, was like a king illuminating a dark world alone.
Keamil looked up at the flag and smiled faintly.
She first learned about this room long ago. It was before Abelus was born, when she, the intelligent one, was considered the sure heir to the throne.
Her father had fallen ill for a while, and he felt the need to pass on some of the important secrets of the imperial family to the next generation.
So, she entered this secret chamber, holding her father's hand.
And she learned why at least one gem-eyed person was born in the imperial family every generation.
The gem-eye, which should have appeared very rarely, as a sign that the divine blessing had not disappeared from this bloodline.
Perhaps her foolish younger brother would also learn later that the three heroes did not actually defeat the evil dragon together. But unlike her, he did not try to 'know more'.
He did not scour all the ancient documents in the imperial palace, hire mages, and pour in the royal treasury to research how to bring greater glory to the imperial family.
'He probably has it all.'
At first, Keamil's obsession with the secret chamber and the old secrets was to win back her father's favor. She thought that if she showed her parents that she was the one who could bring infinite power to the Vista imperial family, she could regain the position of heir.
That wasn't the case now.
'It's okay if I don't become emperor.'
She would do more important things with the time she would have spent trying to become emperor. Even the emperor didn't know as much about the old secrets as Keamil.
Woo-woo-ong. Keamil's hand lightly touched the pillar of light. The place where Palos's gem-eye, or rather, the power symbolized by the gem-eye, was sealed.
The symbols in this secret chamber formed a triangle. But…
'One vertex can be more noble than the other two.'
Elandria and Palos, wouldn't everyone be happy if the power of those human traitors were taken and used by the great Bisto family?
Bisto hanging on the wall.
Palos, sealed and giving his power to Bisto's successors.
Elandria, who will soon fill the empty altar and bring the loyalty of the whole world.
This was perfect balance. Only…
'I need to wait a little longer.'
Ulrich, the mage who had been with her since she was a child and had done many things for her, was very capable and, to her liking, sinister.
He had researched ancient magic with her support, and eventually succeeded in analyzing and partially applying the 'time' power that Palos possessed and the sealing magic that contained it.
However, the situations in which that power could be used were limited. Perhaps it was because the mages of today were so weak compared to the ancient mages that they could barely understand the technique and had to use it almost as it was created.
The target that could be sealed was someone with the power of another race.
The sacrifice needed for the seal.
If anything could be offered, Keamil would have used hundreds, thousands of cheap lives without hesitation. But those were meaningless.
Magic required a meaningful sacrifice. Something meaningful to the target being sealed. Especially something that 'had been met for a long time', 'had an attachment to', or 'was similar' was more effective.
The sacrifice Keamil used when she cast the illusion curse on the Grand Duchess was, well, insufficient. Keamil thought it was enough to get her hands on the couple. If she could subdue the Grand Duchess for a while, the Duke would surely go mad inside.
But Palos's eyes reacted strangely, as if they were about to explode. And the Grand Duchess eventually woke up.
Ulrich almost died at Keamil's hand that day. But she eventually decided to spare him. Mages were too valuable.
Having been given a second chance, he analyzed his mistake. And he assumed that a crack might have appeared in the seal of the gray gem-eye during the process of using Palos's power, and he compensated for that in his magic formula.
'I can't allow that to happen again.'
If they could obtain Elandria's power as well, the imperial family could take over the entire continent. Then, Keamil, who controlled the very source of that great power, would have power forever.
The exact records of the abilities of each gem-eye were lost. The superhuman strength of the azure gem-eye didn't need to be looked up in records, and the gray gem-eye was in the hands of the imperial family, but the violet gem-eye hadn't appeared for too long.
So Keamil wasn't sure about the Grand Duchess's abilities. She only had a rough idea based on the legends of the real hero Elandria, which were passed down orally and in various documents.
'Those fox-like Elandria family members will know too.'
But what good would it do to know? If everything was in the hands of the imperial family, no one, really no one, could touch her.
Keamil's eyes twitched alone, thinking about revenge for her past defeats.
****
'From the beginning.'
Neris thought, feeling suffocated.
'The imperial family was the one who willingly took me from the beginning.'
She thought that the Elandria family had unilaterally pushed her into the imperial family to use her, and the imperial family had accepted the marriage proposal to take her hostage.
But what was the truth?
Would they really think a mistreated adopted daughter, not even the real daughter of the Duke, was a useful hostage, just because she had a gem-eye, worth giving the position of Crown Princess for?
Rather, wouldn't they think they had finally obtained the last sacrifice to fill the altar?
'Nellusion.'
How much fun you had. Using me, even selling me for a high price.
I wasn't sad. Just…
I was dumbfounded.
"Are you okay?"
Strong arms enveloped her.
Without knowing the situation. Neris smiled faintly at Cledwyn's face, looking at her worriedly.
"I'm fine. Let's hear more about the situation, shall we?"
The dragon spoke slowly.
"Originally, monsters lived in the dragon's lair. A magnificent palace was built, where thousands could live together, above and below ground. But because of the seal, everything that was magically powered stopped, and the monsters fell asleep with me."
"But why are they awake now?"
"You have a little bit of Palos's magic on you. Thanks to that, those with relatively weak seals could open their eyes for a while."
"So the monsters will fall asleep again?"
"Yes. There will be almost no monsters outside now. Bisto wouldn't have left them alone."
"There are none at all. Everyone thinks monsters are legendary creatures from long ago. Elves too."
The dragon chuckled wryly.
"Elves were already a dying race even 600 years ago. But to make monsters disappear completely, that would have been difficult even for me, so Bisto is quite impressive in his own way."
"What did I see when I touched the membrane? Was that also a kind of illusion?"
"It was a memory. My eternal nightmare… the memory of my friends being betrayed and killed, and me falling asleep after failing to protect them."
"Then was it you who called me here?"
Neris recalled the voice that called her 'Trude'. The dragon shook her head.
"It couldn't have been. I was awake before you came in, and I have no memory of that. Why, who called you?"
"Yes."
"That's strange. Only I can call someone into this lair. Only me, or my true form, the one you see before you. If it wasn't me, then it means my true form called you, but how would my true form know you? Are you sure it was you who called you?"
But… who else could it be? Neris was confused. But the dragon truly looked like she didn't know.
Kugung. At that moment, the ceiling shook.
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