Chapter 429: What use do we have for you and this power you hold?
“I do not understand, we Velmourns have been living in the Heights for more than a thousand years now, how are we Outsiders?”
Kayden questioned with a confused look on his face.
“Twelve hundred and eight years.”
Nyris, the High Chronicler, spoke as she looked into Kayden’s eyes.
After collecting and giving the bodies a proper burial, Kael and the rest of the party returned to Heights. The other soldiers were sent back, while Korvath, Kael, and Lavinia went to the Matriarch’s.
Obviously, a matter as big as this needed urgent attention. Morvain too reacted quickly and called the Iron Council.
And Kayden, just like before, requested to join the Council eting with a promise to stand in the corner in silence, already ignoring the latter part of the promise.
Morvain stared at her son. For a mont, this made Kayden flinch, but then—
“Even if we live here for a thousand more years, it wouldn’t change anything.
In the eyes of Tribesn, we will always be Outsiders who invaded their land and settled here, this is especially true for the Stormcallers.”
Nyris spoke with a solemn look on her face. Her words shifted the Council’s attention from Kayden to her, letting the man sigh in relief.
“Why is that?”
Lavinia questioned.
The reports she read regarding the Velmourns back in Drakthar only ntioned the other tribes briefly, so she was completely clueless about all this.
“All those years ago, when our ancestors ca to this land, they took the land with the finest living conditions for themselves, pushing all other Tribes that lived here to the mountains that they deed useless since they were buried tens of feet under snow.
The ones who suffered the most because of that were the Stormcallers. According to what is known, the tribe was nearly annihilated when they resisted our ancestors, barely surviving as they ran away and settled at the very top of the Mountains.”
Nyris explained and Lavinia…
“Sohow… I do not doubt that.
Even if they were defeated, the Twilight Sovereigns were still… Twilight Sovereigns.”
The Mage muttered in a low voice.
As soone who was quite interested in the Velmourn Family, she knew quite a lot about them. She knew how arrogant they once were.
Especially the Velmourn Family twelve hundred years ago—the one that called itself the Twilight Sovereigns.
The epito of Arrogance, Pride, Selfishness, Strength and… Cruelty.
If it is soone like them, then they would obviously take what they deem to be most useful for themselves, without any regard for others.
“…we are not like that anymore.”
Morvain muttered slowly. It wasn’t difficult for her to understand what Lavinia ant by that comnt.
“You do not have to say that, Matriarch. I have seen it with my own eyes.
The Velmourns now are different than what they were in the past. This is the reason we ca here in the first place.”
The Matriarch nodded at those words.
“Wait.”
Suddenly, Kael frowned in confusion. He glanced at the Commander and—
“You once told that these Tribes aren’t weak, even a single Tribe alone is more than enough to give us quite a challenge and there are quite a few of them in total.
How did your ancestors push them out? Weren’t they defeated before coming here? Even the Steel Dragons abandoned them after the Treaty, no? They should be at their weakest when they ca here.
For soone who was weakened to such a level, how did they manage to push out the tribes that are this strong? Did they have outside help? Or is it that the Tribes back then were weak and only got stronger with ti?”
He couldn’t understand.
It felt like all the history he had rembered all this while seed… useless.
“You aren’t wrong.”
The one who answered his question was Lavinia.
“The Twilight Sovereigns lost an all-out war against the combined might of Drakthar and almost every other Nation that stands today. More than thirty thousand of their soldiers died and about a hundred fifty thousand soldiers knelt, surrendering in front of the enemies.
Not just that, their strongest card, the Steel Dragons, abandoned them, and they were sent to the very corner of the world, from where their influence would only disappear as ti passed.
The Twilight Sovereigns that ca to Heights were indeed at their weakest.
Altogether, only three thousand Velmourns—the Main Family and the Extended Family combined—ca to Heights.
And yes, these three thousand Velmourns were weaker than before, especially since they did not have the Steel Dragons with them anymore.
But…”
Lavinia then looked at Kael and—
“According to the reports,
In this little group of three thousand, there were about three hundred Demi-Gods, a thousand Mythical Tars—Tars who were either Ninth Circle Mages or Ninth Stage Warriors, and about a thousand Legendary Tars.
The rest who were weaker than this either ca from extended families that were too far from the Main Family or were children.”
“What…?”
Kael widened his eyes in disbelief, unable to believe what he was hearing.
Three hundred Demi-Gods…?
Didn’t that an…
Three Hundred Veylaras…?
Just what were these absurd numbers?
How could one force have such strength…?
Even the current Drakthar, that is called the strongest Nation in all of Nerathis, didn’t have a force as strong as this. Heck, they weren’t even close. They only had three Demi-Gods that he knew about.
Even if they had a few more hidden, there was no way the number would be anywhere close to three hundred!
Kael stared at the rest of the council mbers, waiting for them to speak up and tell Lavinia how wrong she was, but the Elders stayed silent, even silently nodding at Lavinia’s words, as if agreeing with them.
Lavinia too, after taking a brief pause, continued,
“Yes, the Twilight Sovereigns were ‘weaker’ compared to when they were at their pri.
But in front of the Tribes that lived at the very corner of the World, they were no different than a Nightmare.
There was no way the Tribes were strong enough to face the Twilight Sovereigns, even if they combined their might and sohow doubled or tripled their numbers.”
“…”
Silent.
Kael was completely silent, unable to say any word.
The Twilight Sovereigns…
While he did know they were once known to be the strongest…
This was completely out of his expectation.
“You know quite a lot.”
After a brief silence, Nyris comnted, staring at Lavinia.
“I read about the Velmourns extensively when I was in Drakthar.”
Lavinia answered with a light nod.
“I would have liked to read the material you had, it seems quite detailed. What we have here is… lost in history and isn’t quite as thorough.”
“Who knows? You might get the chance to read them.”
The Mage smiled lightly. Nyris, however, chuckled at those words,
“I do not give myself false hope. I know my ti is near, so even if we sohow do get our hands on those materials, I doubt I will be there to witness it.”
She spoke in a low voice.
“You shouldn’t say that, Elder Nyris. You need to live for a long ti to be able to guide us all.”
Lavinia answered and the Elder just closed her eyes, not saying anything else on this topic.
“Even if they hold a twelve-hundred-year-old grudge against us, never once have the Stormcallers done sothing like this.
Then why now? What changed?”
Tarevian suddenly questioned with a confused look on his face, bringing the focus back onto what they were gathered here for.
The Council mbers turned silent.
None of them had an answer to this question, even the knowledgeable Nyris was silent. Still thinking about the sight Korvath had described, even though she hadn’t seen it herself, seeing Korvath’s eyes was more than enough for her to know how truly horrifying that sight was.
All this while, she had been asking herself the sa question that Tarevian just asked and the answer she thought of was… quite ominous.
But before Nyris or anyone else could say anything—
“Dragon Rider Kael, aren’t you the Warden of Vigilance? What were you doing when this happened?”
Draksis, the Leader of the Forge, questioned as he glanced at Kael.
“You have your ‘eyes’ everywhere, do you not? Watching everyone without their approval. This Authority was given to you in order to prevent sothing like this from happening.
What do you have to say for yourself?
What were your eyes doing when our soldiers were attacked and their dead bodies were being defiled?”
The Leader of Forge raised his voice, glaring at Kael.
It was a question both Kael and Lavinia were expecting beforehand, just not right now, when they were gathered to discuss a possible solution.
“I was the one who found the bodies, Elder Draksis.”
Kael answered calmly.
“But that is not what your eyes are for, is it?”
Draksis countered imdiately.
“Even our soldiers would have been able to find the dead bodies eventually, then what use do we have for you and this power you hold?”
He shot.
It was clear that the Leader of the Forge was prepared for a confrontation.
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