"In that configuration," Knight Moongrum's pale, weathered face revealed a faint, calculated smile, "then our previous administrative treaty remains contingent upon the outco of the battle between the two royal Highnesses."
"Moongrum—" Radagon's expression turned instantly icy, his voice a flat, dangerous rasp. "Considering the logistics of our past friendship, my crown consented to a fair cross of steel against your own blade. But my office never authorized a single clause concerning the deploynt of the children."
"Your Excellency," Commander Ordovis growled, his ancient hand dropping heavily onto the poml of the Crucible Greatsword buckled to his left hip, a deep, weathered rage distorting his features. "The display you executed in the clouds just now truly opened this old man's eyes. Across the modern layout of the continent, the number of operators who possess the trics to rival your blade can be numbered on a solitary hand. However, the custody of the two Highnesses is an asset class your office cannot liquidate with a solitary word."
"They are both Her Majesty's own flesh and blood. If Sir Moongrum intends to utilize his authority as a tutor to coerce Prince Radahn's alignnt, forcing two demigod siblings into an open, fratricidal extraction bout, it would manifest as an absolute blemish across the path of knighthood. If your outriders insist on forcing this layout, though this old fra comprises nothing more than a decaying timber stump, my blade can still clear the leather to execute the enemy of the state!"
Just as the two veteran factions locked themselves into an absolute, iron-choked standoff, a sharp, thunderous shout cut through the pavilion from below: "The First Knight's calculation is false!"
Radahn abruptly rose to his full, colossal height, his iron boots crunching against the floorboards as he strode to clear Moongrum's flank. He declared before the entire pavilion, "Father! The paraters my teacher just articulated were not an isolated executive choice—they comprise the absolute, shared desire of my own soul and my younger siblings!"
He locked his dark eyes directly into Radagon's flustered, pale face, his gaze as sharp and un-yielding as a lightning strike. "Ten winters past, when Father cleared the western gates, your hand lifted to touch my hair. I had logged less than four seasons of life, yet your lips told : 'Live your days as a hero who stands un-broken between heaven and earth.' Across these ten winters, my engine has never permitted a single failure of that expectation. That is the solitary tric that drove my flesh through the grueling training arcs under every master scholar in Liurnia, preserving my focus until this watch."
"Today, my blade rely seeks to deliver an objective display to prove to my father that I, nurtured within the halls of Caria, am not inferior to any prince reared beneath the boughs of the Erdtree! And that the mother your crown abandoned ten winters past is in no structural way inferior to the Eternal Queen ruling this world!"
His physical mass seed to expand with his emotion, his voice escalating into a near-roaring, tectonic declaration that shook the granite platforms: "I command you to register this truth: even without the curriculum of the Golden Royal Family, I possess the trics to beco the mightiest, most terrifying demigod in this world!"
The syllables echoed across the Rodel Basin like rolling thunder—the primitive, blood-chilling roar of a lion cub whose claws had finally grown thick enough to shake the plains!
Crucible Knight Ordovis, who had stepped forward to freeze the line, found his tongue entirely bankrupt of syntax. Since following Elden Lord Godfrey into the crusades, the ancient paladin had navigated fields of ash for decades, monitoring thousands of exceptionally gifted youths. Yet, the child standing before his broadsword shared zero trics with that demographic.
That wildfire-like currents of ancestral anger and raw resentnt, that un-fused currents of deep love and steadfastness that had refused to wither despite the freezing isolation of betrayal, and that astonishing, planetary ambition that ti itself lacked the voltage to wear away—all of it suddenly left the old knight completely dazed. Looking at the red-haired boy, his eyes traced the phantom silhouette of another warlord from his youth. If that long-exiled King were standing on this grass today... he would likely have accepted this challenge without a single microsecond of hesitation, wouldn't he?
Radahn's syntax had been too blunt, too forthright, completely shredding the fragile, decorative mask of familial harmony that had insulated father and son until this watch.
Radagon stared blankly at the first-born son he admired most, his divine processors collapsing into an absolute, chaotic vortex of noise. Countless suppressed archival mories twisted into a frenzied storm behind his pupils, and it felt as though a lofty, grand voice was beginning to whisper from the deepest basents of his consciousness.
Rennala's face flashed before his vision in a non-stop chain—her elegant, pristine silhouette, moving as graceful as a startled swan when their blades had first crossed upon the battlefield decades past; the full moon sorcery that held a boundless, cataclysmic physical density yet appeared dreamlike and illusory across the water; the sweet, llow vintage they had shared in toast at the grand pavilion during the moon-viewing watches; the children and the scarlet wolf playing and laughing within the inner walls... He rembered with terrifying clarity the absolute bewildernt, anger, helplessness, and black despair that had seized his chest upon receiving the royal recall from the capital. In the final accounting, all those conflicting emotions could only culminate in an undeniable, permanent act of betrayal—and a lingering, toxic guilt that years of empire-building could not dissolve.
He had lacked the leverage to refuse. Not because of the supre authority anchored to that edict from the Eternal Queen, but because at that exact juncture, his divinity discovered, bewildered and utterly paralyzed, that when faced with that woman's demand... his flesh simply 'could not' execute a refusal.
Amidst the chaotic, screaming currents of his thoughts, he felt as if his soul were sitting withered before a mirror. The glass shimred with a faint, geotric golden light, every line exhibiting a divine, absolute perfection. Suddenly, that illusory image in the mirror shattered without warning, the shards instantly reassembling into the cold, monolithic contour of a woman.
Radagon shuddered, an absolute somatic shockwave hitting his heart. That woman was his current wife—the solitary, orthodox true god of the Lands Between—the Eternal Queen Marika!
He clutched his temples in sudden, agonizing pain, the vast, abyssal divine power coiling within his veins surging violently to forcefully incinerate the eerie nightmare from his mind. When his bloodshot eyes snapped back open to monitor the pavilion, every operator still maintained their previous expressions and postures. It appeared less than a single microsecond had bled off the clock.
He wearily scanned the faces lining the platforms, his gaze lingering on Radahn's rigid chest for a fraction of a second longer. Then, under the un-blinking watch of the entire gallery, the King Consort stood up, his voice a hoarse, dead whisper. "This layout... your individual houses shall decide the ledger for yourselves."
With his purpose broken, he rubbed his throbbing temples, turned his back to the mahogany, and cleared the pavilion on his own accord.
"Why..." Malenia's eyes dilated, her focus staring blankly at Radagon's retreating traveling cloak. "Why has Papa abandoned the table?"
The little girl looked anxiously at Radahn, who anchored the absolute center of the banquet ring. This massive elder brother she had logged an hour knowing was radiating an internal, martial aura that felt terribly oppressive to her fragile fra, making it difficult to extract oxygen from the gale.
Prince Rykard, sitting diagonally across the gap, had presented a polite smile during their initial introduction, but now his features were a mask of pure resentnt, his eyes tracking her fra with a sharp, venomous intensity. Even the breath-taking princess, Ranni, had locked her gentle curiosity away, staring indifferently into the empty space ahead, her blue pupils betraying not a single trace of biological emotion.
Commander Ordovis monitored the path where Radagon had dissolved into the trees with deep confusion. But in the final assessnt, he was an old retainer belonging strictly to the Queen's faction; chasing after the Elden Lord to offer dostic counsel during a private crisis was outside his authorization. Consequently, he could only turn his visor back to Moongrum, his tone heavy. "His Majesty's internal trics are volatile today, Lord Moongrum. Can the challenge your office raised be temporarily moved off the active ledger and re-examined tomorrow?"
Yet, the First Knight of Caria remained entirely un-moved, his silver armor stable. "Commander Ordovis, though I humbly serve as the military tutor to the three Highnesses of our court, I possess zero legal authority to override their sovereign choices. Since the Elden Lord, before clearing the grounds, issued an explicit directive stating that this ledger is for our houses to decide ourselves... why do you and I not step back, allowing Prince Radahn and Prince Miquella to finalize their own decision?"
"Your office—"
"Commander Ordovis," Radahn spoke, his massive voice cutting through the ancient knight's protest. "Neither my teacher nor my own blade intends a single fraction of disrespect toward the Golden Dynasty. Today's friction comprises a private ledger within our family. I petition that your shield does not interfere. Furthermore... I will exercise an absolute, disciplined restraint during the cross of steel. I will certainly not harm Miquella's fra."
He shifted his bulk to face the young prince, his tone steadying. "Our veins are bound by the sa blood, brother. Calling you family during the march was not a piece of insincere courtcraft. It is simply that our ideological positions are separate, making this extraction an absolute necessity."
Monitoring Miquella's pale features, Radahn let out a soft, heavy sigh. "If your system lacks the stomach to fight today, that is an acceptable tric. In that configuration, my own statent will have naturally established its sufficiency before our father's throne. In the future, if your boots or Malenia's silks clear the western borders to visit Caria, the bond of our genetic kinship will remain stable."
Miquella drew a long, ragged breath into his lungs, fighting the imnse, crushing martial pressure emanating from Radahn's massive fra before speaking up. "Brother Radahn... my engine lacks the capacity to concede to this layout."
"The overarching calculation that prompted Father and Mother to command your presence within the capital archives was twofold. First, following a seven-winter separation between father and son, their crowns desired to execute a total ands in the sector of familial affection. Second... their administration is paranoid. Though the dynasty is newly established and the surface trics appear stable, in the blind corners beyond the Erdtree's light, the undercurrents of a total civilizational turmoil are already surging through the soil."
"We demigods are born with an extraordinary, terrifying power derived directly from the cosmic Law. If our generation cannot beco familiar, integrated, and close within one circle... should a cosmic upheaval detonate down the tiline, a fratricidal war and total internal annihilation would be no re alarmist poem. What transpires between your blade and my own today might only be a disciplined duel that cuts its power at the appropriate marker. But trace the board twenty winters from this dawn—if our houses were to contend as hostile demigods, from the Liurnia basin in the west to the Caelid steppes in the east... where in this material world would there remain a single acre of pure land for a mortal human to survive?"
The words dropped like a kinetic shockwave across the platforms. Even Rykard, who had monitored the twins with absolute disdain, went completely stone-still, his dark eyes shifting to lock onto Miquella with a complex, indescribable emotion. As the solitary mber of the Carian line who had systematically processed historical cycle theory, how could his engine not recognize that the young prince's words already possessed a thousand bloody precedents across the old annals?
Of course, the operator most thoroughly shaken by the syntax was Lucia, sitting directly at Miquella's shoulder. If his consciousness lacked the absolute ta-knowledge of the world's future trajectory from his past life behind the screen, he would likely still be dreaming, like the common masses of Leyndell, of an eternal, un-broken golden age.
In stark contrast, Miquella didn't rely diagnose the lethal crises lurking beneath the current golden prosperity; his intellect had flawlessly deduced the absolute, macro-scale consequences of the future Shattering War. One could only conclude that it was mathematically consistent for this child to eventually evolve into the saint who would construct the Fundantalist Order, revered as a savior by millions of living things down the tiline.
Radahn slightly lifted his massive skull, his eyelids closing as he committed his processors to a serious analysis of Miquella's thesis. After a long watch, his dark eyes snapped back open, though his head shook with an un-yielding, absolute resolution. "My engine has registered your data, brother. But across history, matters maintain their priority, and emotions their urgency. My soul has engineered its trics for this exact watch for ten winters. To execute even a half-step of strategic retreat today would manifest as a total betrayal of every night my blade swung through the frost—and a greater betrayal of my mother, whose mind has imploded from sorrow within the deep palace walls."
Miquella let out a soft, exhausted sigh, his golden locks dropping. "In that configuration... my shield has no alternative but to accompany your line—"
"Why must your steel always target each other's blood?"
Malenia's sudden, tearful voice violently interrupted Miquella's acceptance. "Everything within our house was completely level during the march! Why must your blades clear the leather? Why must you fight? Why must you!"
The little girl's dark red pupils had unconsciously begun to glow with an eerie, fluctuating frequency, flickering with a strange, preternaturally vivid crimson light that seed to draw the light from her skin.
Struggling against her physical weakness, she pushed her small palms against the mahogany table to force her torso upright, her eyes pinning Radahn with a desperate fury. "My brother exhausted his entire divine treasury this morning, collapsing into a comatose state to force the rot disease back into my bone! His channels are completely drained! Why does your vanguard still demand an offensive display from his shield? If your line requires a duel... then my blade will execute the cross of steel against your mass!"
Her voice was thick with a ragged, intermittent sobbing. Yet, beneath the raw, defensive anger, there remained the undeniable, fragile timidity belonging to a little girl. Faced with an elder brother whose physical stature was as massive and fearso as a mountain crag, radiating a blinding, terrifying fighting spirit... how could she, having logged not even ten seasons of life, not register a bone-deep somatic terror?
Suddenly, Malenia felt a large, warm palm gently ruffle her copper hair. Her head snapped upward, her tear-streaked face locking onto Lucia, who had sohow cleared the gap to stand directly by her wheeled chair.
He used his thumb to gently wipe the moisture from her pale cheek, his ice-blue eyes completely serene as his voice dropped into a soft, comforting murmur. "Silly little thing... with my shield anchoring this periter, what variable exists on this grass that possesses the voltage to cause you fear?"
He turned his torso, his leather boot lightly kicking the leg of Miquella's mahogany bench. "And you," Lucia muttered, a dry, highly amused smile breaking through his visor. "Did my lips not explicitly state before we cleared the gates today that my own armants would handle any administrative trouble that hit our line? Why was your engine in such a frantic hurry to lunge forward? Launching into that grand, impressive-sounding lecture... your syntax didn't leave my mouth a single window to cut in for three watches."
Miquella scratched his golden hair with an imnse, un-courtly awkwardness, his face crimson. "The calculations moved too fast, Lucia... it was simply that—"
"Alright, alright, lock your processors; say no more," Lucia waved his hand with a smooth, dismissive economy. "Secure your sister's periter. Monitor her trics."
With his directives cleared, the Dragon Prince strode through the center of the granite platform, drawing his boots to a halt exactly five paces from Radahn's massive bulk.
Radahn clearly hadn't calculated a scenario where the silver-haired youth would violently intercept the line. He paused, his heavy brow furrowing in hesitation. "Lucia... this layout comprises, after all, a restricted dostic crisis within our imdiate bloodlines. For your crown—representing the absolute executive interest of the Ancient Dragon Dynasty—to intervene across this table appears rather inappropriate, does it not?"
"Your calculation is fundantally flawed, big brother. I am not representing the Ancient Dragon Dynasty today. I am representing the interests of my own blade."
Just as Radahn's features twisted in deep confusion, Lucia hand-delivered the un-varnished blueprint. "I harbor zero authority to ddle in the private court chanics dividing your two houses. However... your mouth just articulated an explicit ambition stating that you intend to conform your na into the mightiest demigod in this world."
He shrugged his shoulders, his traveled cloak billowing in the lakeside wind. "My engine ran a swift audit of the registry. The active demigod roster is exceptionally tight, correct? Godwyn and my own divinity are included within that demographic, I presu? But Godwyn's first-born heir outclasses your age bracket by a generation, aning an imdiate cross of steel against his vanguard lacks a proper chronological symtry. Therefore... if your soul is desperate to deliver an objective demonstration to prove your sufficiency before His Majesty Radagon's throne... how about your blade executes a trial match against my shield instead?"
The mont the syllables cleared his teeth, an absolute, cataclysmic aura erupted from beneath his leather armor—a terrifying, golden-red current of energy that didn't yield a single fraction of a tric to Radahn's massive physical mass. As the two distinct fields of martial pressure violently slamd into each other across the neutral grass, the suffocating, iron-heavy atmosphere that had paralyzed the platform was instantly vaporized.
Seeing Lucia suddenly lunge his mass into the breach to defuse the gridlock, Commander Ordovis, though thoroughly puzzled by the dragon's motivation, couldn't help but vent a long, silent sigh of structural relief.
Knight Moongrum, completely unwilling to watch his carefully engineered diplomatic trap dissolve into a standard exhibition match, stepped through the line to enforce a veto. "Your Highness Lucia, your boots have cleared the capital gates for less than three moons. Even if your internal matrix contains a physical voltage that matches Prince Radahn's mass, that tric is an permanent byproduct of your Dragon Bloodline Inheritance. It possesses zero logical currency to refute the structural argunt my office raised before the throne."
"Sir Moongrum, your office has committed a profound mathematical error in that thesis!" Lucia laughed, his silver eyes flashing with a cold, predatory brilliance as he turned his face toward the First Knight of the Moon. "It is a public ledger across the court that my shell cracked a re three moons past before my outriders escorted my fra to Leyndell. Coincidentally... it was precisely across these brief moons, under the expert guidance of the magnificent tutors and companions anchoring this capital, that my internal engine harvested an imnse progression leap, barely attaining the strength required to cross steel against your Highness's vanguard today. If your database lacks the stomach to validate my word... monitor the steel!"
Thrum—
With a fluid, breathtaking acceleration, his right gauntlet snapped to his spine, violently drawing the ancestral Dragon-Scale Blade from its lacquered leather scabbard to point the tip straight at the vaulted sky.
An absolute, blinding explosion of pure golden radiance suddenly blazed along the edge of the scale-alloyed blade. Countless star-like points of dense, alchemical light cascaded down from the sky like a shower of falling teors, and the raw divine aura radiating from his physical fra multiplied its density with a terrifying velocity—instantly obliterating the previous equilibrium to surge across the grass toward Radahn like a tidal wave rolling in absolute reverse!
"Golden Vow!" Knight Moongrum scread, his professional mask completely shattering as his eyes dilated in absolute, un-mitigated horror.
User Comments
0 comments from readers