Chapter 399: Chapter 399 – Tars War – The Immortal (1/2)
Longevity was undoubtedly costly…
The combination of the Black Turtle and White Serpent was the pinnacle of Vitality enhancents, and Selphira had managed by luck to bring both to ranks never before achieved.
Enormous luck… Unfortunately in a chaotic youth. She hadn’t catalogued her chaotic and unorthodox nurous “small changes” to the family cultivation thods.
Her first children had lived long and full lives, dying of old age in their beds surrounded by their own grandchildren.
A family with long histories, most showing complications in health or mind only after 200 years.
It had been painful, but eventually she managed to accept it as natural.
Ti heals everything…
She seed to have too much of it. But it was sothing she understood and could accept.
But then her grandchildren had died, and her great-grandchildren, each generation adding new branches to the family tree until she had beco not just matriarch, but an almost mythical figure for the younger generations.
Already 300 years and her health and ntality seed perfect… Even her relatives with Silver rank turtles couldn’t co close.
Even with 300% extra Vitality at Silver 3, it didn’t seem to translate to much more than 250 years of life… their minds simply couldn’t bear the enormous “history of their lives”.
ntal fatigue, increased sleep, those gradually claid them in the end. The quiet death.
But after 500%, sothing strange seed to happen… A wall seed to fall.
Selphira had a Vitality enhancent of 860% upon completely finishing her cultivation.
For three centuries she had been too busy to adopt more ‘childrens for the future’.
The family had grown so much that it required her constant attention, diating disputes, guiding important decisions, ensuring the legacy remained intact.
There was no successor.
But gradually, as the large family took on more responsibilities, she had found herself with free ti she hadn’t had in dozens of decades.
And then had co the last abyssal wave, thirty years ago.
The sound of hurried footsteps in the corridor interrupted her reflections. She knew those steps… urgent, determined, with a touch of arrogance that made her sigh internally.
“Mother!” Leonel’s voice echoed through the hallway before he appeared in the doorway. “Where are you going?”
Selphira turned slowly, studying her adoptive son’s face. At 35 years old, Leonel had grown into an imposing man. His beasts were the sa turtle and serpent, having both simultaneously was rare even in the family, very difficult to obtain and cultivate… Yet they had evolved magnificently to Silver 2 and 3 ranks. The markings in his hair and arms spoke of genuine power.
One of the few in the family who had surpassed the 500% wall…
He was, objectively, an exceptional tar.
But the eyes… the eyes were still those of that four-year-old boy she had found crying among the rubble of his hotown, destroyed by the worst abyssal wave.
“Leonel,” she said softly, “I thought you were supervising the eastern sector defenses.”
“The internal defenses have been quiet for a long ti, they can wait,” he replied, entering the room completely. “I asked you where you’re going. And don’t tell it’s a routine inspection again… nobody puts on their best armor to check walls from afar.”
Selphira felt a familiar pang of guilt. It was that expression… demanding, needy, with a hint of hidden desperation, that had led her down this problematic path from the beginning.
She vividly rembered the day she had brought Leonel and Laura ho. Two traumatized children, clinging to her, lost in a world that had suddenly beco dangerous and unpredictable.
Both with that desperate fierceness that only children who have lost everything can show.
Laura had been the younger, barely three years old, with large eyes that seed to see too much for her age.
‘They were so similar to my first children,’ she thought, rembering how the first fruits and seeds of her family tree had co into her life centuries ago. ‘That sa mix of vulnerability and attachnt.’
It had been inevitable that she would give them her heart completely.
“Leonel,” she began, choosing her words carefully, “there are things I must do. Responsibilities that…”
“Responsibilities?” He interrupted her, and for a mont Selphira saw a flash of the temperant that had been growing in him for years. “And what about your responsibilities to ? To our family promise?”
‘Our family promise’… The words carried the weight of decades of misunderstandings and unfulfilled expectations.
The problem had begun shortly after she adopted the children. The main family… her great, great, great, etc… grandchildren from various generations, had viewed with suspicion how Selphira gave the newcors not just love, but legitimate position within the lineage.
It hadn’t been malice, simply the natural concern of preserving succession lines that had been involuntarily guarded in her shadow for centuries.
But Selphira had had too much maternal love to give, and Leonel and Laura reminded her so much of her first children that she couldn’t help treating them as legitimate heirs.
“The war has begun,” she said finally, deciding on partial truth. “There is a promise I made… A debt that must be paid.”
Leonel’s eyes lit up with a light that Selphira had learned to fear.
“Exactly! The war!” He moved closer, his lesser White Serpent manifesting partially in his features, sharpening his face. “This is the opportunity I’ve been waiting for. Take with you.”
“Leonel…”
“No!” His voice rose, and for a mont he was again the desperate child demanding she not abandon him. “Listen to for once. These old foxes in the family don’t listen to , don’t respect . They think that because I was adopted, because I don’t carry the ‘original blood’, I have no right to lead… That blood doesn’t matter… You promised that too!”
Selphira closed her eyes, feeling the weight of every wrong decision she had made during the last decades.
She had lost Laura just eight years ago. Her adoptive daughter… her beloved daughter. The girl who had grown into an intrepid explorer had died along with her husband on one of their adventure trips.
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