2037 A Single Line
This matter seemed to be a simple matter. The ability to guarantee a powerful offspring so long as one was a True Blooded Demon didn't seem to be a big deal. After all, there were powerful children born to powerful parents all the time. Wasn't that the purpose of Lineage Factors to begin with? Wasn't that why certain Races seemed to be stronger than others? Wasn't that how things worked anyway?
But no, this wasn't true.
Of the current Seven Morales Heirs, only two had fathers who had participated in previous years: Leonel and Adawarth.
Even when one lost the Heir Wars, one would still be extremely powerful. Many of the current Ancestors of the Morales family were former losers of the Heir Wars. Such individuals were still people with two Lineages, still people with a great amount of talent, they would still be greatly nurtured, they would still be greatly beloved…
These were men who would often have many wives, and many more children than that. And yet, there were only two who had such previous lineages.
In fact, this matter was such an anomaly that the fact Leonel's line had produced three in a row of exceptional talent was almost unheard of, not to mention the fact that Leonel's father's generation actually had two, his father and his uncle, both from the same father, his grandfather.
This was why the Human Race was so far behind others. It wasn't just that they had too many paths to follow and pick from and didn't have a single set leader, it was also that because they weren't all following the same path, the odds of producing exceptional talents in a certain path were also lower.
Other races, not only had trillions upon trillions upon trillions to bolster their population, but because they followed pretty much a single set path, there was a larger pool of talents to gather from as a result.
In the Human Domain, a child who had great affinity with the Morales way of practicing might be born in a small Sixth Dimensional family who practiced Lightning Force, and because they had no talent in Lightning Force, they would have to forge their own path outside of the set plans of their family.
This was a problem one would see again and again.
In the Demon Race, though, once a True Blooded Demon was born, the path and talent of the future child could be hand-selected. This made True Blooded Demons, or Chaos Demons, the nobles of their race regardless of their personal strength.
This was the main difference.
Although the Demon Race followed countless paths, just like humans, because they could hand-select and practically create the talents they wanted, the effect it had on them weakened significantly. In fact, they got the best of both worlds, both a great deal of versatility and a great deal of talent.
The weight of this matter was something that Orinik was all too familiar with, that was why he felt that he had been played. From the very beginning, he was caught in an internal struggle of the Demon Race and he hadn't even known.
Of course, this conclusion was entirely false because Leonel's Demons had nothing to do with the Demons of Xavnik and potentially the hidden underbelly of the Morales family. The two were entirely unrelated.
But how could Orinik know that these Demons had come from a Mythological Zone and not the Demon Domain?
Mordred, who had been asked to interrogate Orinik and the others by Leonel, fell into contemplation. She was quite an intelligent woman, the moment she had seen Orinik's reaction, she knew that something was wrong.
Things weren't adding up. After all, Orinik had the poison sack of a demon transplanted into his body, could he really be this scared just by seeing one in person? And then there was this True Blooded Demon name, she had never heard of it.
There was clearly something much more astonishing going on here than she had originally assumed.
"Why don't you tell me what you know and we can make your life a little comfortable?"
Mordred bent down, balancing her thighs on the heels of her feet. Smelling her orchid-like breath at such a close distance, Orinik felt his heart stampeding in his chest. He had never been so sensitive in the past, and he had seen a lot of beautiful women, but right now his mind was in a mess and his body was in survival mode, control was the last thing he had.
To her surprise, Orinik actually spilled everything.
Orinik, though, didn't think he had much of a choice. That was because, in his mind, if Demons were here, and Xavnik was also with the Demons, they must be wrestling for control over the Morales family. Now that he had been captured, Xavnik would never trust him again, while these Demons probably knew enough about these matters that his small bit of information wouldn't move the needle much. After all, they were basically on the same side anyway.
There was a large difference between the clashing interests of internal struggle and the outside pressure of two enemies with vastly different family cultures clashing.
As Mordred listened, she only became more and more serious. By the end of it, her body was tense and her lips were pressed into a thin line.
The worst part of all of this wasn't the facts of what Orinik had said, but rather that what he knew was likely nothing more than the tip of the iceberg, and yet it could still make her feel so apprehensive.
Mordred stood to her feet. "Look after them."
She said this only out of habit. Considering they were within her Shadow World now, these three simply had nowhere to go unless their comprehension of either Dark Force or Spatial Force was deep enough, and clearly, it wasn't.
After a while, she passed on the information she had gained to Leonel.
…
Leonel had been focused on gaining control over a third sea as quickly as possible. The fact that Orinik and the others had been so close made his sense of urgency even greater than it had been in the past.
It was actually good news that Orinik was tied to Xavnik because that more than likely meant that Xavnik's greatest investment into the ocean was co-opted by Leonel, but that was enough for Leonel to relax in the slightest. In fact, it was very much possible that Orinik wasn't his greatest investment at all; it was hard to tell just how deep Xavnik's schemes ran, and while Leonel only had a few months to prepare, Xavnik had had over two decades, the gap was tremendous.
However, when Leonel got word back from Mordred, everything came to a stop.
He stood in the middle of the ocean in silence, his mind running a million miles a minute. Mordred's information confirmed all of his speculation, but it had also added something he hadn't known about in the first place, and that was a secret of the Morales family's holyland.
Orinik didn't know anything about the specifics, all he knew was that the root of the Morales family's Metal Synergy Lineage Factor was likely hidden within. Only Morales Ancestors were allowed to enter this deep as it held the key to unlocking the final door of their Lineage Factor.
The problem was that most didn't succeed and all of the current Morales Ancestors except for one still only had Seventh Dimensional Metal Synergy Lineage Factors. That one person was Ancestor Hito, and he was one of the very few to have succeeded.
The target of Xavnik and the others was entry into this place, and that required a change in the rules of the Morales. Until now, only Ancestors had been able to appear, but because of a change that seemed to create a door beyond the Eighth Dimensional Door, opening the gates to the Ninth Dimension, there was no better chance than now to loosen the rules of the Morales.
When Leonel had learned of this, he realized that Xavnik had likely gotten this opportunity because of him. Who else could have been responsible for the creation of the final door if not him?
However, he didn't blame himself too much. The fact that Xavnik and his faction had been planning this for so long meant that whether or not he had caused this, they would have acted without a doubt.
But the question was what was the goal? Were they trying to steal it? But if stealing was their goal, why loosen the rules in the first place? Did they think it would be easier if the Morales were more lax with their regulations?
Suddenly, Leonel froze.
He thought back to the connection between the Silver Empire's Lineage Factor and the Morales family's, and then further about the Silver Empire's connection with the Three Finger Cult. Could it be that this secret of the Morales was similar to the chalice, the fire, and the wooden ball?
At that moment, a violent spark of lightning surged through Leonel's Dreamscape. It connected so many thoughts and ideas that the lightning appeared even in his irises; it was as though his entire Dream World had been enveloped by a violent storm.
He began to connect memories that he hadn't thought about in more than half a decade, bits and pieces of information he hadn't even deemed important, things that he had only casually thrown into his Dreamscape just for completion's sake, never thinking that they'd actually become useful one day.
And then, he made a single line of connection.
Joan of Arc. Merlin. Ability Index Force Arts. Monkey's death. Transplanted Demon Organs. The Silver Empire. The Three Finger Cult. The Morales. Earth.
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