Free Web NovelThe room was littered with messy footprints. Mixed, chaotic traces still lingered in the air, and almost everything had been stripped clean.
But Kasha and the others didn’t care about the missing valuables.
What they cared about was the royal cocoon the queen had ordered them to protect.
Yet when Kasha and the others reached the place where the royal cocoon had been kept—forget the cocoon. Even the red crystals on the ground were gone, all of them.
Staring at the now-empty nest, a dark crimson swept across their eyes in an instant.
Violent, turbulent mental energy erupted from their bodies like a gale and a downpour. In the span of a breath, it swelled into a terrifying storm, ravaging everything around them to pieces.
As their fury climbed higher, Kasha and the others let out furious, savage hisses.
The sound carried far.
Anyone who heard it could feel the raging anger packed into it.
Kasha and the others didn’t care about being exposed anymore.
In that moment, they were beyond furious. Their minds were flooded with killing intent toward the thieves.
But after venting, Kasha forced herself to calm down quickly.
Studying the distribution of footprints on the floor, she realized the thieves had originally been after the valuables in the room.
They hadn’t come straight to the nest. It was only after they’d looted their way into this area that they discovered the hidden red crystals—and the royal cocoon wrapped among them.
Those thieves might not have recognized that the egg was a Saint Clan royal cocoon, but with that many red crystals piled here, anyone could tell at a glance it was worth a fortune.
So they packed up the red crystals—and the royal cocoon on top—together and carried them off.
That style of doing things made Kasha think of the infamous star pirates immediately.
Only star pirates that greedy for money would sweep through like a plague of locusts, stripping a place of everything that could be carried away.
The mixed traces lingering in the room also proved it.
Star pirates didn’t recruit based on race or background. Inside their ranks, all kinds of species were gathered together.
That explained why the traces in the room came from different races.
As for how those star pirates managed to slip past the Saint Clan’s defenses and get onto Esoris—and why they knew about this base in the first place...
Kasha and the others didn’t even have time to keep thinking. The moment they realized it was star pirates who had taken the royal cocoon, they chased after them in the direction they’d fled and immediately issued the order to lock down all of Esoris.
From doubling back outside the base, to discovering someone had been in the room, to confirming the royal cocoon was missing—Kasha and the others had reacted fast.
But the star pirates’ withdrawal wasn’t slow, either.
Almost the instant Kasha’s order went out, the pirates boarded their starship with the plunder.
Kasha and the others also quickly rallied the Saint Clan under them and launched warships in pursuit.
But because of that sliver of time—just that little delay—the star pirates had already broken out of Esoris.
Their starship had been modified. Every function served the propulsion system, built for one purpose: grab what you can, then run fast.
Clearly, this group of star pirates had come prepared.
They were precise. Their goal was to take everything in that room—and retreat at the highest speed possible.
“We kept chasing from behind and discovered their escape route was heading toward the First Star Sector.”
At first, because a personal guard had been killed and dumped outside the base, Kasha and the others assumed the star pirates had been hired by Brand’s faction—those royal-blood who opposed Tasiya.
Even though there were oddities—like the fact that if Brand and the others wanted to take the royal cocoon, they didn’t need to hire star pirates at all. Sending personal guards directly would have been faster—
in the blaze of their anger, Kasha and the others had no time to think. They only wanted to retrieve the stolen royal cocoon.
But the longer they chased, the clearer it became: the star pirates were heading for the First Star Sector.
Because the First Star Sector was rich in resources and had a favorable climate, many races lived there. Forces were tangled together in deep-rooted networks.
The Saint Clan warships were too large, their markings too obvious. The moment they entered the First Star Sector, they drew the attention of every faction.
Those factions didn’t know the Saint Clan were chasing star pirates. They thought the Saint Clan had come to attack them. In an instant, every race in the First Star Sector went on high alert.
Kasha knew they were already drawing far too much attention, but just as their warships were about to catch up to the star pirates, ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) several unidentified aircraft attacked their fleet.
“Those aircraft appeared out of nowhere. There were no markings on them. But by the time we shot them down, the star pirates were already gone.”
Those aircraft were clearly there to cover the pirates’ escape. That brief delay was enough for the star pirates to get far away.
Worse still, the conflict that broke out made the other races believe the Saint Clan had taken the initiative.
The discourse on StarNet erupted into chaos.
If Kasha and the others insisted on continuing the pursuit, what they’d face next might be a united expulsion.
And in that frantic chase, the number of soldiers they had brought wasn’t large. The reinforcements they requested from Tasiya never received any response.
With no other choice, Kasha and the others decided to return first—report what had happened on Esoris to Tasiya, and wait for the queen’s judgment.
......... frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
By the time Kasha and the others made it back, before they could even reach Dark Tower Star—
everything had already changed.
Thirteen royal-blood. Only Mansendis survived.
The others...
included Tasiya.
She had been killed by Mansendis beneath the throne.
It all happened too fast. No one knew how the chaos had begun.
Was it a coup launched by Brand and the others?
Or was it Tasiya striking first?
What happened inside the palace—no one knew.
Or rather, the Saint Clan who did know had already died in that chaos.
But one thing was certain: those royal-blood all died by Mansendis’s hand.
The upheaval not only shocked the entire Saint Clan—it left Kasha and the others unable to believe it.
It wasn’t until they saw Tasiya’s body with their own eyes that they were forced to accept it was real.
Tasiya was dead. Kalli took her own life. The rest of the personal guard died in the turmoil.
And because Kasha and the others were away, they weren’t inside the Saint Clan when the change happened—and they became the only survivors left from the personal guard.
They had wanted revenge for Tasiya.
But with their ability, they couldn’t kill a royal-blood.
Mansendis was the strongest among the royal-blood. Wanting revenge was nothing but wishful thinking.
And besides—Mansendis was the only royal-blood left alive at the time. The unstable Saint Clan couldn’t bear losing the only remaining royal-blood.
After considering it again and again, Kasha and the others could only give up on revenge. Yet even after giving it up, the fact that Mansendis had killed Tasiya still stuck like a thorn in their hearts. They refused, all along, to show submission to the new sovereign about to ascend the throne.
At the same time, they also understood clearly that once kingship changed hands, their status as old loyalists would become unbearably awkward.
They didn’t know whether Mansendis would settle accounts with them.
By the oath they had once sworn, they were willing to give their lives for Tasiya. Now that the queen was dead, their most “proper” outcome would have been to follow her in death—just like Kalli.
They did not fear death, and they would have died for Tasiya.
But they chose to live.
“We thought... one day you would forget us, and the Saint Clan would forget us. Then we’d still have a chance to go look for the little Highness.”
Kasha spoke slowly.
Having the royal cocoon stolen was their failure. They had not completed the queen’s commission.
But under the circumstances at the time, because of their identities, they could neither leave the Saint Clan to search for the little Highness, nor could they be sure whether Mansendis would deal with them afterward—the old loyalists who refused to submit.
With no other option, they could only choose dormancy in exchange for a chance to keep living.
As long as they were alive, they would have a chance to see the little Highness again.
Clinging to that hope, they entered a long sleep.
And when they woke again—
it was Mansendis and Mond who called them out of their pods.
Kasha stopped there and lifted her head to look at Mansendis.
The silver-haired sovereign sat across from them. Even though the chair beneath him was an ordinary one, it still gave the oppressive feeling of a throne.
His eyes were lowered. His bent knuckles tapped lightly against the tabletop.
The moment Kasha looked over, Mansendis’s tapping stopped.
Kasha had already explained almost everything—starting from when they received the mission, all the way through everything that happened afterward. They hadn’t concealed anything.
Or rather, they couldn’t.
If Mansendis had woken them, that meant he already held some clues.
There was no point hiding anything anymore.
Now it came down to Mansendis’s attitude toward all of it.
But after Kasha finished, Mansendis didn’t speak first. Instead, Mond asked, puzzled, “When you reported it back then, you only said Esoris had lost a batch of minerals. You never mentioned the existence of a royal cocoon.”
That was a key question.
Kasha and the others had hidden the royal cocoon.
Inside the Saint Clan, that was a grave crime.
Because royal-blood mattered above all else, the Saint Clan kept strict watch over every royal cocoon that might hatch royal-blood. They treated the royal pool as a forbidden ground ordinary Saint Clan were never permitted to enter.
Kasha and the others understood the consequences of hiding a royal cocoon.
And yet...
Kasha’s gaze fixed on Mansendis.
She asked, “If you’d known about this child back then... would you have killed him?”
It wasn’t that Kasha and the others were unwilling to believe Mansendis.
It was that before seeing Mansendis and Wen Yuzhi together with their own eyes, Kasha and the others couldn’t even imagine royal-blood could have something like blood-bond affection.
Not just them—probably no Saint Clan could imagine it.
They had seen too many examples.
Generations of Saint Clan kingship changes had already proven it: those royal-blood were a pack of cold, emotionless lunatics.
They only killed each other. In endless slaughter and competition, they carved out a single victor.
Even the queen they had served—between Tasiya and Brand there had been a blood-soaked hatred over a murdered father.
With so many examples, and with the fact that Mansendis had killed every other royal-blood except himself—he could even strike down a sister tied to him by blood—
from Kasha and the others’ perspective, they didn’t dare gamble. They didn’t dare gamble that if they told Mansendis about the royal cocoon, he wouldn’t also kill the unborn little Highness.
If the royal cocoon was lost outside, there might still be a sliver of life.
But if Mansendis found it... the little Highness probably wouldn’t survive.
That was why Kasha and the others had ultimately chosen to hide the royal cocoon.
Now, hearing Mond’s question, Kasha’s counter-question was the worry they had carried all along.
...Would Mansendis kill this child?
Their eyes locked onto the silver-haired sovereign before them.
In that moment, whether it was Kasha or Mond, no one spoke again. The room fell abruptly silent.
In that nearly frozen atmosphere, Mansendis said without hesitation, “I will kill him.”
Mansendis didn’t give a vague, ambiguous answer. He didn’t try to drape his choice in any lofty excuse or righteous justification.
From beginning to end, he was calm.
The silver-haired sovereign gave his answer decisively and firmly.
—He would kill that child.
“...Why?”
Kasha murmured.
Like she couldn’t understand Tasiya’s pain, and couldn’t understand why the royal-blood always slaughtered each other.
And yet, deep inside her, there was a voice telling her she might understand.
...It was because of pain, too.
Long, endless pain had already driven this race mad.
Even ordinary Saint Clan were like this—let alone royal-blood, whose mental energy was even more chaotic.
A curse-like fate hung over every Saint Clan head.
They couldn’t shake it, and they couldn’t escape it.
Their only ending seemed to be this: before they completely lost control and became a maddened beast, they would be killed by their own kind.
That inability to rewrite a fixed fate had long ago made the Saint Clan tired and numb, and it had made the royal-blood even colder toward one another.
Mansendis had seen that clearly long ago. That was why he’d grown tired of everything in this world.
In his eyes, the Saint Clan were like an apple slowly rotting.
It still looked bright on the outside, but from top to bottom, from inside to out, every inch of it was already rotten through.
And the Salilaino—those said to be favored by the gods, to carry the Golden Bloodline—had long since chosen corruption on their own, in power and desire.
They sank into indulgence and luxury, taking pleasure without restraint, just to briefly forget the pain in their bodies in the midst of revelry.
But the price of their indulgence was paid by the Saint Clan beneath them.
In them, Mansendis saw not the slightest trace of Salilaino pride.
All he saw was the pathetic way those royal-blood tried to flee fate.
Their ugliness made him feel genuine disgust.
That was why, when he killed the first Salilaino, Mansendis didn’t feel any guilt.
He didn’t even feel sadness.
Even when they cried at him, begged him, or cursed him hysterically, Mansendis wasn’t moved in the slightest.
He only looked at them in silence.
And then—
meeting their eyes, he personally sent them back into the Mother Goddess’s embrace.
