Free Web NovelMansendis had no intention of staying on Esoris much longer.
The conditions here were not as good as on Dark Tower Star. No matter how large the base was, after spending this much time here, Wen Yuzhi had already explored nearly all of it.
Toward the end, he was almost always staying at Mansendis’s side all day.
While the silver-haired sovereign handled official business, he sat nearby with books in his arms, studying.
After learning that the little prince was interested in mental power treatment, Mu Luo had been extremely excited and brought Wen Yuzhi quite a few books.
These were all introductory books the Hill people used for the young children in their own race.
The Hill people loved medicine. Nearly their entire race was made up of doctors, and their medical education also began from childhood. Even their children’s primer books were filled with little bits of medical knowledge.
The content was not too dry, making it perfect for a beginner like Wen Yuzhi just starting to learn.
Wen Yuzhi liked this gift very much.
The fluffy cub had even taken the initiative to scoot over beside Mu Luo and gently brush the other with his tail.
It was just a pity that before Mu Luo could even recover from the sudden surprise, Wen Yuzhi had already flapped his wings and returned to Mansendis’s arms.
“Dad...”
The cub’s ears stood high.
Seeing that, Mansendis could not help reaching out to rub them, stroking them while also smoothing the fur of the cub in his arms.
“We’re going back.”
This “going back” naturally meant returning to Dark Tower Star.
They had originally come here to investigate the secrets Tasiya had hidden on Esoris. Now that Kasha and the others had already explained everything clearly, there was no need to stay any longer.
The biggest reason, really, was that there was not much scenery to see on Esoris. Over and over again, all there was here was desert and yellow sand, with gray skies hanging overhead year-round.
After staying here a long time, even though Wen Yuzhi had not shown it outright, it was still obvious from how he went out less and less and instead spent all day at Mansendis’s side that the cub was getting a little bored here.
At the palace on Dark Tower Star, Wen Yuzhi could play in the courtyard, go to the garden or the lakeside, gather berries in winter, and plant trees with everyone in spring.
By contrast, on Esoris he could only stay inside the base. The weather outside was too harsh. Neither Mansendis nor Mond would agree to let Wen Yuzhi go out.
That left the cub’s range of activity limited to the base, where all he could see was cold white metal everywhere.
After noticing that, Mansendis immediately moved the return to Dark Tower Star up on the schedule.
Mond had already gone to make preparations after receiving the order.
Besides packing their luggage, they also had to bring the ores the little prince liked.
And when he heard they were going back, Wen Yuzhi’s eyes instantly lit up a little.
It was not that he disliked Esoris, but compared to Dark Tower Star, Esoris lacked a sense of home.
In Wen Yuzhi’s heart, the palace on Dark Tower Star was his home.
And now, they were finally going home.
Just like when they came, Wen Yuzhi lay on Mansendis’s shoulder while Saint Clan soldiers stood solemnly at both sides. Under the gaze of the many Saint Clan on Esoris, they boarded the gangway.
The enormous warship, like a black dragon, slowly powered up.
They grew farther and farther from the ground, until in the end everything had become a planet wrapped in rock.
Then little by little, even that planet disappeared from sight.
Even though he had already seen this kind of scene several times, Wen Yuzhi still found it fascinating every time.
The sight of leaving one planet behind and flying into the vast, boundless universe would always draw him in, no matter how many times he saw it.
As he watched, Wen Yuzhi suddenly felt his body lift into the air.
When he turned his head, he saw it was Mansendis.
The silver-haired sovereign picked the cub up from beside the viewing window and carried him to the table, where a bottle of milk and a serving of mashed berry puree had already been set out.
Perhaps because his nutrition had caught up, those tiny baby teeth of the cub’s had grown in a little more over the past few days.
After checking, Mu Luo decided it was fine to add some easily digestible supplementary food into the cub’s diet.
So the thorn berries Wen Yuzhi had most often eaten before had now been mashed into berry puree and had become a regular item on the cub’s table.
With one more kind of food added, the cub gulped down a mouthful of milk, then bit into a mouthful of berry mash. His fluffy ears gave a slight twitch, and his tail swayed slowly back and forth along with it.
Once he had eaten his fill, Wen Yuzhi lay on Dad’s knee and reached out with a little paw to tap Mansendis’s hand.
The meaning was that he wanted Dad to pet him.
This was another habit Wen Yuzhi had developed after turning into beast form.
He wanted Dad to pet his fur.
Back when he had been in that tiny doll-like form, the cub had already liked it when Mansendis stroked his head. For some reason, Wen Yuzhi felt that Dad’s palm was very warm, and it always felt especially good when he was touched that way.
Mu Luo had explained it like this too: “Some appropriate physical contact with a cub is very necessary. The period just after a cub is born is the easiest time for them to feel uneasy and afraid. A parent’s touch often makes a child feel safer.” ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
Put simply, touch was how a young cub first felt the world.
A cub’s earliest developed sense was touch, and gentle petting made them feel as if they were wrapped in love and security.
That was why Mu Luo had suggested that Mansendis spend more time in contact with His Highness in daily life. Touching his ears, tail, little wings, and brushing his fur were all ways to strengthen the bond between parent and child.
Mansendis did not need Mu Luo to tell him that, though. Looking at the cub lying in his arms with wide round eyes, silently asking for Dad to pet him...
there was no way he could refuse.
Besides, if one went by Mansendis’s truest thoughts, he wanted nothing more than to keep the cub by his side.
Dad’s palm was warm...
Wen Yuzhi narrowed his round eyes. He was being petted so comfortably all over that his paws stretched out, and the cub spread out in Dad’s arms into a fluffy little pancake.
Sleepiness gradually crept over him, and Wen Yuzhi no longer needed to worry and stay on edge the way he used to. He simply fell asleep right there in Mansendis’s arms.
By the time he woke again, they had already returned to Dark Tower Star.
Wen Yuzhi was still a little dazed after waking. Mansendis was carrying him down from the warship wrapped up in a blanket.
When the Saint Clan soldiers in the port saw the thing Mansendis was holding in his arms as he came down, they were a little startled.
Then in the very next moment, from that “big white cocoon” wrapped in blankets, a pair of soft little ears suddenly popped up—along with a pair of very childish, adorable little horns.
The fluffy ear tips stood up high, pink on the inside. The moment they touched the air, those furry little tips twitched sensitively.
They moved...
Wait!
Those Saint Clan soldiers all seemed to realize something at once.
They quickly looked toward the “big white cocoon” and could vaguely make out the sleepy cub inside, draped over Mansendis’s shoulder, still looking terribly drowsy.
As the silver-haired sovereign walked, the cub yawned from time to time, his round pale-gold eyes still damp with sleep, hazy and misted over.
“Dad...”
Wen Yuzhi’s brain had not caught up yet, but he had already instinctively recognized the Saint Clan holding him.
Mansendis carefully pulled the blanket up a little higher, doing his best not to let the wind outside blow in.
Only after he had adjusted it properly did he respond with a low sound.
“Gu... are we home?”
Perhaps because he had just woken up, the cub’s words were still a little blurry.
Through the little blanket, Mansendis patted the cub’s back.
“We’re home.”
The Mansendis of the past had never thought the palace had anything to do with the idea of home. Probably no Salilaino would ever have thought of the palace as home.
It was more like a symbol of power, the product of desperate slaughter and struggle.
Countless Salilaino had died there. Countless transfers of power had taken place there. New sovereigns killed old ones, the strong killed the weak, over and over again without end.
And all of it had ultimately come to an end in Mansendis’s hands.
Although Mansendis also lived in the palace, to him it had only ever been a residence, nothing more. He chose to live there simply because it was convenient. Before meeting the cub, he had never had any concept of “home.”
Even the rock cave in the royal pool had never seemed like home to him.
Not until Wen Yuzhi came to his side...
The cub had said the palace was their home.
Mansendis had not denied it.
And perhaps it was from that moment on that this palace finally began to feel like home to Mansendis too.
He and the cub left together, and they came home together.
The palace had not changed much from when they left, though the saplings Wen Yuzhi had planted together with everyone had grown a little taller.
Knowing that the little prince treasured those trees very much, the palace attendants had been especially attentive, coming almost every day to check on the saplings. Watering and fertilizing them had not been missed even once.
With such careful cultivation, the little trees had grown beautifully, their leaves lush and green. Before long, they would surely stand tall and magnificent like the other trees nearby.
Only after seeing his little saplings with his own eyes did Wen Yuzhi return to Mansendis’s side, fully satisfied.
They walked into the palace. Mond had just been about to order the attendants to sort out the luggage they had brought back when he saw that Kasha and the other female Saint Clan had already arranged everything in perfect order.
Merita, as head maid, was following behind them, nodding repeatedly while taking notes with the air of an extremely diligent student.
Once they got close enough, they could even hear the conversation.
“You’re the head maid at His Highness’s side?”
“Yes...”
“What did you do before this?”
“I previously served in the First Combat Team under Lord Selet.”
“...Mond is becoming more and more outrageous!”
Kasha had not expected Mond to directly appoint a complete novice as head maid. This position was extremely important—especially now that there was also the little prince of royal blood in the palace who needed care.
Back in the old days, there had been hundreds of maids in the palace.
And the head maid had been one of the most important attendants serving at the side of the royal-blood princes and princesses. They had to be selected again and again and pass all kinds of strict tests before they could finally take up a post in the palace.
For Mond to make Merita the head maid was obviously a decision made in an emergency.
Although Merita had already gone through some urgent training, it was still obvious how inexperienced she was in handling affairs.
Kasha frowned slightly, silently condemning Mond’s unreliability in her heart, but when she spoke to Merita, her tone softened a great deal.
“My younger sister used to be a head maid. If there’s anything you don’t understand, you can ask me.”
At that, Merita’s eyes lit up at once.
But before she could speak, Kasha had already pointed out her problem.
“Keep your waist straight, lift your head, your hands should stay in front of you at all times. What is that expression on your face? Maintain a smile... That’s called smiling, not your face cramping!”
Apparently, Merita’s stiff expression had not only been giving Mond headaches—even Kasha felt a little helpless about it.
And while Merita was beginning to relearn the duties of a maid, Mansendis had already brought Wen Yuzhi back to their room.
“Do you want to sleep a little more?”
Mansendis set the cub down on the bed.
Wen Yuzhi nodded, but then he shook his head again.
After the whole trip back, he was not that sleepy anymore, but once he touched the soft bed, he felt a little lazy again and did not want to get up.
Still, Wen Yuzhi forced himself to stay alert. Tilting his head, he asked Mansendis, “Dad, can you tell me about the previous royal blood?”
Kasha and the others had been Tasiya’s personal guard.
Tasiya was Mansendis’s sister.
And before this, the Saint Clan had supposedly had many more royal-blooded members, who had fought in many extremely violent and bloody struggles.
Even the fact that Kasha and the others had been lured out of the base back then was very likely related to other royal-blooded Saint Clan.
Wen Yuzhi could not sleep right now, and he was a little curious about these things, so he wanted Dad to tell him about them.
But...
he carefully glanced at Mansendis’s expression.
“If Dad doesn’t want to talk about it, that’s okay too...”
Before Wen Yuzhi could finish, Mansendis had already reached out and rubbed the cub’s ears.
“There’s nothing that can’t be said.” freewebnovёl.ƈom
The reason Mansendis had not spoken of the past before was simply because there had never really been anything worth saying.
At the heart of it all, it always came back to one thing:
royal power.
“Before I took the throne, the Saint Clan had thirteen royal-blooded members altogether,” Mansendis said slowly.
That number was not especially large in the whole history of the Saint Clan, but it was certainly far more flourishing than the present, when there were only Mansendis and Wen Yuzhi.
In fact, going back a little farther, there had once been a period when more than twenty royal-blooded members held power together.
That had been during the rule of Brand’s father, the Saint Clan’s sovereign before the previous one—the man known as Titan, Bartoni.
Long ago, the Saint Clan had already begun showing signs of approaching collapse because of mental power disorder.
By the time of Bartoni’s rule, the situation had already become extremely serious. But Bartoni had nothing except a massive body and brute force. He was violent and overbearing, witless, nothing but a brute.
He had no idea at all how to govern the Saint Clan.
The other royal-blooded members watched coldly from the sidelines. They did not care whether the Saint Clan could continue to survive, nor did they care about the Saint Clan below them, who had already begun to despair.
As long as the Salilaino still maintained enough suppressive force over those below, their positions would remain secure forever.
And under their indulgent attitude, Bartoni became more and more arrogant and conceited. He even wanted to leave behind an heir who could inherit his throne.
According to Salilaino tradition, only the strongest among them could become king.
But Bartoni believed that with his own strength, a child who inherited his bloodline would surely also be the strongest.
What no one expected was that the Mother Goddess would suddenly bestow blood, and the Saint Clan would be born with three royal-blooded children at once.
Tasiya.
Mansendis.
Brand.
The three of them had been born together, but their relationships with one another were very delicate.
Brand was Bartoni’s child. His talent was not bad. Without Tasiya and Mansendis, he might truly have been able to inherit his father’s throne, just as Bartoni had originally hoped.
Unfortunately, there was no “if.”
Compared with either Tasiya or Mansendis, Brand fell far short in both temperament and talent.
And yet he was fiercely competitive by nature. From childhood all the way into adulthood, his struggle with Tasiya never stopped. At first they fought over toys. Later, what they fought over was the position of crown prince.
From that point onward, they were already mortal enemies.
Brand was strong-willed, but Tasiya was even more forceful than he was.
They were like two powerful wolves in a pack, both equally dominant—neither willing to submit, both wanting the place of wolf king.
Of course Bartoni wanted his own son to become crown prince. When Tasiya learned of it, she simply refused to hold back any longer. Gathering the guard corps under her command, she stormed directly into the palace and launched a coup.
There were over twenty royal-blooded members then. That night alone, she killed more than ten of them, including Bartoni.
She was crowned queen standing in a lake of blood, while Kasha and the others planted their swords around her and knelt, kissing the hem of her robe and shouting Tasiya’s name.
Brand had arrived one step too late.
He too had been secretly preparing a coup, but Tasiya had acted first.
By the time he reached the palace, Tasiya was already seated on the throne as the Saint Clan’s new sovereign.
With the hatred of a slain father and the hatred of a stolen throne between them, Brand and Tasiya had completely torn away any last pretense.
Tasiya had royal authority. Brand had the support of the other royal-blooded members. For a time, neither could do anything to the other.
Mansendis had no interest in any of it.
From beginning to end, he had never involved himself. Even when Tasiya launched the coup, he had only learned about it afterward.
At the time, the newly crowned queen had been radiant with spirit. She came before her younger brother and invited him to share rule over royal power with her.
Mansendis had refused.
Tasiya had not been surprised by that outcome.
In fact, that visit had also been meant to test Mansendis. If he had shown even the slightest intention of contending with her for power, then the next person she might have killed would have been this younger brother who shared her bloodline.
That was simply Tasiya’s nature.
She was forceful, authoritarian, domineering. She allowed no one to take even a fraction of her power.
After taking the throne, she intended to reclaim the authority that belonged to the other royal-blooded members and turn a system of shared rule into one where she alone held absolute power.
That action caused those royal-blooded members who had merely been observing everything from the sidelines to throw themselves over to Brand’s side one after another, planting the seeds for the later rebellion.
But even without that action, those things would have happened sooner or later.
Those royal-blooded members were always the same. Their pursuit of power had continued generation after generation.
The same things played out again and again. Every transfer of royal authority was accompanied by endless slaughter and bloodshed.
Even Mansendis had stepped onto the throne over blood.
At that ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) point, Mansendis looked at Wen Yuzhi in front of him.
Under the cub’s half-knowing, half-uncomprehending gaze, the silver-haired sovereign said in a flat voice:
“If Zhizhi wants the throne, you can kill me too.”
