Free Web NovelChapter 161: An Echo of Hope at 99 Years Old
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His words amazed the three spirits, but it was the aura he exuded as he spoke and his extraordinary command of spiritual energy—which allowed him to convey different emotions to each of them—that convinced this trio of spirits that the Lux standing before them was a man of worth.
It wasn’t just because of his power or the peculiar beasts he had summoned. It was because of that aura of a ruler that surrounded him. That energy that made those who weren’t like him tremble.
"Our lives began over 1,100 years ago. When we died, we were over 150 years old. However, the meaning of our lives came on our 100th birthday. The birth of our son and the beginning of the final Chapter of our lives." Kikom smiled and gestured to Anem to join him in this story.
An intense story that lasted 50 years and ended tragically.
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The breeze in the Red Dragon Valley used to be heavy, laden with ash, sulfur, and the latent heat of the scaly beasts that ruled the skies.
However, in the shelter the three companions had built on the border of the Dragon Republic, the air suddenly felt strangely suspended. As if time itself had stopped to gaze upon them.
It had been nearly a century since Kikom, Anem, and Czen had been walking the world together. At ninety-nine years old, any ordinary human would have been little more than a pile of fragile bones and faded memories, patiently awaiting death’s embrace.
But they were no ordinary humans; they were Beast Masters. Their blood carried not only life, but the vital energy of the primordial creatures with whom they had formed a bond forged over decades of connection.
Their bodies, though marked by the scars of countless battles and the wear and tear of the years, still possessed the resilience of an oak and the temper of steel.
For Kikom, that afternoon was a memorable and cherished memory.
He was cleaning the leather harnesses of his mounts when he sensed a shift in the atmosphere.
The flow of spiritual energy, usually harmonious and predictable in his home, took a sudden turn.
In the center of the stone courtyard, Anem had suddenly knelt down. At his side, a tundra cat—one of the beasts he had tamed over the course of his life—rubbed its enormous furry head against his lap, letting out a restless purr. It was clearly nervous.
Anem had one hand resting on her belly, her face unusually pale and her eyes fixed on nothing.
Kikom dropped the straps. The sound of the body hitting the ground echoed like a silent thunderclap in the courtyard. It wasn’t a good idea to let these specialized tools fall to the ground, but he didn’t care. He ran toward her.
"Anem?" he asked, frightened.
Just then, a figure emerged from the darkness of the ritual workshop. It was Czen. Back then, he wasn’t the wandering specter history would remember; he was a man with a deep gaze. He was obsessed with the invisible frequencies of the soul and with blood. He had delved so deeply into ritual magic that he managed to create spells capable of retaining the soul and slowing the blood.
His mere presence exuded a mystical calm. As he stepped out, he made no sound, but his fingers moved swiftly through the air, tracing invisible threads of energy that surrounded Anem.
"Wait, Kikom. Don’t move her suddenly," Czen shouted, his voice low but strong. It sounded like the roar of a rushing river beneath the ground. "Anem is..." He couldn’t finish his own words.
At that moment, Anem looked up, and in her black eyes—usually firm and severe, like those of a predator—Kikom saw a vulnerability he had never witnessed in nearly a hundred years.
"It’s not an illness or anything bad..." she whispered. Her voice trembled slightly, and she looked down at her belly. "I feel it here. It’s something very small growing there. It seems so voracious that my own summoned beasts are responding to it."
Kikom stepped closer to her and took her hands. They were cold, but the torrent of energy coursing beneath her skin was colossal. As beastmasters, conception at such an advanced age was practically unheard of—a biological miracle that defied the laws of the world.
A pregnancy at such a late stage would have ravaged an ordinary woman’s body, draining her life force until she was completely spent. But Anem, in her own right, was already a force of nature.
Though the years had taken their toll, her ability as a Beast Master allowed her to withstand this miracle.
Kikom trembled...
Czen approached slowly and stood behind them. He extended his hands and once again moved them in concentric circles over Anem’s head, beginning a subtle diagnostic ritual deeper than the previous one.
Lines of spiritual energy began to dance around her belly.
"It’s real," said Czen. For the first time in years, a genuine, astonished smile crossed his face. "It’s a tiny spark. A new soul is claiming its place. How..."
How did Kikom and she manage it, at such an advanced age?
They did not attain their full powers at a young age, so they suffered all the afflictions that befall a mortal body. Although they have now transcended, becoming Saints of the Beasts, those afflictions should still haunt them.
But what was growing within Anem’s womb was made of Kikom’s and Anem’s flesh and blood, so there was no flaw.
The deathly silence throughout the valley, where fire dragons once roamed, only revealed the magnitude of this momentous miracle.
Kikom embraced Anem with a mixture of joy and a reverential terror she had never felt toward any creature before. At ninety-nine years old, when they believed their story was already written and all that remained was to grow old caring for their herds, fate threw them the greatest of challenges.
"A child..." Kikom murmured over and over, resting his forehead against Anem’s. "At the end of our lives... a new life."
The happiness radiating from his body was indescribable. Even distant dragons they knew flew closer.
Anem clung to her husband’s shoulders, taking a deep breath, feeling her body adapt instantly, reconfiguring her spiritual energy channels to protect the fragile yet intense light growing within her womb. This was the body of a Beast Saint; it did not function like a normal human body.
Czen watched this scene intently with a loving, peculiar smile. In the past, he too had dreamed of having a family, but he had been disappointed so many times that he once told himself he didn’t need a wife.
He only needed his two most cherished friends. Those two were his family. His brothers. He would give his life for them.
At that moment, beneath the sky of the Dragon Republic—one of the most powerful nations of our time—the three of them knew that their lives no longer belonged to them, nor to their beasts, but to the child who was about to be born. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
They knew nothing yet of prophecies, nor of the burden the world would place on their shoulders in just a few months. But the three of them vowed in their hearts to protect that little creature.
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The months passed quickly. Amid the intense joy and nervousness, there were days that went by so fast no one noticed, and others that dragged on so slowly they seemed like an eternity.
Fortunately, there were more days filled with joy.
On the day their lives reached exactly a century, the Dragon Republic was engulfed by an extraordinary storm.
From dawn, the sky turned a sickly purple, and the clouds poured down upon the earth in a colossal deluge. The water fell with such violence that it washed away the mountain peaks and threatened to flood the nests of the most sacred beasts.
Even the great fire dragons of the Red Dragon Valley were forced to listen to the sound of water pounding against the rocks, witnessing the fury of an element.
Not even they could do anything against it.
For on that day, perhaps it was the world or a god who was angry.
Inside the refuge built over the years by Kikom, Anem, and Czen, they were engaged in a battle of a different kind.
Anem, that unyielding Beast Master, had been in labor for hours, enduring a painful and agonizing birth. Kikom held her hands, feeling his wife’s spiritual energy fluctuate violently, threatening everything in its path.
Czen, standing in the center of the room with her back to them, struggled to keep the magical containment rituals active; her hands were bleeding from the effort of channeling and stabilizing the torrent of energy that Anem’s body was releasing.
If it weren’t for the fact that she was a Saint of the Beasts, she would have died long ago.
Assisting with the delivery was a dragon woman. An experienced physician who had spent years helping with the most difficult births in the kingdom. Her long tail and draconic teeth were what set her apart from a human, for she did not look like a dragon, as she was in her human form.
She gazed intently at her patient. "He’s coming, little one. He’s roaring inside you. With the three of us here, nothing will happen to you. Trust me," she said. Her deep eyes focused as she channeled her energy into Anem’s body to help her deliver the child.
Suddenly, one final scream that silenced the roar outside brought a painful delivery to an end. Without Anem noticing, a sharp, clear cry, full of astonishing vitality, broke the tension in the room.
That day, little Arles was born.
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