Free Web NovelChapter 29: That girl looks just like you... Is she your daughter
On the other side... beside the shore vibrating with the sound of warm waves... inside the Auster Palace, the night had fully spread its black shroud across the sky, and the little Amelia was still training and continuing her struggle with the sword under the direct supervision of her father, Cain.
After finishing her energy cultivation and star mana pathway training... which in the end, despite all her arduous attempts and pride, hadn’t reached the stage of "The Gasp" yet...
she still felt immense relief. For if she continued with this upward momentum under a terrifying and perfect instructor like her father, progress was inevitable, even if it was slight and slow compared to her old fantasies as a former Empress who thought she would reclaim her Royal Level power and surpass her previous ceiling in record time.
But, as her father had told her, this was the safest and best way to train without causing harm to her veins or having the energy backfire upon her.
As for now, here she was training with this tiny body on sword techniques, focusing entirely on the basics. In her past life, she had been extremely arrogant and despised all types of weaponry and swordsmanship, believing that star magic alone was enough to crush existence. However, she realized after her sudden death that had she possessed a deep knowledge of weapons and close combat, her offensive and defensive capabilities would have risen, and she wouldn’t have fallen so easily.
As a reborn former Empress with her full memories intact, this mental background was highly useful for executing movements rapidly despite the weakness of her current body.
Slash!
Slash!
Slash!
The straw training dummies scattered across the corners of the hall, completely split into two equal halves, with their upper sections landing softly on the ground.
Amelia wiped the beads of sweat pouring from her tiny face, breathing heavily. This body was childish, small, still in its growth phase, and severely lacked long-term endurance. She wished from the depths of her heart that she could become this man’s disciple with her full-grown body and her previous muscle mass.
While she stood in her place, panting from sheer exhaustion and fatigue... she caught a glimpse of a crimson red apple being tossed lightly in her direction. With lightning speed, her trained senses detected the projectile’s movement, causing her to raise her sword and swing it, cleanly and beautifully cleaving the apple into two halves in mid-air, which landed precisely between her tiny hands.
She bit into the apple immediately, feeling rejuvenation surge through her cells. This precious magical apple from Cain’s storage miraculously restored her depleted mental energy, healed her body, and banished her fatigue and boredom in an astonishing way. Without it, she would have completely collapsed and lost consciousness after the first five minutes of ordinary sword swinging.
Cain patted her head gently and smiled an encouraging smile, saying,
"Splendid work, Amelia... you are improving noticeably and extremely fast. We are done with today’s training."
Amelia went silent for a moment, looking at her father who had thrown the apple to her just moments ago and was now placing his warm hand on her head, caressing her strands of hair. She felt a strange warmth invade her chest, and her cheeks flushed slightly with shyness.
She turned her face away from him, trying to manage her childish emotions, though in reality, she was thoroughly enjoying his kindness and tenderness. But after she directed her gaze back at him, contemplating his tall stature and overwhelming majesty... confusion seized her, and she wondered within herself once more: ’Will I ever be able to reach even half of his strength?’
Could her fragile, weak sword strike—with which she could barely slice dry straw dummies right now—ever become like his strikes? A single swing from him, without a complex tactic or even a fully locked grip, just a casual, passing swing, was capable of cleaving towering mountains and splitting roaring rivers through the sheer force of its terrifying power! Honestly, she desperately yearned for a satisfying answer to this sort of question that occupied her mind as a novice swordsman.
So she looked at him and said with hesitation,
"Lord Duke... what... what is the true realm I must reach so that a casual swing from me, without using any high-tier techniques or complex mana, becomes capable of subjugating everyone and crushing them?"
Cain caressed her hair gently, then smiled at her with pure fatherly love. Seamlessly and suddenly, Cain summoned a completely ordinary sword from the System storage... and with a swift, utterly casual swing, without even bothering to look in that direction—
Swoooosh!
From the blade of the sword, a slanted, glowing crescent of an enchanting neon-blue color erupted, carrying within it legendary and terrifying layers of absolute, raw power! The attack pierced through the fortified ceiling of the training hall in the blink of an eye, forging its path through the void and spatial connection at a speed that could only be described as insane and shocking... ƒreewebηoveℓ.com
reaching the depths of outer space within a matter of seconds, its light glowing powerfully in the darkness of the sky until it vanished moments later beyond the atmosphere!
That power was unbelievably destructive. Although the strike outwardly did nothing but pierce the room’s ceiling without causing a chaotic explosion, Amelia was no fool—or at least that was how she evaluated her experienced imperial intelligence.
This strike had reached a remote, abyssal place that her naked eyes or senses could not perceive, meaning it was currently traveling through open cosmic space, and no barrier had been able to stop it yet!
This was spine-chilling and terrifying to say the least... If she ever faced an opponent at the level of her father, Cain, one day, the option of confrontation or fighting wouldn’t even be on the table, and death would be her inevitable fate within seconds.
She thanked her Lord in her secret mind hundreds of times that this terrifying man was her father and her support in this world, not an enemy lurking in the shadows. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
Cain turned to her after this brief, cosmic display of power, speaking calmly, "Do you mean something like this?"
Amelia nodded her tiny head rapidly, feeling a slight headache and mental shock from his casual demeanor. Cain looked as if the strike he had just unleashed was the most natural and ordinary thing a human being could do in their daily life! This matter simply transcended the boundaries of humanity.
Cain smiled at the expressions of his daughter, who was bewildered and frozen in her place, and said, clarifying the secrets of power:
"In fact... although this strike appears as a passing, completely casual matter on my part, even this strike falls precisely within the scope of strict sword basics. The locked grip on the hilt... the perfect, calculated motion of the sword through the air... and the harmony of the hand’s movement with the body; all of this is so that the power does not become chaotic and scattered, losing its momentum. In the true world of swordsmanship, there are small, pivotal details that differentiate the amateur from the professional, and they are far more important than merely learning massive magical techniques."
Amelia nodded with reverence and deep understanding.
Even an un-serious strike that cleaves space must carry a certain tactic and a geometrically precise execution to reach that zenith. His words were extremely profound, opening her eyes to a completely new horizon.
Suddenly, this familial harmony was interrupted by the sound of hurried running:
"Lord Duke! Lord Duke!..."
One of the palace servants sprinted heavily while holding a glowing magical communication crystal between his hands, running eagerly toward Cain.
The crystal was blinking continuously, emitting consecutive ringing sounds that indicated an incoming connection. Cain snatched the crystal from the hand of the panting servant.
As soon as Cain touched the surface of the crystal with a simple tap and channeled a light strand of mana, a brilliant light erupted from it, forming the figure of a beautiful woman in the air. Her face appeared clearly from the other side of the spatial connection...
She was smiling at Cain with coquettish affection, distinguished by her long black hair and her luxurious, beautiful royal attire.
"My beloved brother... how are you? It seems you are spending a fine and enjoyable day over there at the beach palace..."
Yes... this was Cain’s younger sister, "Roselina Auster"!
Cain replied with a light smile and a joking tone carrying the usual sibling dynamic, "Oh, how are you doing, Roselina? ..Did you gain a bit of weight after marriage and settling down?"
A playful annoyance immediately manifested on Roselina’s face from her brother’s comment, and she waved her hand through the screen, saying,
"Hmph... you are mean and provoking as you always are, you haven’t changed! In fact, I am planning to come visit you very soon.. I contacted our second brother, Hansen, a short while ago, and it seems he is completely absorbed and busy with his magical inventions to the point that he forgets to eat his food. So I said to myself, how are things on your end?"
Cain smiled at her through the crystal and said,
"I am doing well here.. and I hope your affairs are the same."
While Cain was deeply engrossed in the conversation with his sister, Amelia moved with childish curiosity and stood behind her father’s massive back, peeking out with her small head to explore how her aunt from the Auster family looked. But Roselina’s sharp, observant eyes caught Amelia’s tiny silhouette instantly!
Roselina’s eyes widened in utter bewilderment and immense joy, and she shouted in a loud, startled tone:
"Oh!.. Hohoho... who is that cute little girl standing behind you, Cain?! She... she possesses the sharp features of the Auster family in a way that cannot be mistaken! Is... is this your real daughter that you’ve been hiding from us?!"
At that exact moment... the expressions on Cain’s face darkened completely, and his smile froze... He had entirely forgotten, due to his immersion in the training, Amelia’s presence beside him, and he hadn’t calculated how to explain the existence of a five-year-old child who looked exactly like him to his family
