Free Web NovelChapter 265: Chapter 165: Banquet
The next day, the Beowulf Family’s Dragon Hunting Ceremony began as scheduled on the pasture outside the manor, near the Dracul Mountain Range. Those in attendance were all renowned figures from the Inner Side of the United Kingdom.
Four of Britain’s five great Law Enforcement Organizations sent their respective representatives to participate in the Dragon Hunting Ceremony.
They were: Silver Lion Wilder, who had recently become the Vice-Commander of the Templar Order;
Bronze Saint Elvin of the Holy Mechanism Inquisition and two of his Battle Nuns;
Bode, president of the Wales branch of the Demon Hunter Association; and House, a Bronze Knight from the Holy Cross Association.
At the same time, the four great families that formed the Judicial Institution, the Prole Court, also had representatives present:
The Hestia Clan of the Griffin Knight Order, one of the Six Great Knight Orders; the Van Helsing Clan of Wolf Sect Demon Hunters from the Beast Faction; the Bode Clan of Faith Knights; and the Merlin Clan, the Wizard Clan of Edinburgh.
Beyond them were some of the more famous Old Blood Clans of the Inner Side.
The Frank Clan, Crocodile Sect Demon Hunters from the Beast Faction; the Lancelot Clan of the Lion Eye Knight Order, one of the Six Great Knight Orders; the Walter Clan, who represented the pinnacle of the ’Blood Curse’...
Even the Constantine Clan—once renowned in the Inner Side, but now in decline following the accidental death of their former Patriarch, Fran Constantin, and the successive birth of only the Bloodless in their Direct Lineage—was among the invited guests.
This time, to show respect for their old family friends, the Beowulf Family, the acting Patriarch of the Constantine Clan, Field Constantin (formerly Felder Per)—who was also Baron’s maternal uncle—personally brought his nephew and niece to the event.
If Baron were here, he would have immediately recognized Field’s nephew and niece as people he had met at the banquet the other day: his cousin Windsor, with whom he had danced, and his other cousin Pound, whom he only knew by name and general appearance.
This time, both Windsor and her brother Pound would be representing the Constantine Family in the Beowulf Family’s Dragon Hunting Ceremony.
The Beowulf Family’s Dragon Hunting Ceremony was not only a momentous ritual for the Beowulfs to select their next Patriarch and Dragon Slayer, but also an important trial ground for the many Old Blood Clans of the Inner Side to hone their most promising young members.
The main content of the ceremony was simple: when the Dracul Mountain Range opened, each clan would send one or two of its younger members to enter the Trial under the guidance of a Dragon Guide provided by the Beowulf Family.
The Trial’s content was also simple: every participant was given a special Scale-Stripping Saber worth several hundred pounds.
After killing a member of the Dragon Race or a Dragon Descendant, they were to use this Scale-Stripping Saber to strip off their Reverse Scale. Once a certain number of the Dragon Race had been slain, their collective aura would draw out and reawaken the Dragon Spear.
At the same time, the Reverse Scales held by participants would gradually accumulate a draconic aura. The stronger the slain Dragon Descendant or Dragon Race member, the more potent the aura—sometimes the scale from a single third-generation subspecies was enough. Once this aura reached a certain threshold, it would reveal the location of the legendary Dragon Spear.
The Dragon Spear was an Alchemy Weapon forged by an ancestor of the Beowulf Family. It was said that through the generations, the family’s Dragon Slayers had used it to hunt numerous Dragon Race subspecies and even Dragon Descendants. The spear had even taken a single Dragon Scale from the legendary Red Dragon, which was later forged into its tip.
The most famous of these kills was that of the Pure-blood Dragon Race member, the Poison Dragon Glanville, slain by their ancestor Beowulf on Greenland Island.
This Pure-blood Dragon Race member symbolized ’Fierce Poison’ and had brought plagues upon humans and other creatures for thousands of years. It was even suspected that, spurred on by Destiny, it had given birth to the ’Plague Law.’ After Beowulf killed it, the dragon’s incomplete skeletal remains, left scattered across a region of the Eurasian Continent, were enough to trigger a devastating plague.
The most famous incident was when the Holy Cross Association’s improper storage of the skull triggered the London Plague in the early 14th century. This plague, which lasted for centuries and also came to be known as the Black Death, resulted in a change on the Outer Side: the disappearance of nearly a third of the European population.
The change it brought to the Alchemists of the Inner Side was the discovery of the potential for ’Artificial Law’ through the birth of the ’Plague Law.’ But that is a story for another time.
During the Dragon Hunting Ceremony, upon reaching the location where the Dragon Spear manifested, the person whose Reverse Scales possessed the densest draconic aura would be able to absorb the most potent surge of Spiritual Power unleashed by the spear’s appearance. This was concisely summarized as the ’Dragon Spear Baptism’.
It was said that this baptism could allow someone who had just reached the Black Iron Tier to instantly meet the Spiritual Power requirements for advancing to Bronze.
This was also why the Beowulf Family’s Dragon Hunting Ceremony attracted so many Law Enforcement Organizations and Old Blood Clans in the Inner Side.
The death rate for the ceremony had always been high. Furthermore, to ensure that only elite Dragon Slaying candidates were chosen, entry into the Barrier was strictly limited to those under thirty. Even so, upon receiving an invitation, many Old Blood Clans would resolutely send in their next-generation elites—the very ones likely to lead their families in the future.
After the Dragon Spear Baptism, the next stage of the ceremony was the ’Nine-Pattern Selection,’ which was famous throughout the Inner Side. The main targets of this assessment were the descendants of the Beowulf Family.
The shaft of the Dragon Spear was inscribed with the auras of nine Dragon Race subspecies, Pure-blood Dragon Race members, and even a Dragon King. Over countless years of slumber, these auras had gradually condensed into Dragon Patterns on the spear, layered one on top of another, as the Dragon Spear slept deep beneath Dragon Spear Plaza.
The ’Nine-Pattern Selection,’ as its name implied, represented the selection by the nine Dragon Patterns on the Dragon Spear.
The specific form this took was ’drawing the spear’.
Moreover, only a prodigy whose Reverse Scales had reached a certain standard and who could withstand the Dragon Spear Baptism was qualified to step forward and attempt to draw the spear.
