The Star of Annihilation
Chapter 77 – Ancestry (1)
Written by : eleven

* * *

Roy had never met his father.

Growing up in Kerto village, the kids were painfully obvious and aware that Roy did not have a father and often ostracized him from group activities because of it.

In his previous life, Roy simply decided to choose to live not knowing about who his father was because he never got to learn about him from his mother when he was young.

When Roy was younger in his previous life, he never even had much of a growing relationship with his mother because she had been killed in the Kerto Village Massacre.

Now that Roy had managed to stop that disaster from happening in this life, his relationship with his mother naturally was growing by leaps and bounds.

But this topic was something incredibly sensitive for Roy ever since his regression.

Ever since he heard that voice talk about being ‘his descendant’, Roy had grown wary and started to question his own origins.

Although he tried to shove it in the back of his mind as much as possible, the only real mystery that Roy was unaware of was the real identity of his father and the kind of man he was.

Either that, or his mother was hiding something about her own origins deliberately.


“You must have a lot of questions about your father.”


When Roy heard this, he visibly had become shaken up.

Roy didn’t ask much about his father because every time that he had in his childhood, his mother avoided the topic deliberately and had gotten either upset or sad.

Respecting his mother’s wishes, Roy had never brought up the conversation on his own after regressing.


Mathilde paused and looked at the fire with sunken eyes that were full of emotion.

Roy saw tears starting to form from her eyes, but Mathilde quickly wiped them and smiled weakly.


“I know that you are trying your best to hide whatever you are struggling with Roy, but what I’m about to share with you is something I don’t want to share again. That means this will be the only time I want to speak about it, so please listen carefully.”


Roy looked at his mother with a bit of confusion as Mathilde had practically known all this time tha Roy had his own secrets.


“But before I talk about your father and the kind of man he was, I need you to know that he was murdered Roy. He was murdered in cold blood and your only sister likely shared the same fate.”

“…..Wha-!”


Mathilde shook her head and put her index finger to her lips to shush Roy from exclaiming too loudly.


“You had a sister Roy. Her name was Edith. And… the reason that your father and her were killed was because of a foolish decision I made a long time ago.”

Mathilde stared at the flames that were burning brightly with despair, sadness and grief etched all across her face while she recounted the story of an expedition long ago.

* * *

“Huff… Huff…”

How long had they been running? Thomas didn’t know at this point.

In between bated breaths, Thomas wiped the bloodied sweat from his forehead.

In front of him was Mathilde, Verdante, Spera and his only child… Edith.

Spera was in no condition to even be called a High Elf at this point as her magnanimous and harmonious elegance was nowhere to be seen.

Only having one arm intact and a stump for her left, Spera was growing more and more pale at every second.


“Mathilde!”

“I know!”


Thomas yelled at Mathilde to try and cast whatever healing she could to prevent the blood loss from getting any worse on Spera’s arm.

All of it had gone wrong.

All of it.

A green light enveloped the dimly lit path as Mathilde’s hands were coated in mana as they applied pressure to Spera’s wound.

The healing magic Mathilde was trying to use was running low on effectiveness due to several factors including her low amounts of mana left, and the fact that mana was incredibly difficult to feel inside the dungeon that was blocking a lot of their natural senses.

Behind them, Thomas looked around worriedly and saw the cloaked figures walking lightly with arrogant footsteps.

It was the same people that had attacked Ian, the Arch-mage.


<It was your mistake to walk into this place.>


A voice rang out from one of the three cloaked figures that were walking towards them.


<To think humans were able to injure one of us. How detestable.>


Spera had been able to injure one of the attackers while they fled.

They had traded an arm for an arm quite literally.

But the cloaked figures did not seem to be worried and rather made fun of the one who had been injured by Spera.

‘We were never their opponents in the first place.’


Thomas couldn’t help but acknowledge that they had made a grave blunder.

The sheer amount of mana coming from each of these individuals was as large as a 7-star Archmage, if not higher.

What was more odd, was that these attackers had complete control over their mana and senses while the party did not.

Eventually their path would be cut off, Thomas was sure of it.

There were a few things that he could gather from the conversation these beings were having.

But what about it could help him get out of this situation? Thomas didn’t see a single way out of this without losing one or two party members.

Someone was going to have to die if the others were to live. That much was indisputable.


* * *


“At that time I was foolish. I couldn’t understand what was happening or why. No, I did. But I didn’t want to accept that it was me who caused Thomas to die that day.”


Mathilde couldn’t lift her head up to face her son.

Roy couldn’t even begin to process all this new information either.

He sat on the log staring at the fire as the quiet and cold wind brushed the embers and cinders in a dance.

Roy eventually spoke, but this time… his voice was cold. Anger and malice were oozing from his very image.


“What happened next?”


He asked with pure hatred in his heart.

None of it was directed at his mother though. He already had a hunch on who these cloaked figures were.


* * *


“AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”


Somewhere along the path, the group had separated and split up.

Mathilde and Spera had fled to the upwards path while Verdante and Thomas had taken another path volunteering themselves. The only problem was that neither group knew if any othe paths they took would lead to the outside.

Thus, Verdante had a child wrapped in his arms.

It was Edith.

But the one who was screaming, was none other than his closest friend.

But could Thomas’ appearance even be described as someone he knew anymore?


‘No…. what have we done…?’



They had been running around in these never ending pathways for almost 2 whole days now without rest.

They were growing hungry and needed water to survive but didn’t have any.

Thus, Thomas made a grave decision and decided to pick up the separated arm of the attacker that was chasing them that Spera had cut off.

And ate it…

Something so drastic would not have happened if his body were not needing any form of nutrients.

Their supplies were gone, food and water were all used up and there was nothing Thomas could do.

As a result, something terrifying happened.

Thomas groaned and screamed in agony as his skin started to bubble up and turn pink.

His blood vessels started to bulge and his eyes rolled up to the top of his head while nothing but white could be seen.

Verdante grew frightened as his friend’s body started to morph and turn into something that could barely be described as human.

What should have only been cannibalism, should have never been described to be like this in any kind of history book.

What was happening with Thomas, was extreme mana backflow.

The mana in his body was acting rampant because another foreign energy invaded his system from the Dragon’s bodies. Thomas and Verdante, let alone anyone else in the party, did not know they were Dragons and that they were a Transcendent species upon birth.

Their constitutions were fundamentally different from humans and there were repercussions upon forcefully ingesting Transcendent species’ flesh if one wasn’t at least at the first stage of Transcendence.

That being said, it still resulted in Thomas’ constitution forcefully changing to suit the level of Transcendence albeit it was now a complete race against time because his life energy was being sucked dry as a collateral.

Thomas felt the mana in his circuit explode and surge violently as he turned towards Verdante.

There were two cloaked dragons approaching from a distance as well.

<huh?>

The first Dragon to notice something was wrong belatedly noticed that Thomas’ mana was currently surging and emitting equivalent power levels to their own at that moment.

But Thomas was not a fool by any means.

Biting his lip forcefully to withstand the excruciating pain he lunged at the two cloaked figures as he shouted at Verdante.

“RUN!”

Verdante’s eyes shook as he took in what he knew would be the last moments of his closest friend and took Edith in his arms as he sprinted in the other direction.

“Huff… Huff…”

And the battle ensued.

* * *

“I never got to meet back up with Verdante or Thomas, Spera and I had barely made it out alive and… I don’t even know what happened to Edith.”


Mathilde sniffled and tears started to roll down her cheeks.

Roy couldn’t speak.

His thoughts were completely muddled.

And the only thing that remained was pure hatred.

Inside of Roy, his mana was swelling and pulsing violently as if he were about to destroy everything in sight.

Since his regression, Roy had never felt such sheer unadulterated rage and wrath like he was feeling at that moment.


‘I had a father who died to these… no. I had a sister I didn’t even know of.’


Pat!


At that moment, Roy felt a pat on his shoulder.

Mathilde quickly turned around at the unexpected presence, but she soon shook her head and wiped away her tears as much as possible.


“Hey. I get you’re mad. I really do.”


Roy turned around, his feelings still not dissipating in the slightest.

His blue eyes looking straight at Roy, Lucius cracked a smirk.


“But I think being mad and sitting around is one thing, and being mad and doing something about it is another.”


Roy went soft for a moment as he felt understood. His anger was not someone else’s to bear, nor would anyone understand him. Not even his mother. His regression and rage towards the bastards that took everything from him could not be described in words alone.


“You’re right.”

He then sighed and looked right at his master once again.

“What do we do?”


Lucius shook his head as if ridiculing Roy.


“What else? We train.”



Chapter 77 – Fin