Guild Wars

Hearing this, Walter and co hesitated before firming their minds.

"Even so, we would like to participate."

"Oh?" Misery was surprised by their decision. "All of you?"

He looked around the room and saw that all the faces, young and old, displayed solemnity, indicating that none of them were joking around. Sebastian sighed and leaned forward.

"Nicholas, you have always been protected and raised by Lady Scathach in the Isle of Avalon, so you have no idea about some of the groundbreaking events that occurred within our Lineage."

Misery was surprised by this and leaned back into his seat. "Why don't you tell me then? I'm sure Walter's brat would like to know too."

Sebastian nodded and considered what the best place to start with would be, but first there was something else they had to deal will. "Right, since you're here, we'll add your name to the family register and officially announce your identity and recovery to the family to the public. As a new Prince, I'll have to to ask you to make a few public meetings to quell the public's interest."

Kiran shrugged. "Sure, I'm already used to being in the public eye because of Umbra."

Sebastian was rendered speechless by this. "No matter how popular you were in the past, I doubt it can match up to being a Prince of England, so your previous fame would be suppressed by this."

Sublime gazed at Sebastian with an amused look. Some of the youths in the room sneered at Kiran for thinking too much of himself when one of the faces changed as something clicked.

"Wait a minute! Holy shit, I knew your face felt familiar, you're Dark Monk Kiran, the Super Warrior!" One of the youth excised as he pointed at their lost cousing.

The other youths naturally paid attention to such things and were abreast with the latest social cues. As such, all their faces changed as they gazed at Kiran with shock.

"Oh my God, now that you mention it, it was actually him!"

"Shit, how did I not recognize his signature transformation in the council room?"

"That's because he only used the Base Warrior form, dummy!"

"Ah yeah, no wonder..."

Seeing their sons and daughters chattering excitedly about Kiran, the older generation became alarmed. How could they not infer that Walter's son likely had a special identity to the world that was well known to the youth?

As such, Sebastian directly asked the first youth. "Jonathan, what's this about?"

The one called Jonathan answered immediately. "Uncle Sebastian, Kiran is quite popular thanks to the recent World Tournament held within Boundless, the game they just described to us. I think you might have even heard about it."

Sebastian thought back and remembered there was some news about a world tournament in an esports game or something. Not only that, he especially remembered it because England won in the end. It was also big news that Sublime was one of the reasons they won.

That was one of the reasons why the family had not put forward any objections to her moving out to live in the Central Country with the Purgatory group.

"Mhm, what about it?" Sebastian inquired further.

"Well... Kiran was ranked as the second-strongest fighter in the entire tournament, and the tournament was made up of the best fighters in the world. As such, his fame skyrocketed and he currently has over 300 million followers alone." Jonathan revealed with a wry smile.

The breaths of the adults caught. They might not be social media addicts, but they were also not old enough to be completely ignorant. They understood how great it was to have over 300 million people follow one person, assuming that there were no bot followers.

Sebastian himself rubbed his brow. "So what would announcing his identity do?"

Jonathan hesitated, but still spoke the truth. "It will certainly boost the reputation of the Royal Family amongst the youth who lack respect for us."

Sebastian sighed. So basically, they were the ones taking advantage of Kiran's fame to rise and not the other way around? Well so be it then, it wouldn't really change anything.

"Right back to the matter at hand. Around the time you lot ran off with Walter, Hector and Edward to hide that baby from us, another three special children were born."

"That's right, it was the fellows you were hyping us about just now, the prodigies of the three upper Lineages. Their bloodline purities surpassed anything we could fathom, and faintly reached the level of the progenitors themselves."

"From what you described, you already know the tumultuous events that occurred on a macro scale, but you have no idea the kind of effect that occurred on a micro scale."

Sebastian crossed his fingers and leaned into the table. "The Pangu Lineage was panicking heavily, and so were some of us. Ever since the Progenitors left, all the lower Lineages, except the Morrigan Lineage, was internally split."

"One half wanted to bury the hatchet and seek a truce with the Lucifer and Amaterasu's Lineage. They wanted to put an end to the bloodshed and use the peacetime to develop and become better, while the other half of each Lineage wanted war for various reasons, the majority because they hated the two Lineages for losses suffered from previous battles, though a large part simply believed that it was impossible to simply let go of the past grievances."

"Our Lineage was no different. However, this was fine while things were silent and no real conflict occurred, though the Pang Lineage was likely annoyed. However, with the birth of the three, they could no longer afford to use soft methods."

"Just like they did to your grandmother, they used the excuse of rebellion and usurpation to lay an ambush for all pro-peace supporters in all the sub-Lineages, ours included. They were either killed or captured into that bloody tower of theirs for torture."

Sebastian gestured to the people around him. "Everyone in this room is either a remnant of a pro-peace faction or a close relative of someone who was pro-peace and was either killed or captured. So, like you, they absolutely want the Pangu Lineage gone."

Misery's expression became solemn. This huge matter had occurred around the time Kiran was born - as Kiran was the same age as Draco and Eva - and they had been trying their best to hide from the Lineage at the time.

In that era, they thought that the Lineage was dumb and that they were clever because they weren't disturbed for such a long time, but it turned out that their Lineage had simply been too busy to even care about brats like them.

Misery's eyes flashed. "Does that mean...?"

This time, Walter nodded. "Yes, that's why I never dealt with Damon, Damien's father. Him responding to our call back then was no mistake, but a planned attack. Ao Jiantian knew about me being a prodigy and wanted to reign me in under him."

"As such he sent his crony Damon to capture Juno and force me to join his side to protect her and my child. However, Damon messed things up due to the events that occurred so Jiantian dropped that plan, but he still tried to protect his man."

Misery's expression darkened. Maybe he should have taken Jiantian back to the Evil Duo so that they could use their power to revive his mind and then subject him to even worse torture.

Misery then looked around and noticed something. "So none of the other Councilors apart from Hector, Edward, Walter, you and David over there were pro-peace?"

Sebastian nodded with a sigh. "Meridia and Meredith, Damon and Damien and Jordan and James were all pro-war. Meredith and Damien will soon be replaced, but James can't be invited because while he isn't in the pocket of the Pangu Lineage, his mother - and Jordan's wife - was killed by a member of the Lucifer Lineage."

Misery too sighed internally. As someone who had literally fought in the Special Ops of the then United States of America for World War III, he knew more about the effects of war than anyone else. If it wasn't for all the shit he had seen, he wouldn't be drinking like this.

PTSD? That's a luxury, you get to go bonkers and everyone treats you carefully as well as gently.

The real terrible shit was perfectly keeping your sanity afterward, but also losing something fundamental that every 'normal' human possessed.

Best not to let the images and screams sound in your ears. The best method to deal with it, he has found was to remain perpetually drunk, so such things would never pose a problem.

The cycle of war was, as they said in that popular anime from the early days of the century, a perpetual cycle of hatred. It doesn't matter who started it, how it ends or the purpose of it.

Once the first seed of hate got planted, things could never go back to being the same. That hate would sprout and then plant its own seed when it 'bloomed' by exacting revenge. Then the new seed would also grow and then exact its own revenge.

The cycle would continue until the original purpose of the fight would become meaningless and only the result would matter. At that point, ending the cycle would be as hard as ascending to the heavens without using the only method available.

While it may sound cringe and belligerent, the typical Chinese mentality of 'eliminate the roots' was extremely savvy and wise, for it killed the cycle of hatred before it could even begin.

This was why, as one was reading or watching snippets of history, they might have heard about merciless and senseless slaughters after various battles and wondered why someone would go that far.

It was likely this very thing they were thinking about at the time.

"Alright then, if you fellows want to help, it's not a problem. Let's discuss a bit about the plans and our resources and see what we can pool together." Misery suggested finally after he took a swig of his rum.

The others nodded and began discussing with Misery further about the nitty-gritty details.

In the meantime, Kiran and Walter were chatting by the side casually, and Walter's eyes would always fall on the Sarira at Kiran's sternum, gazing at the floating image of Juno within with a soft gaze.

Kiran had already promised his Dad that as soon as Juno woke up, he would be the first to know about it. This soothed Walter's heart, but the itch to see his soulmate was greater than ever.

Genevieve saw this from the side and sighed inside. She had gotten to enjoy Walter for herself for many years, yet it had been impossible to make him fall in love with her, and he had remained cold and formal towards her.

It seemed like this was better, as this was the first time she had seen him smile in ages.

"By the way, Dad, Kiran and I knew each other for a long while." Sublime butted in to say.

Walter gazed at his daughter, who he usually treated coldly and had a complicated and apologetic look in his eyes. When he had no idea of Juno's fate, he was cold to her, but knowing that Juno would soon be back, most of his angst and hate had dissipated, and he was left with guilt and shame.

He quite literally could not understand why he had treated her so badly all this while. What had been wrong with him? If anyone deserved scorn, it would definitely be Genevieve, but Sublime had done nothing wrong to deserve such treatment.

"Yes, that's good, Mary. It's great that you could take care of each other." Walter spke gently.

However, Sublime's eyes flashed with an evil glint. "Oh, we take more than good care of each other. Currently, Kiran and I are lovers and plan to have a baby together!"

Sublime made sure to say this loudly, causing the conversation in the room to grind to a halt as everyone looked over in shock. Misery's lips twitched as he realized that the Little Princess was getting revenge for all her years of neglect at once.

Walter was stunned and he glanced at Kiran who was blushing and averted his gaze from the father he had just reconnected with, yet he didn't deny anything.

Walter could merely point at the two of them with a shaky finger.

"You... you two... Blergh!"

Their father could only mutter these words before he spat a thick mouthful of blood and then fainted, keeling over to the floor from his seat.

While everyone was rushing to help the Councilor, Genevieve couldn't help but nod at her daughter for her impeccable taste. Kiran was a clone of Walter, so it showed that her daughter had the same taste as her.

As for the two of them being half-siblings... would someone who had not only married her own cousin, but also drugged and raped him to conceive a daughter, really have any objections to such a union?