Chapter 103: Our fate (First Part)

This is a world of wonders.

If any similar existed across the stars beyond anyone’s reach, then the chances for it to have nearly as many species roaming the earth under the rays of the same sun was slim to none. More astonishing even than the incredible diversity among plants and animals was the presence of several different sentient species existing together.

How could evolution lead to such drastic differences and resemblances at the same time between these species?

How were they born in the first place?

It wasn’t possible to tell.

The most plausible explanation that the few researchers interested in this subject had emitted could be summarized with a single word: mana.

The energy of life existing all around and present in each species, be it in the smallest plant or the biggest of animals, was the reason for these miracles.

It shaped, changed this world and offered each of the species lucky enough to live under its influence a chance to evolve.

Without counting the rare representatives of many non-cognitive species that managed to rise and gain intelligence on their own under the influence of the ambient mana, it was possible to differentiate no less than five sentient groups each with their own physical characteristics and cultures.

First, the Humans. The most numerous but also the most vulnerable, whether physically or magically, who owed their continued existence only to their perseverance and ingenuity.

The Shinawa people. The only among all the sentient species to be able to live under the rays of the sun or under the sea without any difference. Strong physically, they weren’t blessed with as much magical potential.

The Beastmen people with the most diverse characteristics among their own members, be it physical or magical.

The Dwarves, small and robust, born into the heart of mountains and destined to prosper there.

And finally, the Elves, without a doubt the most attuned to nature and by extension to mana among all these races. It was probably for this reason that they were also those with the longest lifespan and the most aptitude for magic.

These five races each with their own aptitudes, characteristics, and preferences co-existed together.

However, over the centuries, differences started to appear among individuals of these species. Important differences, impossible to overlook, that have developed among several of their members without any apparent cause. This phenomenon shouldn’t have been ignored, but it was rare and beneficial for the whole species so no one had any reason to be worried. And what was supposed to happen happened.

Their numbers grew beyond what could be qualified as marginal.

Unable to reconcile their strong and often growing differences, these exceptional individuals grouped together and ended up taking their independence from their original race.

They couldn’t be called a new race as they were too few and too similar to an existing one so they chose another name.

They became a clan.

Many tried to rise over the years, but only two endured long enough for their differences to survive and thrive.

The Ancient Human clan and the Ryunno clan.

These two exceptions were each derived from an existing race, but with fundamental differences.

For example, the Ancient Humans of course originated from Humans — as their names suggested — but they had a lifespan and magical abilities so disproportionately superior that it was impossible to consider the two as strictly belonging to the same species despite the near impossibility of differentiating them physically.

The Ryunno clan’s origins were less obvious. None of the sentient races shared any real distinctive similarity with these few individuals. Their appearances had a lot in common with Elves and Humans — already close to each other in this aspect — while their superior physical aptitude wasn’t dissimilar to the Shinawa people and their ability to make their limbs shrink or enlarge depending on their needs. Finally, they had magical aptitudes as impressive as the Ancien Human clan or the Elves but in a different way.

For a long time, their true origin eluded the other sentient races until the nature of their magical talent was finally discovered. They didn’t have as much mana as the Ancient Humans nor were their affinity with nature and mana as strong as the Elves, but they had one unfair edge from birth that they had always tried to hide. They were born with a complete understanding of one or sometimes several different aspects of an element. An incredible advantage to have, but each individual only enjoyed it with a single element and never more. This particularity was shared by only a single species loved by the world and born from the four primary elements: the Elemental Beings.

These strengths of nature almost fused with an element and roaming the world as they saw fit since the moment of their birth were certainly intelligent and powerful, but their ability and desire to communicate or exchange with the other races was severely lacking, reason for which they were never included among the sentient races.

The revelation of their shared-inborn prowesses, and by extension their origins, exposed that this clan had an advantage so enormous that, despite their lacking numbers, they were destined to rule the world.

Something they tried to do during the Great War.

Some say today that they always had this intention, that it was part of their nature to dominate and submit others. It wasn’t possible to know if this was the truth, but one thing was sure, before that their severely lacking numbers forced them to cohabitate with the other races for centuries with more or less success.

They collaborated quite well with the Dwarves and let the Elves and the Shinawa people keep their distance as they naturally tended to do. Their relations varied from one Beastman tribe to another while conflicts were more frequent with Humans and their protectors, the Ancient Humans clan.

This coexistence seemed to want to last forever until the Ryunno clan encountered a very peculiar Beastman tribe.

From the very beginning, the existence of the Beastmen as a race was more debatable as they were divided into numerous groups according to their resemblance and habits. In fact, there were so many different tribes with various physical and magical characteristics that it was impossible to know exactly how many have existed throughout history.

It’s for this reason that not a single new clan was found among them, contrary to the four other sentient races who all had at one point or another declared the existence of a clan, although most of them ended up disappearing or simply blending back into the mass of their original race.

In this aspect, the various tribes of Beastmen were all in some way clans with common, but now distant ancestors and origins.

However, if the definition of a clan included another particularity then things were very different.

If to be a clan, it was necessary not only to originate from a sentient species but also for its individuals to prove an obvious superiority over the rest of this race as a whole, then of all the different tribes of Beastmen in existence, a single one fit this criterion and could deserve the name of clan.

The ‘Aeslly tribe’ also called the Third Clan.

The encounter between this exceptional Beastman tribe, deserving to be called a clan, and the Ryunno clan sparked the start of the Great War. For the Ryunno clan, they were an opportunity to rise above all the others that they couldn’t pass up.

To finally dominate all the other races.

However, this would only be discovered long after the extermination of the Ancient Human clan and the defeat of their alliance with the Shinawa people and the Beastmen tribes.

Paul knew this story and tried to explain it to Sillath as best he could despite the child’s lacking historical culture. He explained in great detail how this Beastman clan was superior to the others, what made them so exceptional and so vulnerable at the same time.

He spoke to great length about their history and culture to teach his daughter listening to the same story, much more detailed than what she had already heard, but also to remind himself of the glorious days of his ancestors.

The Third clan was no more and only memories and stories remained.

Paul was born long after the end of the war and the declaration of all Beastmen as guilty of war crimes and target for slavery, so he never lived during the golden age of his tribe. Although some of the stories he had heard when he was a child could have been altered or even exaggerated, it was still the truth that his tribe was greatly superior to all the others.

What he didn’t tell Sillath and his daughter was the pride that such superiority had always conferred him since young.

Even when they were hiding in a desolate part of the wilderness without enough food to fill their bellies each day, this pride never left him.

It was the same for his peers fed up with this reality and preferring to relish in their glorious past long gone.

However, pride often leads to conceit and arrogance.

They became sloppy.

They weren’t careful enough.

So, when their small community was discovered, most of them captured, and when Paul was forced to run for his life, all this useless and dangerous pride disappeared.

He was forced to hide with a small number of his clansmen who had been as lucky as he was to escape and survive by mingling with a few other Beastmen tribes they encountered a week later. In his misfortune, Paul was still blessed that among the few of his clansmen who had escaped with him was the love of his life, his future wife and mother of his two children.

Their life was modest, their days tough but they were able to live together and that was the most important.

Until their cruel destiny once more caught up with them and struck even harder than before.

This time, no one escaped.

None of the more ordinary tribes living with them survived or were spared from slavery.

And the few members of their clans left didn’t escape their fate either.

It was at this moment, with his six years old son shaking in his arms and his two years old daughter crying in her mother’s embrace right next to him that he finally learned what the Ryunno clan wanted from them.

They wanted their wings.

So, like everything else in this world that they desired, they took it.

One by one.

Among the screams of pain and horror of his childhood friends and oldest mentors.

Paul watched them beg for death and mercy one by one as their precious wings, source of their magic and powers, were meticulously ripped off one after the other with a satisfaction none of these monsters in Human skin could hide.

When his turn came, Paul tried his best to be brave for his terrified son watching him with tears in his eyes, to stay silent as an agony worse than cutting his limbs off waited for him.

He was brave, but he couldn’t be silent.

Then came his wife, his gentle wife probably too beautiful and too good for someone like him. She was just as brave as him, but she was stronger as not a single sound escaped her stubbornly closed lips when her turn came.

Ridden of any value for now, the Ryunno clan left the care of the survivors to their Human allies, or more accurately their servants, to put their blood-soaked treasures to safety. This powerful group of Humans servants, all too happy to obey their masters, rounded up those like him and his wife who had survived this ordeal along with the few children who hadn't grown wings yet.

What they wanted to do with those without wings, Paul knew but didn’t tell his daughter looking at him with a deathly pale face as he unraveled this cruel past he never told her about. The only thing he confessed to her not so long ago was what he had done to her and to others to keep her true nature hidden and why.

This darker part of the truth, of his truth, he had always tried to hide it from her and didn’t find the strength to confess it the previous time.

To keep her safe, but also to forget.

Lies, especially to oneself, were more comforting.

However, Sillath was right.

She had the right to know her own story.

So, Paul clenched his fists and continued his grim tale for the children looking at him in grave silence. However, he still spared them a part of this sordid truth.

After all, how could he explain to such a gentle and innocent soul like his daughter that those with their wings already cut off were meant to reproduce like captive animals so that their children may one day share the same cruel fate?

Lying next to his wife in a pool of their blood mixed together, Paul didn’t have any strength left to resist this fate or protest as they were taken away and put into cages like the slaves they were meant to become.

They had lost their wings and they all knew that they wouldn’t come back.

They were gone forever.

Devoid of what made them special, they were now just a shadow of their past self, weakened, crippled even, and certainly incapable of using any magic anymore or offering any kind of resistance.

Their captors knew it.

So, when a roaring slice of wind sliced through the bars of the giant cage they were escorting and cut their heads off, none of the survivors among what was left of their clan or among their captors immediately reacted.

His wife, Eleanor, had summoned this terrifying magic when an opportunity presented itself. Used to run or hide instead of fighting, Paul and his brethren had never seen her use this kind of power before.

The surviving Humans didn’t have the time to wonder how something like that was possible whereas they saw her lying in a pool of her own blood after losing her wings less than an hour ago. They didn’t have the leisure to ponder how these crystal wings — spread wide on each side of her waist and shining brighter than ever before — could be back either.

They came to their senses, took out their weapons, and summoned their magic. Each of them was a seasoned warrior, an experienced mage chosen by the Ryunno clan to serve them. No matter what kind of sorcery was at play, they had nothing to fear.

More than a dozen men attacked her together with a thunderous roar promising blood and not a single one was left standing ten seconds later.

Such was the superiority of this tribe, different from all the others.

Humiliated and harassed for decades by groups ten times their numbers, the world had forgotten their true nature.

They were the Third clan and had earned this title with the blood of their enemies.

Their captors gone, Eleanor freed her surviving clansmen and their fellow Beastmen belonging to different tribes.

Like a born leader finally ridden of its shackles, Eleanor didn’t waste any time organizing their escape.

Many doomed Beastmen were able to safely escape that day thanks to her.

Paul, still barely able to stand on his own, watched her with a fascination he didn’t completely understand as she reanimated in front of his eyes the shattered pride of their clan he thought forever gone.

Alianelle had stars in her eyes when he described the prowesses of her mother.

How he would have loved to end his story there.

How he would have liked this glorious episode to be the final part of his tale.

However, all dreams must sooner or later come to an end.

Just like when the bright sun slowly gives way to the pale rays of the moon each night, the time for Eleanor’s brightness to disappear and for reality to return finally came.

Eleanor cleverly let the Beastmen she had saved leave in small groups that each went their own separate way. With so many troops, slavers, and possibly remaining Ryunno clan members in the area, it was the most logical choice until things calmed down and until they could meet again at a designated location.

However, when her own group consisting of her wingless clansmen, their children, and another close Beastman tribe had to leave, they were confronted with someone impossible for even Eleanor to defeat.

He alone barred their way with his hands behind his back. His proud posture was enough to announce that he was a member of the Ryunno clan although he wasn’t part of the previous group that had attacked them. Half a dozen Ryunno clan members were there when their wings were taken, but none of them had such memorable bright red hair reaching down their waist and apparently outside of the influence of the wind around.

Eleanor was strong enough to confront even a Ryunno clan member.

They had all seen her powers and had faith in her.

However, Paul knew his wife.

In an instant, she had lost her previous glorious brilliance and her confidence.

She was the first to feel that something was amiss, that something was different with this unnaturally tall man and his piercing blue eyes looking at them with derisive amusement and at her with unrestrained greed.

He introduced himself with a gentle voice — almost like a gentleman — but none believed him until he proved them wrong, until he showed them what true despair and terror were.

Eleanor fought bravely, fiercely, with more strength and courage than Paul had ever seen.

He watched their titanic battle powerless to help, only able to hold protectively in his arms their scared children as his wife fought with mad abandon to protect them all.

None of the people present could forget the deafening sound of their initial clash, of how the air rippled and their eardrums nearly burst when they first made contact.

They all felt the magic filling the air and watched in awe as it changed the color of the sky.

They smelled burnt flesh and even tasted the ashes of the charred trees around them.

They all saw how she stood up time and time again, seemingly impossible to kill no matter how grievous her wounds were. However, in the end, they also all realized the insurmountable difference in strength between them.

The Ancestor of the Ryunno clan couldn’t be defeated.

Like an almighty god declaring his implacable judgment to the helpless mortal they were, he defeated her and ripped off her wings once again.

This time Eleanor had screamed, but Paul lied to his crying daughter.

The last of a long series of inextricable lies and probably the only one he didn't regret telling her.