'So that's how they ended up here...'

But something didn't add up yet. His mother and uncle had said that there were plenty of imperial children. They even had some vassals guarding them.

And yet, from what Reivan knew, the only warbeasts to have made it to Aizen before the Terracatta clan were his uncle Viktor and his mother.

'Did they die on the way...?'

Vianna was not aware of the question in Reivan's mind, so she merely continued with her tale. "There was basically no trade nor contact with Sentorale. But there were rumors going around. In some places, there were legends of an old, tailless swordsman who came from foreign lands. There were also sightings of armored Ascendants flying close to the coastal cities before eventually retreating to the west. The armor was unlike anything that was ever seen on the continent, so rumors quickly spread of a nation beyond the perilous western seas."

"I mean..." Reivan raised a brow and frowned. "The first one may have been old man Rolf. And those armored guys were undoubtedly knights from Aizen. But with just that amount of unreliable information, wasn't it a reckless gamble to assume that...? Rumors are rumors after all."

"We were desperate, Rein." Viktor laughed sadly. "Our vassals were grasping at straws. They did not fear dying to protect us. What they feared was that they would die, yet still fail to do their duties. As the eldest child there, I tried to take on some of their burdens but could only raise my hands up in surrender at my... inadequacy. The pressure on them was too great."

"May their souls reach the eternal winter." Vianna closed her eyes in apparent prayer for a moment before continuing. "In any case, we needed a ship and a crew to drive the thing. Of course, we expected a very long voyage, so we needed plenty of supplies too. We could somehow push through even without a crew, but we really needed the ship and the supplies."

"Ships and supplies that we didn't have." Viktor spat. "Our funds had already been exhausted from paying bribes and smugglers to help us in our travels. And even if we had more, no merchant would sell us anything at that point."

Reivan's lowered his head and examined the white sheets of his bed. "So you... stole them from someone?"

"Yes, son." Vianna nodded. "The best option at the time was a certain coastal city. It didn't have any Ascendants, which favored us since none of our vassals were Ascendants."

Reivan's brows furrowed in confusion. "Since you were all so important, shouldn't you have had a few Ascendant guards with you...?"

"At any other time, yeah." Viktor yawned while scratching his stomach. "But all of our strongest forces were used to hold off the treacherous clans that tried to stop us from leaving the capital. We were lucky that we still had any guards left after all that."

"Yes, and although our race has some advantages." Vianna pointed a finger in the air. "We are also very disadvantaged in other ways. In particular, although unlocking our qi is something normal, our mana pools are much smaller than humans so we find it much harder to ascend."

"Rein, if all of the Ascendants and Transcendents in the world were to suddenly perish." Viktor stood up and walked to the window. "The eastern continent would be the strongest. They would dominate the world. Hands down."

Vianna rolled her eyes. "Such a scenario won't happen though."

"I know, sister. I just wanted to paint a better picture for our youngest. Basically, Rein, unlike humans, warbeasts easily unlock their qi, and then after about five decades of constant training and combat, they reach the limit of the mortal realm for humans. This is a feat that would take the average knight two hundred years to accomplish. The more talented ones — like your sister-in-law — can do it faster, of course. But the same can be said of the talents of the warbeast clans. And furthermore, they have higher physical limitations than humans. Just imagine, a city would have a population of around ten thousand people, and every single one had the qualifications to be knighted. Crazy, right?"

For some reason, Vianna seemed somewhat indignant that humans were being painted in a worse light. So she chimed in, "In exchange, there are very few Ascendants. Aizen probably has more Ascendants than the entire eastern continent combined."

Reivan found the way his mother puffed her chest out in pride cute as he slowly digested this information. He'd known about how warbeasts found it harder to ascend, but he failed to realize how it would affect things on a macro scale.

'So, given the chance, Aizen could probably conquer the continent easily, huh? Especially since they're not united.'

Of course, this would only be a possibility if there weren't two neighboring giants staring Aizen down. There was also the problem of the extremely chaotic Outland. Aizen had many enemies, each of which could be taken out relatively easily by themselves. The problem was that they existed in tandem, and they couldn't focus their efforts on just one threat at a time.

But this wasn't something he had to think about right at this moment.

"So what happened afterward?" he asked.

"The attack succeded. For the most part, that is." Viktor grimaced and then sighed, a desolate look on his face. "We managed to take some noble lady hostage. And this made everyone back off for fear of us hurting her."

"But most of our vassals died in the attack." Vianna also looked melancholic. "Which was expected, since we attacked a force that had a fortified structure, while our side was hungry and travel-worn. It was actually a miracle that our assault succeeded. We had no time to mourn or bury the bodies of those who fell in battle either. In a hurry, we took all the food and barrels of ale that we could. One of our vassals was left behind with the hostage to make sure they didn't pursue us."

Viktor grunted. "Yes. We didn't want to risk them taking action if we brought her with us after all. They all looked fricking crazy, I tell you. It's like they considered her a living goddess or something. Buncha nutjobs."

"Anyway," Vianna threw a pillow at her brother for talking too much over her then continued. "We embarked using numerous ships so we could take as many supplies as we could. Kidnapped seamen were our crew. Of course, we faced numerous problems on the way. There was plenty of food at the start, but that rapidly decreased. Furthermore, there were all sorts of sea monsters that attacked our boats thinking it was food. This also prevented us from refilling our supplies by fishing."

"What? Sea monsters?" Reivan asked, flabbergasted. He didn't know monsters existed outside of the Outland too.

"They weren't so much monsters, as they were sea creatures." Viktor chuckled. "We just call them that. They were just massive versions of the stuff our fishing boats bring home. With a few extra rows of sharp teeth, poisonous sweat, and maybe some other dangerous properties."

'Seriously...? Do they give exp when you kill them?' he joked inwardly while feeling shocked and amazed at this new trivia.

"We were even attacked by a giant sea creature that looked like a massive blob of transparent goo." Vianna's nose wrinkled as she seemingly thought back to that day. "It had thousands of these thin little tentacles that churned out electricity. And physical attacks didn't have much of an effect, so everybody had to waste a ton of mana using elemental attacks. But it was so massive we barely made a difference. In the end, we didn't kill it, but we did manage to scare it off eventually."

'It sounds like a giant jellyfish...'

"You joined the fight too, Mom?"

"Of course. I was already pretty strong even though I had only unleashed my qi for two years!" she laughed proudly.

"I had to cover for her a lot, by the way." Viktor sneered as he whispered loudly to Reivan.

Vianna frowned but didn't say anything else, seemingly acknowledging her brother's words.

Seeing his sister's meekness, Viktor scratched the back of his head. "Hey, fight back, would you? You're making me seem like an asshole..."

"You are one. And I do admit that I made a lot of mistakes back then. I'd be dead if you weren't there."

Viktor's back straightened and he cleared his throat in embarrassment. "Well... it's what any brother would do. No big deal."

Vianna rolled her eyes at him before turning to her son. "Thank your uncle so he stops being weird. You wouldn't have been born without him."

Reivan played along by standing up and bowing at a hundred and eighty-degree angle with a smirk on his face. "Thank you, respected uncle."

"Shut up, brat." Viktor clocked him on the head and frowned. "Anyway, we eventually found hope when we caught sight of some ships in the distance. They were different than ours, but they were definitely ships."

"Aizenian fishing boats?" Reivan inquired as he rubbed his poor head.

"Unfortunately, no. They were Argonian Invasion ships. They were immediately hostile and surprisingly strong. Our remaining guards were killed from range almost instantly."

'Oh, fuck.'

"Unbeknownst to us, our voyage had taken us to Argonia's waters. This was a very bad thing for us. Especially for your mother."

Reivan glanced at his mother and immediately knew why. The slave trade was huge in the Empire. Without a doubt, his mother would have already exhibited signs of growing into a great beauty even at the age of fifteen. Furthermore, the imperials likely saw their strange animalistic features as a plus — since they could sell the slaves for more coin by advertising their exoticness.

Basically, the warbeast children — especially his mother — would have been very valuable slaves.

Reivan couldn't help but ask even though he could have gotten the answer by waiting a bit more. "How did you get out of that situation?"

"It was both a fortune and a misfortune..." Viktor said. "But they got attacked by a massive sea dragon just as they were taking us to their ship. We helped them, considering the situation. But none of our attacks could penetrate its scales. It destroyed all of the ships including ours, then it began snacking on the people who fell into the sea."

"Luckily," Vianna sneered. "It went for the humans more than us. The crew that we'd kidnapped tried to escape too, but they were picked off by the sea dragon purely for the fact that they were physically bigger than us youths."

"And what about the other children from the clan that traveled with you and uncle...?"

"We managed to gather together and swim to a nearby deserted island. The problem was that it barely had anything on it, be it food or even trees. So we knew we wouldn't last long there."

Viktor leisurely paced around the room, occasionally toying with some of Reivan's decorative knickknacks. "That's when I volunteered to scout for another island, far from the direction those Argonians approached from, but still to the west. It seemed like a foolish gamble back then, but I'm grateful I took the chance."

"I came with him, of course." Vianna also turned glum. "Swimming there would have consumed too much stamina, so we froze the water and crafted a small boat from ice. Then, we paddled while praying to our ancestors, hoping that we wouldn't be attacked."

"Eventually, after a week of careful paddling so we wouldn't attract monsters, we were intercepted by Aizen marines." Viktor then let off a chuckle. "We didn't know at the time, but they were the ones waiting to intercept the Argonian ships before the sea dragon came out of nowhere and did their job for them. They were sticking around just in case the sea dragon came to Aizen's waters so they could chase it away like they always do."

"We managed to communicate that we weren't hostile." Vianna sighed. "Then this old man suddenly arrived in the middle of the ship. It was actually Rolf, but how the heck were we supposed to know? Anyway, the old man knew how to speak our language, so we told him about our family members and asked him to save them."

'Huh? If the old man was there, then where are the rest of the kids...?'

A foreboding feeling crawled up Reivan's chest and his suspicions were confirmed by Viktor's next words.

"When we got there, all we saw was the aftermath of a massacre. All of the clan members that stayed behind were beheaded, their heads skewered on spikes and stabbed into the ground. In the middle of their foreheads, the sigil of the Torhu Clan was carved with what was probably heated steel."

"Master..." Vianna's ears drooped as she finished off her story. "The old man couldn't help much at the time because he couldn't go too far from the Outland gate for too long. And we didn't expect him to do anything for us at the time anyway. It was enough that he assured us that we were welcome to stay in this nation... which we did, as you can see. The rest is history."

'Jesus Christ. It's like the fucking Odyssey or something.'

Reivan was truly amazed at the numerous difficulties his mother and uncle faced just to make it to Aizen. He had to admit that before this conversation, the scenario he imagined was similar. But imagining a possibility sure as hell wasn't as depressing as having an even worse story shoved into his face.

And what was more amazing was how seemingly nonchalant these two were. Sure, their moods were affected by recalling their past during the conversation, but a lot of the things that happened to them could be classified as traumatic. And yet, they seemed to be doing fine...

'No. I guess that's not quite right. Maybe they're just trying to be fine.'

His uncle did a lot of stupid things and acted like a mischievous man-child at times, and his mother was an affectionate, happy-go-lucky kind of woman from what he knew. But perhaps they used those qualities to mask the scars that would never really heal. Maybe hints of the youth they never fully experienced remained, seeing as they were unceremoniously thrown into adulthood in a foreign land.

Reivan didn't know what to say, but he thought that he should at least try to say something comforting. "I... don't think any of it was your fault. Rather, I think the two of you did a lot more than what normal people at that age are expected to do."

Vianna reached forward and giggled while stroking his hair. "Of course, it's not our fault, Rein. Don't be silly."

"Haha. Yeah..." Reivan was going to laugh together with her but stopped when she saw the cold look in her eyes.

"It's their fault," Vianna said, her voice dripping with malice. "Our dynasty's ruination, the deaths of our elders, the end of our era... and all the suffering and shame we have experienced. It's all their fault — the Great Tiger and his Torhu Clan's fault."

His mother's words hung in the air, heavy with anger and bitterness. Reivan felt a chill run down his spine as he looked into her eyes, now devoid of the warmth they once held. It was as if darkness had eclipsed the love and tenderness that embodied her nature.

Or perhaps he was merely looking at a different side of her he was never aware of.

Reivan was no fool, so he knew where this conversation was going. And he was fully supportive of it. "We must get justice for our clan. I will assist as best as I can."

"Justice, you say...?" Viktor raised a brow and snorted. "Justice won't bring back everyone that died. Justice won't mend our broken legacy. Only vengeance can do that. We must erase them and everything they've built."

Vianna threw a glance at her brother and sighed as she withdrew her hand from Reivan's hair. "Your uncle and I share a hatred for those traitors, and we wish to enact vengeance upon them, but we have different... views on how that vengeance will be enacted."

Reivan unconsciously gulped and then asked, "And those are...?"

"Your uncle wishes to eradicate the Torhu clan as fast as possible. No matter how low we have to stoop and regardless of the consequences."

"From the very beginning, Rodin already knew that this was my goal," Viktor confessed, his arms crossed in front of his chest. "It was one of the reasons why I chased after accolades so fearlessly, eventually becoming the Supremo. His eventual aid in vanquishing our enemies and reclaiming our birthright is the foundation of my servitude... well, now, I do it because we're family. But he knows that my thoughts on this haven't changed."

"And I assure you, he hasn't forgotten." Vianna sighed. "He's rather troubled because he's recently obtained technology that can help a lot with that endeavor. The problem is it will reveal Aizen's strength too soon."

"I am also aware of this. That's why I don't push the idea of using it either. My loyalty and gratitude to this nation is real. I don't want to negatively affect Aizen in any way."

"Surprisingly tactful of you, brother."

"Oh, shush."

Reivan rubbed his chin in thought, digesting the information. "What about mother?"

Vianna absentmindedly twirled the ends of her long hair as she shared her perspective. "I believe we shouldn't cling too tightly to our ancestral lands. Aizen is a good place... one could even say that it is a better place. We can rebuild our legacy here instead of there. We can also avoid the bloodshed involved in trying to retake those lands. The greatest vengeance, in my eyes, is prospering."

Viktor clicked his tongue and his eyes flickered with anger as he yelled at his sister. "The ancestors would cry if they heard you...! Shame! You've forgotten your roots! "

"And you are too attached to them!" Vianna bristled in response. "We live in the present, brother! And soon, the future will arrive! If we are too focused on the past, we may be too unprepared for the trials that will come!"

"You can only think that way because you didn't spend much time in our home!"

"You're only five years older than me! Do not talk to me as if you didn't spend more of your life here just like I did!"

Reivan cautiously stood up and got in between the two, hoping his presence might defuse some of the tension. Perhaps because they were both ice-attribute Ascendants, instead of the air in the room being heated from their rising tempers, it was getting colder instead.

"Let's take a step back. Uncle, Mother." Reivan looked back and forth between the two, watching as their breathing gradually eased back to normal. He breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Let's agree to disagree. I think there is merit in both of your views and I am convinced that we can reach a common ground if we talk this out."

Viktor fixed his clothes and snorted. "Did you learn that eloquence from hanging out in meeting rooms so much, boy?"

"No, I learned it from you," he sarcastically replied.

"Like hell, you did." Viktor raised a fist at him but a soft chuckle escaped the man's lips.

Vianna also seemed calm now, but her gaze still sharpened when looking at her brother from time to time. She then turned to Reivan with a soft look on her face. "Regardless of which viewpoint you side with in the future, your idiot uncle and I want the same thing from you."

"Consider it done." Reivan solemnly placed his hand on his chest. "I love both of you and your dreams are my dreams as well. Of course, I'll do my best to help you achieve them."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that too fast if I were you..." Viktor warned, a frown on his face.

Vianna seemed extremely happy though. "Perfect! Come. I'll help you choose your future concubines."

"Excuse me?"

Reivan thought he heard wrong.