Chapter 457: The Promise (1)
— Frey Starlight’s Pov —
Since the official introduction of the special unit that would lead the vanguard of the war, the summit proceeded smoothly as Prince Aegon Valerion laid out the various aspects of the coming conflict.
There was much to discuss .. ranging from the military forces contributed by the great houses to the financial and logistical support required for such a massive campaign.
Funding an army of that size was no easy feat, especially when the prince announced that every soldier would be equipped with at least Class B gear.
Granting ordinary soldiers such high-quality equipment was essential for Aegon’s strategy to win the complete support of the empire’s populace.
But at the same time, this placed an enormous burden on the great houses, forcing them to supply weapons and armor for an army one hundred thousand strong.
It could be said that the coming war would drain the empire dry. Sir Alon truly intended to throw everything they had into this conflict and end the war against the Ultras once and for all.
At some point, I lost all interest in the meeting. None of what they were discussing really concerned me.
As if she had been waiting for this exact moment, Sansa leaned in and whispered in my ear, noticing where my thoughts had drifted.
"Hey, what do you say we sneak out of this boring place? This is the first time I’ve heard my idiot brother talk for this long—it’s actually making me nauseous."
She wasn’t wrong. Aegon had been speaking endlessly, going over every aspect of the war with meticulous detail.
When it came to strategy and manipulation, I believed that prince was no less than Beatrice in any way.
As long as he was leading, that demoness would face hell against him. From a tactical standpoint, it was a perfectly balanced match, regardless of their combat abilities.
Back to Sansa.
She truly did whatever she wanted, without caring about anything around her.
"I don’t mind, but where exactly are we going?"
I had spent most of my recent days in the Nightmare Lands, so my sense of what normal people did in situations like this was long gone.
You could say I was craving to return to the battlefield.
But Sansa had something else entirely in mind.
"Let’s roam around the capital. It’s been a long time since I was allowed to go out and walk freely."
What she wanted could very well be considered a date.
I might’ve thought of it differently if the princess was still the same person she used to be.
But with the way she was now, there was no room for doubt about what she meant.
"Are you planning to walk among the people with those horns of yours showing?"
I didn’t mind her current appearance, but I was certain she’d attract attention wherever she went. That’s why she had been banned from wandering among the populace ever since her return from the Ultras continent.
Since then, she only moved through the shadows, hiding herself in the darkness of her own power.
"The world has already seen me. There’s nothing left to hide now."
And it was true. Her new form had already been broadcast across the entire empire.
"You’re rushing things. Sure, they know about you now .. but that doesn’t mean they’ve accepted you."
There was a huge difference between awareness and acceptance.
But it seemed Sansa understood that already... Like I said, she did what she pleased.
I figured she had been waiting for the right opportunity to drag me along on this outing she had been looking forward to.
For a moment, I thought .. maybe I should just go with her.
Lately, all I’d been thinking about was war and how I needed to grow stronger as fast as possible.
But just as I was about to answer her, a third voice interrupted .. someone who had remained silent until now.
"You’ve all changed so much..."
It was Bloodmader, whose eyes hadn’t left our faces since this special unit was formed.
"The temple’s students used to be nothing more than children, unaware of the true nature of the world they lived in .. lulled into a false sense of peace, deceived by others into believing they were safe."
"But when I look at your faces now, I can’t help but wonder .. are these really the faces of people about to march into war?"
Everyone standing before him was a student of the very temple he had led for so many years.
And yet their faces showed a strange indifference, as if what they were heading into wasn’t a war, but a vacation to some faraway land.
Maybe it was naivety, or perhaps arrogance.
But Bloodmader realized that wasn’t the truth.
These students were no longer just students—they had become warriors.
True warriors, who had fought countless battles of life and death. Warriors who had been tempered by hardship to the point where most of them possessed the strength to not only fight him evenly .. but even defeat him.
Watching these once-raw gems, these young talents he had observed for so long, finally reach their potential... Bloodmader felt a small measure of relief in his tired heart.
Relief—and redemption.
That he had not been wrong when he made his decision back then, when he caused the deaths of hundreds of students.
Deep down, the former headmaster of the temple believed it had been the right choice. And perhaps what he saw before him now was proof enough.
But he was wrong.
"It seems you’re misunderstanding something here, Raphael Bloodmader. What you see before you now is not your doing."
To correct the old man’s misconception, I spoke up.
"What we are now... is the result of our own choices, of the trials we’ve faced on our own. What you did was nothing more than a small spark in the inferno of horrors we’ve endured since then."
Honestly, how could what happened during the temple raid even compare to the deadly hunt we survived on the Ultras continent?
"You may think you contributed to who we are now. You might be trying to console yourself with that thought. But what you’re doing is nothing but hypocrisy. In the end, you chose to believe what you wanted to believe .. and blindly followed the visions that Blue Eyes man showed you."
"You!"
The moment I mentioned the Engineer, I saw Bloodmader’s expression twist upside down.
I had struck a sensitive chord .. the one thing only he was supposed to know.
He was the only one who understood what I meant. The others simply stood there, confused by my words, struggling to grasp what I was talking about.
"You’re truly arrogant, Bloodmader, to think you can change the future so easily."
With a sarcastic smile, I sighed at the thought.
"How much do you know?" he asked, unable to understand how the young man before him possessed such deep foreknowledge of his actions.
"At the very least, I know more than you do."
Change the future?
Defy destiny?
Ask me about those things. I’ve spent most of my life here fighting against them... struggling to swim against the current.
The future foreseen by someone like the Engineer couldn’t be changed that easily.
To defeat a world-breaking power like his foresight, you needed a force equal to—or even stronger than it, capable of reversing the future he had seen.
This was a truth I had painfully come to understand recently, after endless suffering.
That’s why the former head of the temple was nothing but a fool .. arrogant enough to think that something trivial, like launching a mere raid, could change the tragic future the Engineer had shown him.
"Who knows, Bloodmader... maybe what you’ve done with your own hands is the spark .. the very first spark that will ignite the disastrous future you’re so desperate to avoid."
Unless the Engineer had tampered with the vision he showed him on purpose—just as he had done with my sister, Ada—that vision would inevitably come true.
People like Bloodmader lacked what it took to reverse a future like that.