Chapter 33: Returning Like Lightning!
The physical strength of the three was similar, with Dragonborn having a slight edge, but not enough to create a significant gap.
The key to judging their strength lay in their respective Talents.
The Dragonborn’s Talent was 【Dragonflame】, an Authority of annihilation and purification.
The Saintly’s Talent was 【Light Forging】, an almost omnipotent forging art.
As for Hram’s demonic race Talent, it was 【Weave Magic】, not a unique Artifice, but a powerful ancient sorcery passed down and woven through the Black Crown.
This was a privilege only Hram possessed. Other races, even if they knew the structure and knowledge of ancient sorcery, could not replicate it—their operating systems were different!
Remember the first published website domain: 𝕥𝕨𝕜𝕒𝕟.𝕔𝕠𝕞
Demons could not only use modern Artifices but also concoct ancient sorceries that were difficult to comprehend.
That was an era when gods had fallen and Fiends roamed freely. Compared to modern Sorcery, ancient sorcery was… the answer was the older, the stronger!
In any case, other races viewed Hram with a single thought: overpowered and unbalanced, unnerveable without nerfs.
For Hram, the Black Crown was equivalent to a second brain and heart. Without the Black Crown, Hram was an incomplete, defective product.
The grey-haired demon elder sister looked at Yonglan and bowed, placing a hand over her chest:
“Though I’ve said it many times, I must still thank you. This gratitude must be repaid with action.”
Yonglan frankly replied, “No need to thank me; I am also fulfilling a commission.”
He had promised Shariel that he would look after her Hram kin, which was why Yonglan had unhesitatingly helped Zhenxian. Of course, even without that promise, he would have vouched for the grey-haired elder sister out of his friendship with Zhenxian.
Zhenxian frowned, perplexed, “What commission?”
“Well, how should I put it? It should also be a Hram. She asked me to protect her kin as much as possible.”
Yonglan regarded this commission as an important side quest in Sams, as the cherry-haired girl named Shariel was truly unforgettable.
Her blessings, casually bestowed, could drastically boost stats. Yonglan was captivated by this “strength beauty” of her every move.
Completing her commission, he expected to receive further blessings the next time they met. If he could even recruit her into his party, that would be even better.
It was all about the favorability quest.
“There was such a thing?”
Zhenxian mumbled to herself. Yonglan had never mentioned this to her before.
However, this did explain why Yonglan showed no prejudice towards demons.
Yonglan continued, “So I intend to see this commission through to the end. Do you have any good suggestions?”
Hearing this, the grey-haired sister stopped walking and looked at Yonglan with a peculiar expression:
“You mean… you want to protect demons under the Pillar of the Holy’s auspices?”
After receiving an affirmative answer, Zhenxian was silent for a moment before pulling Yonglan to sit on a park bench.
The grey-haired sister said:
“That Chanter from the Golden Holy Domain intends to train you as a Priest, which means you are very likely to become a High Master who is not a Saintly, possibly in charge of a city-state. At that time, as long as you can show leniency to the atoning Hram, just like today, it will already be protection…”
Before the Hram elder sister could finish, Yonglan frowned and interrupted, “I don’t believe in the Primal King. Praising idols? What a joke, I’m going to vomit.”
“Alright, stop talking!”
Zhenxian quickly covered the man’s mouth, her lips twitching. “…Even among our demon race, such blasphemous words are rare.”
Yonglan pushed away the grey-haired sister’s hands. “I know what I’m doing. I won’t say this in front of others. According to that Inquisitor lady, you don’t seem to have much faith in the Primal King?”
Zhenxian pouted.
“Her hostility is too biased. It’s not that we don’t believe in the Primal King… it’s just that the Primal King is not our only object of faith. In the Hram lineage, the Primal King shaped all beings, while the Honored King shaped us.”
“Honored King? What is that?”
Yonglan’s eyes lit up, and he asked with interest,
“Tell me more. I’m very interested in Hram matters.”
“Are you curious about the ramblings of demons?”
Zhenxian laughed self-deprecatingly, then gently traced the crown on her forehead with her finger.
“Our knowledge is passed down through bloodline and the Black Crown. Although the Black Crowns of us atoning Hram demons are stripped away, some cognitions are already etched into our bones from the moment of birth.”
“For instance, the meaning of Hram. Even though the world calls us demons, fallen ones, only we know what Hram truly is.”
The grey-haired elder sister extended her arm, gazing into the void before her.
“Hram is an illusion that has reached perfection; it is the past, the future, the resolve that smooths away suffering.”
“And the Honored King… is the progenitor who shaped us. He is a chanters of compassion, a practitioner of love, who sent us into the future.”
The more he listened, the more impressive it became. It was interesting.
Yonglan couldn’t help but ask:
“Hram’s Honored King… what is his name?”
“I don’t know.”
Zhenxian shook her head and gave a quality answer:
“We don’t know his name or his appearance. In our lineage, we only feel his existence without a doubt. Perhaps some secret records concerning ancient times might contain relevant information, but the Hram clan has fallen so low that we have no way of knowing.”
Information… perhaps the archives in the Golden Holy Domain would have it. All the legacies of the Xuntian Dynasty had fallen there.
Seeing Yonglan in a thoughtful mood, the grey-haired elder sister added:
“Among the Hram, there is a legend that in the distant future, our Honored King will return like lightning and lead us to rebuild a prosperous and peaceful homeland.”
What is Jun Shi Yi?
Yonglan looked up and met Zhenxian’s smiling, deep green eyes.
“But that’s just a legend. It might be true, or it might just be a comforting hypothesis. After all, the mainstream belief on the Boundless Land is that the Primal King will return like lightning. I wonder who is imitating whom.”
The grey-haired elder sister quietly gazed at Yonglan. In the quiet night, on the park bench, the breeze ruffled her slightly curly hair by her ears.
After a period of silence, Zhenxian lowered her eyelids and said:
“If you are truly willing to seek welfare for Hram, then are you interested in becoming a Monarch?”
“Hmm?”
Monarch was not a specific term; it was a synonym for ruler and leader.
Since the collapse of the Xuntian Dynasty, there had been no authoritative unified organization. The Pillar of the Holy was far from it. Everything was a free-for-all, with everyone being their own king and overlord.
However, to be called a Monarch, one usually had to rule a fairly sized city-state, otherwise, it would be too laughable.
Flames seemed to ignite in Zhenxian’s eyes:
“Not subservient to the Pillar of the Holy or any Kingdom, but possessing one’s own city-state, one’s own land. If you have such aspirations, the Hram people of Chang are willing to…”
Mid-sentence, Zhenxian abruptly stopped. She suppressed her excited expression and said with a bitter smile:
“No… I’ve spoken too much. Consider this after you have advanced to the Champion Tier. Otherwise, it’s all empty talk.”
