The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 301: Your blood is calling you home, but there’s a home in your heart too

Chapter 301: Your blood is calling you home, but there’s a home in your heart too

When Eruha taught me about the Realm of Nature, he used a mountain drawing as a helper.

At the base of the mountain, deep within underground cities and tunnels, were the drows, the night children. They were the smiths, the explorers, and the Nightwatch of the realm. Due to the nature of the terrains where they lived, they were agile and deft, and had higher physical ability than the other races. They were the ones who supplied weapons and tools to the rest of the realm, and the ones people would find the most roaming other realms without hesitation. When the night came, they would climb to the surface and patrol the realm to keep it safe.

In the middle were my kin, the druids. They were tasked with purifying the land, and this was blessed with the power of elemental magic. Their life, as well as mine, was tied to the mana, and we’d die without them. Because they needed to go around where the corrupted mana was, the druids formed tribes all over the realms, and each tribe had jurisdiction over the land they had to watch and purify.

The elves, blessed with the power of the sun, of light and fire, resided in places that allowed them to receive the most sunlight; the plateaus and mountains. Mother gave them the bows because they lived in wide areas, and had to hunt from afar. I had thought that their proud nature stemmed from this--because of the blessing from something ’up’ there, but that wasn’t the case.

Izzi told me that the Realm of Nature could also be explained in a religious sense, seeing it as one big Temple. The elves were the ones in charge of the Temple’s management. That was why all diplomatic matters went through the elves--or rather, the Sarteriel Elvendom. The kingdom where Izzi came from, Etherziel, was the one handling trade.

Because of their ’role’, the elves were the ones in contact with the other realms’ high society the most; the diplomats, the nobles, the Lords--prompting them to be well versed in many arts, including the arts of making them look elegant and superior. They were proud because their role shaped them into it.

The druids, in this case, was the ’priest’ of the Temple. Not only their role was to purify the filth, but they also had the High Priestess who was the medium for Mother to descend or talk to Her children.

That was Amarein.

The drows, of course, had the role of the Templar; the guards, the knights. They weren’t before, but apparently, after my kingdom fell, they started to patrol the border too, and had put several outposts along the line.

And these drows were the ones we encountered first the moment we entered the Realm of Nature’s aerial space.

Technically, we could just bypass it since we didn’t take the land route. But I didn’t want someone to mistakenly shoot Vrida, so we descended to one of those sentry boxes and asked them to tell the other that the very pretty green wyvern in the air was not a shooting target.

Only after that could we enjoy the ride without any worry.

And finally! Finally, after living on the border for so long, I could see the landscape of the Realm beyond the barrier.

Ah...it was like crossing to another world. I had lived through two months of winter, so looking at the Real of Nature felt like colors bursting into my visions. Evergreen forests, colorful flowers, multicolored grass! The veins of refreshing blue throughout the land, pooling into several mirror-like lakes, or flowing freely into the sea. The very air was filled with such rich mana, and the land breathed in pulsing life forces that were calling me so melodiously.

Oh, perhaps this was why they warned me about being enticed.

[Waaa....]

Even Jade’s exclaim sounded more dazed than energetic, as if the little bird was being hypnotized. After all, this place was, technically, our hometown; for we were Mother’s children. My astral veins, the mana circuit all over my body, my mana core; they were pulsing just the way Shwa would react to my voice.

"I can hear your heartbeat," Natha told me, placing a hand over my left chest.

Even through the sounds of the wind? Must have been so loud. I couldn’t hear it though; what I could hear was the whisper of the winds, the groaning of the land, the murmur of the leaves, and the gurgling of the creeks.

"It’s an instinctual reaction," I whispered so I wouldn’t let out a gasp. It was something calling me home, like a soft caress of Mother’s touch tugging into my being.

"Hmm..."

I feel Natha’s hand pulling me back, closer to him, even though we were already pressed tight against each other. Ah...I looked up and saw the stiff line of his lips. Holding the hand that was clutching my chest, I told him with a smile that came easily to my lips. "But it’s still beating the hardest for you."

"Don’t flirt with me so high in the air," the stiff lips loosened up slightly, and I could see the corner of them twitch. "I can’t do what I want in such height."

Isn’t he cute?

I threw my head back and laughed, circling my arms on his cheek. If Jade and Ignis weren’t here, I would have turned around and spent the rest of the journey facing him.

"But it’s truly beautiful," I couldn’t help but sigh, melted inside his embrace and the wonderful scenery. It looked even better than D’Ara’s abode, perhaps because the place was also filled with the energy of life, of growth, rather than a beauty trapped in stagnancy.

"It is," Natha put his arms around my waist, lips pressing behind my ear. "Is that why you’re so pretty?"

"I’ve never even breathed this place’s air," I pursed my lips to hide my fluster, glancing down at my chest. See? It was beating so damn hard.

"Your blood still comes from this place."

Well, that was true; Grandma was truly beautiful. No wonder Grandpa immediately took care of her when he found her unconscious in the woods behind his house. And no one questioned it when Grandpa married her, even if she had no ID or credentials.

Huh...

I see...my grandmother lived that beauty privilege life, huh?

But talking about blood...

"Hey, did I tell you that Valmeier...I mean, my father is a High Priest?" I turned my head slightly--half to see him, half to get rid of his lips on my earlobe.

"No? Did Lord An’Hyang tell you that?"

"Yeah; he said the child needed three essences, right?" I recalled the content of the Demon God’s explanation. "But it had to be the essence with the most connection to the three Gods. You bearing the alpha seed, and me with the royal blood, and lastly..."

"The High Priest; someone with a high faith in the Goddess," Natha rested his chin above my head, drumming his fingers on my midriff. "Hmm...there’s a possibility that he had a blessing too."

Ah--High Priests of the Church sometimes received a blessing from the Goddess, and that meant they carried a part of the Goddess’s power inside them. Perhaps that was why Valmeier was such a great battle priest in the past. I still had the priest mark in my heart, which probably contained a trace of that blessing.

Dunno. Perhaps I should check it out someday?

"Hmm...that’s weird," Natha’s reaction, however, wasn’t what I expected.

"What do you mean?"

"As far as I know, there hadn’t been anyone with a blessing for the last...I’m not sure--I think it was shortly before that war between the human and the druids..."

His voice dwindled, and he became silent, just like when he talked about how dryads conceiving.

"Why? What’s wrong?"

"Hmm..." Natha frowned, eyes narrowed skeptically. "Why is there no one getting a blessing for such a long time?" he muttered. "For humans, blessing is a show of the Goddess’s favor, which was why all royal families always want their members to receive a blessing,"

"Ah--is that why they try to make the Princess receive the spear? To show that it was a sign of blessing?" my detective instinct suddenly tingled--not that I was smart enough to be one, but just play along, okay?

"Perhaps," Natha nodded. "Blessing signifies power, a great one. It’s like your purifying ability, or my alpha seed. Now..." his eyes narrowed even more. "Logically speaking, having no blessing means a lack of power, so why do you think they decided to wage war with other realms in such a period?"

Oh! And it wasn’t just once, it was twice. One with the kingdom of druid, and one was the one my past self was involved in.

"Maybe...they just didn’t announce that someone got a blessing?"

"No, sweetheart; as I said, blessing signifies power and authority. The moment they received one, they would announce it to the whole world. Unless..."

My heart beating faster. "Unless?"

"Unless the one receiving that blessing hides it," he said.

"You mean..." I swallowed, "My father hides the fact that he received a blessing? Can he do that?"

"Depends on where he received it," Natha said. "Theoretically, someone could receive a blessing as long as there’s a church, so if he received it somewhere secluded..."

He did not continue, but I wasn’t that dumb to not be able to see it. "The church where Valmeier grew up..." my voice came out in a whisper, and something suddenly clicked in my mind.

Based on Valmeier’s memory, he was told that the old priest found him in the middle of the woods in the forest near the church, and decided to take him in. Not only took him in, however, but also taught him the arts of the battle priest, as if he knew Velmeier would have enemies in life later on.

"Natha...do you think Valmeier was actually born there?"

I could feel my voice actually shaking a little bit. I knew for sure that the old priest wasn’t a High Priest, and he had no blessing, so he wasn’t Valmeier’s father. But what if he actually knew Valmeier’s father--no, his parents?

Because...

Mother--why hadn’t I thought about this before?

Valmeier’s name was in an archaic language of the forest--the language used by druids. How could a human priest give such a name to a random baby he found in a mountain?

"Oh, Mother..." I took a deep breath, feeling my nape getting hot and cold.

But do you think my shock had to end there? Nope. Because Natha was yet to end his pondering.

"That’s one thing, but there’s another thing we might need to think about," he said.

"W-what?"

"The fact that no blessing was knowingly given to humans in the past century, yet the humans waged war with other realms instead..."

"Yeah?"

The silver eyes darkened as he spoke. "Perhaps, the Goddess was being betrayed by the humans."

...come again?