Chapter 4239: No Other Choice (Part 2)

"There goes her sixth word." Raaz sighed. "See you in a while, son."

"Bye, Dad." Lith tried and failed to stop himself as he opened a Warp Steps to the barn. "Be careful."

"We will." Raaz dismissed his son with a wave of his hand. "Gods, he worries too much. With such cold weather, it’s not like we’d go out for pneumonia."

***

A seemingly abandoned building located a few kilometers away from Lutia, a few hours earlier.

"Fucking cold! When is this gods-damned weather going to improve?" Rayko, a powerful bright violet-colored Awakened, cursed. "We set up camp in Lutia less than one week after the Demon Dirge.

"We’ve been waiting in the outskirts of this backwater city for almost two months, and the Verhens have yet to poke their nose out of the door once."

"What did you expect?" Barago, a bright blue-colored Awakened, sneered. "Between the sunned rain and the snowstorms, no one in their right mind would travel to Lutia unless there is an emergency.

"There is no medical emergency that Verhen can solve by himself, and even if it’s something magic can’t solve, he can just call for help with his amulet. The members of his family have no reason to set foot outside at all."

"Don’t worry, things are about to change." Xarto, another violet core, said. "According to the weather mages, it’s going to stop snowing for a while. All we have to do is clear up a few clouds to give the bored people of Lutia the first sunny day of the new year."

"Why today? What’s so special?" Rayko asked.

"Today, an urgent meeting of the Royal Court will keep everyone busy, and the most powerful members of the army and Association focused on protecting those pompous idiots." Xarto replied. "We won’t get another opportunity like this anytime soon."

"Are we sure we want to do this?" Lirta, a young and ambitious blue-cored Awakened, said. "I trust the plan. I helped set everything up, and I know it’s the best we can do. Yet Verhen scares me.

"He’s a very powerful Awakened, and also the best tracker on Garlen, so let me ask this again. Are we sure we want to go after the members of his family?"

"What other choice do we have?" Xarto snorted. "His fight against Ruugat of the Earth proved that Verhen knows the secret behind human evolution, or at least that his bloodline holds the key to unlock the potential of our race after countless millennia of stagnation.

"The events of the Demon Dirge only confirmed our suspicions. On that day, every one of us became powerful like never before. Some of us, like myself, came this close to evolving!"

Everyone nodded at those words and the memories they evoked. Little did the Awakened know that what they had experienced had nothing to do with taking their next evolutionary step.

The members of the group had just mistaken the surge in world energy around them for their untapped power, and the effects of their sudden elemental affinities for those of nascent bloodline abilities.

Yet the increase in their magical prowess and the mystical connection they had experienced with the elements was real.

All the human Awakened on Mogar had gotten a taste of their hidden potential during the day of the Demon Dirge, and those convened near Lutia were determined to get more.

"I know this is risky, but let’s be real, what’s the alternative?" Xarto continued. "You know how greedy and opportunistic Verhen is. Even if he discovers the secret of human evolution, he won’t reveal it. If he does, that knowledge won’t come cheap.

"Verhen is either going to keep whatever he knows for himself or sell it for an ungodly price that only wealthy and powerful Awakened bloodlines can afford. Things will be no better with his children.

"Once they grow up, they will get to pick and choose whoever they want as their spouse, and you can bet everything you have that they won’t consider any of us as a potential suitor.

"Why should Elysia or Raldarak waste their time with grassroots Awakened when they can join an ancient bloodline and add the bloodline legacy of their spouse to that of their father’s?

"By the time the Indech bloodline becomes accessible to those like us, we’ll be all dead, and so will our children and the children of our children. So, the real question here is not if we should capture the members of Verhen’s family, but if we can afford not to.

"Are you willing to give up on the power of an Indech? To live your lives in mediocrity and die knowing that while others strode forward, you could only watch them in envy from the sidelines?"

A long, awkward silence fell over the room. None of those who had joined the small cabal of Awakened was famous, particularly brilliant, nor did they belong to a young but promising magical bloodline.

They were all young self-Awakened or old Awakened who had already lived more than half their lifespans and had failed to establish both their reputations and households.

It was a very diverse crew, the younger members of which had a bleak future at best, while the older members had no future at all.

They were considered a bunch of failures on the decline who couldn’t find an heir because their so-called legacy amounted solely to the secret of the violet core.

No young Awakened would waste hundreds of years following such a master just for that. Not when Mogar was full of powerful old monsters who could teach much more and possessed riches that put the Royals to shame.

"No, we can’t." Lirta sighed, and the rest of her fellow young Awakened nodded. "I’d rather take a huge gamble with my life at stake than endure a long, mediocre existence, without achieving anything worth mentioning.

"Not when someone even younger than me got everything out of sheer luck! Verhen didn’t do anything to deserve his power. He just won the parents’ lottery. If I were Elina and Raaz Verhen’s daughter, I would be in his place!"

Muttered grumblings filled the air as the other young Awakened cursed their bad luck.

Only a few among them would have liked to point out that luck had nothing to do with Lith’s success since Orpal and Trion had achieved nothing despite carrying his same bloodline, but there was no reason to lower the morale further, so they remained silent.

"What about you, my fellow Twilighters?" Xarto asked, making the remaining half of the room tense up in shame and outrage.

Despite its grandiose ring, the term Twilighters was an insult in the Awakened community. It was a title pinned to all those whose star had started to set without ever reaching a height worth being called a zenith.

The answer came in an onslaught of killer glares accompanied by a silent nod.

"It’s unanimous, then." Xarto replied. "Remember the plan and make no mistake. Speed is the key to our victory. We aren’t going to make a statement or put up a fight to show we are worth something.

"We catch one member of the Verhen family, and we bolt. Nothing more, nothing less."

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