Novel Full Chapter 5115: Custodes! III
Chapter 5115: Custodes! III
Ubergulden Dietrich stepped through the doorway with the easy confidence of someone who had never known limitation.
Behind him walked three women draped in golden robes that seemed woven from solidified gold Infinity. Their features held the ageless beauty common to all Gilded, but something about their bearing suggested wisdom accumulated across spans that made even other Gilded seem young.
Each one radiated authority that pressed against the room in waves of measured power.
The Magna Sorora.
Ubergulden Adelheid recognized them immediately. This grand sisterhood existed solely to ensure the primacy and progression of Gilded Ones, their membership consisting entirely of wise women who had dedicated their existences to guiding their kind toward greater heights. They advised ruling families, oversaw ceremonies of significance, and maintained traditions that predated most of what currently existed in Observable Existence.
The first among them was called Sororis Prima Evangelina, her features sharp and assessing beneath hair that fell like spun gold. The second, Sororis Prima Konstanze, held herself with the stillness of deep water concealing dangerous currents. The third, Sororis Prima Mathilde, watched everything with eyes that seemed to perceive far more than they revealed.
All three studied Ubergulden Adelheid with attention that felt like physical pressure.
"Sister."
Ubergulden Dietrich’s voice carried warmth beneath its formal cadence as he approached her floating lotus.
"They are here for the preliminary process before you can be taken to the ceremony. Today marks your full rejoining with all the status your position in our ruling family demands."
He smiled.
"This means one of the first things in your Ceremony is for you to undergo the Bonding, THE Sundesmos, with your own Custodes."
Custodes.
The word stirred memories that Ubergulden Adelheid had suppressed across eons of living as someone else. A Custos, in singular form, was a powerful Gilded One bound to ruling royal Gilded through rituals.
They protected their bonded charge for life, their existences intertwined so thoroughly that betrayal became impossible by design. Should anything threaten their bonded Gilded One, the Custodes would pay with their lives before allowing harm to reach those they served.
They were unfathomably loyal because they were engineered to be incapable of anything else.
"The one chosen to be your Custos is someone who grew up and trained with us," Dietrich continued, his golden eyes without pupils brightening with something like nostalgia. "You remember Wachter Alaric, yes? He has been preparing for this responsibility since you departed. His dedication to your eventual return has been quite touching, actually."
Ubergulden Adelheid remained calm.
She had known this was coming when she agreed to return. She had understood what playing the role she had run away from would require. The ceremonies, the obligations, the chains disguised as honors that would bind her to a life she had abandoned precisely because it suffocated everything she actually wanted to be.
"Let us just get this process started."
Her voice carried none of the turmoil that existed beneath her composed exterior. She had fully come back and committed to this path. Whatever personal feelings she held about Bonding, about Custodes, about becoming once again what her family demanded, those feelings were irrelevant now.
She had made her choice.
The three Sororis Prima moved forward with synchronized grace, their golden robes trailing across the floor like liquid infinity. They circled her floating lotus with slow deliberate steps, their eyes never leaving her form as they completed one rotation, then another.
"The preliminary testing will now commence," Sororis Prima Evangelina announced, her voice carrying the weight of ritual. "Ubergulden Adelheid, daughter of one of the noble lines, you will remain still while we verify your readiness for the Bonding ceremony."
Illusory golden blades materialized in their hands.
The weapons shimmered with authority that could have unmade lesser beings through proximity alone. Each Sororis Prima raised her blade as they continued circling, the ritual taking form through movements practiced across countless ceremonies before this one.
Then, as one, they struck.
Three golden blades pierced the neck of Ubergulden Adelheid from different angles, passing through flesh that offered no resistance because the weapons weren’t meant to harm. They were meant to read. To perceive what existed within her on levels that normal examination couldn’t access.
Ubergulden Adelheid didn’t react.
She gazed on calmly and waited, her expression unchanged as the illusory blades remained embedded in her neck. This was standard procedure. This was what returning to her position required. She had known they would examine her, would verify that eons of living as Bounded hadn’t corrupted her engineering in ways that made the Bonding impossible.
She had covered everything with her power to make sure nothing would be found out.
But...
The calm expressions of the Magna Sorora began to shift.
Sororis Prima Evangelina’s brow furrowed slightly. Sororis Prima Konstanze’s stillness became rigid rather than relaxed. Sororis Prima Mathilde’s eyes widened by a fraction that most beings wouldn’t have noticed.
Confusion spread across their features.
Then shock.
Then anger.
They pulled back from Ubergulden Adelheid with sudden movements that shattered the ritual’s measured grace. Their golden blades dissolved as they retreated, their expressions now holding coldness that pressed against the room with force that made THE Gesinde throughout the space lower their heads instinctively as they kneeled!
"She is already bound to a Custos!"
BOOM!
Sororis Prima Evangelina’s voice cut through the silence like a blade far sharper than the illusory ones she had wielded.
"She has undergone the Sundesmos ritual!"
...!
The words fell into the room and detonated.
Ubergulden Dietrich’s expression transformed from warm anticipation to cold shock in the span of a single heartbeat. His golden eyes without pupils fixed on his sister with intensity that could have crushed thousands of Folds through attention alone!
The anger that followed came fast, displacing the shock before it had fully settled.
"You..."
His voice emerged low.
"Who did you bind to? What have you done?!"
He stepped toward her, his presence expanding with fury that made the three Sororis Prima retreat further despite their own considerable power because he knew where she had been thks whole time.
She had not been around Gilded so who could she have possibly become bound to? He already knew the answer as it was obscene!
"Do you not know your position?! How you need someone strong to help you for what is coming?! Otherwise you won’t survive!"
His hands clenched at his sides, golden light bleeding between his fingers.
"Tell me, who... who is your Custos?"
...!
Ubergulden Adelheid’s shock didn’t show on her face, but it cascaded through her existence!
She hadn’t undergone the Sundesmos ritual.
She hadn’t bound herself to any Custos.
She had lived as Bounded for eons, had suppressed her engineering, had existed without any of the connections that defined Gilded hierarchy. The Bonding ceremony today was supposed to be her first. There was no one. There couldn’t be anyone?
"..."
Motherfucker.
She placed her hand on her heart.
And she sensed the boundless Quintessence Infiniforce swirling within her, multicolored seas that belonged to someone who had somehow reached through unreachable weavings to communicate with her mere moments ago.
Fuck!
She stayed silent.
Because she didn’t know how to explain that her Custos, the Custodes she had bound...might be a Bounded Lifeform she had never actually chosen to bind herself to at all!
She could not explain this!