Chapter 168: Lord of Season

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Hoping you will help me to reach the new milestone :D

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Erik did not immediately obey the woman beneath the tree. He looked around once more, confirming there was no trace of Dark Mist, no ruined guard station, and no sign of Elowen or Meira.

Snowflakes continued drifting silently onto the grass without wetting a single flower petal, while the sound of summer cicadas and rustling autumn leaves rang out at the same time.

"Where is this?" he asked.

"You may think of it as a dream." The woman tilted her head slightly. "Or a place safe enough for us to talk while your body rests outside. If you like, call it my garden."

Erik slowly approached. The closer he came, the more he realized how unusually tall the woman was. If she stood upright, she would surely be over two meters tall. Even while sitting on the white-sheeted bed, her long legs nearly reached the grass.

Her hair, as if woven from the golden light of sunshine and the silver sheen of snow, fell past her shoulders and sometimes changed to the color of maple leaves in the blink of an eye.

A veil of luminous mist concealed her face. Erik could make out the curve of her lips and her smile, but whenever he tried to focus on her eyes, he saw only small points of light like stars.

Though he could not see her face clearly, he still felt that she was unbelievably beautiful, as though every season of the year had offered up its finest part to create the woman sitting before him.

"What should I call you?"

"You?" She laughed, her voice soft as silver bells in the wind. "You woke up and immediately wanted to keep your distance from me? I was just about to reward you for your bravery at the guard station."

"You know what happened at the guard station?"

"Of course. I also know that a certain man is very good at protecting others, yet refuses to protect himself."

Erik found those words very familiar. If Meira were here, she would probably scold him in much the same tone. The thought of Meira and Elowen immediately made him more serious.

"How are they? Elowen is injured, and Meira is looking for me. I cannot sit here talking if they are still in danger."

The woman watched him silently for a moment, then patted the bed again.

"Sit down. I will tell you what I can. But first, you need to stop trying to rise as though the entire world will collapse if you are delayed by one minute. Your body outside has already paid too high a price."

Erik tried touching his right arm again. He felt no pain anymore, but the memory of bone breaking was still as clear as if it had just happened. In the end, he sat down beside her, keeping enough distance that he could stand if anything unusual happened.

The woman looked at the space between them, then giggled.

"If you sit that far away, I will have to speak very loudly."

A warm hand suddenly wrapped around his shoulders. Before Erik could react, he was gently pulled closer. The next moment, his head was placed upon her soft thighs.

A sweet floral fragrance drifted past, making Erik momentarily forget what he had intended to ask.

He looked up and saw only the woman’s upper body casting a shadow over his face, her full curves visible beneath a dress as light as mist, blocking out a large portion of the sky.

"Wait, this position..."

"Is it uncomfortable?" The woman looked down at him, clearly enjoying his flustered reaction. "After suffering so much pain, I thought you would appreciate a soft pillow."

"I did not say it was uncomfortable."

"Then that is good."

She placed her fingertips in his hair, slowly stroking his messy black locks. The gesture was so natural and gentle that Erik did not know how to respond.

He was not the sort of person who lost the ability to think just because a beautiful woman was taking care of him, but in this strange space, part of the tension from the battle gradually faded beneath her hand.

"You are thinking some very interesting thoughts again," she said.

"Can you read my mind?"

"There is no need to. Your ears turned red."

Erik fell silent. The woman burst into laughter, making the flower petals around the bed tremble softly.

"All right. Let me introduce myself before you decide I am a seductress luring people into dreams." She leaned down, her voice becoming warm and low. "I am the Lord of Seasons. By my former duty, I was a Sentinel of Silver Moon."

"A Sentinel?"

Erik immediately recalled the immense protective dome covering the city, the ancient magic nodes deep beneath its buildings, and the instability he had heard mentioned before.

He knew the protective system contained parts that had existed for a very long time, but he had never imagined they would be connected to someone like the woman before him.

"Are you the one operating the protective dome?"

"I once was." The Lord of Seasons answered with a faint smile. "Now, only the mechanisms I left behind can still function. I am no longer whole in the way you see me now."

"Then is this place your memory?"

"One part of it. One part is energy that has refused to fade. And one part..." She touched his forehead lightly with one finger. "Exists because your heart answered a call that no one has heard in a very long time."

Erik wanted to ask more, but a ring of light spread across the grass from her fingertip. In an instant, the four corners of the garden moved. Snow melted into water, flowers bloomed and bore fruit, green leaves turned gold, and then the wind swept them up.

The scene spun into a complete circle before returning to its state of four seasons existing at once.

"A very long time ago, the Primal Succubus realized that a world ruled only by power and greed could not endure forever. She created Sentinels to keep cities from being destroyed by the very things her own kind had brought into the world."

The woman pointed toward the distant forest. Each tree trunk gradually became a massive pillar, connected by a dome of light identical to the system covering Silver Moon. Erik saw mana currents traveling through them, converging at a point in the city center before dispersing toward residential districts.

"Sentinels maintain the balance of energy, preserve the boundaries that protect residents, and repair damaged links. We are not gods who can decide every fate. We are guardians, and our power has limits."

"But why are things this enormous necessary?" Erik asked. "Is it because of Dark Mist?"

"Dark Mist is one of the dangers of this era. Before that, the problem began the moment Succubi entered this world."

A golden leaf fell onto Erik’s forehead, then dissolved into light. As it vanished, the garden around them gradually darkened. The cicadas fell silent, and the sweet floral fragrance gave way to the smell of smoke and hurried footsteps.

Erik abruptly sat up. The Lord of Seasons did not hold him back. She only rested a hand lightly on his shoulder, as though reminding him that what he was about to see could not touch him.

Before him appeared another city, older than anything in Silver Moon. Stone houses stood close together beside a river.

Market stalls were filled with fruit, while children chased small animals through the square. Ordinary men and women lived together, argued, laughed, worked, and returned home at sunset.

A family of three passed by him. The father carried his little daughter on his shoulders, while the mother scolded him with a smile over the shopping basket he had forgotten. Erik instinctively leaned aside to make room, but all three passed through him like mist.

"Is this a real memory?"

"What remains from a lost era," the Lord of Seasons answered. "It is incomplete, but enough for you to understand the beginning."

Long tears suddenly opened in the sky. Hundreds of winged figures descended from them, accompanied by laughter and shrieking wind.

Some people in the square looked up, believing those beautiful visitors had brought a miracle. But the instant the first Succubus touched the ground, joy became screams.

Erik saw a man dragged from the crowd. Magical arms clamped around his wrists and shoulders as his life force was rapidly drained away. He collapsed amid the horror of those around him.

Another Succubus shoved down the wife who had tried to run forward and save her husband. Some broke into one home after another, while others laughed amid the cries of torn-apart families.

Erik gritted his teeth. He had witnessed countless cruel things done by the Men’s Council, but the sight before him forced him to admit a painful truth. In the past, some Succubi had regarded humans as resources that could be exploited at will.

"Stop..." He stepped toward a child cowering behind a stall, but his hand only passed through the scene.

The Lord of Seasons did not stop him. She allowed Erik to see everything that was happening, until the once-brilliant streets became a place of smoke and desperate cries.

"The first Succubi were very powerful," she said quietly. "Many saw this world as an endless storehouse of resources. To them, a man’s vital essence was something to be taken, while the happiness and lives of others meant nothing."

Erik stared numbly at the ruined scene before him, both hands clenched as he growled, "Did no one stop them?"

"There were those who fought back. There were Succubi who did not accept it. But when the difference in power is too great, the kindness of a few is not enough to save an entire world."

A curtain of black rain fell, sweeping away the district. Erik turned toward the tall woman. The playful expression she had worn before was gone from her mist-covered face, leaving only a sorrow so prolonged that he could not guess how many years she had carried it.

"If it continued like that, there would eventually be no men left for them to hunt," Erik said. "They would destroy the source of their own survival."

"You understand quickly." The Lord of Seasons nodded gently. "The Primal Succubus saw that too. But it was not only the risk of depleted resources that made her act. She could not accept a race born with the ability to connect through emotion turning intimacy into an instrument of slaughter."

The scene beneath their feet shifted to a vast hall. Circles of bloodline symbols spun around a woman seated at the center of the light.

Erik could not see her appearance clearly. He only saw countless threads of red light separating from Succubus wings and being drawn into humanoid models of many different races.

"She began changing the way bloodlines functioned," the Lord of Seasons explained. "Part of the predatory power was dispersed, fused, and controlled. New generations were no longer as strongly governed by the violent instincts of their pureblood ancestors. But the process was far from simple, and it was not without cost."

Erik watched the rings of light alter the structure of every person. He suddenly remembered the research into Gen.0 he had heard about, but he did not hastily assume the two events were the same. Seeing his thoughtful expression, the Lord of Seasons smiled.

"You have met people who carry altered bloodlines in your era, have you not? The research that came afterward, including the term Gen.0 used by some, continues or imitates certain ancient principles. Do not mistake them all for the same experiment."

"Then why do Gen.0s depend on men?"

"In the design of that branch, the dependency was intensified greatly. It was a way to force Succubi with the new bloodline to maintain relationships with men instead of slaughtering the last source of life force they needed to survive." She slowly stroked Erik’s hair. "A measure that could reduce massacres, but one that also placed their futures in someone else’s hands."

Erik looked at the bloodline threads within the light. He could not deny that such a measure might save lives. Yet the unease remained, because a race that depended absolutely on others could easily fall into a new form of injustice.

"Did she know that would happen?"

"She knew the risk, but she could not see every future." The Lord of Seasons sighed. "And the people who survived the era of being hunted did not easily forgive the Succubi, even after they changed."

The scene in the hall gradually faded, revealing another square. This time, surviving men stood upon a high platform, while female Succubi knelt below. The men’s faces held anger and wariness. In the eyes of many, the memories of families that had been destroyed had never faded.

Erik recognized a familiar symbol on the banner behind the raised platform. It reminded him of the institutions of power in the present world.

"The victims from back then..." he murmured.

"Learned how to seize power," the Lord of Seasons continued. "At first, they only wanted to ensure the tragedy would not repeat itself. Then, generation by generation, fear became law, law became privilege, and privilege began being used to justify the very things they had once hated."

In the square, a man raised his hand. A female Succubus was forced to kneel lower while the crowd watched in silence. Erik felt his hands clench unconsciously.

The Lord of Seasons lightly touched the back of his hand with one finger. "You have seen those who first committed the sins. Now, Erik, look closely at those who inherited that hatred."