Novel Full Chapter 1675: The Same As Rex (2)
Chapter 1675: The Same As Rex (2)
Draven’s body trembled; an electric current of dread and fear coursed through his veins.
He stared at his father with a shaky gaze.
His mother is the third concubine of the house, lucky enough to be taken in after the destruction of her home. Back then, she was a respected scholar and was close to the lord. Faced with death and danger, she pleaded to be taken in.
And surprisingly, the father, Lord Silvius, took her in.
But he only took her in for one sole purpose: to produce an heir who could be by the Savior’s side.
Draven had been made aware of that arrangement from he was of tender age—his mother always reminded him and instilled dreams of becoming one of the best to stand beside the Savior. A respected and sought-after position in the entire human empire.
Naturally, Lord Silvius also constantly reminded him of his responsibilities.
Be it through words or beatings.
At the age of eight, he passed the first test to become a respected Holy Knight.
However, the hardest test was yet to come—it would come when he reached twelve years of age, but now, a year prior to the test, Lord Silvius gave him—a test. Two heads. He needed to bring two heads; one a Werewolf and the other a Vampire.
And he failed.
Lord Silvius said that his growth had slowed, and he was getting behind the other prodigies.
Because of that, he told Draven that failure meant the end for him and his mother.
It should be a brutal way to motivate him to succeed, but that was where Draven was wrong.
“F-Father…” He rasped, eyes tearing up despite his effort not to shed a single tear. “You’re only doing this to motivate me, right? I promise, father… I promise I’ll do better, so don’t act like this. Let… Let mom go; the guards are holding her too strongly. They’re hurting her.”
“Hmm?” Lord Silvius’ eyes narrowed. “Seems like you misunderstand something.”
Splash!
“Kyaarghh!”
Brutally, heartlessly, Lord Silvius pierced the sword through the woman’s back, forcing her to scream in pain. Despite living with her for more than fifteen years, sharing bad and good moments, and being there for each other, he stabbed her without mercy.
No hesitation either; almost as if he was stabbing a stranger.
“N-NO!”
Draven tried to stand up and came to his mother’s aid, but a guard stopped him.
In a heartbeat, with minimal movements—the guard seized Draven’s head, swept his legs from under him, and slammed him to the ground, pinning him with a firm hand to the back of his skull. Surprised, Draven quickly snapped out of his trance and fought against the hold.
But against a seventh-rank realm guard, his struggle was meaningless.
Even so, pinned and powerless, he forced his head upward—enough to find his mother’s crying face.
“Father, how can you do this to mom?! Mom is hurting… Mom is hurting! Please, don’t do this.”
“I said this is your last chance, and I meant it. No more chances for you. This is it.”
Upon hearing this, Draven’s expression contorted.
He looked pliant and weak before, but his gaze suddenly sharpened into a fierce glare.
One that even amused the guards pinning down the mother.
“How… How is this fair?!” He screamed; his voice, which was light and submissive before, turned into a booming roar. “I need to bring the head of a Vampire—and a Werewolf, but my brothers only need to bring back the head of a High Orc…? A HIGH ORC?! How is that fair?!!”
Instead of answering, Lord Silvius stared down at Draven.
Nothing stirred inside him as he watched Draven struggle.
It doesn’t seem like he was looking at his own flesh and blood, more like a thorn to his side.
Lord Silvius no longer desired to waste breath on words—instead, with a brutal, unhurried motion, he wrenched his sword free from the woman’s body. Their bloodied steel caught the torchlight—as it slid from her flesh.
Draven’s wide, trembling eyes followed every glint of crimson as his father lifted the weapon high.
He brought the sword overhead, angling it for another strike.
Seeing this, Draven’s heart pounded so violently it hurt his chest and even his eardrums.
His breath came shallow, broken, as his lips shaped the same desperate word over and over. No. Draven couldn’t believe the man who had given him life would raise a blade against the woman who had given him everything else.
But Lord Silvius’ face was carved from stone, cold and merciless; the gaze of a man who was ready.
A man who would not hesitate.
Swish!
Eventually, the sword began its fatal arc.
A whisper—soft, almost fragile—cut through Draven’s terror.
He glanced down and fixated his gaze on his mother’s moving lips.
Her fading breath formed one last sentence.
“Live for me.”
Fire licked the blade as if the heavens themselves condemned the act—the steel became a streak of light that flashed too swiftly to follow. The room blazed with a sudden glare, searing Draven’s vision completely as the burning edge cleaved through flesh and bone.
As soon as his sight returned, his mother’s head had been severed.
Blood stained the floor like a cruel signature.
Draven looked at the scene, frozen, the echo of the blade’s hiss still ringing in his ears. His mind plunged into a silent, bottomless abyss—as his gaze locked on his mother’s corpse—he never expected to come back, only to see his mother’s death.
Standing on the side, Rex watched this with a stone-cold expression.
He already learned about this painful truth long ago: that only the strong will survive.
It was precisely the reason why he wanted to become stronger, so that the others could survive and live.
Seeing him losing his mother brought back some nasty feelings, but still… this is not entirely the sam—
“Just because we’re not a full human, you treated us like this…? Aren’t humans supposed to be the ones who saved the whole world from total collapse? Why did you do this?” Draven asked, his burning eyes glared at Lord Silvius with killing intent.
Rex’s eyes narrowed.
He’s not purely a Human? Then what is he? I don’t see any Supernatural characteristics in him.
Meeting and speaking with the Fifthborn on multiple occasions made one truth undeniable: the Ancient Humans regarded themselves as a superior race. Even the Fifthborn himself treated modern humans as little more than a lesser breed—existences meant solely to serve his will.
So, if Draven was really not purely human, this treatment was to be expected.
Rex couldn’t pinpoint when this mindset had taken root, but it was clear that the era Draven now lived in had already begun to embrace it. However, questions gnawed at him: Who’s this Savior? Is he another nickname for the Supreme One? Could the first human sovereign have borne more than one name?
Considering that they talked about peace, this must be the era of the Supreme One.
He remembered that the Supernaturals talked about the Supreme One suddenly massacring them, which birthed the generational hatred that no Supernaturals could escape. So, this… this moment must’ve been before the massacre.
Looking at his own son, Lord Silvius handed the sword to another guard to his side.
“The Savior saved the whole world.” Lord Silvius nodded, brandishing the sword to clean the blood off it. “He stopped the Great War—and ended the conflict between races. Peace has been restored to the world, and that’s what everyone wanted, including us humans.”
“Then why are you do—?!”
“But doesn’t this also prove that Humans are the superior race?”
“What…?”
Just then, Lord Silvius’ lips curled into a cynical smile—one that was condescending and evil.
“You should be grateful you carry even a drop of human blood,” He said, his voice low and edged like a blade. “Show that gratitude by obeying my every command and every desire—pour every ounce of effort into it as if your life depended on it. But you can’t even manage that.”
As he said that, Lord Silvius pivoted his body sideways, intending to leave.
Nothing more can he gain from being here.
“Since you can’t even do that, you’re not worthy of a human’s blood. In the end, you should be thankful. Neither you nor your mother would have drawn breath for this long. I gave you life. I allowed her to live. And everything I grant comes with a price.” He said, eyes narrowing with a chilling coldness. “And that price… is one you’ve already proven you cannot afford.”
Upon saying that, Lord Silvius turned around and headed for the door.
He stopped right before it and turned to the guard, “Kill him. He’s no longer useful.”
Almost immediately, the guards moved without hesitation as Lord Silvius left the dungeon; their cruelty as casual as breathing. Draven’s mother’s lifeless body was shoved aside with their steel boots, her form rolling limply across the bloodstained floor.
None of them spared her a glance—their attention was focused on Draven with flickers of sadistic light.
“Father!” Draven roared as the guard pinning him down pressed harder. “Father!! Silvius!!”
Despite his call, Lord Sulvius never answered.
A burst of heat flared, and the ground beneath Draven ignited—chains of living fire erupted from the stone, snaking upward to bind his limbs and crush him against the earth. The weight of their spell stole his breath, focusing his face into the cold stone floor.
“You humans… You humans are scums!” Draven roared.
Upon hearing this, Rex’s forehead creased into a frown as this situation felt uncannily similar.
Even though he was only watching this happen, his heart was pounding inside.
He understands what Draven was feeling very much.
Slowly, the guard straightened, lifting his flaming hand.
A low, devious chuckle slid past his lips, cruel and mocking, “Since your other half is a Dragonman, it would be quite ironic if you die from burning. That’ll be really embarrassing—for you. But hey, don’t blame us for this. Blame the dirty blood in your veins. Blame your dirty mother for birthing you.”
Just then, the air shimmered as Draven was engulfed in flames.
All the while, the guards watched and laughed at his misery.
Soon, the flames ended.
Draven was reduced to a charred body, and the guards had already left the dungeon, too.
But he was still alive.
Rex could hear Draven’s faint breathing.
“Someone… Anyone… Help me.”
Deg!
Upon hearing the faint words that slipped from Draven’s mouth, Rex’s heart skipped a beat as that was exactly what he did back then, too. He wanted revenge; he wanted to kill the Werewolf who massacred his parents.
Just like him, Draven also begged for a higher power to save him, so that he could avenge his mother.
But instead of werewolves, he hated humans.
“A powerful dragon heard and felt his agony, and he was saved by it,” Kei Xun said as she waved her hand again; the surroundings shifted from a cold dungeon to a burning capital city. “In five years time, he advanced to the eight-rank realm—and avenge his mother, killing Silvius and his entire forces with the help of a few rogue Dragonmen.”
Rex looked ahead and saw that Draven had already matured and possessed Dragonman’s characteristics.
His body was covered in scaled armor, and his heart was a burning fire.
In hindsight, Draven’s appearance made Rex recall Ryze, as they were quite similar in appearance.
“As you expected, Draven felt his anger ring hollow without strength. Lord Silvius ignored him since he was nothing but a weakling, and that marked his start to trace the path of invincibility,” Kei Xun said with a tinge of amusement. “Powerlessness is mostly what started Scions from the Anger stratum, exactly like you.”
She cast a teasing glance at Rex.
Clearly, she knew that Rex also followed the same exact pattern.
Powerlessness is a feeling that he hated the most, on par with the anguish of losing his loved ones.
And once Draven got his revenge, the test from the Highseat of Invincibility came.
Above, Rex saw multiple figures who appeared like ghosts.
One of them stood out the most, a figure that made Rex frown hard, “An Executor…?”