Chapter 1240 - Taming the Old World - Perspective - 2

"Look at this room," Larissa instructed, standing tall directly in front of him, with Luna and Liora flanking her perfectly. "It is completely empty. A central hub of this magnitude should absolutely never remain vacant. A seat of power like this patiently waiting for an occupant who never arrives is a massive political vulnerability against future nobles the capital has been dragging around for too long."

"Larissa, I promise you your father will eventually..."

"And you should be the one sitting right here." Larissa ruthlessly cut him off, making it entirely clear this conversation had absolutely nothing to do with King Dragarion.

"We are not stating this merely to stroke your ego. We are telling you this because it is an objective reality, and because we desperately need you to finally process the idea: you are critically important. Not as a disposable Vanguard asset or a tool or instrument meant to be ground down until it shatters. You are important as a foundational pillar the people require to remain whole, alive, and present for a very long time. You are an entity that cannot be replaced, no matter how many limbs the city willingly sacrifices."

Ren surveyed the sprawling hall from the elevated vantage point. It was a novel, undeniably potent sensation… It felt elegant and overwhelmingly majestic.

And he rapidly discovered, with a flicker of genuine surprise, that he absolutely despised the feeling.

He did not hate the concept of being important; he was already intimately familiar with that burden and reluctantly carried it every single day.

He just hated the physical sensation of sitting on the throne. The mere concept of wasting his finite, even if long, lifespan anchored to this gilded chair, locked inside this echoing room, utterly isolated from the dynamic world, the ancient ruins, and the complex puzzles he infinitely preferred to dismantle with his own hands, felt completely suffocating.

Ren was a curious explorer and a frontline problem solver, absolutely not a decorative figurehead meant to posture on a dais.

But he kept that analysis to himself; this was definitively not the correct moment to debate the uselessness of him being royalty in his mind. Because the girls were not genuinely discussing political theory. They were actively targeting his ingrained psychological tendency to treat his own body as entirely disposable ammunition, and that was a valid critique he genuinely needed to hear.

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"I completely understand your point," Ren admitted softly. "I genuinely do... And I swear to you that I will minimize the risks as much as possible during the impending siege. I will actively protect my core, body and life for your sake, and for... the rest of the city's."

Liora slowly arched a single eyebrow.

Without uttering a single syllable, she stepped forward, firmly grabbed Ren's left arm, the specific limb that remained a solid, transparent block of crystal from the elbow down to the fingertips, and hoisted it into the air, explicitly presenting the undeniable evidence right in front of his face.

"Uh-huh," she noted dryly.

"...That was a highly anomalous tactical scenario, and you all know we lacked any viable alternatives..."

"Every single event is a special case with you," Luna interjected. "That is the fundamental flaw in your self sacrificing logic."

Ren lacked a sound counterargument for that.

"That is exactly why we are issuing a formal request," Larissa stated, seamlessly reclaiming the conversation with her usual royal demeanor. "Since you can't stop pushing yourself, we will push ours too… Before we march on Yano's dragons, grant us access to the primordial dragon ether again. To the three of us, and to any Vanguard elite capable of safely housing the frequency. We also demand you take a strictly controlled output if any at all, and absolutely nothing like the catastrophic overload you absorbed last time. By distributing the load, you will not be forced to shatter your own pathways again."

Ren instantly tensed.

"It is nowhere near that simple… Even though you managed to avoid semi-permanent crystallization like me, that primordial frequency inflicts severe residual damage upon any system lacking a Diamond-rank core. It aggressively stretches the ethereal arteries far beyond their natural elasticity limits. Over a prolonged period, it will critically destabilize your internal flow, or simply rupture the veins entirely if abused." He glanced down at his own ruined limb, the exact spot Liora had just highlighted. "I absolutely refuse to let any of you end up with a fractured nervous system, or potentially something vastly worse."

"And yet," Larissa countered flawlessly, "your internal system is exponentially more expanded and damaged than ours would ever be under a highly regulated fraction of that power… And you'll continue to utilize it anyway!"

"Because Mooshito actively reinforces my structural integrity," Ren defended himself, his analytical mind rushing to explain the mechanics. "His fungal roots make my internal architecture vastly more resilient than a standard human body. I possess a symbiotic support network that you simply do not..."

He abruptly stopped speaking.

Because he had spoken the name aloud, and Luna was now staring directly into his eyes.

"Mooshito," Luna repeated slowly, her tone dropping. "What exactly happened with Mooshito, Ren?"

Ren fell completely silent.

"You explicitly promised to debrief us on exactly what you discovered inside that terminal window once we were securely off the battlefield," Luna pressed, stepping closer. "We are entirely safe right now. And ever since you extracted your hand from that ancient wall, every single time someone even casually mentions something about Mooshito, your facial micro-expressions completely warp. What did you see?"

There was absolutely no maneuver available to dodge the interrogation. And frankly, Ren had fully intended to share the critical intelligence with them anyway; he simply hadn't found the optimal moment to drop the bomb.

Perhaps there was simply no optimal moment for a revelation this devastating.

So, he delivered the unredacted truth.

The ancient engineer's encrypted broadcast. The apocalyptic warning. The chilling reality that, under the wrong biological conditions, specifically if they ever fed his beast the Seed Fusion Potion, the golden mushroom could instantly override his consciousness and absorb him completely.

The horrifying fact that Ren's most intimate ally, the symbiotic partner he had trusted with his life since the very beginning, could ultimately serve as his executioner.

The throne room plunged into a suffocating silence.