CG Chapter 96: Blood Dominion
From the doorway, Tom glanced at Alexander, who stood in the middle of a pile of scattered papers with reports littering the ground around him. Just three years ago, Alexander was the perfect role model that many young scholars were inspired to be like.
Now, he looked like a shell of his past self; his hair was messy, his face exhausted, and his back seemed to have become hunched.
With a quick glance at the young boy standing nearby, Tom nearly smiled, thinking, 'To think, you even hid your own child. From the start, were you afraid that he might die before getting the chance to grow?'
Alexander looked up from his papers and gestured for Tom to enter. Passing beside the boy as he stepped into the room, Tom began to kneel, but Alexander's voice stopped him.
"No need for that, just speak quickly," he said, not trying to hide his annoyance. "I don't have time for formalities. I hope you have finally brought some good information."
In the few seconds it took him to stand back, his hand brushed the back of the boy's neck.
At first glance, his movement seemed perfectly natural, but for some strange reason, Alexander felt like something was off.
His eyes flickered for a few seconds, but after a moment, he dismissed it as fatigue. The past few months had taken their toll on him.
As the second in command in the Sollaria kingdom, he bore too many responsibilities to count.
Under the authority of the gods, he had the right to control the collective army of the seven kingdoms. But, this authority was more of a burden than anything else since it meant that he needed to continuously direct and watch over all of the soldiers.
This nonstop work would push any man to go insane, not to mention that if anything goes wrong then his neck would fly to quench the anger of the gods.
Yet, despite all of this. Alexander kept on fighting, for himself, for the seven kingdoms, and more importantly, for his only son.
These responsibilities were originally supposed to be done by his father, the once-great Sofos de Astrial.
Unfortunately, due to an event over twenty years ago, the king had abandoned all of his duties, leaving Sollaria and the seven kingdoms' burdens to Alexander who was just a child at the time.
During that time, the church took full control of everything, and when Alexander's bones hardened, he fought hard to take back his authority.
Meanwhile, the king only stayed in his room all of this time doing god knows what, while on the surface acting as the grand knight of Sollaria.
Tom looked at Alexander with an awe-filled expression, "Your Highness, I have important information about the forces of the Eternal Flame. Our scouts have found a couple of their hidden bases, but some of the information… I'm not sure if I should say it…" He shot a brief look at the boy as if hinting that the news might be too grim for the young one's ears.
Alexander's face turned grim, "Out with it already," he ordered, and then turned to the boy.
"Lucian, listen carefully to what this guard is about to say. This is the reality of the battlefield. There's nothing glorious or beautiful about the frontlines. As members of the Astrial family, we have carried the duty of commanding the winds of the seven kingdoms for six thousand years. A single grand knight, despite how powerful he might be, can only do so much. While we can move mountains and shake the seas, we are the single reason that the seven kingdoms have lasted this long."
As Alexander lectured, Tom resisted the urge to nod in agreement.
He wanted to tell Alexander, 'And that's why I came to visit you personally.' But he held the urge and his tongue.
Lucian, however, looked anything but amused. The boy's annoyed expression was plain, and this only made Tom happier; Lucian's presence would distract Alexander thus giving him an opening.
Still, while his attitude could create an opportunity, the boy was also a risk.
If he were alone with Alexander, then he would only need to focus on him, but now he needed to take an additional variable into calculation.
Any wrong move and Lucian's screams would make the whole palace gather around him.
That is why Tom had been so cautious.
When he knelt, he had scratched the boy's skin with his fingers not with the poison he normally used, but with his own blood.
After watching Folek and Hidden absorb it, Tom gained a better understanding of blood control, and this control was only increased further when he reached the realm of a grand knight.
Combining his blood sense with the life seed of a grand knight he was able to display a faint control of the blood that was outside of his body, for brief periods.
This ability obviously had its limits. The biggest of which was that he couldn't control anyone who had reached the realm of an apprentice knight or higher. But, against someone like Lucian, who wasn't even a knight and had no control over his vigor, it would be fatal.
A faint warmth had pulsed from Tom's fingertips as he scratched Lucian. This feeling was similar to what he felt when Folek and Hidden absorbed his blood, but not exactly the same, it was weaker in amount, yet even with its minimal amount, he felt a euphoric feeling of absolute control.
Although this power wasn't useful in most situations, here it would prove itself as a vital part of his success; not to mention its future prospects.