After a brief episode of shock, the Disgraced Queen brought her hand to cover the baby's eyes.
Perhaps Aza'zel was too exhausted from the incessant crying, but he no longer cried. Instead, he curiously brought his tender hands to grab and feel about the strange object on his face.
Caidie, noticing the slight abnormality in her mother's demeanor and the trembling of the latter's shoulders, candidly asked, "Your Highness, is something the matter?"
The Disgraced Queen laughed bitterly. "I'm no longer a queen, Caidie, and you're no longer a princess. Can't you address me as mother from now on? Furthermore, I don't dare call myself a queen in the presence of His Highness, Prince Aza'zel…"
Caidie's gem-black eyes flickered as she silently stared at her mother's back for a very, very long moment.
"Was the sacrificial ceremony performed in order to awaken His Highness?" Caidie asked, and by adopting the differential term of address, she was tacitly agreeing to her mother's request. Alas, she hadn't mouthed the word 'mother' vocally.
"I know, it's hard to believe…" sighed the Disgraced Queen. "The fate of our race rests on these delicate shoulders, should we feel glad or worried?"
Their conversation was suddenly interrupted as dense rays of light, crimson, and gray intertwined, erupted from Aza'zel's body.
His small hands went stiff while holding the gentle palm on his face. The radiance concentrated on Aza'zel's palms respectively, with the overwhelming gray on his right and overwhelming crimson on his left.
The sudden phenomena disturbed the lake of calm in Caidie's eyes, and despite her mother's figure standing between her line of sight and the origins of the light, it didn't block her perception from the bloodline resonance.
Her small lips parted as she murmured, "Awakening the innate totemic seals? B-but how?! He's an infant!"
Caidie's heart shook from within!
It was only three years ago, when she turned ten, that she awakened her innate totemic seal. Furthermore, thinking back on the radiance, she knew her perception wasn't playing tricks on her—those were two contrasting lights, an indication of not one seal, but two!
This was the first instance during the journey where this little girl's mask of calm had been shattered.
The Disgraced Queen's shock quickly transitioned into bliss as she observed the now-sleeping Aza'zel cradled in her arms. If anything, this could only prove how high this baby's talent was.
However, recalling his hollow eye socket, she felt unnaturally uneasy because, for some reason, the totemic seals were shaped after two ancient revolvers.
How was he supposed to use them if he were to grow up blind?
Caidie, realizing her sudden loss of composure, took a deep breath with clenched fists before turning her back to the hall and departing into the depths of the mansion.
She decided to search for a study or a library, as only investing her attention in the history and records of the ancient times could quell her unreasonable agitation.
The mother-daughter pair's attention was fixated on the flow of vitality since entering the forbidden ground, and they didn't have the peace of mind to examine the ancient city with all its buildings, let alone the mansion.
The Disgraced Queen's maternal instincts kicked in on full gear, to the extent that she hadn't noticed her daughter departing from the main hall.
The trio thus silently faded into obscurity, distancing themselves from the ever-changing continent beyond the borders of the forbidden land.
Together with the hums of the holy aria, rays of seven-colored prismatic lights pierced the churning clouds, filling the turbid atmosphere and destitute soil with exuberant source energy.
For ten thousand years, the continent had been facing a decline in source energy, its inhabitants clinging to their robust vitality and the intrinsic qualities of the bloodline totems to survive a make-do life.
Those with thick, pure bloodlines could exhibit supernatural powers by igniting their vitalities for short bursts of power, but such unorthodox methods always halved the life expectancy of the disgraced race.
Now, as source energy surged into the realm, it brought an alternative path to vitality. However, only those devoid of any bloodline totems were spared from slaughter, providing them the opportunity to witness the revival of this desolate world.
As for whether living proves worse than death to these people in the future, only time would tell.
The motionless crimson moon hung low and still, a witness to the tides of change as the seasons and dusty clouds shifted alike.
Short hours of the day followed by prolonged hours of the night, fugitives of the realm gathered, the virtue of willingness or otherwise, into settlements, villages, towns, and large cities.
The holy aria and the seven-colored prismatic light lingered in the air for an odd ten years, and seven commanders shrouded in veils of light hovered motionless for every second of the decade.
Finally, the most authoritative of the group turned his back to the revitalized realm and stepped into the light.
The other six exchanged silent glances, each projecting their senses to sweep their respective regions of the realm for any hidden members of the disgraced race who might have awakened a bloodline totemic seal.
Only when they found nothing worthy of notice did they relax their stance and enter the pillars of light.
The holy aria silently faded away in the wake of their departure moments after the fissures in the sky closed.
"Is something wrong, Caidie? Why did you stop reading for me?" Aza'zel's immature voice echoed in the dim library of the mansion, his body tilted sideways in confusion, eliciting a deep groan from the wooden stand beneath.
"Pardon, Your Highness," Caidie replied. "I couldn't help but notice that the music had stopped."
Aza'zel gasped, leaning his head to listen carefully with a sour expression. Caidie could only infer that his expression was sour from his thinned lips, as a thick piece of black cloth wrapped the upper half of the young boy's face.
He kept listening, seemingly unresigned to the facts.
Caidie's lips curved into a smile, an expression this young woman would have alienated in the past, for one reason or another.
"I've won the bet, Your Highness," Caidie covered her small mouth, chuckling. "Now, you should honor your word and show me your totemic seals!"
Aza'zel struggled visibly, shifting uncomfortably in his position while protesting softly, "Rebecca said I mustn't summon them carelessly… Also, I mustn't show others my eyes either…"
Caidie's eyes narrowed as she hummed. "Well, Your Highness, this should be a good lesson for you. Don't make light of your words, and don't make promises you can't keep… Better yet, don't make promises at all, lest you start taking things for granted."
"But…" Aza'zel persisted stubbornly, "The aria has been playing forever! I didn't know that…"
"So what if you didn't know?" Caidie interrupted, "When the aria stops playing, you'll show me your totemic seals, Your Highness!"
"Fine!"
Aza'zel felt cornered, finally relenting.
Inhaling sharply, he flipped his palms as wisps of gray and crimson seeped from his right and left backhands respectively.
Caidie watched with bated breath as the formless energy, one which she didn't recognize while the other pulsed with bloodline suppression, took form.
They slowly morphed into elegant, long-barreled slender revolvers, one gray and the other crimson.
Withering flowers decorated the handles of each gun, lined with intricate calligraphy—the former read Soulguider, the latter read Exsanguinator…