Reincarnated As A Lion In Another World-Chapter 613: Because I Said No

"Elizebeth betrayed me..." Charvi whispered through gritted teeth.

Kael looked down at her, Charvi was no longer trying to look into his eyes in hopes of getting some kind of advantage.

The All-King stepped back, removing his boot from the tail feather he was stepping on.

Charvi looked down, then looked up.

The train of elongated feathers aligned themselves behind her, but she didn’t spread them out.

Kael watched intently, half expecting her to actually spread out her train of feathers.

Kael nodded, at least, she was smart.

"Elizabeth betrayed you? Which Elizabeth are you referring to?" Kael asked, just to be sure.

"The Dragon Empress," Charvi gritted her teeth.

"How?" The All-King asked.

"I trusted her! Charvi said as she began to stand up, "I relied on her!

I thought she was my friend!"

Her eyes glowed with a fierce green light. Right now, this beautiful creature was recalling every detail that had led to her captivity and felt a primal rage within.

While Charvi took the time to process her rage, Kael turned his gaze to the holographic screen to see the progress of their operation.

Eleanor was dead by now. There was no way she could have possibly fought against the might of so many arkships at once.

Not once did Kael believe that she would escape. He had promised to kill her, and he technically did.

Right now, the massive head of Eleanor with Ivana still blind to it was being sucked into the inner space of one arkship.

The other arkships were busy cleaning up the zero-gravity battlefield.

The wings and feathers were being stored in storage chambers. The still hot blood of the Phoenix floated around in drops and abstract puddles.

Many mechanical tendrils emerged from the arkships with suction forces at their ends.

They absorbed as much Phoenix blood as they could. Such a valuable ingredient for a special beverage could not go to waste.

"We were friends once," Charvi’s voice entered Kael’s ears.

He was a little surprised, she had spoken with her mouth. But the language she spoke was not the lion language, but the dragon language which Kael had learned and was already very familiar with.

The dragon language was one of the languages that Kael had learned in his leisure time. It wasn’t like it was hard to learn with how info orbs worked.

With Kael’s terrifying spirit capabilities, he was able to learn it within a few seconds.

"We came from two different worlds, the both of us..." Charvi continued.

"She grew up in heaven, I was born in the mortal universe.

All her early life, she had been blessed and privileged, never saying no when she asked for something.

I was merely a slightly different female peacock on one of the many planets under their jurisdiction.

Then one day, the young empress was out exploring the world and visited my planet.

We were both Primordials, so we could quite easily sense each other’s presence. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

She found me, and I saw her.

Back then, I had been told that the young empress looked at me with jealousy before hiding it. I didn’t think much about it as I was excited to meet someone like me.

I was naive.

Elizabeth was almost a hundred years old at this time and had spent a good chunk of her life learning the arts of politics and manipulation.

I who was just thirty or so at that time could not possibly have predicted the depths of Elizabeth’s mind.

One thing was for sure, one thing that Elizabeth didn’t bother to hide.

She had less of any substantial ambition and more of a drive, a strong desire to continuously prove herself worthy to the one they called Ibadon.

When I followed Elizabeth back to the Draconic Heaven, she promised to take care of me and show me the world.

I never asked her to promise these things, but she did. I couldn’t refuse.

She took me from my homeworld, from my comfort zone, from everything that could have hindered me.

I would like to believe that Elizabeth did not have any nefarious thoughts when she first met me.

After all, she helped me get stronger, and she gave me ideas on how I could use my powers. She showed me the universe and allowed me to know just how big the stage was.

I like to believe that for a moment, she truly saw me as nothing but a friend.

But then, there was a time when Regent Ibadon seemed displeased and unsettled with something.

I didn’t know if not that Elizabeth told me that Ibadon was waiting for the Primordial Lion to be born and he was worried that the Primordial Lion was already born but had been hidden so that it could grow in secret.

Here, Elizabeth stood at attention like a loyal dog, ready to please her master.

She brought up all manner of ideas and proposed a program to infiltrate Leonine with spies.

It was a very elaborate plan that would work well.

But Ibadon was not satisfied, he didn’t disagree with the plan, but he felt that other lions would catch on easily.

Traitors would inevitably start behaving suspiciously, he had said, there needs to be a justified reason for their odd behaviors.

And that reason cannot be tied to the fact that they are spies.

So, Elizabeth immediately turned to me to help her start a smuggling ring as cover for the traitors in Leonine Heaven.

I would have agreed..." Charvi then paused, looking up to see that Kael was staring at her intently, patiently listening to everything she was saying.

"No, you wouldn’t," Kael said calmly. He could see the defiance in Charvi’s eyes. This Primordial Peacock had probably spent a lot of time doing everything Elizabeth said which ended up building hate for herself and resentment for the Empress.

Kael could see the truth behind her eyes, he could see something he himself had felt at some point in the past.

Frustration.

Charvi sighed and nodded, "Yes, I wouldn’t.

I was so fed up with everything.

I had been doing everything she asked of me. I had felt that I owed her my obedience for all the help she had given me.

But Elizabeth was not so kind. She made a request that made her feel superior to me. It was as if she was giving me commands to remind herself that she was superior to me even though I was far more beautiful than her.

Yes, that was it.

Elizabeth had once spoken off point at a time when I was combing her hair in her room.

We had both been staring at the mirror and she made a comment. She said, jokingly, that if she were as beautiful as I was, maybe she would be able to get everything she wanted.

Maybe she would be able to get Ibadon.

That was the first time I had seen malice unhidden in her eyes. But she had masked it also with a mocking face.

It stuck in my mind.

Why would Elizabeth be jealous of me? She had everything I didn’t and more. Even if she wasn’t as beautiful as I was, she was still very beautiful.

How could I possibly have earned her jealousy?

Elizabeth just wanted it all. She was the kind who didn’t like it when others were better than her in anything.

She hated me and liked me at the same time, so her commands reflected how she saw me.

As some tragically beautiful being whose life and death were at her whims.

I knew what I was, I knew how special I was. My peacock kin were still out in the mortalverse, unguided.

I should have been with them, I should have returned to my homeworld.

So, when she asked me to help her out with the smuggling ring for Charm Essence, I found a perfect excuse to tell her no.

I told her that I would want to visit my homeworld to see my people and do some good.

It was a perfect excuse to tell her No, I thought she would be reasonable.

Unfortunately, Elizabeth had never been reasonable when it came to pleasing Ibadon.

She was livid, reacting with an anger that I had never seen in her before.

She told me that I was ungrateful, that I was a leech, that I was nothing but a privileged wench.

I took the insults with calmness.

But Elizabeth wanted more, she wanted to humiliate me, to prove that no matter how beautiful I was, I could still cry.

She ordered an orbital bombardment of my home planet.

I couldn’t stop them. By the time I found out, everything was dead on my homeworld.

All the family that had been hoping for my return, all were dead, annihilated along with my planet.

All because I said No..."

Charvi’s shoulders slumped. Two clear streams of tears slid down her cheeks from her eyes.

She could imagine the horror those creatures felt when they saw the rain of fire coming from the sky.

All because she said No.