Return of the Mythic Bloodline-Chapter 310: The thread of sanity

The Thunderbanes.

The mightiest warriors of the Western Continent. Although their numbers were fewer than fifty when they fought against an enemy of millions of demonic soldiers, not a single one of them fell during the long, merciless war. This alone was a testament to the sheer battle prowess the clan possessed.

Their leader, Voltrex El Thunderbane, the strongest cultivator of the Western Continent and the only one to reach the highest level of the Demi-God realm in the past five hundred years, was a force to be reckoned with. Not to mention his elder brother, the Demi-God Stormir, and his son, the God of Lightning and Thunder, Taranis, who were titans in their own right.

So how could a mere poison bring about the fall of such mighty warriors, when even millions of demons had failed to do so?

Nobody knew.

Where did Kharos obtain a poison potent enough to affect a Demi-God?

Nobody knew.

Since when had Kharos begun this treacherous plan to annihilate the Thunderbanes? Was the war against the demons merely a means to weaken them, to strike when they were exhausted? How would the emperor face the wrath of the Hundred Sky Mountains once they learned of the slaughter of their king and strongest army?

Again, nobody knew. Except the emperor himself.

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"Even after poisoning us, they are still using weapons to kill us," Taranis thought inwardly. "They are either in a hurry to finish us off, or the poison can only dull our senses and block our Soulforce, but cannot kill us. The duration of its effect must also be limited."

Yes, even after witnessing his cousins, elders, and distant relatives fall one after another, Taranis was able to maintain his sanity.

How?

Because his family, his father, his mother, and the woman he loved were still alive.

Although Voltrex appeared to be on the verge of death, Taranis was fully aware of his father’s mental and physical prowess. He might seem unconscious, barely standing, but Taranis knew he must have already begun suppressing the poison within his body.

His mother, Aestra, whom the empire’s people regarded as nothing more than a housewife and the queen beside Voltrex, was in truth a powerful cultivator of the Eternal Sage Realm. She had rarely fought because she never needed to; her husband had never allowed even the slightest danger to approach her.

In their prime, Aestra had been considered just as talented in cultivation as Voltrex himself. She might have even reached the Demi-God realm had she not fallen helplessly in love with him and taken upon herself the responsibilities of queenship, granting her husband more time to cultivate.

She, too, had already begun suppressing the poison within her body, unbeknownst to the empire’s dogs.

A faint glow emanated from the hand resting on Nymeria’s thigh as Aestra simultaneously helped her suppress the poison as well.

Their survival was the thin thread holding Taranis’s sanity together.

"I need to buy as much time as possible for them," Taranis resolved inwardly, careful not to look toward them and alert the empire’s dogs.

"Die, arrogant child!" Rhaegar shouted, swinging his sword in a horizontal arc toward Taranis’s neck.

With all the strength his poisoned body could muster, Taranis bent backward, but he was not quick enough, resulting in a shallow cut across his throat.

The instant the blade grazed him, lightning painted the dark sky yellow. Thunder roared overhead, its ear-deafening boom sending chills through the empire’s people.

Rhaegar’s sword trembled in his grip, as even he could not suppress the dread stirred by the abyssal clouds hovering above them.

Yet, bound by his duty to the emperor he served, Rhaegar clenched his teeth and raised his sword once more.

"Stop," Kharos ordered just as Rhaegar was about to strike again.

Turning to a royal knight at the peak of the True Sage Realm, Kharos commanded, "Go. You kill him."

"A-as you command, Your Majesty," the knight replied, momentarily taken aback by the sudden order.

The knight advanced toward Taranis, his sword still dripping with the blood of a Thunderbane he had just slain.

"I... I can’t see or hear anything clearly," Taranis muttered, his vision blurred and his hearing distant.

Relying on instinct alone, Taranis rolled sideways as he sensed a sword descending toward him.

The blade struck the floor, peeling skin from Taranis’s arm as his movements were too slow to evade it completely.

Veins bulged on the knight’s forehead, humiliation and rage surging through him. He could not accept failing to kill someone who was no better than a mortal, stripped of cultivation.

His speed increased, his strikes growing sharper as he launched attack after attack at Taranis. Astonishingly, despite his senses being dulled, Taranis managed to evade each strike at the last moment, narrowly avoiding fatal injuries.

Each time the sword sliced into Taranis’s flesh, the clouds above roared in fury.

The silken robe Taranis once wore had been reduced to little more than tattered rags, torn too many times to count. His once pristine, jade-like body had become terrifyingly unrecognizable, marred by countless deep and shallow wounds from which streams of blood flowed, staining him crimson.

Kharos watched Taranis with narrowed eyes, unable to understand why the boy still clung to life when death seemed inevitable after sustaining such injuries.

What was driving this young god to endure such suffering?

Only one answer came to Kharos’s mind.

"He is buying time," Kharos deduced. "But for what? Don’t tell me..."

His eyes widened abruptly as realization dawned upon him.

With hurried steps, Kharos rushed toward Taranis’s family at the center. There, he saw faint flickers of blue lightning dancing around Aestra’s body as she stood on the verge of sealing the poison.

"I won’t let you!" Kharos roared as he grabbed Aestra by the hair, pulled her upward, and stabbed his sword straight through her from behind.

The blade pierced through her back and burst out from her stomach.

A torrent of blood spilled from Aestra’s wound as a tear of agony slid down the corner of her eye.

"Mother Aestra!!!!!!" Nymeria screamed, her voice cracking as tears streamed down her serene face.

Taranis did not need his senses to understand what had happened.

Nymeria’s anguished scream pierced straight into his heart, and the thin thread of sanity holding him together....

Broke!