Tbate: Starting Anew

Chapter 18: Sovereign vs Queen

Arthur POV

These past few months went exactly as planned. My adventuring carrier helped spread the fact that I was powerful enough to be worthy of marrying a princess, Agrona withdrew almost all his forces from Dicathen and agreed to my demands. I learnt this from Seris who was the one keeping in contact with me despite the fact I had given Agrona the artifact.

But today seemed very different. I told Jasmine that I have to take care of matters she could not help with. This didn't surprise her since I did this quite often. Just as I was about to go meet Seris at the last existing Alacryan camp, I felt a pulse from my dimension rune. In response I pulled out the artifact causing it and to my surprise, it was the communication artifact. I answered expecting something to have gone very wrong.

"Arthur! I need to have you here as soon as possible!" Agrona said in a panicked voice.

I immediately summoned a portal to his throne room and expected the worst as I entered. TO my surprise I saw a panicked Agrona instructing the castle staff around in a hurry while holding the artifact.

"Why did you need me here in a hurry?" I asked still slightly confused.

"I called together the Sovereigns for your official inauguration into the clan. I just forgot to tell you that it was happening today." He said slightly embarrassed.

I just stood there dumbfounded. This man is a tactical genius who led the war against our continent and won with even trying. The very same man forgot to invite his clans newest Sovereign to his own inauguration. What a joke.

After the preparations were done Agrona disappeared and I was asked by one of the maids present to wait in a room. While she was showing me to the room it was obvious that she was terrified of me. That wouldn't be surprising though since the fact that my aura was strong enough to almost suffocate the High Sovereign himself spread like wildfire amongst the staff.

While I waited for some sign that I should go back to the throne room, I decided to have my horns out for the event. What kind of sovereign would I be without horns right? I used my ability to change my looks to my advantage. I made my skin look more gray and even made my hair darker. This should help me blend in with the other sovereigns. After all, it was enough if Agrona knew my strength the rest of them had no need to know yet.

A few minutes later I was called to the door of the throne room. Inside I heard Agrona announce me.

"And I would like all of you to welcome the newest member of our clan: Sovereign Grey Vritra!"

I hose to use my old name as it fit better in this situation. I also got used to alacryans calling me Grey.

As I entered the room, I noticed the major changes. The throne room was transformed into something resembling the council's discussion room. A large table at the middle and the sovereigns sitting around in with a single empty seat directly next to Agrona's throne.

As I sat down I suddenly saw a sly smile on the High Sovereign's face. This can't be good.

"Sovereign Grey is going to be taking the role of my heir to the throne, since he is my grandson after all." The sovereigns started whispering amongst each other, with a surprised look on their faces. But the one most surprised was me.

'Should not have ran your mouth back then.' Regis joked in my head. 'You refused his position, but he still found a way to use you own words to force it upon you. Just not immediately.'

"Now you are going to have to tell me where that came from" Agrona said in whisper so only I could hear.

The rest of the meeting went as expected. I didn't receive a territory just as I hoped, Agrona even quietly joked that I'm the sovereign of Dicathen. Afterwards I had to explain to Agrona where the grandson thing came from and he said he didn't actually mind it. I did still scold him for not telling me about the 'heir to the throne' thing, but I quickly got over it since he's probably not going to retire for the next few centuries. Then he asked question I was waiting for. He asked if he could see his daughter. I told him, that it's going to be Sylvie's choice and he understood.

Getting back to Dicathen, I was just about to enter the inn Jasmine and I were staying at when she suddenly ran out the door.

"AR—NOTE! The ither twin horns are trapped in a dungeon's boss room! WE HAVE TO HELP THEM!" her words send shivers down my spine. The horns were trapped. Am I going to lose them again?

We had no time to waste. I asked Jasmine which dungeon was it.

As soon as I heard the name of the dungeon, my anxiety shot through the roof. Ancient jungle. It was a dungeon covered in vines that was closed off right before the war. It would ordinarily have very easy enemies, but when a 10 person party went in and only one of them returned claiming there were at least 2 Elderwood guardians in there it was closed.

During the war it was cleared, but the raid had almost as many casualties as the battle of the wall. Inside that dungeon was a freshly mutated Forest Queen with 7 Mutant Guardians.

Even without the mutations the Forest Queen is SS rank surrounded by 7 S rank beasts. That was a death sentence even for a lance.

I opened a portal to the boss room immediately. We went through and saw exactly what I was expecting. A mist filling the chamber blocking any vision and illusions filling everyone's mind.

I sprung into action immediately. Cutting down 2 of the guardians with a single swing. That was when I noticed the Horns were too far away from the portal.

'Sylvie! I'm opening a portal in my room, enter it! We need you!'

Almost immediately Sylvie exited the portal we entered through. I had her go to the horns to heal them, while Regis and I took down the guardians. In the end I killed 5 end Regis killed 2. Now came the real challenge. The strongest plant elemental beast. The SS rank Forest Queen.

As soon as her guardians fell, she shot hundreds of vines towards me at breakneck speeds. Had it been anyone else they would have died right then but I easily evaded. I swung my aetheric blade coated in destruction at the queen and with a single swing cut her clean in half. What remained of the queen and the guardians were only their beast cores.

'Real challenge. You did that so easily I thought she was a fly on the wall.' Regis said mocking me for overestimating our enemy.

'That thing killed hundreds of soldiers last time.'

'The mutated version did.' Regis sent in response. He was right I was way too concerned with the safety of the people I cared about to think clearly.

In the end everyone was fine. With Sylvie and I healing them they were quickly back on their feet. After collecting the cores I used my will to look into them and found out that the forest queen and 3 of the guardians had wills. After a lot of arguing the horns finally accepted one of the beast will filled cores and a normal one. They wanted me to keep them all but I was against it. I only needed 3 of the wills after all. One for Aya to improve her illusions and bring her to a new level, one for Alea to help with her plant magic, and finally the forest queen for my future queen.

We opted to return to Elenoir to recover after these stressful events. When we arrived I informed Kaspian of the events that transpired through a scroll. He asked me to meet him in Xyrus in 2 days. Afterwards I called aside Gramps and the 2 lances and gave them the wills. Aya and Alea were infinitely grateful for them and gramps admired the fact that I chose the have him decide when Tessia was ready for her will.

Waking up today I never expected this day to be so eventful.

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Well, hello there! Thanks for reading this chapter and all the previous ones. I didn't think it was possible to reach 5 thousand reads in such a short time of starting this book.

The word document I write in just reached 100 pages with this chapter! I think I deserve som king of achievement for that.

But joking aside, I hope you all enjoyed today's chapter and reading the guesses based on the title was hilarious!

This has been Salty and see you all tomorrow!