Chapter 256: An odd Separation |
The Milky Way Galaxy was divided almost equally between the four kingdoms.
But even among them, the Kingdom of Life-Authority had an upper hand in terms of territory. Despite that, the other kingdoms had never made an advance in the fourth quarter. The reason was simple.
This extra territory was useless. Useless because it didn't have any Mana. This useless territory was known throughout the galaxy as the Forgotten Realm. And the Dreamers, from common to nobles, wanted nothing but to let it remain forgotten for millenniums to come.
Even if one were to ignore this stretch of land, all the Kingdoms had their own secret regions, almost inaccessible to the Dreamers of weak hearts. Only those who lacked morals, or had enough strength to roam alone and didn't worry about betrayal, could venture into these regions.
But talking about those regions would be the matter of some other time.
The point was, all Kingdoms though different, shared many things in common. They had a different culture, but a shared history. They had different Gods, but a shared fear. And they had a unique power, but the same origin, MANA.
The Noble Houses of the Kingdom of Divine Beast were masters of transformations Skills based on mythical creatures. These creatures could be their summons, they could be the Divine Spirits unique to their Houses, or they could be blood-based, the most feared of them all.
The thing that needed to be noted in this strange and distinct way was the presence of the BEAST SEPARATION between the first and fourth kingdoms.
This thing didn't stand out at one glance, but it became more apparent when one read about the data on all kingdoms together. Why go further, when one just needed to take a single step forward to look at the second Kingdom?
It also didn't come out strange, after knowing the above, that these Dreamers preferred to call themselves priests. From common to the high-ranked Dreamers, all considered themselves equal under the all-seeing eyes of the Oldest One, the one and only true GOD.
But again, the thing to be noticed among these facts wasn't the state of Dreamers, but the separation between the second and first quadrant.
The CELESTIAL SEPARATION.
A pattern seemed to come out when one looked at how these separations had influenced the culture and thinking of the first and second quadrant. And if one were to follow this pattern, one could guess the state of the third Kingdom, the Kingdom of Swordless.
Between the second and third quadrant of the galaxy was the separation where everything was chaotic. The number of Dungeons within this separation was so huge that none could tell if they were for the Dreamers or just for the sake of filling up the space. The count of Dungeon breaks in this separation surpassed almost all others combined.
This separation was none other than the DEATH SEPARATION.
Based on the previous two cases, the Dreamers of the Kingdom following this separation must be masters of combat. They must have a deadly combination of Skills and Items, working in synergy. In sheer lethality alone, they must surpass the Dreamers of all other kingdoms.
And this was indeed as guessed.
The Dreamers of the Kingdom of Swordless were considered to have the most fatal combination of Skills and Items. And the number of Gene-based Skills within every generation of Ancient Houses almost tripled the average of other kingdoms.
Shocking! Right?!
But…
IF there was a pattern, so astounding, then what was wrong with the fourth Kingdom?
The Kingdom of Life-Authority didn't have any overly powerful Dreamers. They weren't masters of using beastly transformations, nor could they get blessings from strange GODS.
What they relied on to survive was Mana.
The nobles of the fourth Kingdom were almost scholarly. They gave much importance to knowledge and its applications, rather than brute strength. But the Dungeons and RECORD weren't merciful. One needed an ample amount of Skills to survive every other Random-Allocation. And this power came to them in the face of summons.
The scholarly Dreamers mastered summoning rare Mana-based creatures, varying from the oddest abominations to the exquisite fairies. All their Skills were in tune with their summons, and all their Items were just to assist the summons, too. It didn't come as a surprise when the Dreamers who couldn't achieve greatness in the rest of the kingdoms came flocking into the lap of the Kingdom of Life-Authority.
To most of the Dreamers who didn't have any House behind them, it didn't matter how power came to them. It all boiled down to the result. But it made the count of Dreamers within the fourth Quadrant shoot up like the highest peak of a mountain. And along with it manifested the cruelest competitive spirit of the Galaxy.
With all this information available, anybody who had a hint of the brain could guess that the fourth and last separation should have been in tune with the abilities of Dreamers of the fourth kingdom. It should be rich in spirits, Mana-based creatures, and different attributed Crawlers. But here the pattern failed, and it failed badly enough to even make one doubt their intelligence.
For even though there was a harmony between the name and nature of this fourth separation, it had nothing to do with the Kingdom of Life-Authority.
The name of this separation between the third and fourth Kingdom was…
WINTER.
Like a lone leaf torn out of a four-leaf clover, it stood out like a thorn in the gut of this pattern.
One could have even given this bizarre name a meaning if other names of the seasons could match somehow to the rest of the three Separations.
But they didn't.
Not one of the BEAST, CELESTIAL, and DEATH were remotely close to either of the SPRING, SUMMER, AND AUTUMN!!!