Sovereign of the Ashes

Earl Grantt’s voice resonated, reaching everyone in the vicinity, including Sein.

Sein’s sentiments toward his father were complicated.

He held Earl Grantt responsible for not searching for him after he was abducted, and equally blamed him for quickly entering a new marriage shortly after the passing of his mother.

Judging from the appearance of his half-brother, he seemed around eighteen—making him six or seven years Sein’s junior.

This meant Earl Grantt had promptly remarried and welcomed a son with Thea within a year or two after Sein’s disappearance and his mother’s death.

That would explain why Earl Grantt had not made an effort to search for him; he already had a new wife and a son!

Sein had been secretly nursing a grievance for a long time. He had even contemplated moving on from it and leaving the earl’s castle for good.

However, seeing Earl Grantt in person reignited those suppressed emotions.

In response to the earl’s question, Sein pulled the hood of his black robe over his head and replied, “I’m going home.”

“This is your home,” Earl Grantt retorted with a frown.

“No, it’s not. All I see is a spiteful stepmother, a hostile younger brother, and a portrait of my late mother. My home is elsewhere,” Sein asserted.

Sein’s response cast a palpable chill over the atmosphere.

It was unclear whether the earl was angered by Sein’s bluntness or Lady Thea’s actions.

He struck the ground with his horsewhip, leaving an obvious crack in the stone bridge with his battle qi.

His action showcased his strength, surpassing even the red-armored knight from the Zephyr Kingdom Sein encountered earlier.

“I’ll make sure Thea apologizes to you today! Your half-brother, Solon, will too... He’ll acknowledge you as his elder brother. I promise!” Earl Grantt declared.

Earl Grantt’s genuine emotions were evident in his words.

Had Sein’s mother been alive, Sein would have gladly accepted the family he had been separated from for nineteen years.

Yet, despite the earl’s attempt to reconcile with him, Sein could not shake the feeling of being an outsider in this castle.

“No, this is not where I belong. I have other pursuits beyond getting lost in false noble kinship,” Sein declined, shaking his head.

“False?” Earl Grantt could not help but frown when he heard that.

In the Magus World, noble knights prioritized bloodline inheritance more than mages.

Many mages devoted their lives to unraveling the mysteries of magic and elemental power, often neglecting the significance of building a family.

As a result, they chose to pass down their accumulated knowledge through their respective factions.

Indeed, huge noble families had their share of problems or even internal politics and conflicts.

However, matters concerning the inheritance of bloodlines, particularly within noble houses led by powerful leaders and heirs, usually left no room for ambiguity.

Lady Thea’s displeasure at Sein’s return was understandable, but her attempt to expel him from the Grantt Territory, even going as far as planning his arrest, was a foolish move.

The situation might have escalated further if not for the considerable influence of her family, which rivaled that of House Grantt.

Earl Grantt could have disavowed or divorced her. After all, a woman’s role in most major noble houses was merely providing a successor to the family.

In fact, Earl Grantt’s marriage with Lady Thea, like many nobles, prioritized the interests of Lady Thea’s family and the birth of an heir with a prestigious bloodline.

Despite years of matrimony, the earl and the countess rarely shared the same bed.

Sein’s half-brother, born a year after their marriage, owed his existence to a rare potion within the House Grantt.

The higher the knight’s rank, the lower the likelihood of giving birth to an heir.

This was the result of biological evolution and the law of balance.

In this context, squires who had yet to reach the life level of Rank One were not considered to be high ranking beings.

Given the influence of House Grantt, they could easily obtain potions that could boost fertility.

Such potions were highly sought after in the Magus World.

House Grantt maintained a moderate family size, avoiding excessive proliferation of family branches. The number of core and collateral members had consistently been kept within a reasonable range.

In contrast, certain noble houses sought to possess numerous members of high-quality bloodlines, resulting in a dozen or even dozens of heirs within a single generation.

The approach had its advantages and disadvantages. Its effectiveness mainly hinged on the size and specific circumstances of the noble house.

House Grantt indeed housed knights of the Rank One and above. However, the family’s ancestors had departed from the Magus World over forty years ago to participate in an interplanar war.

Their departure was not unique to House Grantt. In fact, a majority of Rank One Knights from the Lysian Alliance, the Zephyr Kingdom, and the Ohrque Empire had similarly left their homelands and the Magus World.

The millions of civilians at the lower echelons of their societies in the three major human nations remained oblivious to the underlying reasons behind the constant conflicts between their nations.

Those in the upper echelons of these societies—specifically, the existences of Rank One and above—were actually experts from the Orders of the Knights and affiliated to the same force.

The so-called wars between the three nations were nothing more than a way of training and selecting truly powerful knights. It was a program endorsed by most of the Orders of the Knights in the Magus World to cultivate qualified Rank One knights and beyond.

Only individuals who had attained the life level of Rank One and beyond could adapt to the perilous environment of the Astral Realm.

They were the ones capable of truly representing the Magus Civilization in its wars and conquests of the other planes.

The renown that the Magus Civilization had garnered in the surrounding star domains was beyond the imagination of weaker, low-level beings.

It stood as a formidable, top-tier civilization with the strength to dominate over ninety percent of the planes in the Astral Realm.

This was the truth of the world!

If Sein had chosen to stay and serve as House Grantt’s first heir, Earl Grantt would have shared this information with him.

Unfortunately, Sein remained unmoved by Earl Grantt’s attempts to reconcile with him.

Making the woman apologize and convincing his half-brother to accept him were meaningless in Sein’s eyes.

Sein pressed on toward the exit of the castle with unwavering determination. He had already made up his mind to leave.

Upon witnessing his resolve, Earl Grantt let out a soft sigh and issued a decisive command to his men.

“Tie him up!”