Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 870: Udara Gundrum Kaelwiryn

CH870 Udara Gundrum Kaelwiryn

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Udara glanced away from Alex for a moment as she gathered her courage to tell her story.

“Master, my name is Udara Gundrum Kaelwiryn,” she said. “I believe you know what that means.” She looked him dead in the eyes.

Alex found himself stunned, yet not as surprised as he expected.

He smiled wryly. “I figured you were related to them, but I didn’t expect that you were actually a direct scion of the Kaelwiryn Imperial Matriarchy, one of the two Imperial Dynasties of the Eternal Valkyrie Empire.”

“I am not just a scion. I am the third daughter of Agnete Zurzen Kaelwiryn, the current Matriarch of the Kaelwiryn Imperial Matriarchy,” Udara stated plainly.

“What?!” Alex shot up from the stool, causing it to fall to the ground. “You are the Third Imperial Highness of the Kaelwiryn Dynasty? Then how?!”

Udara’s body trembled, but she fought through it.

“My mother, one of the two Queen Matriarchs of the Eternal Valkyrie Empire, sacrificed me… in the name of the greater good of the Eternal Valkyrie Empire,” she responded.

‘Greater Good?!’

The words almost sent Alex over the edge, especially seeing Udara’s state. Ironically, it was the unique trait of his Furor half of his bloodline that kept him in check.

Calm Madness!

Alex’s mind cleared as he entered a state of cold fury.

He held whatever emotions he felt inwardly down. He calmly—borderline eerily—pulled back his stool and sat down.

Once Udara gathered herself again, she continued her narration. She tried to speak as detached from the situation as she could.

“The power dynamic in the Eternal Valkyrie Empire is fluid. While the Amazons and Drows rule the empire as part of the old guard, a new, younger breed of nobility led by Succubus and Dryad houses have also picked up significant power.

“It was determined that a lack of a single strong central power was the cause of the power diversity within the empire. As such, the leadership of the Empire hatched a plan to consolidate power in a single Imperial House.

“Their idea was simple—create a single, unified bloodline from the powers within the empire, old and new. This way, no one race can lay claim to Imperial power. Instead, Imperial power will be held by a bloodline that represents all major powers.

“A true representative of the Eternal Valkyrie Empire.”

Alex closed his eyes and breathed in measured breaths. He didn’t speak, just waited and listened.

“Both the Imperial Dynasties and the two new-generation Great Races put forward their candidates,” Udara said.

“At that time, I had thought it was a great honour for me to be chosen by Mother to represent the Kaelwiryn House for the project. However, now I realise how naïve I was. I now understand the cold calculation that went into my moth—no, the Matriarch’s decision.”

“My first sister—the First Imperial Princess—has been groomed specifically to take over from the Matriarch as the head of the dynasty. Meanwhile, the Second Imperial Princess will take over as the head of the empire’s military. I was eight at the time and had no prepared path for me.”

“In addition, my bloodline and talents happened to be compatible with the project.”

“The First Imperial Princess was Earth-natured but had a body weaker than the needs of the experiment. Meanwhile, the Second Imperial Princess had a strong enough body, but was Fire-natured, which contrasted with the elemental natures of the other power’s bloodlines.

“Then came me, who had both a rare encompassing Nature Attribute and a naturally powerful body, just perfect for the project.”

‘Nature Attribute, not Darkness?’ Alex raised an eyebrow, but he kept his question to himself.

Udara’s detached voice continued, “I had thought I was lucky… chosen. I could potentially become the unified ruler of our empire, in the name of our Kaelwiryn Dynasty—at least that was what I was taught.

“I had the attention of the Matriarch and the Imperial Princesses for a time, then I was taken to the facility.”

Udara’s body shivered.

It went without saying that the procedure for the experiments was unlikely to be pain-free. Alex recalled his own case of bloodline fusion and how much pain he had gone through.

In his case, he had the growing body of a teenager, tempered by rare materials and a special method from an Ancient Dragon. And all of these were on top of a mind tempered by more than thirty years of experience—for whatever that was worth.

Yet, he knew how close he had come to buckling under the pain and reconstruction the process entailed.

Alex could scarcely imagine how much worse it had been for an eight-year-old Udara. Not only did her body have to accept new bloodlines and harmonise them on three separate occasions, but she also had to endure a similar, albeit less painful, bloodline fusion attempt.

‘…an eight-year-old girl…!’ Alex clenched his fist tightly out of sight.

Although Alex tried to hide it in order not to affect Udara’s fragile mental state, the woman—as a consequence of his own work—could now sense emotional fluctuations. How could she not sense his heightened state?

‘He is angry on my behalf…’ Udara realised.

The realisation warmed her. Surprisingly, she found that the part of the story that should have been the most difficult to tell suddenly felt… mundane.

“As you have deduced, the experiment failed. Although through no fault of my own, I was abandoned in the facility by the Kaelwiryn Dynasty.”

She smiled melancholically.

“Of the eight candidates from the different races within EVE who began the experiment, I was the only one to survive and reach the final stage of bloodline fusion,” Udara revealed.

“Wait,” Alex’s eyes widened. “The other candidates died?” he asked.

“Yes.” Udara confirmed with a nod. “All candidates but me died due to incompatibility issues during the experiment. I was the only one who survived to the end.

“Ironically, it was the idea of returning to the Matriarch and the Imperial Princesses, making them proud, that got me through the pain and loneliness of the experiments. But after the final experiment failed… after the methods the alchemists had concocted failed, I was abandoned by the Kaelwiryn family and forbidden to return home until the fusion had succeeded.

“The women of the Kaelwiryn House do not live with failure—instead, they die trying.”

“My own mother and sisters had condemned and abandoned me to success or death,” Udara said eerily plainly.

“This edict spread through the facility, stripping me of what remained of my rights as an Imperial Princess… as a person, and I was reduced to nothing more than an experimental subject—a thing,” she said indifferently.

“In one of the later experiments done to me to increase the probability of success, I went through an affinity conversion experiment. This was how my Nature Attribute was converted to an even higher affinity for the Darkness Attribute.

“All in preparation for a hopeless final experiment that would either succeed or kill me.”

“Fortunately, before this final experiment, I presume there was a disagreement between the four major powers involved. Since their own candidates had died off, the other three powers didn’t want to risk the emergence of a Kaelwiryn as the true heir of EVE, and so the facility was attacked.

“Or so I thought,” Udara added ominously.

“Or so you thought? What does that mean?” Alex couldn’t help but ask.

“During the chaos, the Amazonian guards at the facility tried to assassinate me. The closest person I had to a friend at the facility—even though it was only a vague idea of the word—stabbed me with a shortsword.

“I will never forget what she said to me back then. ‘Udara Gudrun Kaelwiryn, you have been disowned from the Kaelwiryn House. Your death is for the good of the empire,’ she had said.

“Once again, the good of the empire…” She unknowingly chuckled mirthlessly.

Alex tried to reach out to hold her, but Udara shook her head.

“Let me finish, Master. Or I might never will,” she said.

Alex’s hands froze mid-reach. He gritted his teeth, but then pulled back his hand helplessly.

If it were up to him—or rather, if it were for him, he would have stopped her from speaking. However, he recognised that Udara herself needed this.

She was on a precipice, but she needed to confront this part of her past before she could grow beyond it—accepting it and putting it behind her properly.

So, Alex did the only thing he could think of to help her—

Shut his mouth and simply listen.

“I thought I would die there, but someone arrived who rescued me. They managed to steal me away from the attackers and take me out of the facility while barely healing and keeping me alive with healing potions. We spent months moving and hiding as I healed from my injuries.

“When I finally healed enough from my injuries to move about freely on my own, my saviour handed me over to a smuggler who got me out of EVE, eventually bringing me to the Virellian Empire, and finally to the Enclave City.”

“Even though I knew it was for my own good, even though I knew my saviour probably left me with the smuggler to draw off possible pursuers, perhaps because I was young… and broken, I thought I had been abandoned a second time. And before I knew it, I tried not to get attached to anyone.

“I lived at an orphanage my saviour had contacts with, but I could never bring myself to open up to anyone, so I lived isolated from the other children at the orphanage.

“Luckily, my talent was discovered by the head of the orphanage, who was also an important Enclave City official, and I was brought into the DragonHold Enclave, where I met Sister Zora.

“At that time, perhaps because Sister Zora was also going through her own pain, I found comfort and a kindred spirit in her.”

“You know the rest from here,”

***