DarkTechnomancer
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Fates Parallel Chapter 516 - Shallow
🕑 Added 2024-06-03 18:47:17 +0000 UTCJiaguo’s fiends had always been in a strange position. They were by far the smallest minority group, numbering only three—depending on how one counted Melati. That was unlikely to change, since Melati reproduced exclusively with herself, while Ruiling and Sukarto didn’t seem inclined to start a family despite their pseudo-romantic companionship.
They also stood out quite a bit. Melati’s drones could be found just about anywhere you looked, and she’d been getting better at keeping control over increasingly large swarms of the smaller forms. Sukarto was quadrupedal and furry, both of which made clothing a difficult proposition, so he typically just went without. Finally, Long Ruiling herself probably stood out the most, with her glittering iridescent scales and large wings drawing the attention of anyone she passed by.
Due to their inhuman appearance, the three of them had at first been mistaken for demons, and faced ostracization from humans who didn’t know any better. Since the war in Yamato, both the demons and the fiends had enjoyed a boost in reputation, and over the years Melati in particular had become something of a household name.
It was hard not to like the bubbly wasp girl, and the fact that she was so ubiquitous meant that pretty much everybody in the city had met her in one form or another. It had even become popular to ask Melati to relay messages across the city since she could do it so quickly.
The fact that she was so well-known and beloved came as a shock to the twin princesses, who had wanted to press upon Jia the dangers of awakened hives.
“Qin Zhao already told us all about that stuff. I understand your concern, but Melati is different. If we heard that there was another hive of magical beasts getting close to xiantian, she’d be the first to help us eradicate them.”
Melati nodded enthusiastically.
“They would be like old Melati. Only thinking about eating and growing the hive. The only way to stop them is by killing them!”
Qin Xiang regarded her curiously.
“You realize that would mean preventing those like you from ever getting a chance to exist. That doesn’t trouble you?”
Melati giggled and shook her head, her wings fluttering behind her.
“Nope! Melati was lucky. Our old island was too small for us to grow big enough to destroy everything, but too big for the elders to find all of our eggs. It took us a long time and many queens to realize we were wrong and apologize.”
Long Ruiling shrugged.
“Eventually the elders decided that if she was willing to accept their conditions, then coexistence was better than never-ending war.”
Qin Ling raised an eyebrow.
“What conditions were those?”
“Limits on the size of her hive. Back when we first met Yoshika, Melati was only allowed to have three bodies at a time.”
Mel looked down at her feet and pouted.
“That was hard. Melati always felt like we were dying. Yoshi is much nicer—she only kills us when we ask her to!”
The twins gave Jia a questioning look and she shrugged.
“Her drones are semi-autonomous and if she’s not careful they can bud off and try to form their own colonies. It hasn’t happened in a long time, but occasionally Mel still needs to cull her hive a little.”
Melati buzzed happily.
“Uh-huh! We’ve been practicing!”
“That’s an understatement. Melati’s been attending academy classes since we reopened it, and she’s accrued enough credits to graduate several times over. At this point, she’s probably one of the single most knowledgeable experts on cultivation we know.”
She put her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest-fluff proudly.
“Melati is the smartest!”
Qin Ling gave her a wry smile.
“I see. Well, I suppose it’s fine as long as you understand the dangers. She seems harmless enough.”
Her sister shrugged.
“As with the demons, it’s your mistake to make. Was there a particular reason you wanted to introduce us to these fiends?”
Jia scratched her cheek.
“Not really. I just thought that since you’d met the Dragon Lord, it could be worth a conversation with Ruiling.”
Ruiling shook her head and laughed.
“I only met him once, and you were there when it happened. And from the sounds of it, the princesses didn’t really know him that well either.”
Qin Xiang nodded.
“Indeed. As lovely as it was to meet you, I don’t believe we have anything to discuss.”
Qin Ling put a finger to her chin and frowned.
“Though, come to think of it, you might have better luck asking Yan Yue. If Long Ruiling here is truly descended from the Dragon Lord’s sister, Long Xiaofan, then they share that common ancestor.”
Jia and Ruiling both stared at her in shock.
“Wait, what?!”
Qin Ling blinked.
“What? Has she not told you of her mother, Long Chunhua? Where did you think her sect got their prized signature technique?”
Her sister scoffed.
“It certainly wasn’t Yan De’s invention.”
“Though he did fight rather hard to earn her favor. Ah, he was so much more passionate in his youth.”
Jia shook her head, still struggling to believe what she was hearing.
“How do you even know that?”
“Her grandmother is in the harem, of course. Long Qiuyue was a bit of a controversial invitation, since she is half-fiend, but there was no way to know that without being told. As far as we can tell, the offspring between fiends and humans are either entirely fiendish or entirely human.”
Long Ruiling’s eyes widened.
“I know that name! Long Qiuyue is my aunt! Grandmother Jie used to tell me stories about how she left for the mainland with grandfather to live among other humans.”
Qin Ling nodded.
“And she is likely the one for whom Yan Yue was named. Perhaps in an effort to carry on the legacy after the end of a matrilineal line.”
Jia ran a hand through her hair and sighed heavily.
“That is...a lot to process. I think I’m going to need to have a chat with Yue.”
“My apologies. I didn’t realize it was a secret.”
Yoshika doubted that, but she wasn’t about to call the princess out on it for now.
“It’s alright, thank you for telling us. I have some other matters that I need to address, but please feel free to stay and enjoy the city for as long as you like.”
“We shall, thank you. The tour was quite enlightening.”
Qin Xiang nodded in agreement.
“It’s been millennia since we’ve seen so many new things. If nothing else, Jiaguo is a treasure trove of novelty.”
Jia smiled and bowed.
“I’ll take that as a compliment, thank you.”
—-
“You’re Long Ruiling’s cousin?!”
Yan Yue sipped calmly from her teacup and shrugged off Jia’s incredulous accusation.
“I’m as surprised as you are, but I don’t see why it matters. An unlikely coincidence, but the world is always smaller than we imagine.”
“Wh—how could you not know?”
“My mother never told me.”
“Her family name is Long! She taught you the True Awakening of the Dragon’s Heart, called the Plasma element ‘Dragonflame,’ and named you after her mother! Your sect was founded on her technique!”
Yue sighed and shook her head.
“It may seem obvious in hindsight, but that was thousands of years ago, and she never told me any of that. Do you know how many Long clans exist in the empire? How was I to guess that this one just so happens to descend from actual dragons?”
Jia floundered, trying to find her words. As usual, she hadn’t thought things through.
“But...then that means...”
“Nothing, Jia. My mother most likely kept her heritage secret to save my brother and I the scandal.”
“Why in the world did she even marry Yan De?”
Yue shrugged.
“She never told me that, either. We were close, my mother and I, but she was always more interested in my future than her past.”
Jia furrowed her brows.
“I’m sorry. You miss her, don’t you? It’s my fault you’re estranged from her now.”
Yue giggled and shook her head.
“As always, you are frustratingly perceptive of my feelings, and just as frustratingly terrible at attributing them. I don’t blame you for my separation from my mother. Nor, lately, do I blame myself. Yan De is solely to blame for the vast majority of the problems in my life, and you have done nothing but help me work towards a solution.”
“Aww, thanks Yue. By the way, the princesses offered me an invitation to the god-emperor’s harem. I mean, I guess it was for all of us? Honestly I’m not really sure how that’s even supposed to work since I’m already married to Eui...”
“Tsk, damn it. I owe Lin Xiulan a custom dress design from An Chunhei. I thought for certain they’d balk once you showed them Jianmo.”
Jia blinked.
“You’re not surprised?”
“Of course not. It was obvious that was their goal from the beginning. Their offer to me was nothing more than an excuse to come here and a distraction from their true goal. Though I have no doubt that it was also genuine.”
“You could have told me that. I was completely blindsided.”
Yue shook her head.
“It was better that way. Let them think we are unprepared for their schemes. What did they offer in exchange?”
Jia frowned, her tail curling up in discomfort—Yue was getting better at noticing how half-spirits emoted with their extra limbs.
“They said that they’d relay our proposal to Shen Yu as long as I agreed to consider theirs. They were pretty blatantly appealing to my domain, talking about moving the emperor’s heart and uniting the continent.”
“Hm. That’s interesting. For context, though he has thousands of consorts, the god-emperor has never married. The Heavenly Empire, throughout its long history, has never once had an empress.”
“Wait, they want me to marry him?!”
Yue shrugged.
“Possibly. That’s just a guess on my part. Perhaps you are right, and they’re just trying to appeal to your nature. However, I have no doubt that they’d like nothing more than to finally secure the entire continent under Qin’s banner.”
“Doesn’t that make them our enemies?”
“They’ve always been our enemies, but you don’t need me to tell you that doesn’t mean we have nothing to gain from cooperating with them.”
Jia crossed her arms and pouted.
“Well, there’s no way I’m marrying some weird old man I’ve never met.”
Yue chuckled.
“Of course not, but they don’t need to know that. Mind you, they probably do. They aren’t stupid, and cultivators that old and powerful are probably even better empaths than you.”
“Actually...about that...”
Jia fidgeted with her tail for a moment, collecting her words.
“They are definitely powerful—more than me, easily—but after spending more time with them, I get the sense that their power is...shallow? It’s hard to put into words. They are old and strong, but they’ve spent most of their lives cloistered up in their palace, and I don’t think they’ve really been challenged much.”
Yue cocked her head. If she was going to trust anyone with such an audacious claim, it was Yoshika, but it needed further examination.
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, take their reaction to Jianmo, for example. The last time they saw him was ten thousand years ago, and they were surprised—baffled, even—at the idea that maybe he’d changed since then. Then, there’s Melati.”
“Oh, by the emperor. I suppose it was inevitable that they’d encounter her.”
Jia nodded, but her frown remained.
“Yeah, but actually they didn’t even notice her until I went out of my way to introduce them. The final straw, though, is the fact that they don’t know how I can tell them apart.”
Yue blinked. She couldn’t tell the twins apart, either.
“How do you do that?”
“Their souls. Their domains intermingle with each other by design, but they are still distinct from one another. They may be physically identical, but their auras are still unique. It’s a little hard to tell since their raw power is so overwhelming, but if I pay attention I can sense that Qin Xiang’s aura is a bit more Yin-heavy than Qin Ling’s.”
“That’s very impressive, but I can see why they’d be surprised. Most cultivators aren’t able to distinguish auras so precisely.”
Jia shook her head.
“Qin Zhao could. And that’s exactly what I mean. I don’t think they can, either. It could be a ruse, I suppose, but my impression is that their power is like a vast ocean stretching out across the horizon. Except that as intimidating as it is to look at, when you brave the waters, they only go waist-high.”
Yue bit her thumbnail, pondering the implications of that for a moment.
“Fascinating. Perhaps you’re on to something, and if you’re correct, then I may be able to work with that. Let’s keep this between us, for now.”
There was still much to be done before she could even think about confronting Yan De, but with Jia’s revelation, Yue could see the first tiny pieces of a plan beginning to take form.
Comments
CringeWorthyStudios
Let’s be honest, still wouldn’t be completely out of the question for an Emperor’s harem…
DarkTechnomancer
I should note that while the twins run the imperial harem, they are not themselves part of it. That would be weird since the emperor is their father lmao
Pride mystic artificer
they are still after all one disiplins cultivators who have not refined their minds or bodys, also they probably have simply not had a single fight since becomeing concubines. They simply (mabye litteraly) sit around for hundreds (mabye thousands) of years drinking tea and growing their essence pool and deepening their ability with their techniques i would be suprised if they had not one divine/demonic/sacred art to their name and dont meditate one the nature of their burgeoning domain as gods as they deny they are that
Inkwym
Thanks for the chapter! Nothing like a hive mind to study cultivation. Just send multiple to every class.... All at the same time; they wouldn't even need breaks to meditate...
