Chapter 146: Investiture of Tamerlane, Awakening of the Gift: Heart of Myriads

Hall of Starfire.

Beneath a crystal dome reflecting countless wars like a celestial screen, twelve towering prisms stood upon a floor paved with bronze, their torches burning fiercely.

The torch atop the crimson prism, carved with murals and resembling fine jade, burned the brightest.

In this magnificent hall, three people waited in silence.

One had golden hair and blue eyes, standing with a sword in hand, straight as a pine, a faint, gentle smile always gracing his handsome face, making one feel an instinctive fondness the moment they saw him.

One was as immovable as a mountain, his muscles tempered like bronze, his features heroic and peerless; he was as perfect as a great hero from the age of gods, commanding awe just by standing there.

One had blue hair and emerald eyes, her skin as white as snow, beautiful as a meticulously carved ice sculpture; though a woman, her brow revealed a heroic spirit, giving the impression of a valiant knight.

Time ticked away, second by second, until—

A cluster of torchlight appeared abruptly in the hall, and then a tall figure gradually emerged from the flames.

Seeing this, all three felt a surge of joy and bowed slightly to the figure in unison.

"Good evening, Your Majesty."

"Good evening." After collecting himself, Xia Mingyu looked at the companions who had been waiting for him and smiled slightly.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, everyone sat down at the long bronze table.

Snap!

Xia Mingyu snapped his fingers lightly, and the cold bronze tabletop was filled with countless steaming delicacies.

"Hahaha, cheers!"

Xia Mingyu raised a glass filled with lemonade, drained it in one gulp, and let out a hearty laugh.

Having eliminated the great threat of the Twilight Tea and successfully achieved the promotion of his 1.4 billion blessings, he was now drinking fine wine with like-minded, trustworthy friends.

Even he, who was usually calm and often worried about the future, couldn't help but feel a sense of joy that made him want to laugh out loud.

"Life's triumphs should be enjoyed to the fullest; do not let the golden goblet face the moon empty," he recited softly.

"Your Majesty, you seem very happy. Did something good happen?"

Tamerlane, sitting to his right, asked curiously.

He remembered that a few days ago, although the King had a smile on his face, there was a hint of anxiety; he was nothing like now, where his whole being seemed to say, "I'm very happy, come ask me."

"I resolved a crisis that would have destroyed an entire city and brought the culprit—a greedy and insane Kelai merchant—to justice," Xia Mingyu said with a hint of pride.

This was perhaps the greatest good deed he had done since coming to this world, aside from summoning the Crimson Fire across space and time to bless countless people.

"Saving people from fire and water, punishing heinous villains—no wonder you are so happy," Tamerlane exclaimed.

"Kelai merchant..." He frowned slightly and then spoke:

"Your Majesty, as a Paladin of the Sun Church, I should not discriminate against any group, but in the cases recorded by the Church, the Kelai merchant group has often been the creator of people's suffering..."

Looking at the slight disgust on Tamerlane's face, Xia Mingyu felt he had gained a deeper understanding of the reputation of the Kelai merchant group.

To be able to make a Paladin who advocates equality look at people unequally—in a sense, that is indeed quite impressive.

"No good person would become a slave owner, and among the slave owners in the City of Slaves, Kelai merchants make up the majority," Hagek Kesi, sitting to Xia Mingyu's left, said coldly.

He seemed to be implying that there wasn't a single good person among Kelai merchants.

"In the Northern Region, whenever famine strikes, Kelai merchants descend upon every village like locusts, racking their brains to drive down the price of the villagers' self-sale, often securing them with just a small bag of grain, even knowing that the children before them, crying because they cannot bear to part with their parents and bloated from starvation, will fall into the trap of death by hunger again."

Dorovai's slender fingers slowly curled, her knuckles turning white from the force; her tone was cold, and a hint of murderous intent seemed to seep through her words.

After listening to all this in silence, Xia Mingyu felt that if he ever encountered a Kelai merchant again, even if he didn't kill them, beating them up wouldn't be an injustice.

At the same time, a hint of doubt arose in Xia Mingyu's heart.

Usually, people are divided by country, such as Sossia, Rhine, or Milan; why is there an abrupt distinction for Kelai people?

"What kind of ethnic group are the Kelai people, exactly?" he asked Tamerlane.

After all, as the grandson of the Pope of the continent's most widespread church, the information Tamerlane knew should be much clearer and more accurate than his own.

"According to the records in the Church, the origin of the Kelai people was the Kelai Kingdom, the first great human nation established nearly a thousand years ago by Joshua Kelai, the King of Stars."

Tamerlane pondered for a moment and spoke slowly.

"Joshua, the King of Stars—legend has it he was raised by the Seven Gods together. Heroic, kind, just, benevolent... he possessed almost all the virtues known to humanity and was the most dazzling hero of the age of gods."

"The Kelai Kingdom he established was incredibly glorious, occupying a full third of the continent's territory before it split apart at its peak, and its influence covered the entire continent."

"During this period, previously powerful groups like elves, dwarves, gnomes, orcs, and merfolk all suffered heavy blows from the Kelai Kingdom, retreating to the forest seas, underground, ice deserts, and deep seas, never to recover their former glory of sharing the continent for the next thousand years."

"Then, for some reason that has yet to be investigated, the King of Stars died suddenly, and a great catastrophe broke out immediately afterward. The divine war between the Seven Gods led to the destruction of the Kelai Kingdom, and the upper-class Kelai people, displaced after losing their nation's protection, took 'Kelai' as their surname, gradually forming the Kelai people."

"This is the origin of the Kelai people. Because the divine war of the Seven Gods caused the destruction of the Kelai Kingdom, the Kelai people do not believe in the Seven Gods; they only believe in the Creator."

"And as time passed, I don't know when, a twisted myth appeared within the Kelai group: that the Creator transformed into the world and gifted it to the Kelai people as a paradise, while all other living beings are parasites of this paradise and servants of the Kelai people."

"Precisely because of this, Kelai people without faith are born with one less layer of moral restraint than normal people, so the probability of fraudsters and villains appearing among them is far higher than in normal populations."

After finishing all this, Tamerlane sighed softly, seemingly lamenting the birth of such a twisted group.

Tap, tap, tap.

Xia Mingyu frowned, his fingers tapping continuously on the bronze table.

Such a group reminded him of a certain group on Blue Star, which was also rotten to the core.

However, he still felt there were many suspicious points. Why did the King of Stars die suddenly? And why did the great catastrophe break out immediately after his death?

And what exactly caused such a twisted myth to be born among the Kelai group?

More and more doubts piled up in Xia Mingyu's heart, but he couldn't come up with a reasonable guess.

However, that was normal; if it were really that easy to guess, it wouldn't have become an unsolved mystery in history, and scholars who painstakingly studied history would have dug it out long ago.

"Forget it. When the carriage reaches the mountain, there will always be a road."

"As long as I keep walking on the path of pursuing my ideals, these questions will be answered sooner or later."

Xia Mingyu let out a long sigh of relief; once he stopped torturing his brain, he felt relaxed immediately.

Then, looking at the golden-haired young man sitting upright in front of him, he said with a hint of a smile:

"Tamerlane, thank you for your explanation. For this, I have decided to give you a reward."

Tamerlane was about to wave his hand in refusal; after all, he felt this was just a small effort, and how could he deserve a reward from the King? Even a verbal commendation was too much praise.

But then he saw Xia Mingyu slowly take off the crimson ring on his hand, and in the astonished eyes of everyone, a line of deep purple text emerged—1409670292 Kingdom Heir.

Tamerlane, who had been clear-minded since childhood, guessed the King's "reward" in an instant.

"Your Majesty, are you going to appoint me as your comrade?" he said, both surprised and delighted, his handsome face seeming to light up all at once.

After seeing Xia Mingyu nod slightly with a smile, this man, considered the most gifted Paladin in the history of the Sun Church and even longingly called the "Son of the Sun" by the people of the City of the Corona, was now trembling all over with excitement.

After coming to his senses, he rose from his seat without hesitation and slowly knelt on one knee before Xia Mingyu.

"After being appointed as my comrade, your noble blessing will disappear. Have you thought it through?" Xia Mingyu said.

As the grandson of the contemporary Pope, Tamerlane's own identity blessing was undoubtedly far superior to all the lords in the Southern Region, and it was even very likely that he had already reached the Crescent or even the Radiant Moon Rank.

And after being transformed into a comrade by him, it was highly probable that he would only be at the Morning Star Rank.

"To have the honor of becoming your comrade—this point transcends any blessing the world could give me," Tamerlane said warmly.

His deep blue eyes shone brightly, and anyone could feel his sincerity and composure.

This guy... he's too good at talking!

If I had been this good at talking on Blue Star, I wouldn't have ended up in an orphanage with no one to adopt me.

Xia Mingyu took a deep breath, suppressing all distracting thoughts, and raised his right hand, manifesting a long sword.

Seeing this, Tamerlane looked solemn and spoke in a dignified voice:

"With the Creator above, and the God of Sun and Justice I believe in above, I, Tamerlane Rhine, hereby take an oath—"

"From now on, Your Majesty Xia Mingyu is my lord, and I am his right arm. I will serve him as piously as the god I believe in."

"My sword in this life is for your command, and my blood in this life flows for you."

"Your enemies are my mortal enemies, and your laws are my creed."

"I am willing to sacrifice everything I have, only hoping that you can reach the other shore of your ideals, because that is also my other shore."

"If I break this oath, may the Sun God punish my soul to fall into purgatory forever, my body to be scorched by the sun's fire, and my most cherished honor to rot in the dust..."

"Alright, alright." Seeing that Tamerlane was about to continue his oath, Xia Mingyu interrupted him with some helplessness.

"What will never happen—what is the point of being so vicious?" Xia Mingyu said calmly.

Tamerlane was stunned, and then a brilliant smile curled at the corners of his mouth.

Under his gaze, full of enthusiasm and expectation, Xia Mingyu draped his outer garment over his shoulders and placed the blade of the long sword in his hand horizontally on his right shoulder.

"Tamerlane, I also swear to you: I will always regard you as a companion with whom I share life and death, cherish you as I cherish my right arm, and may we together realize that absurd and long-lasting ideal—let everyone in the world live like a human!"

"How can one say they have no clothes? I share my robes with you. The King raises his army, I repair my spears and swords, and I share your hatred!"

Bang, bang.

He patted Tamerlane's shoulder heavily twice with the sword blade.

The next moment, as the outer garment dissipated into points of light, a line of deep purple text emerged above Tamerlane's head—Comrade.

Then, this line of text gradually turned ice blue, and then back to deep purple.

Under the astonished gaze of everyone, Tamerlane's identity blessing seemed to have a bug, changing back and forth between deep purple and ice blue.

Finally, after a long time, the blessing became "Com(purple)rade(ice blue)".

Everyone: "???"

In this world, there is actually a heterochromatic blessing?

"Tamerlane, have you ever heard of this situation?" Xia Mingyu asked, puzzled.

And the person involved just shook his head, full of confusion.

Even though he had almost finished reading all the books in the Sun Church's library, he had never seen such an unheard-of phenomenon as a heterochromatic blessing.

After all, since the birth of blessings, rank levels and their represented colors had been clearly and distinctly corresponding, and nothing had changed for millions of years.

"It seems that I will have to wear a prop to hide my identity blessing like you, Your Majesty, otherwise I might be dissected by that group of fanatical mages from the Star Tower," Tamerlane said humorously.

For him, it didn't matter what rank his blessing became; as long as he became the King's comrade and could walk side-by-side with him on the path of saving the world, that was enough.

This was the noblest and happiest thing for him as a Paladin.

"You really are optimistic!" Xia Mingyu couldn't help but exclaim.

For most living beings in this world, blessings were one of the most important things, and Tamerlane was actually able to joke even when his own blessing became heterochromatic; he was truly a bit too composed.

"Actually, I'm still a bit worried, but once I think that I have become your comrade, Your Majesty, I feel happy about it no matter what," Tamerlane said frankly.

Then, with a surge of information into his mind, his expression suddenly became extremely shocked.

"Your Majesty, I seem to have awakened a very exaggerated gift." Tamerlane was stunned for a long time before he managed to squeeze out a sentence.

Heart of Myriads: You will have a probability of randomly obtaining a gift based on your actions, experiences, insights, reputation, and everything else that connects you to the world, with an upper limit of ten thousand gifts.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 147 =====