[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces":3,"chapter-the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-chapter-227":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","The Dragon of a Thousand Faces",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2269873,4431,"Chapter 227: The Sin and the Griffin King","the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-chapter-227",227,"\u003Cp>In fairy tales, the hero defeats the demon king and becomes king, living happily ever after. But what was the cost?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The cost is a curse passed down through generations. No, more accurately, this curse is the seal itself.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The seal of the Owl is likely the most peculiar—it is truly intangible, and only such a seal could forever lock away that monstrous bird.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The royal bloodline is the seal of the Owl; each generation of Lion Kings is a shackle binding the evil bird.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“If the bloodline is broken...”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The Owl will awaken.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li En was stunned. Could the truth really be this?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“And the Owl will spare no cost to bring the royal line to an end. This may also be one of the reasons the royal family has so few members, and so many madmen and lunatics.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li En fell silent. Was this not unfair?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Unfair? Hah. The Griffin thought so too. You probably don’t know him—he’s Maryanne’s father, the Wise King everyone speaks of.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Too many thoughts swirled in Li En’s mind. Was it because this father sought to reverse the royal family’s fate that all these tragedies occurred?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So he asked.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Ha, you actually believe that? You’re even dumber than I was. This is only half the truth. Do you really think a king would sacrifice himself and his descendants to seal an immortal monster?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“This is a lie told to ordinary royal members. By the way, Maryanne doesn’t even know this—Griffin never had the chance to tell her.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lex’s words dripped with self-mockery. He himself had once been a fool, truly believing the royal family were the good guys.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Who is truly the most evil side? Humans? Beasts? Or everyone? In this brutally realistic story, no side deserves sympathy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had always refused to awaken—not only because of certain reasons he didn’t wish to meet anyone, but also because some memories were too filthy. He hoped to take them to the grave. He feared that the final judgment of the Thousand-Faced Dragon would be that the kingdom was not worth saving, and that everyone deserved to die.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was also his own judgment—but considering his wife and daughter... no, better to hold back. He was already dead; let future generations handle it themselves.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The truth is far dirtier. Let’s start with the cleaner parts. Uh, I only know part of it—the rest you’ll have to fill in. I hope you’ll tell me which of these two, father or daughter, is worse.” Lex had no intention of revealing everything; he only planned to speak of the cleaner parts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lex’s tone was thick with sarcasm. Seal a demon with one’s own bloodline? Impossible!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The first White Lion King ate the Owl, attempting to seize the beast’s power.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just those words left Li En speechless.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This—wasn’t this suicide? The beast is the embodiment of rules, the incarnation of nature. It’s immortal. Can you even eat it?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I know it sounds insane. But that Griffin I was incredibly strong, with unique abilities—he succeeded. He gained a portion of the Owl’s power.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li En was utterly speechless. What the hell? This was possible?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet some pieces of information suddenly fell into place.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“That’s right. That guy used the White Griffin emblem not to honor the aid of the Witch of the Hawk. He was supremely selfish and arrogant—he carved the emblem of himself, half-lion, half-eagle.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The first White Lion King became the White Griffin King, mastering both light and shadow, becoming the peak power of his age. But as Li En suspected, the Owl was the incarnation of nature—meant to be immortal. You, White Griffin King, were absurdly strong. But what happened after you died?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“That guy was greedy. He sealed this power within his bloodline, hoping to pass it down, making each generation stronger than the last.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Clearly, he overplayed his hand. The descendants of heroes are not necessarily heroes—at least not worthy of wielding the beast’s power.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the end, this “treasure” became a “curse.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The Second Princess’s curse is, in essence, a unique trait of their lineage. As the exemplar of solar power, the lioness’s bloodline is naturally less compatible. The Solar Lion King power (Alvak) passed through their bloodline can only be transmitted to one princess—limit reached. The Second Princess lacked sufficient Solar Lion King power, so the ‘Owl’ inside the seal slipped out.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The first Griffin King designed the Alvak (Divine) power to be inherited through bloodline, using solar energy to constantly suppress darkness and forcibly control the Owl’s power.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the result was that this bloodline inheritance was insufficient (the descendants weren’t strong enough), making royal members mediocre instead (their bloodline power was consumed suppressing the Owl), and the weakest royal members often died suddenly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When the number of descendants increased, disaster was inevitable. The royal family claimed it was the Owl’s curse, but Lex suspected it was simply that the diluted bloodline power could no longer hold back the Owl—it drove them mad.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the end, they could only maintain a small population; reproduction became extremely difficult, barely avoiding extinction—on the brink of annihilation by the curse—until they produced a second Griffin!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“My father-in-law—hah, that bastard called himself Griffin II, dreaming of becoming the Griffin King. He is the source of all this disaster.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li En fell silent. He remembered Rosalind’s recent scream: “Father ate me.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Had he, from the very beginning, allowed the Second Princess’s birth, just so he could become the second Griffin King?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“No, no, no—you underestimate him. In a certain sense, he wasn’t inferior to the first Griffin, at least in terms of boundless ruthlessness and lack of humanity. Li En, how would you make a tiny kingdom with insufficient population, weak military, terrible economy, and no technology into a great power?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this, Li En thought. There didn’t seem to be any way.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Hmm... maybe you need luck—catching a historical opportunity, like a sudden technological revolution or explosion. I don’t think personal ability can achieve that.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li En recalled certain nations before the world wars that, by sheer luck, experienced technological explosions—gambling their national fate for explosive growth. Though their endings were rarely good, they did have a chance of success.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Exactly. The key is technology—knowledge and techniques ahead of their time. How would a powerless little kingdom obtain such technology?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He asked me? Go build education? No, unrealistic—impossible to close the gap that way. But this is a world of magic and miracles.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The Whisperers.” Li En recalled his recent encounter—the Whisperer Museum, at least thirty years old.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Yes, the Whisperers. The Owl brought the Whisperers’ knowledge. But you know, to gain knowledge from the Whisperers, one must sacrifice one’s life.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Outer Gods don’t need your “life”—but this gift demands a cost, one drawn from your deepest desire.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Did that Griffin truly sacrifice his own life? Or did he use his people as expendable fuel?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lex laughed. He thought his little brother was absurdly naive.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“There’s an old saying—have you heard it? A child is a parent’s life.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li En was utterly stunned. His imagination already revealed the unspeakable evil hidden in this calm statement.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“This... this can’t be right. A symbolic concept shouldn’t satisfy the Whisperers’ demands.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Then, a child still connected by umbilical cord to its parents—does that count as a single life?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>(End of Chapter)\u003C\u002Fp>",1223,"2026-06-19T21:45:42.084Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","0629d6f575708fc8ac9a101c09a806cf33e06ef08c9e302877f5ef9ae70be092","the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-chapter-228","the-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-chapter-226",362,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-dragon-of-a-thousand-faces-cover.jpg"]