From Secret Clan to the Divine Dynasty

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After dealing with the aftermath, everyone was exhausted. Transporting the enormous bear carcass and three bodies also required a cart, so Lucius ordered two guards to go back first and call for more people, while the rest temporarily stayed in the jungle. In the end, they camped for the night.

For some reason, Byrne still longed deep inside to see that stunningly beautiful elf again.

In the middle of the night, he sat up again, feeling somewhat sleepy but unable to fall asleep.

"Byrne."

A deep voice came from nearby, and Byrne saw his father Lucius keeping watch, arms folded across his chest, gazing at him wearily.

Ever since that battle, Lucius had been constantly reflecting, with abrupt selfish thoughts hidden deep within, always feeling uneasy.

Byrne was the only son of his own flesh and blood.

But would I really be willing to die for him?

On the lips, relatives of the same blood are the most important, but when it comes to a critical moment, the selfishness and baseness deep inside still surge forward, Lucius shook his head.

Byrne sensitively perceived that something was off with his father but couldn't specifically pinpoint it.

"Father, what's wrong?" he asked.

Lucius looked at Byrne calmly and suddenly realized that at some point, he had grown into a man, even more handsome and dashing than himself when he was younger, like a truly noble gentleman.

And what about himself? He had inevitably aged somewhat.

Ageing, a word Lucius had never thought about before, suddenly overwhelmed his thoughts and refused to leave.

He began very slowly, "There are some things from the past that I want to talk to you about, things I've never told you before."

"Alright, sure."

Getting up, Byrne felt a bit excited inside. In fact, he had always known little about his father's past.

Byrne grew up solely under his mother's care after birth. His mother, the daughter of a famous painter, had a great talent for painting, but her family did not believe a woman could become a painter, so she was never able to study painting systematically.

All along, she had placed her hopes of becoming a painter onto Byrne, but in the second year of Byrne's painting studies, a terrifying plague struck, and half the city's population perished during those dreadful, months-long epidemic.

After his mother's death, he arrived.

The man who claimed to be his father, whom his mother rarely mentioned and when she did, it was with admiration in her voice.

Byrne, who had survived the plague but was frail and sickly, numbly followed Lucius as they left, endlessly observing this stranger yet familiar man during their aimless and prolonged journeys.

He appeared languid, yet he was brave and shrewd, able to adeptly deal with any sudden situations, his eyes and speech filled with the confidence and charisma that could lead others forward.

Father might not be the grand hero from the poetry collections, but Byrne truly admired him, and found himself increasingly subconsciously learning from this dangerous man who narrowed his eyes in a smile.

The campfire crackled in the night, and the two made their way to the edge of the campsite.

The old man with a resolute face, in his forties, sat on a stone, silently staring into the darkness for a long time, as if gazing deep within his heart, before he finally slowly began to speak:

"I have long since forgotten your mother's name. In fact, I forgot it not long after leaving that place; after all, I only spent a month with her."

What?

Byrne looked astonished!

"Our mercenary group once stayed in your childhood city for a month, where I serendipitously met your mother. Perhaps it was the dangerous aura I carry that is fatal to those living in tranquility; she fell in love with me quickly,"

With his head bowed, Byrne listened, while Lucius continued expressionlessly.

"I grew up in a rather well-known mercenary group, those old mercenaries were like my family. I never thought about leaving the mercenary group and wanted to die there."

He had never thought of leaving the mercenary group, so why did he come back for him and his mother? Byrne couldn't help but feel puzzled deep inside.

Somewhat unexpectedly, Byrne found himself wishing that his father would not continue.

The voice of Lucius sank lower.

"I used to love gambling, and I loved cheating even more. I often used cheats to win money, until I met a wealthy guy one time."

It was an old man with a black robe and yellow eyes, his pupils chilling like those of a serpent.

"He stared at me with a cold laugh at the gambling table, as if he could see through my cheating, but in reality, he lost to me time and time again. At first, I was ecstatically pleased with myself."

"But as I kept winning more and more money, a fear set in subconsciously, as I had never won so much before."

"So I made an excuse to leave the casino, and after getting back to the mercenary group, I never went there again. Within a few days, I completely put that incident out of my mind."

As he spoke, Lucius gradually became entirely engrossed in his memories.

Then, he intuitively discerned an unsettling aura around the old man in the black robe, hastily making excuses to leave the casino. For the first few days after returning to the mercenary group, nothing happened; their team continued to move through the wilderness as they usually would, everything proceeding as normal.

Until one morning, just after he had woken up, he felt a terrible malice erupt suddenly from inside the tent.

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That was a scent of death I had never encountered before, one that made my body tense up involuntarily!

Lucius was extremely vigilant as he cautiously stepped outside the tent.

His muscles tensed up in an instant, totally fearful at the sight of everyone around him being petrified, each member of the mercenary group turned into lifelike stone sculptures amidst their blank expressions!

The old man in black robes had finally come!

He recognized the eyes at first glance, even though the "old man in black robes" was revealing his true form as a black giant dragon nearly a hundred meters long, those yellow serpent-like pupils hadn't changed at all!

It said, "Let's gamble again, you just need to beat me once, and it's all over. I will let everyone go."

It sneered, "Either your own innards or those people of the mercenary group, you can choose your stake."

Under the terrifying dragon's might, Lucius was extremely scared, his heartbeat quickened, sweat poured down his forehead, his palms were damp, as if something was stuck in his throat, making it hard for him to breathe freely.

He had to make a choice, but when he saw the cold, mocking gaze of the black dragon, his heart instantly felt like it had plunged into an ice cellar, subconsciously knowing that winning the gamble was almost impossible.

But I really don't want to die! No matter what, I don't want to die!

Lucius spoke with great difficulty, his voice trembling as he expressed his deepest thoughts.

"They, let them be the stakes."

The moment he spoke, he actually felt a sense of relief and happiness as if a burden had been lifted.

But Lucius still subconsciously thought that he had hardly ever lost a bet in his life, and might not necessarily lose terribly. He had to try to win the upcoming gamble as much as possible.

It burst into loud laughter!

"Good!"

In the gambling that lasted for a day and a night that followed, involving all sorts of previously unseen games, Lucius tried every trick in the book even attempting to cheat, but he could never win even a single game; most games were simply impossible to complete by an ordinary person's strength, with the results almost invariably one-sided.

And for some reason, the black dragon's luck was always incredibly good. Even if Lucius managed to have a slight chance, the dragon would overturn the situation every time in the end.

Fear, helplessness, despair, and madness, a vast sea of negative emotions flooded his mind. Lucius trembled, kneeling on the ground listening to the continuous sound of the sculptures shattering.

As the sculptures made from the members of the mercenary group shattered, one by one, he finally learned a horrifying truth.

"Your stakes are used up, worm, goodbye... no, never to see you again."

The black dragon's voice was particularly cold and void of any emotion, not even bothering to mock anymore. Then it took to the sky with immense pride, leaving Lucius alone, collapsing on the ground and weeping bitterly.

At the edge of the campsite, Lucius's thoughts gradually emerged from the memories, as he continued speaking in a calm tone.

"At that time, I fell into complete despair, having almost everything taken from me in an instant, I was dazed for I don't know how long."

The giant dragon is also a rare and powerful existence among mysterious creatures. What Byrne's father recounted was simply beyond belief, leaving Byrne staring agape.

A certain emotion began to stir in Lucius's eyes, and his breathing became progressively faster.

"Since then, I haven't gambled for many years. To truly speak of it, perhaps only this chess move of actively seeking out the Lord of the Lost counts as gambling, and it's the most important gamble of all."

His eyes filled with hatred and malice, he uttered his words with a rasp nearly hysterical, chilling to the bone:

"As an ordinary person, I could never win; many of the games that black lizard played required extraordinary power to complete. One day! One day when I become powerful enough, I will find it again!"

"I must win it over! Then kill it! Skin it with my own hands!"

Byrne stared at his father sitting beside him, his expression fierce, completely losing his usual easy-going demeanor, almost like a man he had never truly known,

He opened his mouth and finally asked, with great difficulty:

"If the people of the mercenary group hadn't died, would you have come back for us?"

"Of course I..."

Lucius's expression faltered for a moment, wanting to say "Of course I would," but for some reason, he couldn't complete the sentence, unusually at a loss during a conversation.

Byrne understood, and so he silently got up and walked to the other side of the campsite.

He didn't continue to press the issue, only realizing a hard truth.

His mother didn't matter at all in his father's heart, and his own existence was nothing more than an emotional substitute.

A few years ago, Byrne might have been devastated, feeling completely unable to accept it, even crying, but now as an adult, he just felt a deep-seated discomfort that he couldn't shake off from the bottom of his heart.

Lucius shifted his toes slightly, wanting to stand up and smooth things over with his usually skillful words.

In the end, he didn't stand up, but quietly looked towards the jungle outside the campfire with a profound gaze.

That completely dark jungle, devoid of any light as if to swallow all hope, where almost any rational kindness would be choked by the night's cold madness; the people by the campfire, just like the members of the Fischer family, should never venture into that Tranquil night on a whim.