Ancestral Lineage

Emma stood on the balcony of her assigned quarters, her face showing awe and shock as she stared at the one-sided thrashing of the EX-Class Veilwing by Apole. She couldn't even begin to fathom just how strong Apole was as he didn't use his affinity. She knew it was smoke, but all she saw was him using physical strength and some maneuvers. No explosive skill or flashy ability. Just pure brute force and he killed an EX-Class beast. She had learnt of these beasts, an enigma in this world. Beasts who had mutated with technology and became cyber-beasts.

They possessed a lot of abilities and skills, but right here, she just witnessed one of them and also the one at apex getting thoroughly beaten to death with no chance of fighting back. It was a one-sided beat down.

For once she even doubted if the rumors were even true about these beasts, but then she came to realization. Anbord was powerful! She had felt it on her first day. The hidden powerhouses, the imperial family, the emperor himself and his empresses. They were all powerful beings. In fact, she even felt two beings who seemed to an illusion to her.

She wasn't wrong as those being were way past her level. These beings were Asteria and Zark, who were divine beings, gods in truth. If the Dragon Emperor knew what he was about to face, he would've thought more than twice about it. Unfortunately, he didn't know. Not even with two of his most trusted aides in Anbord. Hell, he didn't even know they were in Anbord to begin with!

"If a spirit beast is this strong, I wonder how strong the master actually is..." She muttered to herself, not noticing the golden-haired man seated on the rail of the balcony, his dull golden eyes flickering slightly behind his circle rimmed glasses.

"I know right? But, brother Apole is still weak. He hasn't consolidated his power yet," Galeno, who happened to the golden haired man said with a small smile. Emma hearing the voice immediately reacted, conjuring a thin yet sharp icicle that pierced Galeno's head. Or it should have...

"Good reaction or I would have been more than disappointed in you, Queen Fenrir," Galeno said as the icicle crumbled to dust once it touched his head.

'How hard is his head?' Emma thought, failing to hear what Galeno was saying.

"I take it as you are thinking something very insulting about me with that expression, but I will let it slide for once. I know you..." Galeno said as he moved to lie down on the thin rail. One must know that the building was skyscraper, fallen short of the imperial castle which was the tallest and largest building in Anbord.

"Who are you?" Emma finally asked, noticing that he wasn't an enemy, but her guard was still up. They were in war although it looked more like a choreography.

"Where are my manners? I am Galeno ad Primus, the second but made first spirit beast of the emperor. It's your pleasure to meet me, Queen Fenrir," Galeno said in arrogant voice.

Emma could feel her face twitching at his arrogance and shamelessness.

"Let's go straight to the topic and calm down. I'm not going to eat you... probably."

....

The place was without light.

Here, the darkness was not merely an absence but a living, choking weight that pressed against the skin like wet cloth. No stars reached this place, no glimmer of moon or sun pierced the shroud. The air itself hung heavy, damp, carrying the stench of rot and stagnant waters. Every breath felt tainted, as though the lungs resisted drawing in what they knew was venom.

The waters below were worse still. They moved sluggishly, like a thick, poisonous syrup that glimmered faintly with an oily sheen. Every ripple hissed, releasing a faint vapor that clawed at the throat, leaving a bitter taste on the tongue. Bones of creatures long dead lay half-submerged in the mire, their outlines warped and corroded by the toxins that gnawed at everything it touched.

Strange shapes writhed in the depths, glimpsed only as pale, shifting silhouettes beneath the surface—too fast to be followed, too alien to be named. The ground near the waterline was soft and treacherous, sinking under the slightest pressure, swallowing stone, wood, and flesh alike with a gurgling hunger.

It was a realm where silence was absolute, save for the occasional ripple or the dull echo of something vast moving beneath the poisoned waves. A place where time itself seemed suspended, where life dared not cling, and where only things birthed from corruption and shadow could ever endure.

And she lived here. She was the owner of this place which hadn't been claimed for centuries, maybe a millennia or more. She couldn't remember. The last time she got out to the surface, she had an argument with her sister and she came back.

Seated on a throne made of skulls and ribs of fallen foes was a beautiful woman, her beauty as dangerous as the waters she commanded. Her eyes, crimson and unblinking, gleamed like coals in the black of the deep.

The teal colored hair that framed her pale face shimmered faintly like drowned kelp, though no tide dared touch it. From her crown rose crystalline horns of azure, a mark of her dominion, neither beast nor goddess, but something far more unforgiving.

Her robe of blood-red silk clung to her with regal grace, yet the throne she chose was made not of gold or coral, but of skeletal remnants of all who dared defy her. Tentacle-like shadows stirred faintly behind her, coiling and uncoiling with a slow patience, as though the sea itself waited on her command.

She was Kraken.

Not merely a beast of oceanic terror, but its very sovereign spirit given form. Legends whispered that she was the embodiment of the abyss without light, the silent current that dragged ships to nameless graves, the poisoned water where life could not thrive. Yet unlike the monstrous forms sung of in tales, this Kraken wore the guise of allure, for what greater snare could there be than beauty wrapped in death?

"I wonder who that was. Forcing me on my knees like that..." Her beautiful and enchanting voice echoed in the vicinity, causing the waters to turn restless as her aura gushed out. Her expression was very... strange. Her cheeks were tinged with a redness and her eyes were hazy while her breath came in sharp gasps, like she was being suffocated.

This was very strange indeed.