662 The Answer
King Acacia, after hours of flying, could now finally see Earth in the distance. His speed increased another fold as he blasted through the atmosphere, allowing rings of flames to be deflected by his celestial energy. However, the sights he was greeted with were far and away out of his expectations.
He had been coming here at his fastest speed in order to help, but what he found was a war that was already over. In fact, much of the Ragnors and their allies were either rounded up, or had long since fled.
Even more surprisingly, now that his agitated state had calmed, he suddenly became aware that his wife’s soul was here instead of at the Ice Belt.
‘How did Kawa get here before me….’ King Acacia had no idea what was going on, but currently, there was a heated argument going on down below. In any other situation, King Acacia would have ignored it. After all, his goal right now was to find and stop Loki. However, without an understanding of the situation – a situation that had clearly drastically changed – how could he understand what next step to take?
“Father, I disagree!” Ire Pakal couldn’t understand what he was hearing.
His father had left with the unknown experts from before. But, realizing he was of no help to that situation, he came back in order to stabilize this situation first.
When he found his eldest son, Ire, about to kill Thor and Vidar, he immediately stopped him, much to the anger of his son.
“If we kill them now and shatter their faith seeds, we can cripple the Ragnors. Why would you stop me from doing this? Have you thought about how many of our own we’ve lost to them and their inhumane tactics? I was here listening to the screams and cries of our own people being devoured by them. How could we allow them to live?!”
Ire didn’t dare to claim that he was fighting while his father wasn’t. After all, he was quite aware that Patriarch Pakal had been fighting a battle on a scale far larger than what was occurring here. In addition, he would normally never question his father. Especially not in public. Such a thing was a major taboo and much too disrespectful, even if he was the eldest son.
However, he couldn’t restrain himself. His boundless disgust for the Ragnors had started early. He knew their true nature. In fact, maybe a blood leeching will like the red crystals was the perfect representation of this clan of people.
Patriarch Pakal sighed. “You don’t understand.” He was calm and patient. Despite his son’s outburst, he didn’t reprimand him, not did he give way to anger. “Without power, it would be impossible to shatter their faith seeds. All we would do is alert the Ragnors of this universe.”
This was correct. Although Ire had understanding of the laws that governed faith seeds, he was still very much ignorant of matters concerning karma in conjunction with such things.
The Ragnors, because of their handicap, invested heavily in karmic protections for their limited faith seeds. This made it possible not only to pull them out of the cycle of reincarnation much quicker, it also allowed for a barrier of protection that could last just long enough so that a faith seed could fade away peacefully.
It seemed that his father’s words had finally gotten through to him, but Ire was still not satiated. He knew that killing Thor and Vidar would bring untold calamity to this universe, but what did that have to do with them as Pakals? Was it not their goal to make their way back to their main branch?
Plus, there was protection of the gates. It wasn’t like the Ragnors could just make their way across the universes casually. Even if they used means other than the gates to cross, such a method would be ridiculously costly, meaning the Ragnors wouldn’t be able to invest a large amount to.
“Father, we have to think of the future. Even if we cannot shatter their Faith Seeds, killing them will be enough. Eliminating two of the five Ragnor faith seeds would be a great meritorious feat. Little brother Caedlum could use this to gain a foothold in the main Pakal branch before taking it all over.”
Despite how sound his argument sounded, Patriarch Pakal still shook his head. “You are too naïve. Maybe it is my fault for spending so much time on Caedlum’s development and neglecting you. The main branch cannot be taken by diplomacy, nor can it be negotiated with.
“You see them as family because that’s what’s in your heart. However, they will never place you in their hearts as you have them.
“They may take your brother in initially, but after understanding his background, there’s no doubt that they will use him… Do you remember why the Ragnors became aware of our Blood Sacrifice technique?”
Ire remained silent, a deep frown setting into his features.
By now, most important figures understood that the Pakal branch of this universe was forced to flee from the main Pakal Emperor God Clan. During that escape, they took with them techniques passed down by the Demon Sage, of which included the Blood Sacrifice Technique.
However, a few years ago, Patriarch Ragnor, or Loki, as Dyon had come to know him, started a war to steal this technique. So, the question was… How did he know they had it? Why would Loki be so sure that this fleeing branch family had such an important technique? Enough to risk his exposure and potentially pre-emptively alert the Belmonts in starting a war?
The technique being lsot itself would have been a major taboo to the Pakals. even if they didn’t know where it was, they wouldn’t divulge information about it being lost in the first place. It could act as a great deterrent to the Ragnors, so why would they handicap themselves in this way?
The answer lay with Caedlum’s faith seed, Asura.