The Divine Chosen rescued four people from the sea.
The Asachi Valley was too small—a place where the Natalins could casually recall how many scars a comrade had or how many eggs their neighbor’s hens had laid. Naturally, any conversation would soon shift to the newcomers. Even the unruly dragonlings that caused constant mischief throughout the valley had learned not to bare their teeth at the black-haired stranger.
Strangely enough, every dragonling that saw the young man for the first time would flare its wings in alarm, brimming with confusion and hostility, as if confronting some incomprehensible being.
He was quiet and strange—less like a living human and more like a dead firefly drifting through a nighttime forest, or a luminous jellyfish drifting silently through the sea. Many had been startled by his sudden appearances—he was practically a phantom. One might expect the Natalins to be more wary of such bizarre behavior, but his interests were so peculiar that they mostly dismissed him. One person claimed the black-haired youth had once tried to trade for a single woolen sock drying outside his grandmother’s house—just one.
But soon, no one cared about that anymore. The hunting party returned with troubling news— for some unknown reason, the dragons’ mating season had begun early.
During mating season, dragons grew more irritable, aggressive. Male dragons fought violently to win mates, often disrupting Natalin hunts. Egg-laying females were even worse—paranoid, hostile, dangerously protective. Every year, someone reckless loses their life because of it. Even the dragons who lived peacefully with humans in the valley would depart in mass, seeking solitude to breed.
Dragons are companions to the Natalins—they are swift, sharp, and fierce. A rare few Natalins could even ride them, gaining vantage from the skies.
Without dragons, hunting yields would drop drastically. Beasts from the forests, oceans, skies, and deep within the snowy mountains would encroach upon human territory with greater frequency.
The Natalins were always prepared for mating season—except this time, it had arrived too early. The weather was still too cold, the sea tides had yet to recede, the western winds too weak, and the latest clutch of dragonlings hadn’t even matured. Then in one morning, dragons of all sizes and colors swirled like a vortex above the valley, then with a chorus of long, echoing cries, bid farewell and took flight from Asachi Valley without hesitation.
Thankfully, the Windstrider did not leave.
Aizela the Windstrider was a very young great dragon. The valley the Natalins inhabited was regarded by this ill-tempered dragon as its lair. Its mere presence warded off countless threats beyond the valley—but even it needed to leave to hunt, to rest, to roam through thunderstorms and blizzards, to preen its feathers until they gleamed resilient and bright.
。
The atmosphere in the valley grew increasingly tense. Everyone was busy. The only pass connecting the valley to the outside—the Rebirth Gorge—was sealed off and strictly guarded. Livestock were shut indoors, food was quickly cooked or dried for storage. The Natalins silently gathered wood and stone, cleaned weapons, adjusted catapults. Even the outsiders soon noticed the tension.
It was during this time that Nova went to find the Divine Chosen.
The Divine Chosen gave a few quiet instructions to the others. Once his tribesmen had left, he stood atop the roof and cast a faint, indifferent glance at the newcomer.
He wasn’t wearing that ornate mantle today—just a simple robe, sleeves of his inner garment rolled up to the elbow, exposing a solid forearm. When Nova spotted him, he was helping repair a mud house thats been smashed by a fallen tree. Wind flowed from his fingertips like an extension of himself; clumps of soil, stones, and broken branches danced around him, rising and swirling at his command—completely at odds with that serene, handsome face.
Last night, a flock of Skyravagers had come raiding. The thieving beasts tried to attack the Natalin livestock, only to have half their numbers slain by ballistas and crossbow bolts—then scattered even further by the arriving Windstrider.
What lay here now was one of the gifts left behind from that brutal night.
“You kill dragons—and tame them.”
Nova stepped around the carcass of one Skyravager—its upper half crushed to pulp.
“Dragons are both our companions and our enemies.” The Divine Chosen was still busy guiding a whirlwind to scoop up scattered herbs, shake off their dust mid-air, then deposit themselves neatly into a basket—Nova suddenly recalled how fairy godmothers did chores in the cartoons he’d watched as a child. “It depends on the choices made by both dragons and Natalins. The two roles don’t contradict each other.”
“No, I mean it takes courage to tame your enemies and call them allies. That sounds exactly like something the Windchasers would do.” The black-haired young man looked up at him, only to be dazzled by sunlight again, forcing him to squint.
“You began taming dragons ten years ago, yet you’ve lived in the Asachi Valley for nearly three centuries—what exactly happened ten years ago that made you change the way you dealt with dragons?”
At that, the Divine Chosen finally looked him in the eye.
He leapt lightly down from the rooftop, his shadow engulfing Nova entirely. The professor frowned and instinctively took a step back to put distance between them.
“…I’m a little surprised,” the Divine Chosen said gently. “You’re really not at all worried that I might kill you?”
“Of course you won’t.” Nova answered with a look of genuine confusion.
Azukar noticed the young man no longer showed him much reverence—probably because he’d said the formal greeting wasn’t necessary?
“I’m a noble,” the black-haired youth said as if that explained everything.
“…”
The Divine Chosen gave him a complicated look, as if his young nemesis had just said something so naïve it bordered on tragic.
The professor stared at him for a moment, then slowly frowned. “Wait—you really don’t know?”
“Damn it, I didn’t expect a knowledge gap,” he muttered, clearly frustrated. Then he sighed and explained, “That’s on me—I didn’t account for how little you currently know about nobles.”
The words were undeniably passive-aggressive, but Azukar stared into the other’s calm, steady grey eyes for a moment and realized—he might be getting used to this young man’s overly… blunt and unceremonious way of speaking.
“A ninth-tier bloodline enchantment cast jointly by three Saint-ranked mages—Soulward Benediction. Upon the death of any royal, noble, or bloodline recognized by the Empire of Silver Iris, the time, location, and last words are automatically transmitted to both the family and the royal court council.”
Nova explained this with no expression, speaking quickly: “In other words, if I die here, the location of the Natalin people will be exposed. Considering you’re still fugitives wanted by the Empire, that’s not something you’d like to see happen.”
He remained utterly calm, seemingly unaware that he was stabbing at their most fatal secret like it was nothing.
“The Mad King of Seventeen Days—King Corendin.”
The black-haired youth uttered the name coolly and then noticed the other man’s eyebrow twitch upward.
“—King Corendin, leader and spiritual figurehead of the rebel group known as the Windchasers. He overthrew Cassius I, ruled for seventeen days, and was then ousted by royalist forces. In madness, he killed both his general and lover, then led the last of his loyal kin and followers into exile. No one’s heard from them since.”
“…Go on,” the Divine Chosen said, his voice growing softer. His face was unreadable, but his blue eyes had darkened, like deepening ocean currents.
The black-haired didn’t hold back: “The royal court did a good job burying that piece of history. Official records claim he was just the cousin of the old king—Yusi Aris Marcian—who died on the throne from madness. But that story is clumsy and foolish. And ocean waves don’t freeze mid-motion. So I pieced together who you really are.”
The conversation jumped so fast that the other man let out a puzzled hum.
“When we shipwrecked, we encountered a colossal wave frozen mid-crest. At first I thought it was an adrenaline-induced hallucination, due to the lack of reference points. But factoring in this region’s geography, climate, vegetation, wind speed and direction—there’s only one explanation: a massive barrier blocks the west wind from the sea.”
The professor spoke faster: “What can keep a wave high and fluid yet frozen in place? A tier-nine or higher wind or water spell. Why could we ordinary people—and the low-altitude raiders from Kratek Island—pass through that barrier into Asachi Valley? Because the magic’s power is fading. If the caster were alive or had only recently died, a spell of that level wouldn’t have weakened so drastically…”
“Rule out all other possibilities, and what remains must be the truth—I’ll skip the rest of the boring deduction.” Nova exhaled with irritation. He was thoroughly sick of explaining his reasoning, rambling only to be met with confused, annoyed, or terrified stares. “The massive wave wall was erected by King Corendin in his escape, to repel pursuit from the capital’s army. And as we know, King Corendin was a Saint-tier wind mage.”
The Divine Chosen slowly clapped his hands. Even after having the Natalin ‘s most dangerous secret exposed, his expression remained calm and unshaken.
“Truly… a stunning piece of reasoning. Bold and meticulous. Nearly flawless.” He praised without reservation. When those blue eyes lit up with a smile, they seemed especially earnest and focused, as if you were the center of his entire attention. “I believe I’ve just witnessed an unprecedented miracle.”
Nova was caught off guard for a moment. Then he pressed his lips together and gave the other a graceful nod. “No, it was a gamble. And there’s still one thing I can’t explain.”
The professor fixed the other man with his clear, smoke-gray eyes. “You speak Common. But your people have been isolated in this valley for nearly three centuries. Why do you know the language?”
“Because I am a Divine Chosen,” Azurka replied gently, a faintly ironic expression crossing his face—though the other man clearly missed the subtlety, still frowning in confusion.
“I don’t get it—you mean all Divine Chosen can speak other languages without learning them? Why? Is it like some kind of spell that implants knowledge directly into the brain?”
What kind of divine blessing works like a crash course in foreign languages?
“…”
Azukar gave him a long, complicated look. After a while, just as the black-haired youth’s confusion deepened to a genuine emotional struggle, he sighed. “…No. That phrase means I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
Simply invoking the title of “Divine Chosen” and shrouding things in mystery was usually enough. Most people would attribute everything to divine will. Out of reverence or habit, no one—until today—had ever pressed him further.
The professor suddenly realized, “Alright, I get it—then that ‘nearly’ you mentioned earlier. Does that also fall under the category of things you don’t want to talk about?”