Vaelen Riven-
"I'm telling you, that boy is a monster. They all are, but mine is a monster among monsters. Last year, when he hit me with that fire arrow—feels so distant now. He's really matured into his powers," I said, sloshing my glass around and looking at the two old men and the woman beside me.
"I know we sort of raised them as a group project that you suggested to us—our heirs and their friends, raised from birth almost like siblings. The three Great Clans and many noble clans of Velmira joined as one. But I didn't think that A) they'd all be such monsters, and B) I'd love them and consider them all my own," said Victor Kalen, Clan Head of the great Kalen clan of the forest, while caressing his beard. "Are you sure you're going to be able to handle them when they start school this week, Nora?"
Nora Vale was the linchpin in the politics of Velmira. While the Great Clans held the most power and the noble clans sucked up to them, it was the capital—Viremont—and its established government that brought us together. Nora was a wily old coot, even if she feigned ignorance.
Five years ago, she'd suggested that, due to the unprecedented closeness of the Great Clans—thanks to my friendship with Victor Kalen and Julian Cael, Head of the great Cael clan—we should raise our grandchildren and some of the noble heirs together as one. Build their cohort from birth. Let them integrate fully with each domain and city while experiencing the expertise of the best of the best. It would strengthen the future—and allow our grandchildren to flourish under new perspectives while gaining allies.
Luck—or maybe fate—played a hand in it, because those ten kids all turned out to be monsters from birth. And they only went from strength to strength because of it.
Obviously, my little abomination was the most terrifyingly strong of them all. But hey, my luck had to come around someday—after losing so much money in poker against the other two over the years.
With a smirk, Nora responded:
"I'm sure I can handle them. I intend to teach them myself in a private class. Primordials are a rare breed—yet those monsters might just do it faster than anyone. I was prepared to raise them from Dormant to Awoken, to Unbound, to Sovereign, to Eternal—before finally reaching Primordial. Most likely around the time us four drop dead, if we're lucky. Yet they've already gotten a head start. So I've thought of a great idea to rein them in after the pampering you three gave them."
Julian's stonewall face seemed to wince at that comment, but chose to remain in silence, contemplating who-knows-what.
"Next week I'm gonna take them out and let them loose a bit. They fight well together anyway—mature beyond their years. I'm sure they can handle some low-level beasts that I keep receiving reports about sneaking through one of the gates in Russia."
Victor raised an eyebrow."Ah, that's the one you keep insisting I send more men to. Is that gate ever gonna stop spitting beasts out?"
I thought about Victor's words carefully.
For all our lives, we've battled mana beasts—both in this realm and the other.Now the kids are already starting it.That's just the nature of the world.A constant that will never change, regardless of how powerful a being we throw at it.Even this room—with the top three strongest alive all sitting in it—with all our power, we were powerless to stop the nature of beasts attacking.
Just like the beasts were powerless to stop us from hunting.
That was life.There was no god to pray to.No demon to defeat and save the world.Just us and beasts, fighting for what we wanted, while the mundane humans lived their petty, ignorant lives—only occasionally caught in the crossfire when we messed up.
Just like mana made us... it made the beasts.Count ourselves lucky that the absolute horrors couldn't easily slip through the gaps in space to invade this dimension.
"Anyway, I hear they all have true names. I remember when I realised my own true name and verbalised it. Feels like yesterday—when the words materialised in my head, then just fell out my mouth. As if my soul itself was uttering my own name. Its deepest truth, as much me as my technique. What was it that Jack said he's called? Vaelen?"
"Chaos Incarnate."