16 Hokuto's Resentment

Unbeknownst to the ten year old, King Ren and Queen Tyris had concealed the circumstances of her own bloodline and genetics. In actual fact, Queen Tyris' blood was predominantly that of the Infernal Wyvern.

Her mother was an Enlightened creature, one who had the ability to assume a human form. Due to Tyris' mother's fascination with the human world, she assumed the guise of man and assimilated into their society. Having fallen in love with a benevolent man of high stature, the Enlightened Infernal Wyvern had lost most of her evil instinct due to being surrounded by humanity's fickle nature.

Their union resulted in the birth of Tyris, who learned about the nature of her birth from her mother. Ostracized since young when people learned about this fact, she felt alone and helpless in the world despite her huge innate strength.

On an outreach program, when Queen Tyris at this time was living in the outskirts of the North Blossom Kingdom, King Ren who was unwed back then fell in love with her. The rest could be said to have been history. As a result, Hokuto could be considered to be a human-wyvern hybrid.

Of course, the nature of this union couldn't be properly explained without it sounding absurd or horrifying to a ten year old girl, which was why this had to be concealed. Since birth, Hokuto was convinced she was just a regular human. Who knew what she was thinking now, though.

Hokuto had been lying in her futon, staring up at the ceiling in her room deep in thought. She wondered - what were her parents hiding from her? Surely, the matter of the Leyline Geysers was not that complicated. After gaining initial completion in the <Primordial Orchid Body Art>, Hokuto schemed to sneak out of the premises after gaining some clues as to the closest Leyline Geysers were located.

She had a feeling that something wondrous would happen at one of these, despite the inherent risks of standing close to a volatile earth spout that could erupt pure energy at any time. She tried to link this to what she knew about herself and her parents. Hokuto literally could not come up with any possible reason as to why they would prevent her from visiting. This only meant one thing - they were concealing information from her.

Starting to shut her eyes, Hokuto realized that she would have to work hard on her training underneath the [Rose Sword Saint] in order to prove herself to her parents. Perhaps she was not fully ready to dedicate herself to the sword just yet, but she was certain she needed to work harder. How dare they hide information from her? Why did they have to lie?

She was not going to buy any pitiful excuses such as "We were trying to protect you" and "We were doing it for your own good." Such excuses could be used on those with compromising hearts, but Hokuto seemed to take after her father - stubborn and steadfast. She would not yield; rather breaking than bending. She would fully focus her energies on reaching the full completion of the <Primordial Orchid Body Art>, eager to see the results.

As the weeks approaching the end of the sixth month of training came to a close, Hokuto's resentment towards her loving parents started to leak out in the form of an incredibly faint intent to rebel. King Ren started to become worried, even though Hokuto during these past couple of weeks had actually been incredibly obedient and hard working with Astraea. Unfortunately, whenever Hokuto was having dinner, she would be incredibly cold and refused to say anything.

Queen Tyris was now starting to get the feeling that Hokuto was having suspicions about herself and King Ren hiding things from her. She shot a concerned glance at King Ren, who looked stern yet unsure of himself.

He really was at a loss.

He could sense the bubbling resentment in Hokuto's eyes. They would clear and brighten up whenever she was training with Astraea, but even that was a consolation as he was increasingly unable to see through his daughter.

"Did we make a mistake...?" King Ren thought inwardly to himself.