Age of Heroes (Age of Heroes Chronicles)

That morning as Varnikar arrive at the fortress and convict Vaishraya to aid him, Arial was just about to return back to his office to resume his work. 

But he did not immediately return after coming out from the office. Instead, he takes a quick meal.

Arial notices something that has changed about him since he had taken the Water essence. 

He was not as hungry as before. Each day, he felt energy coursing through his body become more and more.

He felt that even if he did not eat, he would not be hungry. He did not feel excited at this discovery.

Instead, he felt more alienated and lonely. Like he is the only one in this world that felt this kind of feeling

It might look like he is whining but only those who have been truly lonely could understand the feeling he felt now

No one understands him. No one is beside him. There is no one to share his dreams, his hopes, his desire and his fears with.

It almost seems like every step he took bring him to this conclusion. 

He had started with having everything. 

And when he said everything he did not mean the large amount of wealth that he had amassed or the influence and power he has over people.

Everything to him was his family. Arial sole motivation to fight the invasion is because of the death of his parents.

That what motivates him. Then he had Kyle and Lisa as friends. Then he met Helia. There were more people he met and there were many more he wanted to protect.

But along the way, after finished with the Demon Invasion, he had nothing else to do. He should have had his happy ending

Instead, he then lost Helia. And losing Helia also means he had lost Kyle. His relationship with Kyle could never have been like it was in the past. 

What happened between him and Helia had causes Arial to be very sad. Because now he could no longer even trust his friends.

As for Lisa, she still remains a good friend. But she did not understand him and the burdens he carries. 

Now, he lost his father. 

And if another few years passes, he would even lose his mother. And as for his relationship between his sister and him, his sister is always respected him.

There is this sense of distance between him and his sister.

Her respect is more than her love. She admired him but she did not love him the way a sister should love her brother.

She always wanted to be pleasing to his eyes. 

Wanting to be acknowledged. 

Trying to present the perfect part of herself in front of him when it should not have been necessary between family

And as she grew older, she become more independent. And she never asked for help for she thought asking help from him would lower his opinion of her.

There is nothing wrong with that. Most people would like it if their sister was respectful of them

But that is nothing like a family. At times, Arial even felt like he was with his subordinate when he is with his sister.

She could not be honest with him and he could not force her to be open with him. And as for his daughter, he did not know what to do with her.

He felt like everything he did for her only make everything even worse. He felt like he is about to lose her.

And he is tired of losing people. 

And as he loses more and more people, there is less and less people that understood him and could share the feelings he felt. 

The reason he no longer felt hunger as it was before, is that he is slowly becoming divine. There is test and tribulation ahead. 

Each test and each tribulation were meant to forge him into the divine being called Asrana. 

But with each step, Arial felt like he is losing himself. If he became divine, in this whole wide world…. who could understand him?

Who could endure of such loneliness? This is not the whining of a man being left alone. This is a worry that he would no longer care about anything in this world.

And that is always a sad thing. His battle is one of internal one. Arial since he had possessed the Dragon Heart is like a true War God in the battlefield. 

He had no equal. It was the same here in the New World and even in the Shadowlands where powerful people are all around.

And then he even got divine essence. Power of thunder and water. One that is used to destroy and another used to heal.

Then what tribulations he is supposed to endure? 

What tribulation could be given to someone who could not be hurt, someone who could not be defeated even by a thousand battles?

It is the matter of the hearts.

There is where he is tested the most 

If he were to be a champion of the Thirteen Tribe, he needs to have a reason. A reason to fight for this worldcontemporary romance

But Arial simply wanted redemption. Like every journey of a hero under a quest of divine being, the hero by the end of the journey should be transformed by it.

And as for Arial his transformation is supposed to be more

Apotheosis. 

That is the process he is undergoing right now. Amara said that by the time the Battle comes near, he would probably no longer have any human weakness

For some reason, knowing that certain things would end, only made it even more precious and beautiful. 

And what will end…is probably his humanity. 

He sighed as he takes his meal carefully and slowly, savoring every bite. 

Of course, the meal that could be offered to him in this castle is not as luxurious when he was in his Palace.

But for some reason, even though the meat was not seasoned evenly, even though the soup lacks certain flavors, Arial still felt that it is quite a good meal,

Finished taking his meal, he was not anxious to go to his office. 

He knows that there is still a lot of things that needs to be planned and organized. But he was not as anxious to do it.

He walks out from the Hall and walk around.

'Peaceful' he thought to himself as he walks along the hallways. The castle itself is quite large and there are many winding hallways.

He could even see some cracks on some of the hallways. But there are also certain things that added charm to the castle.

There are some flowers living inside the small cracks in the walls of the stone hallways. It is quite beautiful. 

The air itself is clear. 

The wind is breezy and not too hot and not too cold.

'Still, if I were to stay here for a long time, I need someone to make sure that some of this hallways are repaired.' He sighed a bit thinking about all of the things that is on his list of work

In the Imperial Palace, there is usually the morning session and the evening session. 

But as there is no established court right now, Arial had decided that only the morning court would be assembled.

It gave him time to think and gave him time to familiarize and study about the Three Kingdoms.

Even though he did not spend a long time in the New World, the land of the Thirteen Tribes, their society is easy to figure out unlike those in the Shadowlands.

It is quite funny actually. 

The Shadowlands are a part of the New World. 

There is no great sea or mountain range that separates the land where the ancestral lands of the thirteen Tribe are located, yet to the people of the Thirteen Tribe, they have this distinction between them.

To Arial when he first came here, he thought of the Thirteen tribes as a cohesive unit. Their tribes all have different names but they seem to see each other as part of the family

Arial had asked a few of the teachers that he had hired from the many educated men in the castle to summarize certain points to him and give a report to him

From that he knows that there is a rift between the ten Tribes and the Three Great tribes and this rift is not something that is borne recently instead it could be traced to thousands of years past. 

In the past, there is no Wall that reaches such a tall height and stretches so far and wide that separates the land of the Three Great Tribes and the other ten tribes

There was never a clear border between the settlements of the Thirteen Tribes. 

But there was always a clear border between the lands of the ten Tribes and the Three Great tribes

The Ten tribes and the Three Great Tribes is usually spoken in the same sentence. People group them as the Thirteen Tribes.

But only when he read the report that he knew that this is not always the case.

>>> 

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