CHAPTER 227: _ASCENSION PROTOCOL

Elian’s POV

*****

"You two care to explain what you’re arguing about?" Elian asked, gently pulling his arm out of Aurora’s grip.

He folded his arms in front of his chest, his eyes flickering between Lucian and Kyren.

The two men soon turned their heads to him, their respective auras calming when they sighted him.

"Elian." They said in unison, but then glanced at themselves again.

Aurora sighed, turning around and closing the large throne room doors behind them while Elian continued stepping toward the dais.

His eyes settled on something Kyren held in his right hand.

A cube box, fitting right into his palm.

The box was golden with blue symbols etched into it, glowing with a mesmerising light.

"Nothing you should worry yourself about, little flame," Kyren muttered, lowering his hand. The Rogue king’s crimson gaze eyed Lucian briefly before he added. "I was just leaving anyway. The Dark Lands—"

"None of you is leaving until someone tells us what the heck is going on." Aurora chimed, her voice leaving no room for arguments.

She joined Elian, standing beside him with her hands on her waist. "One day without arguments. Just one. Is that too much to ask?"

Lucian’s jaw tightened but his next words were curt. "You know that’s nigh impossible in this family."

"Even with the death of our father?"

"Especially with the death of our father, Aurora." The Alpha Prince’s voice rose by an octave, raw with frustration. "The man’s barely been dead a few hours and he’s already haunting us with secrets he left behind."

Elian’s brows furrowed, his eyes still fixed on the box in Kyren’s grasp while the system scanned it.

[Okay, I can’t decrypt what’s inside but that’s an "information box". It’s old tech dating back centuries, meant for storing vast amounts of information.]

An information box...

Something told him whatever was in that contraption was behind the argument between his mates.

"What secrets, brother?" Aurora pushed, sounding hesitant. "What... What are you two not telling us?"

Lucian’s lips pursed, his silver eyes landing on Elian briefly. Their gazes locked for seconds longer than necessary, the silence charged with things unspoken.

Ever since the Alpha Prince got his memories back, he seemed like he was avoiding Elian.

And so was the latter.

[I swear, if you two don’t work shit out like normal adults—]

"I guess there’s no use hiding this from you two." Kyren’s voice broke the silence, a soft sigh leaving his lips.

He wriggled the fingers of his right hand, letting the information box float out of his grip.

"This information box was apparently left behind by my parents centuries ago." The Rogue king explained calmly.

The box made a low ding sound before a large silver holographic screen flickered out of it.

Elian squinted as the holographic screen showed the image of a black wolf’s head split in half. The other half had an arcane runic symbol of the same colour.

And underneath this image were two words that made Elian’s heart skip a beat.

"Ascension protocol..."

[That sounds awfully familiar...]

Elian caught Kyren staring at him for a few seconds before he cleared his throat and spoke:

"We all know the history of the Dark Lands..." He paused. "Well, most of us. Arcadia and Lunarian mined its minerals for millennia when it was just a free land separating both nations. Until a cataclysmic event caused by an Arcadian experiment gone wrong."

"The Blight," Aurora muttered, nodding once. "It turned the Dark Lands barren, yada yada ya... We know this already, cousin. But what does it have to do with the information box and why you two are arguing?"

Kyren arched a brow but didn’t drag any longer. "Because within the information box were experiment logs. Vast data showing my parents starting a series of experiments meant to unlock what the Arcadians left sealed underneath the Dark Lands."

He paused for a beat, clasping his hands in front of his stomach. "A crystallised essence of pure divinity, fallen from the heavens. And the experiments? They were meant to awaken a being, a perfect hybrid who can utilise the divine crystal."

Elian blinked, his legs suddenly going numb.

He seriously needed to sit down.

"Wait... Slow down for a moment." Aurora raised a finger. "So you’re telling me the thing that caused the Blight, the same object driving the Arcadians into conquering the Dark Lands—was also the centre of an experiment run by your parents to create a ’perfect’ being?"

[The name of the experiments sounds Sus as hell—doesn’t it? Ascension protocol.]

Elian couldn’t agree more with the system.

Could this experiment somehow be linked to him and the Omega Ascension System?

"Yes," Lucian spoke up this time. "Which brings us to more complicated news."

Oh, crap.

There’s more?

"We’ve always thought our father was only involved with the Dark Hand to keep the secret of Kyren’s heritage hidden." Lucian went on, taking a step on the dais. "But data in the information box shows dear old dad has been involved with Garrick and Amara before the Dark Hand became a full-blown threat."

Elian’s chest tightened with realisation.

He glanced at Aurora who seemed like her whole world was crashing all over again.

"Are you..." She swallowed hard, her voice trembling. "Are you saying Dad—worked alongside Garrick and Amara in these experiments?"

Lucian’s nod was the proverbial nail in the coffin.

[Damn... That man was an all-around asshole, huh?]

"Information like this can topple the already unstable political climate in Evaros." Kyren blurted. "This all makes it more than clear that Lunaria can no longer be a bystander in the conflict between Arcadia and the Dark Lands."

He let those words hang heavy in the air, his eyes locking with Lucian again.

The tension between them was still clearer than day.

"There’s more you’re not telling us," Elian observed, eyes settling on both of them. "Isn’t there?"

His mates swerved their heads to him, Lucian’s eyes softening while Kyren’s flickered with silent defeat.

"Yes," Lucian revealed. "Kyren has reasons to believe he might be the perfect hybrid our parents worked on. And I..."

The Alpha Prince stuttered, his throat bobbing.

"Come on, Lucian!" Aurora shrilled.

Lucian closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, taking in a deep breath. When his eyes opened, he finally let it out.

"Father whispered something to me before he died..." A pause, crisp with enough tension to suffocate. And then:

"We have a younger brother out there, Aurora. One who got kidnapped eighteen years ago."