And it didn’t just seem severe—it was extraordinarily so.
Amos’s previously relaxed expression vanished without a trace. He switched off his communicator, his muscles tensing slightly, his guard up.
Because Amos also sensed that Feeney was not quite the same as the Feeney he knew.
When the wings on Amos’s back spread and fanned out, they blocked the light above. He landed on the ground, his scarlet eyes scanning the surroundings before finally settling at the center of attention.
“That’s… Prince Amos?”
“Prince Amos!”
“Thank goodness, a Crown Clan member has arrived—”
Behind him, the patrol troops of Holy Cas arrived a step slower than Amos, only now reaching the scene.
“Prince Amos!”
They spoke quickly.
“We just received word about the situation here. After the recent disturbance, we split up and investigated the area, discovering many anomalies.”
Even now, Amos had only been an adult for a few years, yet his outstanding psionic strength and the early confirmation of his status as the next king made him a prominent figure in the Crown Clan. The people around showed high respect for Amos.
With his appearance, the citizens of Holy Cas visibly relaxed.
“Mm.”
Amos responded.
“I am already aware.”
Even Feeney was acting strangely and unresponsive.
The psionic longsword in Amos’s hand faded away. He walked forward, but did not approach too closely. He signaled for the patrol troops to seal off the area and disperse the crowd.
After all, by Feeney’s actions, it seemed he was protecting something in his arms, to the very brink of his life.
Feeney’s coronet atop his head was breaking and healing at once, some wounds rapidly closing, others incessantly bleeding.
He was unconscious, not lucid, but his spirit was still taut with vigilance.
It was fortunate that Feeney’s sudden appearance here hadn’t caused greater chaos; these ordinary Holy Cas civilians, though possessing some psionic strength, were no threat to an interstellar myth like the Crown Clan. Feeney’s psionic energy thus didn’t directly attack them.
But if Amos tried to approach, that would be another matter.
It had to be said—Amos was a little angry.
Amos narrowed his scarlet eyes at Feeney, staring at his blood-soaked brother.
—He believed, no matter what, that Feeney’s highest directive should be to protect his own life.
Anything else… Amos didn’t think Feeney needed to worry about.
He himself would become strong, would manage it all, and on some future day, shelter his brothers, sisters, elder brother, and Holy Cas itself beneath his wings.
“Feeney.”
Amos called.
Feeney, his wings fully extended to shield what he was protecting, made no response.
Until Amos stepped closer, his psionic pressure swept in instantly. Feeney’s whole body tensed at that moment, energy gathering—
Feeney felt he was caught in a state of confusion—
He should have been the last remaining Crown Clan birthed from their habitat, yet suddenly, those surging past memories became vivid, as if, right now, he was only just into adulthood, and all this carnage was nothing but a dream.
It was as if reality and dreams were tugging at him, leaving Feeney unsure which was true.
And his consciousness kept sinking; he could have been in a comatose state, but his ever-jumping psychic energy left him a sliver of instinctive action—protecting the youngster in his arms, who, from blood loss and an aggravated head wound, had slipped into a slight coma after a short struggle.
The pain couldn’t help Feeney distinguish real from illusion.
But the sensation of Chu Zao in his embrace was too definite—
The cub’s warm blood, the thick smell of blood, gave Feeney a painful anchor to reality.
While unconscious, he had no idea what was happening outside. He responded only on instinct, tensing when he sensed powerful psionic energy closing in, ready to strike in an instant.
Could this be some special ability of an Aberrant Beast Commander?
Damn—
Hadn’t been able to let the little one escape—
Could he still manage to escape?
At the very moment Amos approached, Feeney’s head jerked up. His hand seized a suddenly-formed, battered psionic longbow and aimed it straight at Amos. He didn’t even need to draw the string with his hand—his psionic energy was already one hair’s breadth from firing.
A mighty force swept out in a gale, roaring around.
The long hem of Amos’s military coat fluttered wildly, the metal chains clattering with the commotion. The peaked military cap pressed atop his slightly wavy black hair was swept away, but Amos himself didn’t budge; he merely raised his hand, slightly surprised, and caught the arrow with two fingers, the tip at his forehead.
It had to be said—
In that instant, Feeney’s psychic power put pressure on Amos.
After all, right now Feeney was a veteran of countless battles, essentially at the peak of the Crown Clan’s power.
If it wasn’t Amos standing here, but any other Crown Clan—
Even some of the elders would be laid low by Feeney.
Their slightly similar scarlet eyes met.
Feeney’s gaze was hollow, until it caught Amos’s reflection—that looked a little immature, not yet like the dark, fierce Amos after the Crown Clan’s extinction.
Impossible…?
The wings behind Feeney curled in slightly.
He thought in a daze—enough jokes.
He battled at the edge of unconsciousness.
Is this a hallucination? Or yet another bizarre Aberrant Beast power?
“Feeney.”
Amos squatted, his clothes stained with Feeney’s and Chu Zao’s blood. He stretched out his hand, tentatively, soothingly placing it atop Feeney’s head, and his voice gentled.
“Can you hear me?—Why’s your beard gotten so long?”
Indeed, Feeney still had his beard, though it had been trimmed a few times and wasn’t as wild as when Chu Zao had first seen him.
Pa-ta—
The light in Feeney’s eyes faded rapidly. A tear slipped from the corner of his eye, as if, finally comprehending, he could relax at last.
He sagged forward, releasing the little one in his arms, pushing the cub into the arms of the man opposite, then collapsed straight onto Amos.
“Amos… brother?”
Amos froze, looking down at the little one Feeney pressed into his arms.
The grown Zao Zao, due to various limitations, was still very much a teenager when curled up; his wings were still tiny, the golden coronet above his head a flickering presence, his breath rough, his body temperature rising.
Feeney’s wounds were healing. He looked battered and miserable, but as Amos observed carefully, none were truly critical.
But the smaller one in his arms—
Amos looked closely, doubting his own memory—who is this?
He definitely hadn’t seen him before—
And it was glaringly obvious—
Amos looked at the coronet markings on the cub’s head—Dwight’s child.
…Who?
Looking at those features that faintly resembled his own, Amos’s expression grew strange.
He simply gathered the young teenager in his arms, propped up the now-changed Feeney, spread his wings, and decisively soared into the air.
“Continue investigating the situation.”
Amos ordered, then, a bit struggling, opened his communicator and instructed the royal medical center to prepare—
Amos was very fast.
Already in just minutes, he returned to the royal court from where he’d found Feeney.
At the royal medical center, medical staff hurried in and out.
Feeney and the cub both had multiple wounds and other issues, not just the obvious ones Amos had seen before, making the medical team rush to and fro in mounting agitation—
After all, previously there had been Crown Clan whose psionics had malfunctioned, some whose coronets shattered and bombarded the stars, and some who ended their own lives and returned to the habitat. But there had never been a Crown Clan brought to the medical center so gravely wounded… let alone two at once.
Even the med pod AI, which only responded to cubs, could barely keep calm, popping up windows to log and report to His Majesty Clansis, as if to rescue Crown Clan suspected of being abused by family—
Amos: …
Amos waited outside.
Such a sudden upheaval in Holy Cas left the whole empire in turmoil, but fortunately, with the structure intact, and the outer Crown Clan quickly realizing something was off, reports poured in and they began returning to the imperial star. Within an instant, chaos was suppressed.
But simultaneously, all the Crown Clan were busy, and though they’d heard of Feeney’s sudden appearance and injuries, most Crown Clan weren’t worried and didn’t think to check on him.
Until Amos updated them on the latest—
Feeney and that strange little Crown Clan were still unconscious.
Only then did a cluster of Crown Clan, faintly alarmed, realize Feeney’s condition was critical.
About twenty minutes later, Frey, Feiman, and Anya arrived first.
“Second brother? What happened to third brother?”
Feiman darted over, her beautiful face tinged with worry, craning her neck to peer inside.
“Wasn’t he still bouncing around making trouble for the teachers just the other day?”
“Is he all right?”
Frey chimed in.
“Though I suspect he snitched on me, he shouldn’t end up like that—I’m not a monster.”
Anya muttered, peeking in too—
Not to mention, he couldn’t beat Feeney; he just vented elsewhere.
Just typical brotherly roughhousing.
“You’re asking me?”
Amos sat against the wall, posture lax, but his shadowed eyes were sinister. At this stage, Amos couldn’t yet conceal his emotions fully; sitting amid light and shadow, he was a little intimidating.
“How would I know? He hasn’t woken yet.”
“My god, how could he be that wounded—?”
Feiman had already seen Feeney’s condition and exclaimed.
“Mother will be here soon—she’ll be furious! Who did this? Was it that other person you found, second? Where are they? What’s their situation?”
She craned her neck further.
“That one isn’t—” Thinking of the unconscious Chu Zao, Amos had no fresh answers and put it aside. “But I wonder now if we’re really in the right space and time.”
“What do you mean?”
Frey turned to look.
Those ruins in places where no buildings had stood, the scent of blood and smoke in the air, as if Aberrant Beasts had appeared simultaneously at all front lines, not only the first but even in the rear ones… Of course, mistakes happen, but for so many lines to fail at once was incredible to Amos.
Add Feeney’s situation and the injured Holy Cas survivors.
It’s as if they had been dropped out of nowhere into a ruined Holy Cas.
Amos summed up the situation in a few words; before the others had processed it, Solan and Ebinino arrived.
Clansis had to run the whole empire—with so much crisis erupting, he truly couldn’t step away.
“What happened to Feeney?”
Solan moved swiftly, at the doorway in a blink.
Ebinino’s face was grim—though after they’d grown, he always called Feeney and the rest “little brats,” it didn’t mean he didn’t care.
On the contrary, it was a form of affection.
“Feeney’s injuries aren’t so serious—”
Amos replied.
“The real issue is the other one.”
“What?”
Solan entered at once, the others following, watching as she examined Feeney carefully. At Amos’s words, Solan looked up in surprise.
“Oh, right, the other strange Crown Clan you mentioned?”
“The other strange Crown Clan?”
Ebinino looked over in confusion as well.
Time was short, and with all the sudden developments, the entire Holy Cas was too busy to spare attention to every detail.
Amos pointed beside him.
“Over there.”
He frowned slightly—
“Malnourished, stunted, developed less than one percent of his psionic potential—a pitiful little fledgling—”
On the surface, Amos sounded neutral, but a note of dissatisfaction crept into his tone.
But overall, he kept a distinct distance, remaining a stranger.
“Technically an adult, but looks thirteen or fourteen at best—still a child by all reckoning. Most importantly…”
Solan, Ebinino, and the others all turned to look at the other med pod Amos indicated.
Inside, the boy whose face had been cleaned now lay quietly and pale. The golden halo on his head was completely dimmed, a mere flicker like a firefly.
With soft black curls, beautiful and delicate features, a slightly pointed chin, and plump lips, he looked adorably pretty, yet so slender and frail as to evoke instant sympathy.
But the coronet markings atop his head were unmistakeable—a little Dwight.
A malnourished, stunted Dwight, so frail even the med pod AI was appalled.
And those features were somehow familiar.
But no one could place him—
He’s very cute—very beautiful—definitely a Dwight—
However…
“Who is he?”
Everyone stared at little Chu Zao, asking the question aloud.
*
By afternoon,
The descended Holy Cas had figured out the basic situation here.
For now, they had pushed the Aberrant Beasts back beyond the imperial planetary defenses. Crown Clan from abroad were still returning. The meeting was held, not in a conference room, but in the corridor of the medical center.
“The overall situation is controllable.”
Frey spoke, glancing at the last to arrive Clansis.
“We’ve already asked all those calling themselves Holy Cas; almost all are seriously injured, but the general picture is clear.”
“We—all of Holy Cas—have arrived more than a thousand years in the future, in a Holy Cas nearly destroyed, with only Feeney left from the Crown Clan… and that one, whom they call His Little Highness Chu Zao.”
“Feeney’s cub?”
Solan couldn’t help asking, rubbing her brow in disbelief.
“With the habitat destroyed, Feeney could still have a child…?”
Amos gave a slight laugh from the side, his gaze subconsciously drifting to the other med pod.
“They say he just appeared—”
Anya added.
“But if we’re not sure, why not just run a test and see whose cub he is?”
“Mm.”
At present, none of the Crown Clan were especially interested.
Who knew what Chu Zao’s story was.
And most of the Crown Clan hadn’t even gone to look at little Chu Zao yet.
After Clansis arrived, he hadn’t paid attention to the cub at all. He only confirmed his own children were safe and instructed the medical center to do everything possible to treat and nurse both patients.
Other matters would be handled in time.
“Then let’s do it. I figure Feeney needs at least two days to wake—”
Feiman, the quickest to act, turned and walked straight to the med pod, signaling for it to be opened. She lowered her head to make a selection.
Inside, the pod automatically drew a blood sample for matching.
When the pod briefly opened and then resealed behind frosted glass, Feiman felt a hint of doubt.
She glanced at the small figure through the translucent pod, then back at Amos.
“Really strange.”
She murmured.
“Second brother, this little guy’s features look a lot like yours.”
A more beautiful, delicate, and adorable version of Amos.
Amos: …?
“Really?”
At this, curiosity got the best of everyone, and they all crammed in for a look.
Since the parentage test took some time, they leaned in, peeking and peering.
Amos stood at the front, lowering his gaze to quietly meet the young boy’s eyes through the med pod. After a while, he huffed, turning to Feiman.
“You’re saying this is my cub?”
Come on.
“We’re all in the future now, so who knows…”
Feiman grumbled, but seeing Amos’s face, she suppressed her tone—trying to look more proper.
Yes, yes, she’d been an adult long enough to appear reliable.
Honestly, she couldn’t imagine Amos having a Crown Clan child.
With Amos’s personality, she couldn’t picture him with a cub at all, probably Amos himself never thought of having one.
Clansis did not go over, content to glance from a distance, then silently kept working.
Solan studied the boy a while then turned to Clansis.
“Don’t you want to see if they look alike?”
“The result will be out soon, won’t it?”
Clansis didn’t even glance up.
“And besides, there’s no telling whose cub he is. His coronet is unlike ours.”
“Oh, you’re right.”
With that, the group all eyed Chu Zao’s shining little coronet, then nodded, thinking maybe they’d misjudged Amos—
At that moment, the detector beside the pod began beeping.
Everyone in the medical room turned to the noise.
Except for Amos, who hadn’t gone over.
Because, when the pod had briefly opened, Amos saw the little one move ever so slightly.
Now, standing beside the med pod, Amos lowered his gaze and watched quietly—it was subtle, but the feeling grew more uncanny.
Meanwhile, the database began to display matches—
‘Confirmed: Family: Dwight, father—Amos Dwight.’
The room fell silent.
You could even hear Frey give a faint ‘ha.’
“It’s your cub!! Second brother!!”
Feiman turned to Amos.
We didn’t wrong you!!
One second Amos turns around, and now he’s got a cub?
But why was Feeney the one caring for him?
They’d never wanted to consider why it was only Feeney in such a state, where the rest of the Crown Clan had gone.
But now, the answer was obvious.
Amos froze for a moment, a bit dazed, just as Chu Zao, lying in the med pod, began to tremble his eyelashes. His honey eyes fluttered open, still full of confusion, meeting Amos’s crimson gaze.
Amos had wanted to ask if this was really his cub. He automatically raised his hand, fingertips pressing to the med pod door, looking at the boy.
Little Chu Zao was lost—he couldn’t tell where he was, only seeing a blur through the frosted translucent med pod.
But someone stood close by—dressed like Uncle Feeney in a military uniform.
Was it Uncle Feeney?
Thank goodness—
Was Uncle Feeney all right—?
Chu Zao slowly reached out, his fingertip pressing to the pod door, almost meeting Amos’s hand through the barrier.
Tears, already brimming in Chu Zao’s eyes, began to fall.
“Uncle Feeney—you’re all right, thank goodness—”
As Chu Zao awoke, the med pod door slowly opened, and as he, overjoyed, reached to grasp the other’s hand, his gaze landed on an unfamiliar face. Chu Zao was stunned—then one face, two, three peeked in from the side.
As if saying—ah, you’re awake?
Amos’s cub!
Chu Zao: …
Chu Zao: ………
What… was going on?
Chu Zao’s voice was instantly cut off, his hand withdrawn, his honey-colored eyes wide, cautious as he watched them, the already rumpled wings on his back—fluffed up even more.