Robert gazed blankly toward the southeastern sky. After the peal of thunder, all returned to a deceptive calm, the heavens once again bathed in the blinding brilliance of the rising sun.
Frowning, he mused inwardly: What was that thunderbolt? By Yar's account, it possessed sentience—keen enough to pursue her all the way to the city lord's manor, and mighty enough to shatter both the goddess's statue and Yar's Energy Core. One thing was certain: this thunder was perilous beyond measure.
The thought set his heart pounding. His father was even now inspecting the southeastern front with his troops—may heaven forbid that the thunder should strike him down. The more he dwelt on it, the sharper his unease grew, until Robert hastened back to the manor. The instant he arrived, he dispatched a trusted retainer with a message:
"Father, there are words I cannot entrust to others, but I must tell you this much—I am now certain that thunderbolt is alive, dangerously so. You must find some pretext to return at once. There is no need to risk your life for the Holy See of Yaran."
Only after the messenger departed did his agitation subside. Robert withdrew to the rear courtyard, resuming his effort to sift through the mass of knowledge in his mind while waiting for his father's return.
The rear courtyard of House Ro was unlike that of other nobles. Where theirs flaunted splendor and excess, his was austere and sepulchral—more shrine than garden. Thirteen ancestral tablets were enshrined there: seven great, six lesser, each for a life cut short.
Robert's father, Ro Xiong, had spent his youth on blood-soaked battlefields, laden with honors, later ennobled with dominion over Moonwatch City. In war he had been peerless; in family life, accursed. As one old friend of the house had once said with cruel candor: Ro Xiong must have offended the god of kinship, for he was doomed to bereave wife after wife, child after child—fated to a life of lonely triumph.
That grim prophecy had proved half true. He had taken seven wives and sired six children—four sons and two daughters. Yet each of those thirteen lives now lingered only as spirit-tablets in the courtyard shrine.
Robert himself was the seventh and last child. His mother, too, fell to that cruel fate, dying in childbirth. By sheer fortune, the infant survived, a fragile spark that became his father's final solace in old age.
It was no wonder then that Ro Xiong doted upon his sole surviving heir with a devotion that blurred the line between father and comrade. On Robert's fifteenth birthday, the old man had even committed the scandalous act of taking his son to a brothel, solemnly declaring it the boy's "rite of passage."
The memory made Robert chuckle as he lounged with legs crossed. At that very moment, the clang of iron resounded—the heavy gate of the courtyard thrust open. A towering man of fifty or sixty strode in, his expression dark as stormclouds.
He wore a suit of blackened mail, across his back a massive blood-red blade taller than a man. His figure was that of a war-god incarnate. Yet his left pauldron was torn away, exposing seared and blackened flesh, and his beard was clotted with blood, betraying that he had only just vomited crimson.
Several retainers rushed after him, pleading: "My lord, you are gravely injured! You must not exert yourself—please, retire and recover!"
Robert started in alarm, leaping to steady the man. "Father! Who struck you so?"
This giant was none other than Ro Xiong himself. He shot a murderous glare at the attendants. "Damn curs! Out! All of you, begone! I would speak with my son alone!" When they had slunk away, he seized Robert by the arm and growled in a lowered voice: "Seventh Son, how did you know the thunder had will of its own? Yesterday you reported you had seen it but once. Once! And from that, you gleaned all this? What else have you concealed from your report?"
Robert, already dressing his father's wounds with trembling hands, pressed, "Never mind me, Father—what happened to you?"
"Damn it all—I was struck by that thunderbolt!" Ro Xiong spat the words through clenched teeth. Though wracked with pain, his face was unyielding, his voice filled with fury. "Yesterday that old fool Michel sent me with the troops to scout the eastern range. At dawn we reached the mouth of the Xingluo Mountains, ready to send men ahead, when—"
He stiffened, throat working as though the memory itself chilled him. "When that cursed thunder erupted from a ravine. One stroke, and hundreds of my men were ash. I sought to draw it away, but then—by heaven—though no voice spoke, I heard its meaning within me: 'I disdain to kill you. Take your men and flee.'"
He broke off, unwilling to recount further shame. In truth, he had fled in disarray, his forces shattered, only to encounter Robert's messenger on the road. Hearing his son's warning, the old warrior knew at once Robert had withheld some hidden truth. Thus, upon his return, he dismissed his men and came straight to demand answers.
"Seventh Son," he pressed now, eyes narrowing, "what else do you keep from me? Would you hide even from your own father?"
Robert, assured his wounds were not mortal, allowed his own tension to ease. He laughed softly. "Father, what need have I to keep secrets from you? In fact, I have something I need your help with." He glanced about to ensure they were alone, then leaned close with a mischievous grin. "Yesterday, your son encountered a woman—more beautiful than all the women of Moonwatch City combined…"
Ro Xiong surged upright despite his injuries, eyes gleaming with a wicked grin. "Such a woman? Tell me, boy—did you bed her?"
Only a father who once escorted his son to a brothel could ask such a question. Robert shook his head, then recounted in hushed tones the strange tale of Yar. He concealed nothing of her existence from his father.
Ro Xiong listened with furrowed brow. The intricacies of shared memory and transdimensional journeys eluded him, but the old soldier was not without wit. With Robert's patient explanations, he grasped enough to understand the enormity of what his son had endured. Learning that Robert's gifts had transformed, he roared with joy, laughter booming until his chest ached.
At last, he calmed, stroking his beard with a sly, approving chuckle. "So, a peerless beauty resides within your very flesh. Ha! Intriguing. Tell me—can she take human form? From your description, she must be dazzling. If she can, why not make her the Ro family's daughter-in-law?" He paused, then shook his head. "No… she is some sort of artificed spirit, is she not? Then she cannot bear me grandsons. A pity, a great pity!"