Death... and me

"Was it the heart that changed her constitution?" Rean asked.

Blansin nodded, answering, "That's correct. Like I said, both our races are very far descendants of the Clendes Sea God. It's just that our bloodline was diluted with other types of fish demon beast races. Ultimately, we're still part of the same family."

Rean was confused. "Yeah, but how can she suddenly change like this? I mean, she had a White Scaled Carp bloodline."

Blansin shook his head, replying, "I don't know much about this part either. All that I know is that before the god departed from our Terces Continent's Clendes Sea, he told his descendants that one day, another Pristine Blue Carp would appear. When that happened, their own descendants would be able to use his bloodline to take control of Clendes Continent. It was his departing gift, or so I was told."

"That's weird," said Min. "If this god was that powerful, why didn't he conquer the continent? He could have simply given the continent to his descendants before leaving."

Blansin shrugged his shoulders in response. "You're asking the wrong demon beast. I believe only the god himself knows the answer to that question. At the very least, I don't know."

Erla sighed, saying, "Perhaps he was testing whether his descendants would be able to last long enough without his help. If they did, the next Pristine Blue Carp would appear. If not, then that was it."

Everyone agreed that Erla's thoughts were possible.

"So, that's to say Erla is now of the same race as your Clendes Sea God. The Clendes Sea God was also a Pristine Blue Carp," Rean concluded.

"That's correct," Blansin confirmed as he nodded.

Rean then continued, "Alright, that has a connection to something way too far in the past. We won't be able to find much about it. Next, how did you find out about Erla? Also, why did it take so long for you guys to appear?"

Blansin shook his head, saying, "The reason we took this long to come after her was that we didn't know about her birth. As far as we were concerned, the legend about a new Clendes Sea Heart appearing was just that, a legend. We knew it could be born in one of the descendants' races, but few even believed that. Even if we didn't, how would we be able to tell the difference? No one really knew."

Blansin didn't stop there, adding, "Of course, we eventually found a few clues that the next Pristine Blue Carp had appeared. From what I heard, we at least knew it was not in our race that it happened."

"Clues?" Rean and the others were confused. "What kind of clues?"

Blansin shrugged his shoulders, replying, "The Clendes Sea itself. It began to show signs of unrest and turmoil everywhere. It didn't take long before someone considered the option that the Clendes Sea Heart had appeared. Min and Erla probably know about these events as well."

Min and Erla nodded. "That's true. We did hear about weird events happening in the Clendes Sea itself in the past 300 or so years. It was becoming quite an annoying thing to deal with for the White Scaled Carp race."

"I see..." Rean immediately understood. "The time which the problems started was what allowed you to narrow down the possible candidates. Am I correct?"

"This..." How could Erla not understand? "The turmoils started when I was born!"

Blansin agreed with them. "That's correct. However, the White Scaled Carp race really hid your existence very well. Where? Right out in the open! You frequently visited our race, never had more protection than any of the other elders' children, your talent wasn't anything that impressive... all that together made it extremely difficult to find you."

"When we asked if the White Scaled Carp race knew about the possible birth of the next Pristine Blue Carp, they showed ignorance. First of all, we ourselves found it hard to believe, so it wasn't surprising that the White Scaled Carp race led us to believe they thought the same thing," Blansin explained.

"However, because the events in the Clendes Sea became more and more apparent, we grew more and more certain that the Clendes Sea Heart was definitely within us. The elders even conducted a search in the entire Silver Horn Sturgeon race to see if we hadn't missed it ourselves."

"It was when we decided to go to the White Scaled Carp race to ask the same question that things became rather weird. They didn't stop us from going through the search, but it felt like something was being hidden. Eventually, we did what Rean said. We narrowed down the timing of the events and the White Scaled Carps that were born around the same time they started."

Min sighed as he said, "We're talking about more than 300 years here. In the world of demon beasts, dying for such a long time is a very common thing. We could say that less than 10% make it through this whole time. After that, you only had to take the White Scaled Carps that were closely related to the elders as the main targets."

"Why the elders?" Rean asked. "It could be anyone from the entire White Scaled Carp race, right?"

Min nodded, replying, "It could. However, the elders are the elders for a reason."

Blansin confirmed Min's words. "He is right. Most of the elders got to their position by using their strength. Usually, that strength surpassing others came from a thicker bloodline. If the next Pristine Blue Carp was going to appear, there was a good chance that they would come from the elders' offspring. Of course, we didn't neglect the other White Scaled Carps, but they weren't our main targets."

"The rest is easy to imagine," Rean said. "When the investigation got close to Erla and the other White Scaled Carps born around her time, Tuwencio and the other elders decided to send her away. However, it became the main reason for suspicions. Now, lo and behold, here's Blansin and his elders."

Blansin bitterly smiled but didn't deny Rean's words.

It was then that Erla remembered something. "Wait! If that's the case, my father and the elders would never talk about me or my destination. How come you guys knew about it? What happened in the White Scaled Carp race for them to open their mouths?"