Immortal Kingdoms

Only now did Veronica notice the state she was in. Her tear-stained face, urine-drenched lap, and severed right hand. She shrieked loudly, her voice echoing far and near before she mentally snapped and collapsed onto Leopard's feet.

However, a translucent energy barrier protected Leonardo from the disgusting secretions as he stepped back as though revolted. One explosive aura after the next burst from the guards who could only see red in their eyes as they were about to strike Leonardo dead then and there.

However, the next moment, a gentle domain enveloped the courtyard, suppressing the multiple saints and knocking them unconscious where they stood.

At some point, a mature beautiful woman was standing not too far away from Leonardo, crossing her arms with a pouting yet not-so-pouting expression, an angry yet not-so-angry expression.

She couldn't help but shake her head and wave her hand, a streak of emerald light enveloping Veronica, levitating the woman off the ground and closer to Queen Adeline while her hand regenerated, her filth evaporated, and some hint of roseness surfaced on her unconscious face.

Queen Adeline was a little shocked that the little fox was so fast, perhaps its sainthood's essence was related to speed, but her long-distance energy projection was incapable of following the fox in its movements.

Only when Veronica completely recovered did Queen Adeline pat her chest and heave a sigh of relief, drawing Leonardo's attention to her pale white cleavage and the valley beneath. Queen Adeline behaved as though she didn't notice and beckoned for Leonardo to come to sit on one of the clean tables in the distance.

"I suppose holding a ceremony would prove counterproductive now, huh? Did you have to be so heavy with your hand?"

As the two reached the table, Queen Adeline stood to the side and gestured for Leonardo to sit as he passed her by. However, the next moment, she felt something was wrong, but it was too late as a palm quickly approached her face.

Smack!

Disbelief coloured Queen Adeline's face as Leonardo slapped her smooth cheek, and it took her quite some time to recover from the shock of the warmth spreading as a result.

"Does this feel good?" Leonardo asked in a flat tone before making his way around the table and heading toward the exit of the courtyard, not bothering with being polite or anything.

"When you're sincere enough to stop these childish games, you can come find me for a civil discussion. I'll probably be supervising my armies as they commence a slaughter in the Regalia Kingdom."

Later that day when Leonardo was accompanied out of the palace on the back of the wyvern, Queen Adeline sulked in her hot bathtub while touching the handprint left on her left cheek. As a third-cycle saint, she could easily heal such a superior condition. However, she decided to keep it and reflect upon her actions as she sulked away in the comfort of her private chambers.

As for Leonardo, he was rather curious about how the great culling played out. Although they were flying on a wyvern, it would take around two weeks before reaching the region formerly acknowledged as Star Territory and currently known as City of Grace, or Grace Imperial City.

What puzzled Leonardo was that Aria had entered into a deep sleep ever since they House Sylvia's Palace, but he wasn't feeling anything ill of it. In fact, he felt some inexplicable anxiety, as though something very important to him was about to happen, but he didn't know what it could be.

He wouldn't know that currently, Aria's real persona, Rosaline, was rapidly lapping one hand seal after another into the quivering space of her private sub-dimension.

Today was the day Nier initiated with her delivery. However, before Rosaline could get to work on the baby's birth, the entire region of bloodied began to boil over and a domain of desolation began to erode into the spatial nodes, almost flawing the coordinates of the sub-dimension.

If that happened, not even she would be able to locate in whichever corner of the vast upper, middle, or lower realms had the sub-dimension moved to. This was a space isolated within multiple folds of space, and losing one fold in whichever direction would cause the compressing pressure from its counterparts to propel them through multiple space vacuums, much like a wormhole.

Luckily, she was around before the start of the childbirth, lest both her daughter and granddaughter went missing. She wouldn't know how to face herself if that were to happen, let alone Leonardo.

Nier was screaming out in pain as she breathed heavily, sweating profusely as her breathing went shallow, her eyes slanted over in search of something. Rosaline quickly came to her side, holding her hand while comforting the young woman.

Nier could feel her blood flowing going berserk and a conflict raging through her cells, meridians, bones, and flesh. All of the signs thus far hinted that her daughter had an immortal physique and both the desolate and bloodthirsty as innate martial intents. Thus, Nier had to struggle with all her might to balance out the conflicting forces rampaging her body while passing down the necessary comprehensions of both intents to her infant daughter.

However, from the signs, her daughter obviously inherited the bloodthirsty territory, which meant that she required her mother's help in this crucial phase. Of course, Rosaline was more than happy to finally have another bloodthirsty territory in the family.

Seven days and seven nights later, a sharp high-pitched cry echoed across the sub-dimension. Blood roiled over, and the entire space quaked and quivered due to the intense flow of worldly energy that rushed from all directions and into the body of a crying infant.

Rosaline quickly waved a hand, and a slither of the rushing energy weaved into a blood-red fabric, like a blanket, wrapping around the child after the worldly energy cleaned off the secretions and blood on its baby skin.

….

It was around this time that the anxiety which haunted Leonardo for the past week finally settled down somewhat, replacing it was an ambiguous feeling of relief that he could not understand.

It was also around this moment that Maria, who was back on Earth shifting through a pile of documents, suddenly felt a peculiar heartthrob-like sensation in a way reminiscent of that when Leonardo was finally born. However, the feeling was illusory and fleeting, but because she keenly trusted her intuition, she touched the space around her heart in a daze.

Shockingly, however, if anyone was to carefully inspect, they would find almost no heartbeat as though the space within was entirely hollow. However, this remains a mystery for the time being. In fact, there was a heartbeat, but it was simply so weak it might as well not exist.

"How long can you last for? I wonder if ten years is even enough…" As she whispered, she reached a hand for a white napkin before she coughed blood into the fabric, her eyes growing misty….

…

"You did well… Very well!" Rosaline carried the newborn Aria in her left arm while stroking through Nier's soaked wet face and dishevelled hair with her right palm, smiling brilliantly at her daughter.

"Let… Let me see my baby…" Nier requested in a very faint, barely audible tone. This naughty child almost consumed 80% of her vitality and blood for that final push, deeply bewildering the two women. What kind of an infant would require so much blood essence, vitality, and energy for a mere birth?

However, seeing the peaceful sleeping face of baby Aria, Nier tossed all of those questions aside and held the baby to her bare chest as tears trickled down her cheeks.

However, while Nier might overlook that one detail, Rosaline couldn't.