Chapter 53: Away from the clan
Both of them sat in silence as they watched the new starry scenery up in the sky.
The visual was like a mural done by the gods themselves. Together they gazed at the transformed heavens.
The brown-skinned elf turned to him, her emerald eyes carrying the weight of centuries but still warm with the affection she reserved only for him.
She was happy that Jorghan had turned into a fine sorcerer; she taught him all she had known, and at 18, he had already surpassed her in the power ranking.
Being a nine-star sorcerer at such a young age was beyond a miracle or any prodigious talent in this forsaken world. She herself was quite shocked to learn that he had unlocked more than half of his bloodline and was close to achieving the full potential of his bloodline.
Sigora turned back to the mural sky.
The crimson planet hung like a bleeding eye in the darkening sky, its slow drift visible to their enhanced perception. It was almost twice the size of their world; such a fascinating thing the universe was.
But it was the seven moons that truly marked how profoundly the convergence had altered reality. They hung in descending size—the largest nearly as bright as the pre-convergence moon had been, each subsequent one smaller until the seventh was barely more than a brilliant star. Yet their arrangement was far from random.
"They’re in orbit," Jorghan murmured, tracing the invisible paths with his eyes.
"Around the axis point," Sigora confirmed.
"The convergence didn’t just change our world—it repositioned it within a greater universe structure. We’re part of a system now, connected to realms that were previously inaccessible."
Jorghan was aware of what the goddess said to him. The convergence—he wasn’t sure it was the right word for it, but all the worlds existed in a single dimension. Definitely, whoever those higher gods were, they were up to something, and he thought it was just the beginning of more troubles.
Over the months following the convergence, as the elven refugees struggled to rebuild and process their trauma, that cold tolerance had curdled into something uglier.
Korreth never struck Jorghan, never directly confronted him—he was too politically savvy for that, too aware of Sigora’s protective fury. But the cutting remarks, the pointed exclusions, the way he would speak about "human treachery" and "mongrel bloodlines" just loud enough for Jorghan to overhear... it had been death by a thousand cuts.
The worst part was that others had taken their cue from him.
If the great Korreth, hero of the Nor’vack clan, couldn’t fully trust this human boy, then why should they? The glares had multiplied, the insults had grown bolder, and eventually even the children had learned to ostracize him.
Jorghan had endured it with the same stubborn resilience that had kept him alive through all these years. He had trained harder, pushed himself further, and tried to prove through action what words could never convince them of.
But there was only so much a child—even one with an ancient bloodline—could take before something fundamental began to crack.
And Jorghan thought there was no need to stay with the clan, and he thought it was best for him and the clan if he just lived elsewhere.
Otherwise, he would have snapped Korreth’s neck in a fit of temper.
He just left the turtle rock.
Sigora, being Sigora, had refused to let him go alone.
Despite her family’s protests, despite Korreth’s cold anger, she had followed him to Bleusmoore and established their small household at the meadow’s edge.
Her eldest child, Swana, visited when she could, bringing news and supplies, maintaining the connection even if it was strained by distance and circumstance.
And Sik’ra, he was saved by Sigora, bringing him back from the brink of death. She poured out her power, everything she could muster, and saved her son that day.
Though he had to be treated for six months after the healing, as his wound was much closer to his heart. His mana circuit was damaged, and he could no longer use mana. It was the cost of coming back to life from the brink of death.
Sigora broke the silence as she said, "Swana came by earlier."
Jorghan turned to her, "Why didn’t she stay?"
"She says that she doesn’t have time. I don’t know what she’s doing that she doesn’t have time to say hello to her cousin," Sigora said in a typical tone of disapproval.
Jorghan sighed, knowing her father wouldn’t have approved of her coming here.
"The clan—it seems like he’s having a hard time controlling it," Sigora said.
Jorghan’s expression turned serious; he was aware of how Turtle Rock had been stationed in the Emearaan Jungle, though it was supposed to be a temporary stay, but it had stretched into seven years.
Korreth couldn’t come out of the jungle because the empire was still searching for them and the Turtle Rock. The jungle was home to a vast number of species, and it provided them with a perfect cover to hide from the empire.
Jorghan wasn’t thinking about the Nor’vack clan but the man responsible for this situation.
Hawkin, the man he wants to kill.
A burning rage in his heart consumed him, and it only grew brighter all these years.
His mana was no longer what it had once been. The raw, untamed energy of his youth had been tempered, refined, and forged like a blade under relentless hammering. Seven years of ceaseless discipline had honed both his body and his bloodline, polishing his mana until it gleamed with a radiance few in history had ever touched.
What flowed through him now was not mere mana but something profound—an essence so dense and pure that the world itself seemed to stir when he released it. He had stepped into the precincts of divinity, that hallowed stage where mana ceased to be mortal fuel and began to carry the spark of eternity. His veins no longer thrummed only with life but with a quiet, terrible permanence—the essence of immortality.
Normally, one would have access to the divinity once they reach the ten stars, but he had already achieved that feat by stepping into the nine stars. His limitless mana had elevated him to a level beyond the standards.
Yet this was not the end.