Heir to the Kingdom of 1.4 billion people

Chapter 142: Conferring Titles upon Tamerlan, Awakening the Heart of Blessings

Spark Hall.

Beneath the crystal dome, which reflects countless battles like a celestial curtain, twelve towering prisms stand on the bronze-paved ground, their tops ablaze with torches.

The torch shone brightest on the red prism, which was covered with murals and resembled a beautiful jade.

Inside this magnificent hall, three people waited quietly.

A man with blond hair and blue eyes stood tall and straight, sword in hand, his handsome face always bearing a gentle smile that instantly won people's favor.

He stood motionless like a mountain, his muscles as hardened as bronze, his face incredibly heroic, and he was as perfect as a great hero from a divine era. Just his presence commanded respect.

A woman with blue hair and emerald eyes, and skin as white as snow, was as beautiful as a meticulously sculpted ice sculpture. Although she was a woman, her brows revealed a heroic spirit, giving the impression of a valiant knight.

Time ticked by, second by second, until...
A torch suddenly appeared in the hall, and then a tall figure gradually emerged from the flames.

Upon seeing this, all three of them were delighted and bowed slightly to the figure in unison.

"Good evening, Your Highness."

"Good evening." Coming back to his senses, Xia Mingyu smiled slightly as he looked at his companions who had been waiting for him.

After exchanging pleasantries for a while, everyone took their seats at the long bronze table.

Snapped!
Xia Mingyu snapped his fingers lightly, and the cool bronze tabletop was instantly filled with countless steaming hot dishes.

"Hahaha, cheers!"

Xia Mingyu picked up the glass full of lemonade, drank it all in one gulp, and let out a hearty laugh.

Having eliminated the major concern of Twilight Tea and achieved a promotion to 1.4 billion buffs, I am now enjoying fine wine with like-minded and trustworthy friends.

Even though he is usually calm and often worries about the future, he couldn't help but feel a joyful urge to burst into laughter at this moment.

"Enjoy life while you can, for tomorrow you may die," he murmured.

"Your Highness, you seem very happy. Has something good happened?"

"I can't believe it," Tamerlan asked curiously, sitting to his right.

He remembered that a few days ago, His Highness had a smile on his face, but there was a hint of anxiety in it. He was nothing like now, where his whole demeanor seemed to say, "I'm so happy, come and ask me."

"I resolved a crisis that could have destroyed the entire city and brought the culprit behind it—a greedy and insane Clay merchant—to justice," Xia Mingyu said with a hint of pride.

This is perhaps the most impactful good deed he has done since coming into this world, aside from summoning the Crimson Flame across time and space to bless countless people.

"Saving people from dire straits and punishing heinous villains, no wonder you are so happy," Tamerlan exclaimed.

“The Clay merchant.” He then frowned slightly and spoke:

“Your Highness, as a paladin of the Church of the Sun, I should not discriminate against any group, but in the cases recorded by the Church, the Clay merchants have often been the perpetrators of the people's suffering.”

Seeing the slight disgust on Tamerlan's face, Xia Mingyu felt that he had gained a deeper understanding of the reputation of the Clay merchants.

To be able to make even the most egalitarian paladins view people unequally is, in a sense, quite impressive.

“No good person becomes a slave owner, and in the slave capital, Clay merchants make up the majority of the slave owners,” Haggex, who was to Xia Mingyu’s left, said calmly.

He seemed to be saying that none of the Clay businessmen were good people.

"In the North, whenever famine strikes, Clay merchants swarm to villages like locusts, racking their brains to drive down the price villagers pay for their indenture. They often manage to win them over with just a small bag of grain, even knowing that the children in front of them, crying and swollen from being separated from their parents, will starve to death again."

Dorothy's slender fingers slowly closed, her knuckles turning white from the force. Her tone was icy, and her words seemed to carry a hint of murderous intent.

After listening to everything silently, Xia Mingyu felt that if he encountered the Clay merchant again in the future, he wouldn't be wrong to beat him up, let alone kill him.

At the same time, some doubts arose in Xia Mingyu's mind.

Why is there such an abrupt addition of the Clay people, when the distinctions are usually made by country, such as Sosia, Rhine, and Milan?
"What kind of people are the Clay?" he asked Tamerlan.

After all, as the grandson of the Pope of the church with the widest number of believers on the mainland, Tamerlan should have far clearer and more accurate information than he did.

"According to the records in the church, the Clay people originated from the Clay Kingdom, the first great human nation established by Joshua Clay, the King of the Stars, nearly a thousand years ago."

Tamerlan pondered for a moment, then slowly spoke.

"Joshua, the King of the Stars, was said to have been raised by the seven gods. He was brave, kind, righteous, and merciful, possessing almost all the virtues known to humankind. He was the most dazzling hero of the age of gods."

"The Kingdom of Clay that he established was even more glorious. At its peak, it occupied a full third of the continent's territory before the separation, and its influence covered the entire continent."

"During this period, the previously powerful races, such as elves, dwarves and goblins, orcs and mermaids, suffered heavy blows from the Kingdom of Clay and retreated to the forests, underground, ice deserts and deep seas. For the next thousand years, they never recovered and never regained their former glory of sharing the continent."

"Then, for some reason that has yet to be discovered, the King of the Stars suddenly died, and immediately afterward, a great cataclysm broke out. The war between the seven gods led to the destruction of the Kingdom of Clay. The upper-class Clay people, who were displaced after losing the protection of their kingdom, adopted Clay as their surname and gradually formed the Clay people."

"This is the origin of the Clay people. Because the Clay Kingdom was destroyed due to the War of the Seven Gods, the Clay people do not believe in the Seven Gods, but only in the Creator."

"And as time went by, a creator appeared within the Clay race, manifesting as the world and bestowing it upon the Clay race as paradise, while all other beings were parasites of this paradise, a twisted myth of the Clay race as servants."

"For this reason, the Clay people, who have no faith, are naturally less bound by morality than normal people, so the probability of fraudsters and villains is much higher than that of the normal population."

After recounting all this, Tamerlan sighed softly, seemingly lamenting the birth of such a twisted race.

Da da da.

Xia Mingyu frowned, his fingers tapping incessantly on the bronze tabletop.

This kind of race reminded him of a certain race on Earth, which was also rotten to the core.

However, there still seems to be a lot of mystery. Why did the King of the Stars suddenly die? And why did the Cataclysm break out immediately after his death?

What exactly caused such a distorted myth to emerge from the Clay people?
More and more doubts piled up in Xia Mingyu's mind, but he still couldn't come up with a reasonable guess.

However, that's normal. If it were so easy to guess, it wouldn't have become an unsolvable mystery in history; it would have been uncovered long ago by scholars who painstakingly study history.

"Never mind, once the carriage is right in front of me, a road will eventually appear." "As long as I keep pursuing my ideals, these questions will be answered sooner or later."

Xia Mingyu breathed a long sigh of relief. As expected, he felt much more relaxed after stopping torturing his brain.

Then, looking at the blond youth sitting upright in front of him, he spoke with a slight smile:

"Tamerlan, thank you for your answer. I've decided to give you a reward for it."

Tamerlan was about to wave his hand to refuse, after all, he felt that this was just a small favor, how could he be worthy of His Highness's praise? Even a verbal praise would be too much.

At this moment, Xia Mingyu slowly took off the crimson ring on his hand, and to everyone's amazement, a line of deep purple text appeared: 1409670292 Heir to the Kingdom of the People.

Tamerlan, who had been perceptive since childhood, guessed the prince's "reward" in an instant.

"Your Highness, are you perhaps going to appoint me as your comrade?" he asked, his handsome face lighting up with surprise.

Upon seeing Xia Mingyu nod slightly with a smile, this man, who was considered the most talented paladin in the history of the Church of the Sun and was even revered by the people of the City of the Sun as the "Son of the Sun," was now trembling with excitement.

After regaining his senses, he stood up from his seat without thinking and slowly knelt down on one knee in front of Xia Mingyu.

“Once I officially recognize you as a comrade, the noble protection you have will disappear. Have you thought it through?” Xia Mingyu said.

As the grandson of the current Pope, Tamerlan's status undoubtedly grants him far greater protection than any other lord in the Southern Territory, and he may even have reached the Crescent Moon or even the Crescent Moon rank.

After being converted into a comrade by him, he will most likely only be at the Morning Star rank.

“To be fortunate enough to be one of your comrades surpasses any blessing the world has bestowed upon me,” Tamerlan said gently.

His bright blue eyes sparkled, and anyone could sense his sincerity and openness.

This guy is such a smooth talker!
If I were this eloquent on Earth, I wouldn't have been abandoned in an orphanage for so long.

Xia Mingyu took a deep breath, suppressing all the distracting thoughts in his mind. He raised his right hand, and a long sword materialized in his mind.

Upon witnessing this scene, Tamerlan's expression turned solemn, and he spoke in a stern voice:

"By the Creator, by the Sun and the God of Justice whom I worship, I, Tamerland Rhine, hereby swear—"

“From now on, Prince Mingyu Xia will be my lord, and I will be his right arm. I will serve him as devoutly as I would a god.”

"The sword of this life is for you to wield, the blood of this life flows for you."

"Your enemies are my mortal enemies, your laws are my creed."

"I am willing to sacrifice everything so that you can reach the other side of your ideal, because that is also my other side."

"If I break this oath, may the sun god punish my soul, condemn me to eternal purgatory, may my body be scorched by the sun's fire, and may my most cherished honor decay into dust."

"Alright, alright." Seeing that Tamerlan was about to continue making his oath, Xia Mingyu interrupted him helplessly.

“What’s the point of something that will never happen, no matter how malicious it may be?” Xia Mingyu said calmly.

Tamerlan was taken aback for a moment, then a bright smile involuntarily appeared on his lips.

Under his ardent and expectant gaze, Xia Mingyu draped his coat over his shoulders and placed the blade of his longsword across his right shoulder.

"Tamerlan, I swear to you that I will always regard you as my comrade-in-arms, cherish you as I would my right arm, and together we will achieve that absurd and long-held ideal—that all people in the world can live like human beings!"

"How can we say we have no clothes? We share the same robes. The king is raising an army; let us prepare our spears and shields, and fight together against this common enemy!"

bang bang.

He slapped Tamerlan's shoulder twice with the blade of his sword.

The next moment, as the outer garment dissipated into specks of light, a line of deep purple text appeared above Tamerlan's head—"Comrade."

Then, the text gradually turned ice blue, and then back to dark purple.

Under everyone's astonished gaze, Tamerlan's identity blessing seemed to malfunction, shifting back and forth between deep purple and ice blue.

Finally, after a long time, the blessing became "fellow (purple) robe (ice blue)".

Everyone: "???"

Is there really such a thing as a blessing of unusual color in this world?

"Tamerlan, have you heard of this situation?" Xia Mingyu asked, puzzled.

The person in question simply shook their head, looking completely bewildered.

Even though he had read through almost all the books in the Sun Church's library, he had never seen such an unheard-of phenomenon as the blessing of a different color.

After all, since the birth of the Blessing system, the rank and the color it represents have been clearly and distinctly matched, and have not changed in millions of years.

"Looks like I'll have to wear an item to conceal my identity like Your Highness from now on, otherwise I might get dissected by those fanatical mages at the Star Tower," Tamerlan joked.

For him, the level of protection was unimportant; as long as he became His Highness's comrade and could walk alongside His Highness on the path to saving the world, that was enough.

This was the noblest and happiest thing for him as a paladin.

"You're really optimistic!" Xia Mingyu couldn't help but exclaim.

Blessings are one of the most important things for most living beings in this world, and Tamerlan is actually quite composed to be able to joke around even when his own blessing has turned into an odd color.

“Actually, I still have some concerns, but the thought that I have become Your Highness’s comrade makes me happy no matter what,” Tamerlan said frankly.

Then, as a surge of information flooded his mind, his expression suddenly turned one of extreme shock.

"Your Highness, it seems I have awakened an extraordinary blessing." Tamerlan was stunned for a long time before finally managing to stammer out a sentence.

Myriad Hearts: Based on your actions, experiences, insights, reputation, and everything else that connects you with the world, you will have a chance to randomly receive a blessing, with a maximum of 10,000 blessings.

(End of this chapter)