Chapter 20: The Unseen Heir
The disappearance of Serafina and the sudden silence from Valerian sent shockwaves across the Drakain Empire. **Damien**, grief-stricken and confused, immediately launched a search. He led military parties throughout the known universe, his quest for his two siblings lasting an agonizing **one thousand years**. He eventually ceased the search, focusing instead on maintaining the vast, unstable structure his family had built. **Marcellus** remained aloof, fulfilling his plans of conquering the universe.
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### Sixty Million Years Later: The Modern Dynasty
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**Sixty million years passed.** The Drakain Dynasty had reigned supreme over Pandora for **sixty-five million years**. The **four true dragons** (Marcellus, Serafina, Valerian, and Damien) were now ancient, immortal, near-mythological figures. **Damien** remained the eternal **King**.
Drakain hybrid descendants had impressive longevity, but their lifespan was tied directly to their progression. If a Drakain failed to make it to the **Third Stage** of power, they lived only about **250 years**. However, **60%** of princes on Damien's continent typically made it to the Third Stage, granting them a magnificent lifespan of **10,000 years**. The prince who had just recently passed away had reached this level, ruling for over **9,000 years**.
All hybrids on Pandora were currently stuck at the Third Stage. Damien remembered seeing hybrids reach the next level, a massive **Titan Form** that was about a half a mile wide and half their size, but he had not yet figured out how to consistently evolve his descendants to that stage. With their relatively short lifespans, there simply wasn't enough time to train them without the secret to the **Fourth Stage** of transformation, a secret Marcellus kept to himself, ensuring the hybrids could never truly rival the True Dragons' power or so he would say....
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Following the recent death of a long-reigning Prince, it was time for Damien to choose a new heir. He decided to visit the academies, where his gaze fell upon his direct descendants: **Jordan and Cornell**. The twin boys, aged thirteen, were the top of their class. They were both **Green Dragons**, but their affinities showed a stark difference: **Jordan** had **braided black dreadlocks**, the black signifying his powerful affinity for **dark magic**. **Cornell** had **white dreadlocks in a ponytail with one dread hanging in front of his face**, the white signifying his mastery of **light magic**. They were inseparable.
Today was the twins' day to impress **Ancient King Damien** as he shadowed them. The boys walked in their neat **green leather school uniforms** toward the mining yard, where human slave mages excavated bedrock.
The boys pointed out a few human mages struggling to lift large stones with weak earth spells, clearly showing the strain of hunger and enslavement. But then, one human caught their attention: **Carter**.
"Look at that kid, Jordan. Who is this kid with black and white hair?" Cornell murmured, bewildered by the dual colors, which were unheard of in humans and Drakain alike.
"He isn't working," Jordan noticed. Carter was bent over, fiddling with his shoe string. He was a poor orphan boy who couldn't afford properly sized shoes, forced to adjust the strings constantly to walk without tripping.
...Damien, however, was already walking toward the human. He was immediately captivated by the electric, unstable energy radiating from the boy. He stopped and spoke, his voice deep and measured. **"I feel a familiar energy within you, young man. What is your magical affinity?"**
Carter looked up nervously, his eyes swirling black and white, and simply shrugged his shoulders, unable to even speak a word.
A few jealous slaves, eager to garner affection from the King, yelled out: "The boy is useless! He can't even read, nor conjure a spell to protect himself from being bullied every day!" A few other slaves chuckled nervously.
**Damien had enough.** He exuded a sudden, profound **killing intent**, and the ground underneath the laughing slaves started shaking violently. Everyone instantly looked down, silenced, and continued their work.
Damien was intensely interested in the boy. He stepped closer to Carter, placed a hand on his head, and performed a direct **mind link**. The link instantly revealed the entire, tragic life of young Carter. It also revealed a precise, **outstanding amount of light magic affinity equal to the amount of dark magic inside him**. This unprecedented **dual affinity**—where the two opposing elements were not fighting but perfectly harmonizing inside the boy's core—was something Damien had never witnessed. **The boy was already a powerful, natural light and dark mage.**
More importantly, the link revealed a strange, familiar core of **pure, unstable dark energy**. The terrifying resonance of this energy sent a powerful, chilling echo of **Marcellus's primal Dark Energy** through Damien's mind, a power he had not felt directed at him since his own infancy. The boy was an anomaly, a pure vessel of the founder's wrath.
After this revelation, Damien decided to **adopt Carter**, the orphaned human mage. Carter was now the only human in the royal family. **The twins instantly loved having a third brother.** For Damien, the sight of **Jordan (Dark Magic)** and **Cornell (Light Magic)** standing with the dark-energy powered Carter was a profound, bittersweet echo of his lost brothers, **Valerian (Dark/Scholar)** and **Charles (Light/Lightning)**. The King now had his own triad, a chance to mentor the brothers he had failed to protect.
What the twins didn't know was that **every night**, Damien would wake the boy up from bed and take him to his hidden fortress to train him to harness this dark energy.
One night, soon after the adoption, Damien had a serious talk with Carter. He bent his knee in front of the boy, gripping his shoulders. **"I want you to be a shadow to the twins, Jordan and Cornell. Teach them this ability if you can."**
It took little time for Damien to publicly crown the twins. By the time of the coronation, Carter had caught up to them in their studies. What Damien didn't know was that while the princes excelled, they would **never** be able to replicate the dark electric energy that flowed through Carter.