Chapter 819: 819

The reaction was instantaneous. The swirling liquids vanished, sucked into the surface of the seed until the bowl was bone-dry. What remained was a seemingly ordinary seed, yet it pulsed with a soft, pinkish glow and emitted a scent so sweet it made Erik’s head swim. The experiment was over, and the catalyst for his kingdom’s rebirth or its final damnation was finally complete.

Erik remained locked in a daze, his gaze tethered to the pulsing, pink glow of the seed. He didn’t even register the moment the air grew cold beside him, signaling Siren’s silent withdrawal. It was only the rhythmic, deliberate sound of footsteps echoing against the floor that finally shattered his trance.

He snapped his head toward the entrance, his eyes widening in a mixture of shock and burgeoning dread. Emerging from the door was his Queen, her expression was one of almost religious devotion. She was being led forward by Siren, who moved with a catlike grace and a triumphant smile.

"Why are you here?" Erik demanded. His voice was thick with hesitation, caught between the authority of a king and the panic of a man whose secret had just been outed. He shot a sharp, warning glare at Siren, a silent command for the Arch Curse to remember her place and not overstep the boundaries of their arrangement.

Siren, however, was past the point of following mortal etiquette. She met his gaze with an innocent, wide-eyed look, completely ignoring the warning. Before the Queen could even part her lips to answer, Siren spoke for her.

"She is here for this," Siren purred, her finger extending toward the glowing seed resting in the dry bowl. "The final piece for her desired perfection. You didn’t think you were going to keep all that beauty for yourself, did you, Erik?"

Siren turned back to Erik, her gaze sharp "You have no idea what is to come next," she said, her voice dropping into a serious tone"You might have thought of simply planting it in the earth, which is a logical instinct but for it to grow, and to achieve that which you truly desire, a far more crucial step is required."

Siren shifted her attention to the Queen, cupping her delicate face with both hands. The Queen didn’t resist; her eyes were locked onto the seed in the bowl with a hollow, absent expression, her senses entirely entranced by the intoxicating, sweet scent it emitted.

Siren began to whisper, her words weaving an act of pure temptation. "You seek for beauty. For longevity. You crave your husband’s admiration and the breathless worship of your subjects. In this bowl lies the seed for everything you have ever hungered for."

The allure in Siren’s voice became a physical weight in the room, thick with the power of the Arch Curse. "But this seed is hungry," she said, her thumbs stroking the Queen’s cheekbones. "It only has a need for your nourishment to begin its growth. Are you willing to provide it?"

The Queen didn’t even look at Erik for permission. Her gaze remained fixed on the glowing object, her breath hitching as she prepared to offer whatever was demanded.

There was almost no hesitation, the Queen nodded with a mechanical, desperate certainty. A jagged knife appeared in Siren’s hand, which she extended toward the Queen. For a fleeting second, a flicker of resistance sparked in the Queen’s eyes as she looked at the cold steel, but her fingers closed around the hilt nonetheless.

Erik lunged forward, his voice rising to stop the madness, but he suddenly found himself frozen mid-stride. His muscles locked as if turned to stone. His eyes widened in horror as Siren drifted toward him, her movements effortless.

"You just sit back, watch, and learn," she whispered, her breath chilling his skin. "Because the rest of this burden will be yours to carry."

Forced to be a silent spectator, Erik watched as his Queen approached the floating bowl. With a grim, glassy-eyed resolve, she sliced her palm open. It took only a moment for the first heavy drop of blood to fall onto the seed.

The previously lifeless seed seemed to wake with a jolt, pulsing with a sudden, violent heartbeat. With that first pulse, the Queen’s body stiffened. She didn’t just bleed, the seed began to ravenously draw from her, forcing torrents of life-force out through the wound in her palm.

The color drained from her face as the seed gorged itself, turning her skin a ghostly, translucent pale. Finally, the seed fell silent again, satiated for the moment. The Queen’s legs gave out, her body trembling as she began to collapse. At that exact moment, the invisible pressure holding Erik vanished. He surged forward, catching her frail, cooling figure before she could hit the floor.

As Erik pulled the Queen’s limp body against his chest, a flash of movement on her hand caught his attention. On the back of the palm she had just offered to the seed, a faint, glowing mark began to etch itself into her skin, a delicate rose, intricate and thorns-heavy, imprinting itself like a permanent brand.

"What is going on?" Erik’s voice was a low growl, the anger in his tone barely contained as he glared at the Arch Curse.

Siren didn’t flinch. Instead, her feet left the ground as she drifted upward, hovering like a specter of beautiful malice. "This was, after all, a desperate and failed attempt to give birth to a new, pure race," she said. "A race with no imprint of this world in its soul or essence. But in the face of that impossibility, a compromise has been made."

She looked down at the Queen, then back to Erik, her smile widening. "While the birth of a "full-born" Elf has failed, the birth of the Halflings stands as your prize. Through her, and through that seed, you have created a bridge. A people who just like you and your offspring will bear the grace of elven blood anchored by the resilience of this world’s human lineage."

She gestured to the rose mark on the Queen’s hand. "She is the first. The vessel and soon, your entire kingdom will bear the same thorn."

The bowl floated upward, settling into Siren’s waiting hand. "This seed, and the tree it is destined to become, will be the catalyst for the metamorphosis," she explained, her eyes shimmering with the glow of the pink essence. "It requires the blood of those who seek the change as its nourishment. Half of their very lifeblood must be surrendered to the seed, representing the half they are leaving behind to become what they are meant to be."

She looked down at the pale, shivering Queen cradled in Erik’s arms. "She has been branded and cursed by the seed. She will remain in this state, with only half her blood to sustain her, until the tree reaches its mature form. Only then will the elven essence, refined and distilled from the very life she lost, be returned to her. Only then will she become the being she so desperately seeks to be."

Erik’s grip on the Queen tightened, his expression crumbling into a hollow, lost look. The weight of his choices felt like lead in his chest. "So... I have indeed failed?" he whispered, the words sounding more like a plea for denial than a question.

In response, Siren floated over to him. She reached out, her cool fingers tapping him gently on the forehead as if waking a sleeping child.

"You failed, yet you succeeded at the same time," Siren said, her smile widening into something both beautiful and cruel. "A pure elven race will appear on this world eventually, but it will be on the terms of this world’s will. They are to be the second generation, born from the Halflings you create today"

Erik’s voice cracked through the laboratory, a desperate, frantic shout that betrayed his fraying sanity. "Really?" He practically shook the weakened Queen in his arms, his eyes wide and bloodshot as he stared at Siren, searching for any hint of a lie in her beautiful, cruel face.

"Indeed," Siren replied, her voice echoing as her form began to blur and dissipate into the dim light of the room. "You have so much to do, King Erik. Find a fertile land, a place of power, and plant that seed. Remember, its importance to your people will be greater than even your current mind can currently imagine."

With those final words, her presence evaporated, leaving only the lingering scent of sweetness and lust.

Erik didn’t mourn his perceived failure any longer. Instead, a low, bubbling sound began to rise from his throat, a hysterical laugh that filled the empty hall. He didn’t care that he had failed to produce a pure race in a single stroke. He didn’t care that his wife lay half-dead in his arms, or that his kingdom was a den of cursed souls. All he heard was the promise: Elves would walk this world. The dream he had obsessed over, the goal that had cost him his soul and his standing with the gods, was finally rooted in reality.