Chapter 596
A frown creased Ikenga’s brow at the thought. He yearned for his child to be born as a baby, small and vulnerable, so he could experience the joys and trials of true fatherhood. He knew it was perhaps a selfish thought, especially when he considered Ikem, his first son, and Maul, his stepson. They had grown too fast, burdened with immense goals and destinies from the moment of their birth, denying him the chance to be a "normal" father.
Ikenga traced patterns on Keles’s stomach, a new hope stirring within him for this child to be different, to allow him the fatherhood he yearned for. Keles, noticing the crease in his forehead, softly asked, "What are you thinking, my dear?"
He raised his head, planting a light kiss on her lips. "I was thinking on whether our child would be born like us, fully grown, or as a baby."
"From your creasing brow, I’m guessing you don’t want him to come out grown," Keles said with a knowing smile.
"You don’t agree?" Ikenga asked, raising a brow playfully. Keles chuckled, shaking her head. "In fact, I do agree with you. I want him to grow slow and spend lots of time with me. It gets boring in my realm."
With a grin, Ikenga gently pinned her to the bed, beginning to pepper kisses across her skin. "I could pay you more visits from mine, or perhaps you could spend some time in mine."
They shared a long, lingering kiss before finally separating. A thoughtful silence settled between them, broken abruptly by Keles. "Why did those mages take such a long route to get the goblins off of their ship?" she mused, the earlier horrors of the memory still lingering in her mind.
Ikenga sighed, the warmth of Keles’s skin a stark contrast to the cold calculation he now understood. He sat up, leaning back against the headboard, his gaze distant as he pieced together the mages’ grand, terrifying design.
"It’s about the ’First Child’ Project,’" Ikenga began, his voice low, tinged with a fresh layer of disgust. "The mages’ main goal was to replace a world’s existing first intelligent life form, its true ’first child,’ with another. And in doing so, to gain all the immense privileges and natural authority that a world bestows upon its original inhabitants. They’ve spent eons on this, Keles, on long years of research and expeditions, and they finally found a way to do it. But it takes a very long time."
He paused, a grim understanding settling over his features. "For this project to be completed, the very behaviors they subtly ingrained in the goblins were not just side effects, they were absolutely essential. The goblins needed to be arrogant, filled with pride, and possess an absolute, unshakeable belief that they were the genuine first children of their world. At the same time, they needed to be conditioned to instinctively oppress the true firstborn, the Ratfolk. The mages had already sealed away the Ratfolk’s capabilities, ensuring they couldn’t gain power, couldn’t fight back, couldn’t challenge the usurpation."