"What's your name?" Gann-Sagar approached the bloody girl and asked hesitantly.
'I can't risk my name reaching the ears of the Boar King, even by mistake.' Thinking as such, Gannala let out a faint smile and spoke, "Resha, call me Resha."
"Resha?" Gann-Sagar tilted his head in confusion, "I thought you were a girl."
"In my hometown, Resha is a gender-neutral name," Gannala argued. She then dragged her bone mace and walked towards the city, "Do you have a shelter for me to stay?"
"I'm not sure," Gann-Sagar shook his head, "We'll have to see how many buildings remained intact after this invasion. But no matter, you can stay in my home. It's empty anyway."
"Sure," Gannala nodded and observed the soldiers, frowning as she asked, "Who's the leader of this settlement?"
"Me," Gann-Sagar replied, sighing at her judging stare, "Yes, as you might have guessed, I'm the only one at the Body Stage here."
"…weak. I'm surprised your settlement lasted this long." Gannala commented. She then stared at Gann-Sagar, "You seem decent though."
"Haha, thank you." Gann-Sagar smiled wryly. He was trying his best to project a positive image to Gannala in hopes she would stay in their city and help defend it. With her strength, they'll have an easier time surviving.
"Come on, everyone! Break time's over!" Gann-Sagar riled up the citizens, "Let's repair the walls before the Pranic Beasts invade again."
"Haah! Here we go again."
"I want to sleep. It has been a while since I did that."
"If only we could drink tea like the good old times."
The citizens complained in exhaustion but began to rebuild the walls efficiently. They had done it many times already.
But upon watching their work, Gannala frowned and approached a wall, casually knocking on it to comment upon its collapse, "This won't do."
"These walls would come collapsing easily." She frowned and reached forth into the blood covering the ground. Followed by a clench of her hand into a fist, she tugged with force, causing a pillar of bone to geyser out.
With a snap of her finger, the stream of bone pierced the ground around the walls, forming a basement before they began to create a layer of wall. There were enough corpses to go around fishing for bone.
As Gannala walked around, the bone wall formed behind her. It only took her as much time to fully erect the wall as her walking pace around the city. And when she was done, there was a tough wall surrounding the city, reaching a height of ten metres.
"The bones forming the skeleton of these Pranic Beasts are very weak, so the walls aren't as strong as I would like." She commented, dissatisfied, "I guess I'll have to wait until a stronger Pranic Beast shows up."
She then stared at the workers, "Cover these bone walls with brick and stone, will you? They are too eye-catching."
"W-Who are you?" Gann-Sagar voiced the shock of his people, "How can you make something so massive in such a short time?"
"It's nothing that great. All my people can do the same." Gannala shrugged, "As for my identity…well,"
"You can think of me as the fallen princess of an ancient clan."
And that was the fated encounter between Gann-Sagar and Gannala. The duo formed a powerful team to defend the Sagar Kingdom, stabilising it over the next two centuries.
Gann-Sagar practiced a Gold Grade cultivation technique of his fallen Empire. The material he fused with was an Agnarate, a liquid-like flaming material that solidifies and hardens over extreme heat. In terms of material quality, it was almost Gold-Grade, thereby granting him many centuries of lifespan.
In these two centuries, Gann-Sagar and Gannala had plenty of kids in an effort to repopulate Sagar Kingdom. Their kids spread throughout the growing kingdom and started their families.
By the sixth generation, at the end of two centuries, more than ninety percent of the population was related to Gannala by blood.
"I'm sorry, Resha. This is my end." Gann-Sagar wheezed in pain as he lay on his bed, old, reaching the end of his lifespan. Even though the cultivation technique he cultivated was spectacular and the material he used to build his Human Avatar was equally impressive, he couldn't live long.
After all, the material, Agnarate didn't exist in Sagar Kingdom. It only existed in the volcanic mountain that was present in the centre of his fallen Empire. That became a den to a family of Gold Grade Pranic Beasts.
As a result, he couldn't even head there to harvest more Agnarate. In the end, he didn't even finish building his body. Two hundred years was already his limit.
Staring at Gannala, he gently touched her cheek, "From day one, I realised you were different from the rest of us. I haven't seen you consume any resources to build a body. But despite that, you have only grown stronger and stronger. And even after two centuries, you look like you're only in your early twenties."
"Before my death, can I know the truth?" Gann-Sagar asked, "That's my last request as a foolish King."
"You're not foolish," Gannala held his hand and spoke in seriousness, "Don't ever call yourself that, okay? You did everything in your power to protect your people."
"There's that habit of yours once again, treating everyone as weaklings requiring your protection." He wheezed, "Are you truly a Goddess that descended from heaven to protect us?"
"I'm not something that grand," Gannala sighed and revealed the truth, "I'm an Empyrean Tusk."
"Empyrean Tusk…?" Gann-Sagar felt like he heard her wrong, "Are you from the legendary Mammoth Clan?"
"Yes, but I'm also an Empyrean Tusk," Gannala spoke.
"Hahaha!" Gann-Sagar laughed as he closed his eyes and breathed his last, sporting a smile until the very end, "So, my wife was an actual Goddess. That's reassuring."
"Protect our people, alright?"
"I will," Gannala patted his forehead, her eyes streaming with tears, "Go peacefully. If there's an afterlife, I'll join you there eventually."
Gann-Sagar's Human Avatar naturally combusted his body upon death, not even leaving any ashes behind. Gannala stared at the spot on the bed where he originally lay and remained still like a statue for a good couple of days, reminiscing her past two centuries living as a human, "It comes to an end now."
She exited the castle that they had built together and peered out into the large palace grounds, observing the tens of thousands of people gathered there, announcing, "Your King is dead."
"And today, we march into a new horizon." She proclaimed and finally let go of her human form, becoming an Empyrean Tusk once again, this time for permanent.