At first glance, the Dar Family still had other options. For instance, they could try to conceal the news, or try to purify their bloodline... and so on.
But those options were not actually reliable. Of course, they could choose to hide the news, but walls have ears, and sooner or later there would come a day when they could no longer keep it hidden. Worse still, bloodline awakenings tended to occur in cycles. In other words, over the course of one or two generations, cases of bloodline awakening often came in clusters.
Now that the baron's eldest son had awakened his bloodline, barring any surprises, there would be many more demon bloodline awakenings within the next generation or two—quite possibly no small number of them.
How could they possibly conceal something like that?
It was simply impossible!
Purifying the bloodline could greatly reduce the risk, but the cost was truly too high to bear.
Bloodline purification was a ritual combining divine arts and spells, roughly at the quasi-legendary level of difficulty. It required a high-ranking priest or cleric and a high-ranking mage or warlock to conduct it together, along with casting materials worth around five thousand gold coins. At the same time, the recipient would become physically frail from the weakening of their bloodline. Not only would their lifespan inevitably be short, but they would also find it difficult to fight on the battlefield afterward.
The second-generation baron of the Dar Family had fallen ill in his youth, and his health had never been very good afterward. Though he had led troops into battle more than once, he had never truly possessed the ability to fight people himself. The actual fighting had always been handled by his trusted knights.
Thinking about it now, how had he merely been ill?