《Annihilation&#x27;s Impact》


 Introduction : Legend of Old

    Legend stated that in an ancient time, the Human Empire was once an indestructible empire, span across countless continents.

    Every emperor of that said era was called the Great Emperor, because, in their reigns, they never made any permanent losses to the humanity, since every loss of theirs was a calculated move, aimed for even better benefits for the Human Empire.

    They only had one wish, and that was to make the humanity stand above all others, and they succeeded.

    They enslaved all other races, including the demi-humans, under their banner.

    Until, the Gateway to Hell opened, as the demons rushed forth to the new and exciting land.

    Thus, began the Ancient War.

    Where demons and humans battled over the absolute sovereign.

    Affected by the war, both Human Empire and Hell continued to weaken, lands polluted, cities ruined, resources depleted.

    Quietly, the new race emerged, the Undying, created from the negative emotions of the fallen, although they didn''t possess the ability to think, their number were countless.

    During the peak of the Ancient War, both humans and demons decided to use all of their force to completely crushed the other side, without another chance to rise again, with the Great Emperor and Demon Monarch led the army, the battle began, but the unthinkable happened, as the last battle, known as Timeless War, reached its climax, the Undying ambushed them, with the Soul Devourer as their leader, who surprisingly, had the ability to formulate plans, due to lacks of preparation, result in momentary panic of both humans and demons, although it lasted only a moment, but that was enough for the distraction, the Liches activated their unknown magic, by sacrifice themselves, they created an unimaginable explosion, effectively wiped out almost all of humans and demons'' army and pollute a vast amount of lands to become the Undying''s land.

    Due to the death of nearly every sage of every race that participated the Timeless War, the technology was set back by the unmeasurable damage, causing the delay of technology progression for a long time.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

    Thus begin the Dark Era, where the Undying reigned.

    Because humans and demons suffered most, they became the most miserable race of all, while the demi-humans gradually got stronger, the human race became weaker, couple with the end of Great Emperors'' bloodline, the new emperors were weak, not as wise as they used to be, not as grand as they used to be, their empire mostly ruined, and seized, as the demi-human continued to grow, the Undying as well.

    But because of the previous Great Emperor''s merits, with their better technology and education, the Human Empire continued to persist.

    Because of their virtually endless amount of corpses, the Undying continued to emerge, the stronger ones started to appear as well, they didn''t set their sight on humans and demi-humans'' continent, but the Hell of demons, because of the death of mighty warriors, stronger Undying were born, as well as smarter one, after years of experiments, they found the ways to open the Gateway to Hell.

    After the Undying invaded Hell, they captured demons for experiments, seized parts of Hell and managed to turn fallen demons into the Undying, with the fallen sage as the leader, they occupied almost half of Hell.

    Although the new Demon Monarch had just emerged, it still possessed an incredible amount of power, but sadly, it was not wise as the previous one, but with its help, the demons persisted.

    All of this had happened because of the last battle of Ancient War, and its effects had lived until today, that was why it was called the Timeless War.

    Later on, Human Empire invented new ritual, used to powered warriors with a cost of intelligence, with this new magic, the battle between human and demi-human came to a standstill.

    While the demon used their taboo magic, to steal the souls of the living and took control of that said being and its memories, they inflated both human and demi-human continent, to steal their invention and used them to battle the Undying.

    By doing so, they indirectly created an organization, called the Pantheon, aimed to kill all human-skinned demons and purify the lands of the Undying, thus became the new powerhouse of Human Empire along with royalty.

    While the demi-human used their holy magic, to burn the inflated demons and fought against the Undying.

    Hence the balance of power of the entire plane was formed.

    And this marked the beginning of a new era, Morning Star Era.

 Chapter 1 : Extinguished Spirit

    In Morning Star Era.

    Because of the balance of power, the whole plane regained its temporary peace, this allowed the Human Empire to steadily developed its new economy, education, weapons, magic spells and regain its once lost population.

    This peace appeared to last for a long time, but it was not.

    When the new king of demi-human, a magnificent elf, appeared, he was far wiser than any previous kings of the demi-human, some even said that his intellect could even rival the Great Emperors.

    As he held absolute authority over all demi-humans, including elves, beast kins and dwarves, he made a deal with the mysterious Undying''s leader to become its ally, he launched campaigns after campaigns, seized both territories of Human and Demon.

    But because this new king had appeared too late, the Human Empire had already gotten their hands on newer and better technologies and tactics, if not because any of these, they would have been destroyed long ago.

    As for the demons, they didn''t fare any better either because the Undying had a new ally to exchanges weapons and magic, although Holy Magic of the demi-human sounded lethal to the Undying, in the end, it was just another name for the nature-type magic.

    With the balance of power broken, the peace was now gone, the new war had finally begun, however, its scale was far insignificant compared to the Ancient War, that was because a lot of ancient technologies and magic spells had been scattered throughout Dark Era, due to the death of the great sages.

    While both humans and demons were at the face of extinction, the demi-humans and Undying were more prosperous than ever.

    Although on the surface, it looked like all demi-humans had accepted the Undying, there were some lingering fear and hatred within most of the demi-humans, so they created a rebellious organization, called the Masked, if not for the excellent abilities of the Great King of demi-human, the royalty would have been overthrown due to their agreement to help the Undying.

    While it seemed that the fate of both demons and humans had been sealed, in reality, they were not.

    The end of Morning Star Era was approaching.

    ...

    At the center of Human Continent, there was a flourishing city, namely the capital city of the Human Empire, the same one as the capital city of the Indestructible Empire of Ancient Era, the capital city was surrounded by the far-reaching wall, where the soldiers patrolled around per the order of the commanders, to keep lookout for enemies and bandits.

    While the citizens were enjoying themselves heartily on the street, the nobles were nowhere to be seen, same went to the officials because they were all called for the conference by the emperor''s absolute decree.

    At the Imperial Castle.

    In the Judgement Hall, stationed the imperial guards, tasked to protect and guard the safety of the royalty.

    Upon the glittery throne sat an old man, dressed in long white robe, the robe was engraved with the illusionary lines that were glowing from time to time, although he looked fragile, he radiated the refined aura of supremacy as if everything must obey his wills and commands, in his eyes reflected the wisdom accumulated from the passage of time.

    At his side stood a tall man in his prime, he wore the golden armour and had a sword which runes carved on it on his wrist, coupled with his calm demeanour, he gave off the feeling as if he was the matchless warrior who passed through countless battles, there was the strong feeling of confidence in each and every action of his.

    The old man who sat on the throne was naturally the emperor of Human Empire, titled the Blood Emperor, his name and history were long lost from this world, only he himself knew it.

    So, the man beside him must be the strongest royal guard, hand picked by the Blood Emperor to act as his personal bodyguard, his name was Slien, he was adopted by an imperial scholar because of his talent of fighting.

    Later on, when he enrolled the army, the imperial scholar got assassinated, he swore to himself to avenge his foster-father.

    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.After he found out that it was his commander who planned the assassination attempt of his foster-father, he broke into the commander''s manor and slaughtered every single one of the commander''s relatives, that was the moment the Blood Emperor noticed this talented young man and decided to pardon him of his crime and pull him into the Royal Faction.

    When the conference was about to begin, no one was absent, due to the fact that they all knew what consequence of being absent despite the decree was.

    Every noble and official were seated in their respective seat, the nearest from the emperor was the highest ranking on both nobles and officials, the farthest from the emperor was the lowest ranking to attend the conference, Grand Noble and Prime Minister, the highest title given to noble and official, although they were the most influential person in the entire empire excluding the royalty, they never showed any sign of disrespect or arrogant toward the emperor, because not even them dared to speak without the permission for the emperor.

    Due to this unwritten rule, the hall was silent as the graveyard, every second to everyone in there was like an eternity, as the atmosphere was getting too tense, somebody broke the silence.

    "Long live the emperor!" Slien shouted.

    "Long live the emperor!" Everyone else resounded.

    The Grand Noble Stood up and waited for the emperor''s permission.

    "You may begin." The emperor said emotionlessly.

    The Grand Noble saluted and said to everyone.

    "I believe that everyone knew what happened recently.

    "The last''s defence of our empire at the North has been penetrated by those wicked demi-humans and Undying, they are on their way to the capital, which estimated to reach us around 7 days at most."

    After that, he sat down and wait for any response he would get.

    However, not a single person was willing to speak, soon, the hall descended into the silence once again.

    Following a period of silence.

    "I propose that you should flee, your majesty, if you were still alive, then there will be the day when the empire shall rise again.

    "You must flee to the South, your majesty, my troops are already standby to escort you to safety."

    The prime minister who had stood up broke the silence and made a suggestion with those words.

    The emperor slowly lifted his head and looked straight into the prime minister''s eyes.

    "Soldiers, restrain him, he has betrayed the humanity."

    He said not too slow nor too fast.

    While everyone was startled, Slien quickly closed into the prime minister, due to his superhuman abilities, no one was able to react to his sudden movement, but as soon as he slashed the back of the sword at the prime minister, aimed to restrain him per the emperor''s command, the prime minister''s figure turned illusionary.

    "HAHAHA!"The prime minister laughed crazily.

    "So you noticed it anyway, huh?

    "I shouldn''t make such a bad suggestion, that was a flaw on my end, I shouldn''t tell you that it was my troop nor should I tell you to go to South.

    "But don''t feel depressed, everyone, the demi-humans has offered us the large amounts of fortune and status of the noble if we offered them this emperor''s head."

    He raised his hand and points at the old man who sat on the glorious throne.

    "I, Tradio Mordus, shall become the new ruler of the humanity, everyone who pledged their loyalty to me shall be spared!"

    His illusionary shape dissolved into nothing after he finished his speech.

    After Tradio was gone, the emperor gradually stood up.

    "Under my heritage, I declared that the current prime minister of Human Empire, Tradio Mordus, has betrayed us and joined the demi-humans.

    "In addition, no nobles or officials are allowed to leave the capital."

    He slowly sat down on the throne and waved his hand, signalling the end of the conference.

    "Long live the emperor!"

    Everyone gloomily saluted and walked out of the hall, except for Slein.

    "What should I do next, your majesty?"

    Slein had always been loyal to the emperor, since the day he was saved by him, he saw the emperor as his second foster-father.

    The emperor still seated, not answering for a long time.

    "My reign that lasted for decades, has finally come to an end."

    He said softly, but the declaration that he made was enough to scare any person witless.

    This person is the Blood Emperor, the wisest emperor of the Morning Star Era who combined both Noble Faction and Royal Faction into one, and he said that his legend has come to an end.

    "No, your majesty, you are the most brilliant emperor after the Ancient War, there must be something wrong about this.

    "It''s impossible for you to fall this easily."

    Slein was startled, he never expected that the emperor would give up his conquest so easily.

    The emperor shook his head and turn to Slien.

    "Slein, I didn''t give up too soon, but we are already lost, the nobles and officials will defect to them, almost all of them has any faith in me now."

    After a short period of silence, the emperor took the crown off his head.

    "Announce to the empire that I will retire, as for you, Slien, you are free to go wherever you want."

    After the emperor finished his decree, he stood up and walked to his chamber.

    Slein stood there silently, he didn''t know what to do.

 Chapter 2 : Hopeless Conclusion

    Although the decree that was quickly announced to the people of the empire didn''t tell the citizens about the Blood Emperor''s retirement and the underlying facts beneath the order, everyone with a normal mind would be able to figure it out with those pieces of information.

    Even though the decree declared that not even a single noble nor official was allowed to leave the capital city, they would still try to sneak out to pledge their loyalty to the demi-human and Tradio Mordus, the would-be new ruler of the soon-to-be ruined Human Empire, for the sake of their survival, they had already abandoned the humanity.

    ...

    Somewhere in the capital city of Human Empire.

    In an imposing mansion''s house lord''s office.

    There was a man in his middle age whose long greyish robe was worn out by the passage of time, despite that he was not that old yet, he looked like someone who had past his prime, due to all the stress he had to face during this period of crisis, his face was covered with wrinkles.

    He sat on his ordinary chair, on the wooden desk were many sheets of paper.

    Clearly, he was very busy.

    "This shouldn''t be happening, how could things turn out like this?"

    Aceros Manedis muttered as he slowly lost himself in his own thoughts.

    Aceros Manedis is the Grand Noble who is the highest ranking of all nobles, he had the same standing as the prime minister, if he didn''t defect to the demi-humans.

    He was no doubt the smartest and had the most flexible mind of all nobles, so he definitely knew that defecting to the demi-humans wasn''t the right choice, as it would spell doom for everyone who tried to do so.

    After all, who would want those selfish humans who could betray their close aids in the face of greater benefits for themselves?

    Those demi-humans would just torture all the defects to get as much knowledge of human''s society as possible, then they would kill off all the worthless nobles and officials, leaving only those with significant status to use whatever their corrupt methods had to force them to be spies in the inner circle of the empire.

    As Aceros was pondering about the overall situation, there was a sound of footsteps heading toward his office, followed by three consecutive knocks on the sturdy doorknob.

    He didn''t raise his head to the direction of that sound but merely spoke a few words.

    "You are permitted to speak but be quick, my time is precious."

    He said casually while still writing something on the sheet of paper.

    He obviously knew that his servants won''t disturb him when he was in his office, only when there was an important news that could shake the empire would they come to his office.

    "Master, there are messengers of the Pantheon waiting for you in the guest room."

    A feminine voice of a young maid travelled to his ears.

    The maid said softly yet clearly as she stood still outside the office, not making any other sound at all.

    Surely, she must have been trained for countless times until all of her actions were flawless, only by then could she serve her master proficiently.

    Aceros was astonished, although the reasons why the envoys of the Pantheon would abruptly visit him wasn''t many, any of them was enough to shock him because the Pantheon had remained on the neutral side of the political struggle from the very beginning.

    So their intention of visiting him was either because their vast intelligence networks had known that the emperor''s condition was worsening rapidly, or because they knew that the balance of politic powers was about to collapse.

    After he regained his sense, he recomposed himself very quickly, befitting his status of the Grand Noble.

    "Tell them that I will be there in minutes and go serve them some drinks, remember to treat them as respectful as possible."

    He commanded the maid and even reminded her of any possible offensive actions, that went to show how serious the situation was.

    Of course, his reason for letting her serve them wasn''t just to let her entertain them, but it was for her to confirmed their intentions.

    Every servant that served him would undergo many types of training, ranging from housework, noble dance, assassin training, seduction methods and so on so forth.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.

    Because this young girl was trained specially as a maid who would serve her master all the time as well as gather intelligence for her beloved master, so she had been trained to seduce her targets,

    to manipulate them for the intelligence for her master.

    While the beautiful maid who had the aura of refined lady gradually walked back to the guest room, Aceros himself was preparing everything necessary for his next battle of wordplays.

    ...

    An hour later.

    After Aceros finished his preparation and all his attire, he walked not too fast nor too slow toward the guest room, prepared to confront his opponents.

    Just as he about to knock on the door, he suddenly stopped, he had noticed that the room was absolutely silent, without any talking sound nor flattering sound at all.

    That''s only mean 1 thing, the maid wasn''t able to entice the envoys to leak the information, so she naturally didn''t push further beyond the line and would only try to entertain them, while maintaining her vigilance for any possible actions of the envoys.

    As soon as he reached the conclusion of his speculation, he began formulated his own plans and knocked on the door.

    After waiting for a while, he slowly opened the door and stepped in.

    At first, he saw a matured female, who wore a golden robe with blue lines craved on it, her face was as white as snow, her eyes shone beautifully like the full moon in the middle of the dark sky, her long blue hair gave an illusion as if the onlooker was appreciated the river in the calm wideness.

    Behind her was another female, who should be the knight if she was to be judged by her look, as she wore her usual knight attire and had a long dual-handed sword on her wrist, due to the fact that her face was covered with her helmet, no one knew how she looked like.

    "I apologise for having you to wait for me, lord envoys, this period of time had got me busy lately."

    He spoke out the formal apology while trying to detect any emotions that those envoys made.

    But contrasted to his expectation, both the envoy and her bodyguard didn''t display any emotion.

    Due to that, he couldn''t get any information about these two envoys, so, he decided to use his backup plan.

    He gestured his hand, signalling his maid to leave.

    After she left, he casually walked to his armed chair and sat down.

    "Lord envoys, this humble one would like to know why you would suddenly come to visit this one?"

    He decided to test the water by asking for some relevant pieces of information.

    "Sir Aceros, we are here to tell you the truth about the situation of the empire."

    The envoy didn''t speak, it was her bodyguard that spoke.

    Aceros was taken back because after they told him the so-called truth about the situation and their plans, he would have no other choice but to cooperate with them.

    "Lord envoys, this matter is too sensitive to be told casually, this humble one didn''t dare to listen to it."

    His underlying meaning in his message was clear.

    I won''t be ordered around by you and your organization.

    "Sir Aceros, the situation is very crucial to all of us, it''s revolved around the disappearance of your daughter."

    The envoy said in a low tone almost immediately.

    Your daughter is with us right now, your decision will decide her fate.

    Aceros was shocked, his expression distorted rapidly.

    But soon enough, he recomposed himself.

    He knew that the Pantheon, as an organization, had incredible power and far-reaching influence, second only to the imperial troops.

    In fact, they singlehandedly control almost all of the underground organizations, from assassinations to slaveries.

    With their invincible man-power, they can easily rescue his daughter back to safety, so they used this advantage as a bargaining chip.

    To comply or to lose your next family head.

    He gritted his teeth and spoke nonchalantly.

    "If she gets caught by those damn demi-humans, that means she is a fool, not befitted the status of the Grand Noble''s daughter."

    He slammed his hand against the table, creating a loud noise.

    "Thus, she isn''t qualified to be the next family head, so, she is worthless."

    His eyes turned ruthless, the atmosphere of the room seemingly dropped by one or two degrees.

    "Her life and death don''t matter to me."

    He spoke coldly, not minding anyone who sat before him.

    He stood up, gestured his hand, signalled the envoys to leave.

    "Lord envoys, I''m pleased to meet you, even though I would like to discuss more with you, I''m very busy at the moment."

    He clapped his hands, the young maid from before opened the door and stepped in.

    "You, see the guests off."

    He said calmly, but there was a flash of hatred in his eyes for an instant, any normal person wouldn''t notice it.

    "Farewell, Sir Aceros, I sincerely hoped that we will meet again."

    The envoy and her bodyguard bowed to him and were escorted away by the maid.

    ...

    After everyone except Aceros left.

    Exhausted, he sat down slowly on his chair as the tear started to rain down from his eyes to his face, he couldn''t hold it in anymore.

    The flash of his memory started to come back to him.

    The smiling face of a little girl and her innocent voice echoed in his head endlessly.

    "My little Relica, I''m sorry..."

    He whispered quietly, alone in the guest room.

    "I shouldn''t have let you go out..."

    If he knew any better.

    "I''m sorry, my dear..."

    He doesn''t want it to end like this.

    But he had no choice.

 Chapter 3 : Twisted Mind

    After the young maid escorted the envoy and her bodyguard out and left, the envoy suddenly stopped and gaze toward the mansion once more and let her own thoughts ran wild.

    "Your Highness, what should we do about that man''s daughter?"

    The bodyguard asked the holy saintess casually.

    After her bodyguard called out, the saintess who was in dazed snipped out of her own thoughts.

    "My beloved Calin, we shall advance as planned, but instead of rescuing her, hand her to those demi-humans and make sure they played with her so that after we ''helped'' her, we shall use her unstable emotions to purify her to become the believer."

    The saintess thought for a moment, then processed to answer the question.

    "Your judgements are akin to our pope''s orders."

    Calin unquestionably complied without any complaint.

    "This is all for humanity."

    The saintess muttered softly as she walked to her carriage.

    ...

    As Calin was chatting with her saintess inside the carriage, a dark shadow suddenly manifested itself in the carriage, it morphed into a dark figure, an assassin from the Pantheon.

    The dark figure kneeled down to the floor, it lightly kissed the saintess'' foot before withdrew and respectfully kneel before her.

    "Your Highness, the organization called the Outsider has made its move, they are coming to rescue Relica, it seems that there are traitors amount us the believers."

    Its emotionless voice was distorted, like an animal who didn''t have its own voice.

    The saintess'' mood darkened noticeably as she bit her own lip.

    "What could be their purpose?"

    She muttered to herself.

    The Outsider, a mysterious organization that had strangely appeared since the Ancient Era.

    Their power was unmeasurable, their technology was most likely came from the Ancient Era.

    "Go tell the pope about this news as soon as possible."

    The saintess commanded the assassin.

    The assassin bowed once more and processed to back off into the darkness and disappeared.

    "This is going to be amusing."

    The saintess smiled and giggled as she continued to appreciate the peaceful scenery.

    What could she be thinking?

    Calin questioned herself; she couldn''t comprehend what her childhood friend and the assassin talked about.

    It doesn''t matter anyway, I only need to listen to her.

    She shook her head mentally, she knew that her friend always made the right choices.

    "Your Highness, I could tell you about these flowers, if you like."

    ...

    In the middle of the forest.

    "Please escape during the time we distract them, young miss."

    A warrior shouted as he pulled out his sword, along with many others that followed closely.

    "How could I leave you and escape by myself?"

    The young miss responded with a hint of sadness in her trembling voice.

    With the survival of their young miss as the goal, the servants set out for a suicidal mission.

    "Look at those lowly humans, even though I admire their courage, the courage alone won''t change the outcome without strength."

    An evil-looking elf laughed.

    "You breasts, go capture that beauty for me."

    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.He gestured his hand to signal other demi-humans to go.

    She looks amazing, I wonder how she would taste like.

    He rubbed his hands together as he fantasized his own fantasy.

    "You demi-human!"

    A young miss'' servant rushed to the elf as he slashed his sword toward the elf.

    "Weakling."

    The elf raised his own dagger to parry the servant''s sword before he stabbed rapidly to the man''s stomach.

    The young man screamed, but the dagger didn''t stop.

    The elf kept cutting open the man''s stomach until the organs inside poured out.

    Only until this moment that the man scream died down.

    "Stop your useless struggle or continue to die a torturous death, choose wisely."

    The demi-humans around the elf said with fear in their eyes as they kept glaring at the elf.

    Frighten by the scene, the remaining humans lost all wills to resist and kneeled down on the blood-red ground.

    They let go of their weapons as well as their hope for survival.

    Only that beauty would be able to satisfy my thirst for blood.

    The elf lost his interest when he didn''t feel anything, he wanted the feeling of excitement when he elegantly cut through the body of the humans, but it didn''t happen.

    He sat down on a blood-soaked rock, waiting for his girl to come while killing his time with his little game.

    After a few rounds of screams, a female could be seen from afar, being dragged by the remaining demi-human to offer her to their lord.

    "What do you want from me?"

    The young miss spoke softly, she didn''t harbour hope anymore.

    The elf point at the girl.

    "I just want you, you alone."

    The elf replied hurriedly, a flash of unexplainable excitement leaked out from his voice.

    "You think that I want to be with you?"

    The girl had a strong will, she immediately retorted the elf while her eyes kept looking for the escape routes.

    But what she saw next truly shaken her soul.

    Behind the handsome elf, lied many dead bodies, their skins had been skinned out, organs spattered, eyes pulled out, leaving only the blood-red muscles and bones.

    The elf stunned for a second, then he laughed, a laughing noise that sounded like a devil''s cry of a demon from hell.

    "I don''t need your consent."

    He replied happily, like a child who had got his new toy.

    "Firstly, you look beautiful, but not enough; you need to change."

    The mad elf hummed a song before he took out a mystical ring.

    He was trying to do a complete makeup for the terrified female.

    The artefacts.

    The unique treasures that came from the Ancient Era used to store all kinds of items, with unexplainable functions like time freeze, a pocket-dimension where everything was stored didn''t follow the concept of time, but because of that, no living beings could be stored in the artefacts.

    Every single one of these treasures couldn''t be created in the Morning Star Era since the method to do so had been lost throughout the history, so all of them was every precious, enough to cause a massacre.

    The mad elf spent many resources to acquire one, just to satisfy his own desires.

    After the sun fled from the soul-shattering screams to hide, the sinister dark moon arose to its thone on the crimson sky.

    A shaking female elf who was abandoned alone in the forest was sitting mindlessly on the dirty rocks.

    She started to observe her body, touching her long pointy ears and her attractive face.

    Suddenly, she started crying, then followed by a long scream and ended with a bitter smile, a face of those who accepted their own downfall.

    Due to her elf''s body, her sense had been enchanted, she could hear the footsteps of a lot of humanoid beings coming toward her.

    She decided to hide for her own safety first and processed to hide in the bush a little bit farther away from where she woke up.

    They turned out to be humans.

    A man at the front looked around before he sighed.

    "We were too late, we lost her."

    Everyone expressed dejected emotion.

    "Those evil Pantheon must have her."

    Another man angrily shouted, but immediately regretted his thoughtless action.

    "Quiet down, somebody might still be here."

    The man in the front, who was the leader said to another man.

    The female elf turned stiff, she was very afraid of getting caught.

    "How could the Pantheon do this, this is too much."

    The leader shockingly muttered to himself as he saw the dissected corpses lying around.

    But there was an addition of female human skin, but no female body was found.

    "Anyway, let us go back to report to the head, he might be able to do something against this."

    The leader gestured his hand and started moving back from the direction the team came from, everyone else silently followed him.

    After the team left, the female elf still didn''t move, she waited for half an hour before she collapsed on the ground, crying.

    She remembered the mad elf''s words as she muttered to herself.

    "I changed..."

    She changed too much, she became entirely another being.

    "Can I still call you my father with this body?"

    She missed her father, his heart-warming expression.

    He was the most precious person in her life.

    "I''m sorry, but I became the same thing as the monster that killed all of you."

    The blood started pouring out of her blue eyes, but strangely, her facial expression didn''t change, it was incapable of changing.

    Her blue eyes slowly changing to red eyes as well as her very soul.

    That day, the human daughter of the Grand Noble named Relica was no more, only the elf princess of the Demi-human Kingdom remained.

    She stood there, smiling before she started to plot her next move with her new-found body, pleasure, desire, and madness.

    That day, she changed.

 Chapter 4 : Fateful Encounter

    The Outsider, an organization originated from the far past of the Ancient Era, with incomprehensible influence and information network.

    Although they had been set back and fell from their peak during the Timeless War, their power was still the force not to be reckoning with.

    With their leader and personnel unknown, it was impossible to go against such a behemoth.

    As the saintess read the documents about the history of the Outsider at the Pantheon''s headquarter, the door had been gently opened, a female wearing priestess uniform could be seen walking toward the saintess.

    She stopped in front of the saintess and stretched her hands to embrace the saintess before she kissed the saintess'' hand.

    Satisfied by the maid greeting, the saintess caressed the young girl''s lovely face for few seconds before resuming her dignified appearance.

    The Priestess'' face darkened, she respectfully kneeled on the floor before she announced the bad news.

    "Your Highness, the daughter of the Grand Noble has disappeared overnight, it seems that the Outsider has kidnapped her."

    Her voice was trembling, afraid of the wrath of the saintess.

    The saintess frowned, she did not expect the sudden change of the overall situation.

    "What about the witness, anyone who travelled with her?"

    She asked the priestess, hoping for something useful.

    But contrasted to her expectation, the priestess shook her head.

    "There were some traces of offensive magic and healing magic but those were merely one of the normal tiers of magic spell, indicated that there was no wizard nor spell caster involved."

    She continued to ponder for a while, suddenly, she seemed to remember something important so she quickly told it to the saintess.

    "There were a lot of skinless male corpses and a skin of a female human but no female corpse was found."

    Her face was pale as she remembered the gruesome scene that she experienced.

    "No, that shouldn''t be the Outsider''s doing."

    The saintess muttered to herself.

    Although the Outsider was a mysterious organization with an unknown background, they were in the end, a human organization.

    They would never do something out of the line like tortured the innocent humans.

    Did the demi-human or the Undying successfully sneak into our empire?

    The possibility wasn''t high, but it wasn''t low either.

    "This might be the plot from the demi-human, send the message to the pope about the news immediately."

    She instructed the priestess and gestured her to leave.

    The priestess kissed her hand lightly before respectfully walk away.

    After a long while, the saintess waved her hand, the temperature around the room suddenly dropped, the magic formation that was hidden in the room shone brightly, a figure could be seen appear as a shadow in the middle of the formation.

    But the shadow of that being wasn''t that of a human.

    It was a floating skeleton.

    "Lich..."

    The lich was one of the upper echelons of the Undying race, they were master of schemes and dark magic.

    "Why did the demi-humans appear in the Human Empire?"

    The saintess demanded the answer from the lich.

    "Huh, why did you think that it was the demi-human and not the demon?"

    The lich didn''t move but it used some sort of mental communication to tell its intentions.

    "Do you think that I am an idiot?"

    Although the saintess was very upset about this humiliation, still, she maintained her dignified exterior, she had some self-control.

    Unlike those fools.

    Of course, the Undying wouldn''t leave the useful corpses behind, and the demons were too busy with their own problems to come out from Hell.

    The lich laughed, the sound that it produced was only some distorted noise that couldn''t make sense of.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

    "I am surprised that the saintess of the Pantheon would be willing to stoop so low to made a deal with us."

    The lich teased the saintess lightly.

    "Do not mistake me for a traitor, I will do anything for the survival of humanity."

    Even if she needed to play the role of a villain.

    "It''s better to continue to exist with you, the Undying than be massacred by the demi-humans."

    The saintess spoke seriously.

    The situation of the empire was far worse than it appeared to be, although the citizens were living in peace, the nobles and officials were trying to pledge their loyalty to the demi-human and abandoned the Human Empire.

    "We don''t know why there are the demi-humans at your empire, they might be a part of the Masked."

    The lich explained in detail about the possible circumstances.

    "Because of the unpredictable change, I will compensate you with these things, for your own safety."

    The lich said and, at the same time, manipulate the magic to take a ring and a scroll out and opened a warp to toss it at the saintess.

    The saintess stepped sideways to avoid the floating ring and the scroll that came toward her.

    "You sure are generous, gifting me such useful artefacts."

    The saintess was startled, but her face didn''t show any of it.

    "In the end, you still didn''t trust me."

    The lich said as its shadow slowly dissolved into the darkness.

    "Farewell, I hope that the next time we meet, things would be different."

    The lich said again, but weirdly, the sound that it produced wasn''t distorted but filled with emotion.

    As if it was a human.

    The saintess didn''t say anything but only nodded at it.

    After the lich was gone, the atmosphere of the room regained its former temperature.

    The saintess still didn''t dare pick up those artefacts that the lich gave her, afraid of those unknown curses and corrupted methods of the Undying.

    She used her holy magic to inspected the artefacts after nothing happened, she picked them up carefully before stored them in her pocket.

    "If this plan succeeds, will I be able to help you?"

    The saintess muttered to herself, the memories of the distant past played in her head as she gazed into the wildness.

    He is everything to her.

    If only he was still alive.

    ...

    After the lich finished communicating with the saintess, it went back to its laboratory, doing its own research about the Ancient Era.

    Why do I feel so familiar with this thing?

    Its emotion was in disarray as it stared at an old painting for a long time, unable to move its gaze anywhere else.

    It first found the painting in a ruin, possibly a tomb of a Sage during the Ancient Era.

    The painting was about a young refined lady who wore a light-yellow robe, standing still while gazing at the sky.

    She had the aura of holiness around her, like an immortal, like a saintess from above.

    The lady in the painting was so beautiful, that anyone who saw her would admire her endlessly.

    But for the Undying, these things simply mean garbage to them.

    Despite that the Undying would have no interest in these things, this lich could only look at the saintess in the painting endlessly, it felt like the woman in the painting was someone it knew during the life before the Undying.

    The Undying naturally came from the corpses of the living being, but they would retain no memory during their life, much less lingering feeling before their death.

    But there will always be an exception to everything, like this lonely lich.

    It was lost in the darkness, with no one to guide it, it didn''t know anything about the living being, much less the emotions they felt.

    The lich couldn''t tell nor explain the emotions that it felt to anyone because the lich itself couldn''t even begin to understand them.

    So it kept experimenting with the emotions, by doing varies tests about the living being.

    But the emotions that it got would only be "fear", "hatred", and "lost".

    These emotions were useless to the lich, it only wanted to know what it was feeling.

    After a long time of testing, they yielded no result.

    So it turned to another way, to experience with the living being closely.

    It kept making deals with the demi-humans, demons and humans.

    Still, it couldn''t find that sensation that it felt.

    Until it found her.

    Until it found that lady with the holy magic.

    When it was dealing with those greedy nobles, it saw her, sitting on the carriage, admiring the flowers with her bodyguard.

    For the second time in its existence, it felt that same emotion when it looked into the painting of the beautiful lady.

    It felt happiness, like its existence, had a meaning, a purpose.

    The lich had walked out of the void inside its mind, it had the answer to its question.

    After it found her, the lich kept finding every information about her, no matter how useless it is, it wanted all of them.

    Sometime later, it found out that she was a saintess from the organization called the Pantheon.

    But it couldn''t care about that, it only wanted to see her again.

    The first thing it did was to make a deal with her, hoping to interact with her more in the future.

    Despite the benefits that wasn''t much at all, it still agreed to help the saintess, it wanted her to be happy.

    After it knew that something irregular had happened, the lich immediately contacted her to see if she got hurt anywhere, it even gifted her two of its most valuable artefacts, just to protect her for every harm she might meet.

    Although it wanted her, it feared that she wouldn''t accept it, so the lich locked its emotions deep inside its rotten heart, waiting to be itself to be more perfect for her acceptance.

    It couldn''t afford to lose her again.

    If it couldn''t be with her in its life, then it will be with her in its death.

    But after the lich saw her distrustful behaviour, it felt sad and heartbroken, it wanted her to accept it, it want her to be together with it, the lich only wanted to be with her.

    The lich wished to get its own memory back and find a way to become a human being again, just for her, just to be with her, for all eternity.

    Or if it could change her to be like it, so that she would be together with it, forever.

    The lich kept pondering about its decision, that would change the saintess life permanently.

 Chapter 5 : Hope Within Despair

    The enormous door of the emperor palace was violently pushed open.

    The loud noise travelled in all direction within the palace, causing fear and awe to those who heard it.

    A dignified man could be seen walking into the palace, accomplished by the beautiful maids and refined officials.

    He wore his royal robe instead of his usual armour, but, he still had his sword that radiated the draconic aura on his waist, the Dragon Slayer, one of the artefacts that the empire still had.

    Although the aura he emitted was tyrannical like the powerful warrior whose stomps could shake the entire empire, he was very obedient toward the old man who was sitting on the imperial throne, the Blood Emperor.

    "Father."

    The man, the first prince, kneeled and bowed respectfully toward his father, the emperor.

    "My son, you shouldn''t be here, you should lead the army to reclaim the land at the south."

    The emperor spoke to his son gently, not as the emperor of the empire, but as the father of the son.

    "Nothing is more important than your well being, father."

    He slowly stood up, still, he didn''t dare to look into the emperor''s eyes, afraid of seeing those disappointments in his father''s eyes.

    How could the most brilliant emperor of the history have the weak-mind son?

    The first prince was only great at fighting and leading the army, but he wasn''t excelled at controlling the political scene, that would be the second princess.

    But unknown to him, the Blood Emperor favoured him.

    "If you continued to be alive and healthy, then the empire will never fall."

    Such an overbearing statement was uttered by the first prince, but, no one could disagree with it, the Blood Emperor had the ability to do so.

    He knew to himself that he could never succeed his father''s reign.

    He knew that his sister, the second princess, could never be as good as his father, she was too naive and inexperienced.

    That was why he insisted that the Blood Emperor must not be exposed to any possible harm.

    For the continuation of the empire, he would risk himself his life on the bloody battlefield.

    For the continuation of the empire, he would overwork himself until he collapsed to dust.

    This was the mentality that every royal of the empire had, that was why the empire never fell before.

    While the first prince was pondering about the future of the empire, the Blood Emperor suddenly spoke.

    "My child, you should know that my time has come to an end, my reign will end in this generation."

    The Emperor closed his eyes, he had already accepted the inevitable outcome.

    The emperor stood up.

    "Everyone except the first prince, get out."

    The emperor ordered the royal guards with his dignified appearance, completely different from when he was talking to his son.

    After everyone except the prince left, the emperor held something in his hand.

    It was an old silver key, its appearance was ruined by endless the river of time.

    "In this generation, there is only me, the emperor, who has the right to know about this legend."

    The emperor then told the usage of the ancient key.

    "Because you were the first prince and your loyalty to the empire was proven, you have the right to know about it."

    The emperor''s voice was very serious, the weight of this secret is immersed.

    "You must swear an oath to not tell anyone about this, except for those who are the most loyal of them all."

    After he said that, the emperor then handed the prince a scroll, an instruction of the oath.

    Once the oath was finished, the first prince could feel that his heart was chained by something, he knew that if he broke his oath, his heart will be ripped into millions of piece by the Oath Chain.

    "The feeling of binding will be gone once you get used to it."

    The emperor was definitely aware of this sensation because he had once made the same oath with the previous emperor.

    "This key was the only treasure that was passed down from the Great Emperors to the next, the most valuable artefact of them all."This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    The prince was startled.

    In the history that everyone learnt, everything from the Ancient Era was lost, not even a single artefact survived.

    The artefacts that we used in the Morning Star Era was only the replica created from the Dark Age, they were nowhere near the power of the original one.

    But the prince was overjoyed, if the Human Empire still had a real artefact, then defeating the demi-human and the Undying was possible.

    The Blood Emperor noticed the change in his son''s expression, he shook his head silently.

    "This artefact is not the offensive type, my son."

    The Blood Emperor continued to explain its worth.

    "It is something that the Great Emperor specially stated, ''if someday the human faced with the threat of total annihilation, you could use this key to at the Forbidden Palace, it will be humanity''s last hope of survival.

    "''But, do not use it under any circumstances that didn''t threaten the survival of Humanity, because, the consequences of your action might doom the Humanity itself''"

    The emperor warned his son about the key.

    "The name of this artefact is Despair."

    The emperor then closed his eyes, he felt relaxed, the huge weight had been lifted off his mind.

    But he knew that the story didn''t end here, even so, he couldn''t tell his son about the long-lost myth, the legend of the Supreme Emperor.

    ...

    Today marked the celebration date of the beginning of the Morning Star Era.

    Almost every human had gathered at the capital, waiting to celebrate and to see the Blood Emperor coming out to give a speech.

    However, the upper echelon was in turmoil, because many nobles and officials were absent, perhaps they already defected to the demi-humans.

    At the Emperor Palace.

    The Blood Emperor was sitting on the exalted throne, beside him was his trust aid, Slein.

    In front of the emperor stood two royalty, the man was the first prince and the woman was the second princess.

    Only those two had enough power to be able to stand with the Blood Emperor, the other royalty could only watch with envy and greed.

    They had already known that they couldn''t compete with the two, so they were set to befriend with the two, hoping for them to success the throne.

    The Grand Noble stood up silently, waiting for the emperor''s signal.

    The Emperor gestured his hand, allowing the Grand Noble to speak.

    "Everyone, as you may know, a lot of us were absent, but, let us not worry about them, for there is an even more pressing issue here."

    After he finished speaking, Aceros looked up to the Blood Emperor.

    The Emperor slowly stood up and placed down his imperial crown.

    Every royalty, official and noble descended into the state of panic.

    For the emperor to place down his crown.

    If any emperor placed his crown down, that would signal the retirement of the emperor.

    Although the old emperor retired was very normal, but, to retire during the state of war mean one thing, the situation was beyond the emperor''s control.

    Even more so when that emperor was the Blood Emperor, the unrivalled emperor who stood above all else in the Morning Era.

    The Human Empire is doomed.

    Everyone thought about the same thing, the dark future of the empire.

    While everyone was in dazed, the retired emperor spoke.

    "Summon the Pantheon and followed me to the Forbidden Palace."

    ...

    "Pardon my rudeness your highness, but, the Pope had sent your highness his decree, the Lord''s decree stated that your highness, the saintess, will go and answer the summon of the Blood Emperor."

    The dark figure spoke with respect before vanishing into thin air.

    The saintess just nodded, but, her hand gripped tightly on the artefacts.

    ...

    In the dark forest near the border of the Human Empire and the Demi-human Kingdom.

    A giant demi-human came into a luxurious hall before he kneeled on the ground and showed his respect toward the slender figure who sat gratefully on the elevated cathedra.

    "Your Highness, according to our implanted spies, the Blood Emperor had summoned the Pantheon to the Emperor Palace."

    The demi-human spoke nervously, afraid of offending the figure.

    "Was the Grand Noble there?"

    The figure asked curiously, her voice was like a drug that everyone would get addicted to.

    Sadly, she covered half of her face, leaving only her mouth exposed.

    The demi-human blanked out from her memorised voice for a short while, before regaining himself and reported the news hurry.

    "Yes, your highness, the despicable Grand Noble that caused us to lose numerous war was there."

    The demi-human was angry just by thinking about that man, Aceros, because he was too smart, his intellect could challenge even all wisdom of the general combined.

    If not for him, the demi-human won''t suffer this much.

    Suddenly, the figure stood up abruptly.

    "Cripple him."

    She said again, but this time, her voice wasn''t as memorised as before, it turned hostile.

    The black smoke swiftly appeared and surrounded the giant, before they broke his arms and legs.

    The hellish screams echoed through the hall, making the atmosphere turned sinister.

    After the giant stopped screaming, the figure covered in vail slowly descended from her cathedra to the giant.

    "Leave and don''t let anyone come here, if they come, kill them all."

    Her voice this time turned completely distorted, like a demonic evil from hell that swallowed the soul of the living.

    The dark smoke gradually dissolved into the darkness.

    "You shouldn''t insult him."

    She pulled out a magical knife, incomparably sharp artefact that she obtained from killing a few useless royalties of the kingdom.

    She used her self-made curse, the dark red sign appeared on the giant''s throat, making him unable to speak.

    Then she began to decorate the giant into her favourite doll.

    He would make a good servant for me to protect my new family.

    Wait for me, father.

    I will free you from the prison called ''body''.

    I will let you feel the joyous sensation of this new body.

    You will be like me, beautiful and elegant.

    We will be together, forever, and, ever.

    For, all, eternity.

    Relica hummed her childhood song that her pitiful father usually sung it to her, while the soundless screams that came from the soul travelled in all direction, never to be heard by anyone, except for the memorised figure that was playing with her lifeless doll.

 Chapter 6 : Ancient Mage

    "Your Majesty, the Blood Emperor."

    The saintess kneeled down and bowed toward the emperor with absolute respect.

    "This lowly one has come here in place of the Pope because his holiness wasn''t able to come here in time, please pardon us for our inability to follow the emperor''s decree."

    The saintess spoke not too slow or too fast, but clearly, she was very nervous.

    To be able to see such a flawless ruler in her lifetime was the blessing in and out of itself.

    "Let''s us not waste any time and head to the Forbidden Palace, Grand Noble, tell the saintess the necessary information she needed to know."

    The emperor commanded.

    The saintess was startled, but she regained her compose shortly after.

    After the commanded had been announced, the Blood Emperor calmly stood up and walked toward the heavily guarded palace behind the Emperor Palace.

    He was followed by his two most outstanding descendants, the first prince and the second princess.

    The rest soon surpassed their excitement and quickly followed them.

    ...

    Before the emperor was an era-old entrance, it was sealed by multiple restrictions that were from at least the Ancient Era, with no way to solve the restrictions, the palace was always sealed up.

    Until today.

    Just before the nobles started to discuss the palace, an envoy unexpectedly rushed toward the Blood Emperor.

    "Pardon this servant rudeness, your majesty."

    The envoy hastily bowed toward the emperor.

    "The demi-human had captured many officials and nobles at the border of our empire, however, they haven''t killed any of them yet, the elf princess demanded that the Grand Noble and the Blood Emperor must go there immediately, for they will kill one every hour."

    The envoy retreated back after he finished speaking.

    "Your majesty, please save them."

    The uproar had started within the circle of the nobles and officials.

    The Grand Noble shook his head silently, waiting for the emperor''s decree.

    "We have no need to keep them alive, those who were captured are the betrayers of the empire."

    The second princess said with confidence, waiting for the emperor to compliment her.

    A smile emerged on the Grand Noble face, but the emperor only nodded at her.

    This is the true royalty, filled with wisdom and confidence.

    The Grand Noble thought so.

    As the second princess felt down, the first prince quickly came to consult her.

    After the hassle died down, the emperor slowly raised his hand and chanted an unknown word, probably magic spell.

    A colourful ring on his index finger started to shine brightly with golden beam shooting toward the blue sky.

    While everyone was shocked, a figure slowly faded into existence.

    That figure was an old man, he wore a black loose robe, almost his entire body was concealed with unexplainable grey fog, everything else that the figure wore was unknown to all.

    In this palace, there were only five persons who knew the identity of this old man.

    "We give our greeting to Grand Archmage."

    The first prince, the second princess, the saintess and the Grand Noble bowed toward the elderly figure.

    "It''s been a long time, old friend."

    The emperor smiled, this old man was his closest friend and he is also the only one who is still alive.

    "You have never come to me just to see me, tell me, what happen this time?"

    The old man said with a sense of relaxation in his voice.

    "The lost era of legend."

    The emperor said some vague words in a serious manner.

    The old man suddenly turned stiffed, he mumbled something unrecognisable.

    Suddenly, a huge amount of magical fog surrounded the Blood emperor and the Grand Archmage, effectively block all senses from the outside from observing them.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

    As the uproar was once again come back, but this time, the Grand Noble was the one who stopped it.

    "That senior is our legendary Grand Archmage, so there is no need to worry about the safety of his majesty, because with him there, that place is the safest place on this plane."

    The nobles and officials looked at both the prince and the princess, after seeing that the two were calm, they felt that their worry wasn''t necessary.

    ...

    Within the mist of concealment.

    "So, what''s happen during my seclusion?"

    The mage asked the emperor.

    "The Great King of the demi-human is too powerful, we won the small battle, but lost the overall war."

    The emperor said to the archmage.

    After a long absence of sound, the Grand Archmage asked the Blood Emperor again just to confirm.

    "Are you really going to use it?"

    His voice was filled with worry and anxiety.

    He, as the strongest mage of the empire, knew the formidable power of the Ancient Era, the Morning Star Era was just the shadow of the legacy of the legend.

    Despair was one of the strongest artefacts of the Human Empire, but the cost of using it was unimaginable.

    "But, is this really the scenarios that the Grand Emperors wish for us to use?"

    The mage was unsure, even in the Timeless War, the Grand Emperor didn''t dare to use it.

    "There is no such thing like that, my friend, the usage of this artefact was for the survival of the humanity, the Timeless War had no impact on the survival of the empire."

    The emperor explained.

    "Who else knew about it other than you and me?"

    The old mage asked.

    "Only my son."

    Said the emperor.

    "Let hope that fate is still on our side."

    Both of them said softly.

    The Grand Archmage gestured his hand strangely.

    ...

    "Look, the mist is slowly disappearing."

    Someone shouted, attracting everyone attention.

    Everyone regained their compose, they silently watched the fog dissolved.

    They saw two figures coming out of the fog, they were the Blood Emperor and the Grand Archmage.

    "Father, Lord Mage."

    The two prince and princess quickly ran toward their father and bowed to both the emperor and old man.

    "Your majesty, what do you want to do?"

    The Grand Noble humbly asked the emperor, for the Grand Archmage to come, the situation was very serious.

    Slowly, the Blood Emperor pulled an unknown object out, it was a silver key, but the feeling it gave off was much more profound than any artefact Aceros had ever seen.

    Suddenly, the temperature around the palace started to drop, to the point where the coldness could penetrate the skin of any normal human.

    But, every noble and official had to learn basic uses of magic, so they have no problem withstood the coldness.

    Only the first prince and Slein that couldn''t use any magic, but as the two were one of the strongest warriors of the empire, their body had already broken through the limit of the human, their body could easily endure the skin-piercing cold.

    The beautiful yet ancient palace turned sinister the moment the key was taken out, the dark mist started to pour out of the gap between the structure of the Forbidden Palace.

    There were scrambled mess of laughing of the madman, crying of the maiden, echoed within one''s own mind, begging to be released from this cursed hall.

    Some of the nobles and officials abruptly shouted some unknowable language, some suddenly crying and collapsed to the ground.

    As everyone was about to break out running for their own lives, the mage pulled out a magnificent torch, it was engraved with the golden symbols.

    The moment the torch lighted up, the barrier of light was formed, not even a single evil entities were able to cross the barrier without getting burnt by the golden flame.

    The one that was shouting unknown language regained his sanity,

    but he was traumatized, unable to speak for a long time.

    But unfortunately, the one that collapsed on the ground made no movement, his eyes were lifeless, his soul couldn''t be safe anymore.

    After the incident, everyone had learnt their lesson, they all tried to stick close to the royalty and the old mage.

    ...

    While everything was happening in the empire

    The spies had arrived at the kingdom of demi-humans.

    "Your majesty, the humans haven''t sent anyone to negotiate with us yet."

    The spy said while kneeling on the ground with his head touched the floor.

    "There is no surprise about that, if the emperor was that stupid, the empire would have been ours already."

    The Great King of the demi-humans said lightly as he continued to slip the finest wine.

    After a moment of thinking, the elven king suddenly asked the spy.

    "What about the information of our new princess, my beautiful Relica?"

    The royalties of the demi-humans weren''t decided by the bloodline, they were handpicked from the best of them all, every race of demi-humans could be the royalties if their talent excess others.

    The newest elf princess of the Demi-human Kingdom, Relica, had the best talent in magic and planning of all the royalties, rival even the Great King, with her secret intelligent network, she could find any information about the empire.

    And her figure was stunningly beautiful, even made the Great King fell for her.

    But her origin was a complete mystery, some even said that she was the true descendant of the royalty of the Ancient Era.

    "Her Highness the princess Relica is now rushing back to the capital, your majesty, in about a week, she would be yours to take."

    The spy excitedly spoke.

    The princess was her superior, if she could get into the good book of the king, she would definitely have a good future.

    "What would you do about the rest of the noble and official, your majesty?"

    Another elf asked the king.

    "Spare them, for now, they still have their uses."

    The Great King grinned, the master plan started to formulate within his mind.

    A plan that would crumble the foundation of the Human Empire, for the glory of the Demi-human Kingdom.

    ...

    As the silver key glowed brighter, the magical force within nature started to get sucked into the ancient key, making the atmosphere uncomfortable.

    Everyone except the emperor and the mage felt suffocated because of the absence of the magical force of nature.

    The symbols that were engraved on the structure of the entire Forbidden Palace started to glow.

    The palace itself used to be like an old ancient ruin, but it transformed into the heavenly kingdom, one could only imagine the holiness of the inside of the palace.

    As everyone was surveying at the marvellous palace, the loud noise travelled in all direction.

    And slowly, the large gate of judgement started to open.

 Chapter 7 : Ethereal Wonder

    Slowly yet steadily, the gate that stood against the flow of time since the Ancient Era began to open.

    Within the gap of the moving gate, the wonder of the world, inside the Forbidden Palace was filled with colourful and sparkling crystals, each and every one of them held the incredible wealth beyond normal person''s imagination.

    The first thing that the emperor and the rest saw was the giant black pillar, there was unknown language engraved on it, the material of this mysterious pillar was unknown, but to be able to remain unscathed since the long past, it must be extraordinary.

    As everyone was eager to rush into the heaven on earth, the strange repression force pushed everyone except the Blood Emperor, the Grand Archmage, and the prince and princess.

    Then, there was an emotionless sound rang within everyone''s soul.

    Only the emperor and the mage knew about this age-old language.

    "Everyone, in front of us is the Forbidden Palace, only the one with pure bloodline of the Emperors and mages at least Archmage could enter."

    The emperor said solemnly.

    Everyone was too shocked to think about anything, they could only stand there silently, not knowing what to do.

    "Everyone else must stay at our palace, and if anyone told the outsider about what happened today."

    There is no need to say anymore, everyone was scared stiff.

    So, everyone else was escorted by Slien, heading back to the Emperor Palace.

    The first prince and the second princess looked at the Blood Emperor and Grand Archmage, soon they followed the two into the wondrous palace, the secret hidden from the world began unravelling before their own eyes.

    The first thing they saw was the strange black pillar, both the emperor and the mage went ahead to read the engraved symbols.

    "The first Wonder before you is the Hall of Crisis, the hope for the restoration of the empire lied within here."

    The mage spoke the translated version of the symbols, just for the prince and princess.

    Behind the black pillar were two black vaults, probably made with the same material like that black pillar, in front of the vault was a magical sentence created from the glowing ancient runes, floating aimlessly.

    "The first vault contained wealth enough to rebuild the capital of the ancient empire."

    "To open the vault, one must have a drop of the Emperors or their descendants'' blood, or performed the seal breaking ritual of the Archmage in front of the vault."

    Everyone in the Hall of Crisis was shocked because all Archmages in the empire were the legend of their own, they numbered less than one hundred, scattered across the Morning Star era, to meet one was the greatest honour of their life.

    Even the Grand Archmage is only a step above Archmage, he had to live for centuries, just to reach Archmage and spent countless years and luck to reach where he was right now.

    But compared to the treasure the vault held inside, the need for the Archmage was really justified.

    "The second vault contained wealth enough to buy the entire demi-human kingdom."

    "The requirement to open the vault is an imperial artefact and a drop of Emperor''s bloodline, or seal breaking ritual of the Grand Archmage."

    The imperial artefact was the artefact that the emperors of the humanity personally used, by dripping their blood into the artefacts, they will recognise their owner.

    Although the wealth to buy the demi-human kingdom was unbelievable, but that was the kingdom of the past when they were still the slaves of the humanity.

    Even so, the wealth of this calibre was still something that the current empire couldn''t compare to, as it was on its last leg.

    "So many treasures, with all of this, we will be able to withstand the demi-humans'' invasion."

    The second princess said proudly, she wanted to impress her father.

    But, contested to her expectation, the emperor and the first prince shook their heads.

    "With only wealth, one could only go so far, there is not much time left, it is impossible to strengthen ourselves with just this amount of time, wealth alone couldn''t do it, everything has a limit too."

    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.The first prince explained to her younger, naive sister.

    With no more treasures that could save the future of the empire, they headed toward the elegant white door, there was indeed a sentence formed by the sparkling runes.

    "To enter the next room, one must insert an imperial artefact on the Door of Greed."

    Without any communication, the first prince pulled out his Dragon Slayer and stabbed it gently into the gap between the door.

    Suddenly, the vision of everyone within the Hall of Crysis went white, after the whiteness died down, all of them found themselves in a completely strange realm.

    They weren''t in the Forbidden Palace anymore, they were in a throne room, there were many royal guards who wore the greyish armour, made from another unknown material, stood in the straight line waiting for someone.

    After a short moment of observing the divine hall, an old man had been seen walking slowly toward the throne, he wore a white lose robe and his aura was as calm as the ocean.

    The moment he sat on his eternal throne, his aura multiplied by orders of magnitude, nearly suffocated the weak second princess.

    "This is the record of me, the Scholar Emperor."

    The Scholar Emperor said with a hint of sadness.

    "If you are seeing this record, that means the Hall of Crisis wasn''t able to help you to overcome the enemies, the next Wonder is the Storage of Disaster, which stored a large amount of the imperial artefacts since the ancient time, but, each of them needs to have the soul of our descendant bind with them."

    The old sage pulled out an odd looking book.

    "This is my imperial artefact, the Book of Learning in which it recorded the knowledge of the magic spell and demonic ritual."

    He handed the book toward them, they watched as the book slowly disappeared.

    "Lastly, I prayed that the second Wonder is all it needed to overcome the formidable threat humanity is facing."

    The Scholar Emperor waved his hand, many mysterious looking runes began to appear as his hand move.

    The runes connected to each other, creating a grand formation covering the entire sky.

    The strong light came forth from all direction and everything went white once again.

    ...

    After they regained their vision, they were back at the Forbidden Palace, inside the Hall of Crisis again.

    "So that must be the legendary Time Crystal."

    The excited mage held his new book tightly.

    "Old friend, what is this magical Time Crystal?"

    Others were very curious as well.

    "It is the legendary recording device, said to be able to store any movement or sound for any given amount of time, they were even more precious than the artefacts during the Ancient Era, legend stated that there was only one Time Crystal in the entire empire."

    Time Crystal, even the Grand Emperors weren''t willing to use one unless it was absolutely necessary, wealth alone simply couldn''t buy it.

    "To be able to afford such a treasure, the origin of this Forbidden Palace sure is incomprehensible, that great emperor, the Scholar Emperor, he should be even before the Ancient Era."

    Before the Ancient Era was the untraceable era, not a single valid information could be found, the only thing they knew was even the great figures of the ancient still didn''t know anything about it, the Grand Emperors weren''t willing to speak about it.

    Even if the rumours of the said era was found, there were nowhere to justified their truthfulness.

    The emperor knew that they were dealing with something beyond imagination, they needed to be very careful.

    As for Grand Archmage, he was too excited by the new artefact to talk with the Blood Emperor, the Book of Learning, kept in mind that this is the knowledge from the truly ancient time, they were the treasure beyond anything.

    After a brief period of discussion between the royalties, everyone began to enter the Storage of Disaster.

    Inside the second Wonder, there were many transparent crystals, in each of them were many types of treasures, some were weapons, others were books, they must be the imperial artefacts of all the previous emperors.

    Before one could extend their hand to one of the nearest crystals, the same kind of sentences like the first Wonder began to appear as well.

    "Inside was the imperial artefacts since time immemorial, each of them contained the final desires and regrets of the owners, for you to used them, you must complete the last wish of the owner before it could be used."

    "To receive them, bind your soul with the weapons, be warned, only one weapon could be retrieved by a person, choose wisely, the future of humanity depends on your choice."

    Everyone looked at each other, there was no needed to talk, all of them except the old mage rushed into the nearest artefacts, they tried their hardest to find perhaps the last hope of the empire.

    The Grand Archmage too also tried his hardest to understand the knowledge of the ancient, maybe there was the secret to save the humanity and regain their formal peak.

    Time quickly flew by without anyone of them noticing.

    ...

    At the Emperor Palace, the Guest Hall.

    Almost every officials and nobles were relaxing in the dinner hall, countless maids and butlers were running around, trying their best to serve their master.

    At the comfortable chair in corner of the hall, sat alone the saintess.

    She was doing her daily meditating, analyzing her past experiences, calming her restless soul.

    After it was done, she gazed into the wildness, letting herself lose in her lively fantasy, about her long lost past.

    The scenery within her memory began to resurface in her anxious mind.

    But, at the moment she saw him, all the sadness and grief she suffered immediately vanished and all her happiness and inner peace surge through her body.

    She was intoxicated by her broken dream, a dream that won''t happen.

    Suddenly, a sound of a footstep rang into her ears, the sound it produced was not loud, but it was filled with anger and pain, just like herself.

    She, who was pulled out of her heaven, was very upset, she directly stared at the person who disturbed her fantasy, her reality.

    He was the Grand Noble, with his silver cane, he calmly walked toward the saintess, his mind was brimming with immense sorrow, but his considerate manner didn''t expose any of them.

    Only those who had experienced them could understand the pain.

    As a failure of a father, he didn''t even have the courage to face his daughter again.

    But he still needed her, for his clan, for his family.

    But most importantly, for himself.

    So he must confront the devil within the human skin, the saintess.

    "Your Highness, the saintess, would you mind if we were to talk about the past for a moment?"

 Chapter 8 : Impending Doom

    Everyone in the hall was relaxed, not even a single worry was in any mind of the upper-class officials.

    Except for the two, the Grand Noble and the saintess, after the saintess accepted his invitation, they both smiled at each other and processed to slowly walked together, they greeted everyone in their way, until they finally arrived at the peaceful garden.

    The two leisurely sat down on the chairs, each using their own mean to protected themselves from getting spied on.

    After a little bit of chatting about their everyday life, they both told their servants to go and rest.

    The servants knew the meaning behind their words, they quickly expressed their gratitude and walked away while chatting with their friends.

    They sat quietly, admiring the scenery before them.

    "Your Highness, how is my daughter doing?"

    Aceros was the first person who spoke.

    No ripple of emotion could be detected on his face.

    The saintess'' face tensed up, but she hid it perfectly.

    "She is doing well, sir Aceros, she will grow to be the wonderful priest."

    The saintess smiled subtly, enough for him to notice.

    She will be ours.

    "Also, sir Aceros, please call me by my name, Alita."

    There was a hint of sadness in her beautiful voice when she said her name.

    You want everyone to know that we are close to other?

    I must not yield to her provocation.

    "Miss Alita, for you to personally help my miserable daughter and properly taught her, I must thank you."

    Aceros said casually, not minding about his daughter at all.

    The mistress was astonished, how could someone be so heartless.

    "I must warn you, there are many demi-humans roaming around the empire, please be cautious when your next family head went out to the wildness."

    She decided to threaten the stability of Grand Noble''s family.

    Work with us, or there will be next victim.

    The Grand Noble sneered, he took a sip of his tea gently.

    "I will keep your advice in mind, miss Alita."

    You could try.

    After archiving his goals, he tapped his blue ring lightly, the faint light shone from the ring.

    The maid of Manedis family quickly walked in, she elegantly picked both of the saintess and Grand Noble''s cup and refilled them again with nicely done tea.

    She then processed to stand right behind her master without doing anything else.

    Her act signified the end of this ominous meeting.

    But the two continued to talk for quite some time, the tropics of their conversation were relaxing, no one mentioned anything about their previous discussion.

    Unbeknownst to the relaxed Alita, a tiny red orb had been placed on her uniform when the professional assassin handed the teacup to her.

    The Grand Noble''s scheme had only just begun.

    After the saintess excused herself to leave, the vicious Aceros laid himself back, allowing the sense of amusement to overwhelm him while thinking about the unavoidable downfall of the evil maiden.

    ...

    After an unknown amount of time had been wasted, the Blood Emperor, the Grand Archmage, the first prince and the second princess stood in the middle of the Storage of Disaster.

    "Father, there are too many artefacts, we must spend at least a day to completely check all of them."

    The second princess said to her father.

    She felt sad, she couldn''t even help her father.

    "Lord Mage, how is your progress on the Book of Learning?"

    The first prince instead asked the old mage who was immersed in his world.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

    "This thing is marvellous, within it contained the truth of nature, not even the ruin of Great Sages from the Ancient Era had this amount of knowledge."

    The mage urge to study the book was uncontrollable.

    As the Grand Archmage continued to immerse in his world, the Blood Emperor walked toward him, he stood in front of the crazed mage.

    "Do you still remember the promise?"

    With only one vague sentence, the mage instantly stopped studying the book.

    His eyes were clouded by the memory of the past, his hands were trembling.

    He gazed toward the emperor.

    "Sorry, old friend, I may have lost my mind back then, but I will not lose it again."

    He smiled at the emperor, feeling thankful for his warning.

    The mage closed his book and shook his head.

    "There was nothing that could turn the tide of the war in this book, they are impossible to accomplish, at the moment, I am too weak."

    Although they were prepared, they still surprised at the power of thing from the myth.

    Surely that in the myth, the Grand Archmage was nothing special, but they couldn''t imagine the impossible world beyond the Ancient Era.

    "However, when I break through to the next rank, I will be able to learn more about this book, a lot of its knowledge had been sealed away."

    The mage felt regretful.

    I need more power to become stronger quickly.

    The mage shook his head slightly, trying to get the obsessive thought out of his head.

    "So, is there anything that could potentially help us?"

    The three then looked at the emperor.

    "We could use the Withered Ghost to control and influence their important figures'' decisions, but, we have no way to get near them.

    "The Rainstorm is also useful on the battlefield, being able to transform the landscape freely will let us win the battle, again, this strategy could only be used once, with them prepared, this artefact will become useless.

    "In the end, there was nothing that could help us turn the tide, it could either be used once, or we couldn''t meet the requirement to use it."

    The emperor explained some of the artefacts to the three.

    "But the biggest issues are that we have too few people that are qualified to be here."

    There are only four figures that could be in here, all of them could be trust and will never let this secret out.

    But four wasn''t the big number, for the empire to rise again, four figures were definitely not enough.

    Only the being with intellectual that rivalled the Great Emperors of the past could archive this miracle.

    After the discussion ended, everyone gazed toward the colourful gate that presumably will lead them toward the next Wonder.

    There was the unimaginable aura leaked out of the gate, everyone who felt the aura would think that the thing before them was the Gate toward the deepest Hell.

    The Blood Emperor was the first one to walk toward the gate, he was followed closely by the Grand Archmage.

    The prince and princess stood there silently, they were intimidated by the sinister gate.

    But soon they remembered that only the mage could protect them from the corruption of the soul, they quickly ran toward the mage.

    Each step toward the Gate felt like an eternity would have passed, with every step taken, one would see the countless life extinguished, see the ancient civilization crumbled to their doom, see the greatest men fallen to their demise.

    Every time they took a step, the whispers in their head would become louder, telling them their darkest secrets, telling them about their suffering, the voices would sometimes become lovely, enticing those who heard it and seducing them to their death, sometimes become fiendish, twisted their sense of self and turned them into the lifeless monstrosity.

    When a step had been taken, the world around them slowly lost its colour and liveliness, turning into the greyish world of the death, the crystals that were originally colourful dimmed down, they faintly unleashed the blood-red light.

    As everyone was absent-mind, slowly losing all their senses and quietly engulfed in the devilish illusion, the Book of Learning within the mage grasped shone the golden light brightly, the Blood Emperor and the Grand Archmage were the first to regain their sanity, they soon realised what they had been through, with their trembling hands and pale face, they quickly walked over to check the first prince and princess.

    Seeing that the two were only unconscious, both the emperor and the mage collapsed onto the ground, looking suspiciously toward the Book of Learning.

    "Is there anything mentioned this in that book?"

    The emperor then turned to the mage, hoping for something.

    The mage shook his head.

    "Although there is nothing like this mentioned in the book, this should be the same type as Whisper of the Dark."

    "You mean the curse within the Record of Unusual Curse?"

    The Whisper of the Dark, the unknown curse that was recorded as the Destroyer of the Nation ranking, the Record of Unusual Curse itself was found within the vault of the ancient ruin, stated to be the legend within the said era.

    The curse will corrupt those unfortunate ones and will keep spreading to another person, effectively corrupt the entire nation, transformed them all into the monsters.

    "Anything could happen within the Forbidden Palace, if we didn''t have the Book of Learning, we would have doomed our nation already."

    With such notion in their mind, the two decided to wait for their descendants to wake up before doing anything.

    It didn''t take too long before the first prince and the second princess regain their consciousness, but the two needed some adjustment from the previous encounter with the curse.

    "Father, what should we do now?"

    The first prince asked their father for the solution.

    "We will risk for the final time and opened the next gate."

    The emperor said seriously.

    Everyone was determined to do everything for the empire already, even if it meant that they will suffer the wicked torture.

    A sentence was constructed by the random runes again, but this time, the symbols were distorted, they shook violently for some time, then abruptly stopped as if nothing had happened.

    The blood-red sentence could barely be translated.

    A soul as a key,

    A soul for the empire,

    A misfortune came with a fortune,

    A suffering as a key,

    A pain for the peace,

    The second princess then stepped forward, she was willing to sacrifice herself for the empire, but mostly to impress her father.

    The first prince tried to stop her, but she shook her head, determined to do it herself.

    She pulled out a short dagger, cut herself and let her blood dropped down into the dark hole that appeared below the distorted sentence.

    The Storage of Disaster shook violently.

 Chapter 9 : Savior from the Past

    The second princess watched as her blood slowly fell down into the bottomless hole.

    The black mass of tentacles suddenly rose up and pulled her dagger down into the hole.

    The weak princess struggled but she couldn''t take her hand off the dagger, as if there was something that prevented her from releasing it.

    The first prince tried to help her but was stopped by the Blood Emperor, he shook his head silently, indicating that they should not take action.

    Every part of the dagger that was touched by the black tentacles slowly turned into dust, and it kept coming closer to the second princess.

    The panicked princess tried to scream but no sound came out of her throat, she stabilised herself and looked around, trying to escape.

    The moment the tentacles touched her hand, her blood vein glowed faintly, causing the black tentacles to shake madly before it dissolved into nothing.

    After the princess regained her control over her body, she collapsed on the floor, too weak to do anything else.

    The first prince immediately rushed toward his sister, checking all over her body for any abnormality, after he was sure that everything was fine, he slowly got up and looked toward the mysterious gate that remained closed, he then looked toward the emperor and the mage.

    The mage shook his head, signalling the first prince not to do that he wanted to for now.

    "Old friend, do you know that was that?"

    The emperor too was perplexed at what just happened.

    The mage shook his head.

    "I don''t know, but I think it might be some kind of mechanism for bloodline checking."

    Judging from how the tentacles dissolved when they touched the princess'' blood, it might be the truth.

    "Then, what should we do now?"

    This time, the mage was the one who asked.

    "We should wait and let my daughter open the gate, as she was the one who completed the ritual."

    After coming to an agreement, everyone decided to wait patiently for the princess'' awaken.

    ...

    Somewhere within the capital of the Human Empire, at the restless night, a handsome man, surrounded by tall robust bodyguards, sat within a popular inn, nobody in the inn dared to speak, they all left one by one, afraid of offending this young master.

    After everyone left except the inn owner and staffs, the man waved his hand lightly, everyone within the inn suddenly felt sleepy, they mindlessly walked to their respective rooms and locked their door tight, soon the silence and a mysterious force covered the entire inn.

    The man and his bodyguards were the only ones left within the inn now, the bodyguards'' body twitched violently, the smell of the corpses emerged within the inn, but nobody in the inn had any sense of smell.

    After the Undying regained their true form, they bowed toward the man who was cloaked inside the worn out robe.

    The man himself chanted some untranslatable words, causing his own skin to peeled off, revealing the lifeless skeleton form of his.

    A Lich!

    "Go enjoy yourselves."

    The lich dismissed its slaves, it watched them walked into the rooms of those helpless victims.

    Several rounds of agonising scream could be heard echoing in the inn, but due to the force covering the crime scene, no sound was leaked out of the inn.

    Sometimes later, the inn owner and his staffs could be seen walking out of their rooms and directly bowed toward the lich without and fear.

    "You all will station here and watched over the humans, gathered all the available information and presented them to me, I will reward you handsomely."

    The slaves were very excited.

    "Do not disturb me unless necessary, I will be using the farthest room within this place."This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    The lich walked alone into its room, after coming in, it pulled out a transparent crystal ball, the lich filled the artefact with its magical force, the crystal ball began to radiate icy cold aura and shone brightly for a brief period of time before dying down, the strange fog appeared in the crystal, covering the inside of the crystal completely.

    The lich began to chant something again, it continued to chant for a long time, the fog within the ball began to move, from slowly to rapidly, forming a vortex of magical fog.

    The lich waved its hand slowly as the fog within the artefact dissolved and revealed what was within it.

    A refined lady could be seen walking toward her carriage, with her bodyguard close to her, she gave off the appearance of the beautiful and pure young mistress that everyone would try to protect at all cost.

    The lich looked at her for a very long time.

    "We will be together now, just wait for me."

    The lich watched the saintess walked into the carriage before it withdrew its magical force in the crystal ball, causing the scene to disappear.

    ...

    Time was impossible to determine when ones were in the Forbidden Palace, as it was impossible to leave without using the ancient key, the Dispair, but the Blood Emperor refused to use the key, he explained that there might be the need of it in the near future.

    The inside of the Forbidden Palace had no window or anything that allowed something outside to perceive what was within, and the decorative crystals shone the colourful light at all time, making the place bright even without the light from the star above the sky.

    After an unknowable amount of time had passed, the second princess coughed violently, causing her to jointed awoke from her unconscious state.

    The first prince was the first one to rush toward his sister, checking her condition in case of hidden effects from the ritual, the Grand Archmage also followed suit to check her curiously, he was very interesting about the unknown ritual from the myth.

    But after rounds and rounds of checking, nothing out of ordinary was found, the prince was relieved, the mage felt a little bit regret, he sighed and put this matter at the back of his mind.

    "My daughter, how did you feel during the ritual?"

    The emperor''s voice contained a faint hint of worry, but his voice was still calm as the vast ocean.

    "I didn''t feel anything strange, father."

    She said composedly, feeling quiet pound from what she did.

    "Then, rest a bit, when you are ready, step ahead and open the gate before us."

    The emperor said solemnly, everyone else agreed with him too.

    "No need to wait, time is essential."

    She smiled beautifully, like an angel who would do anything to save mankind.

    The second princess walked steadily toward the formidable gate, she exerted all her physical capacity into the gate, the gate vibrated lightly, the black light immediately came into existence and penetrated everyone''s vision, causing everything descended into the darkness.

    Before anyone had a chance to panic, the blackness slowly dissipated, a new scenery came into their views.

    Before they were the golden hallway, filled with glittering crystals, the pillars that supported the hall were engraved with mysterious symbols that even the Blood Emperor didn''t know, everything in their sight was sumptuous, forming a harmony feeling as if they were in the high heaven above their world.

    After a moment of losing in their own thought, a dignified voice rang in their very soul, the voice carried the aura of the rulers, causing them to have the urge to bow down toward the absolute ruler of nature.

    "Before you is the Golden Hallway that led to the Calamity Throne, heed our warning before you stepped in, there will be no return after you crossed into the abyss."

    The voice of the ruler manifested itself into many figures, each with different appearances, some were old, some were female, some were young, but the thing that they all had in common was their aura of the rulers, each of them had different types of aura, some were tyrannical, some were tranquillity, some were benevolent.

    The figures stood upright, like the impeccable wall that protected the humanity against the vicious monstrosities from the outside.

    "We are what you called the Great Emperors, but we were only the fragment of our original souls, only to rerail the warning to our descendants."

    The fragments of the Great Emperors spoke in unison.

    "Before you, the Golden Hallway is the place where all dream end, despair and hope combined together, only one thought to create all, and only one thought to end all."

    The distorted voice travelled forth in all directions, the content of the voice was heard by all.

    Before they could stabilise themselves, the mystical sound echoed around the hall, then everything froze, the first prince, the second princess, the Grand Archmage, and the flow of magical force, they all froze, leaving only the Blood Emperor alone, within the prison of time.

    "Heed our warning, reconsider your choice, is the calamity worse enough to use the last protection of humanity? Even though it might be the harbinger of the end itself?"

    The fragment of souls vibrated lightly, causing a wave of information to transmitted themselves to the emperor.

    The emperor fell into deep thought, his physical body stopped all activity, he became like a frozen entity with no awareness of the surrounding, the fragment of souls stood there silently, awaiting the emperor''s decision.

    After what it felt like an eternity had passed, the Blood Emperor''s eyes shone lightly, his physical body had broken through the shackle of the frozen chain, he regained control over his body again, the Blood Emperor stood upright and spoke with endless confident.

    "I beseech you, the Great Emperors, to help us from the calamity once more, and help your unfilial descendants to regain their bright future."

    The emperor kneeled on the floor and bowed his head violently, hitting the floor, blood seeping through his head, but it didn''t matter.

    The emperor waited patiently in the same position for a very long time, so long that the emperor himself lost track of the time.

    "Our descendant, stand up."

    A voice rang in the emperor''s ears.

    Tear rained down from emperor''s pupils, the tear of joy that will wash away all the sadness he had ever experienced, the warm sensation rushed through his body, a feeling of carefree that he had never felt in his life appeared in his tired mind.

    The Hope had finally presented itself.

 Chapter 10 : Unseen Memory

    The Blood Emperor slowly stood up, as respectful as possible, before he tidied himself after his look was clean and neat, he lowered his head in a polite manner, giving his respect toward the figures of the legend.

    The Great Emperors slowly moved to the side, all lowered their head to show respect to the moving figure that walked steadily from afar.

    The figure was covered in black shadow, concealing all of their appearances, leaving behind only blackness, the moment the shadowy figure came to stop, the mysterious sound rang again, causing everything to resumed their original flow.

    The first prince, the second princess, the Grand Archmage and the flow of time had awakened again, without anyone but the Blood Emperor knowing that the time had just stopped.

    Everyone was stunned by the fact that things magically move without any sound or any warning, however, after a while, all the shocked turned into curiosity, about the shadowy figure that had appeared before everyone.

    The figure turned its head slowly, scanning over everyone presented, then stopped its gaze at the old mage.

    "Grand Archmage, barely passable, has our humanity fallen to this pitiful degree?"

    The question was directed at the Blood Emperor.

    The figure swiped its gaze around everyone, including the fragment of souls, waiting for an explanation, causing everyone to lower their head in shame.

    "I beseech Lord to help your descendants escaped the calamity."

    The four spoke in unison.

    The figure nodded its head, then extended its hand, directly grabbed the empty space and broke it apart, the almighty hand pulled something out of the void, it was a book, the Book of Learning.

    The figure continued to flip through the page, after a short amount of time frame, it closed the book lightly, and the book dissolved into nothingness.

    The mage instantly broke a cold sweat, he immediately checked his Storage Ring for the Book of Learning, after he found that the book was not damaged in any way, he sighed and kept the book back in.

    The figure shook its head silently, feeling disappointed at the present humanity, it gestured its hand, indicating that the emperor must follow it, it turned around and walked toward the distant, the Blood Emperor and the rest obeyed its command and quietly walked behind the figure.

    Throughout the hallway, one could see the fragment of the Great Emperors'' soul stood on the side completely still, lowering their head to show respect whenever they saw the shadowy figure, which caused great amusement toward the four.

    As they approached the end of the hallway, lesser and lesser fragment of souls could be seen, but their aura of rulers was much purer and grand than the ones they previously saw, however, all was pale in comparison with the shadowy figure.

    At the end of the hallway, there was no more fragment of souls, only the four and the mysterious figure remained, and a golden gate.

    "The room before you is the Calamity Throne, where all hope lied, I could only accomplish you this far, may the humanity survive."

    The figure dissolved into the speck of light before fading away.

    Without any hesitation, the Blood Emperor quickly advanced the gate of hope, he gently pushed the gate open, the symbols on the gate shone faintly, the gate automatically opened on its own.

    Before they were the throne of the immortal, decorated by brilliance crystals and colourful minerals, the air was filled with the thin scent of magical fragrant, many mystical symbols floated aimlessly, each forming their own story, expressing varies emotions.

    Five individuals were seated on the five thrones, looking down upon the world of the mortal, they must be the everlasting god beyond the sky, viewing mortal as their creation, spectating the world from the firmament.

    "The Morning Star Era, the fifty-seventh emperor, the Blood Emperor, what is your reason for you to come here?"

    The Gods'' voice was monotonous, no sign of emotion was found in the voice.

    The voice seeped into everyone''s soul, it became the unstoppable force that piercing through the emperor''s mind, unravel all thought of his.

    "To try to find a way to save humanity."

    The Emperor blent out unconsciously, under the influence of the voice, he couldn''t control himself.

    "What about the others?"

    The voice resounded again.

    "To impress my father."

    "To protect the emperor."

    "To help my old friend."

    Said the three, they were all absented-mind, not aware of what they were doing.

    After a moment, their clouded mind regained its former state, they were now able to command their action.

    The princess quickly placed her hand over her mouth, shocked at what she said, she quickly kneeled toward the emperor, hoping for his forgiveness

    The other two, however, did not do anything strange, they stayed true to themselves and embraced their own thought, there was nothing wrong in their thought.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

    The emperor didn''t mind his daughter too, it wasn''t that he didn''t know how obsessed his daughter was, he simply just didn''t care, as long as she was qualified enough to lead the humanity, a little bit of strange hobby is acceptable.

    The heavenly Gods didn''t pay any special attention to her.

    "No ill intention against the humanity, you all are permitted to use the key."

    The light illuminated the four mortals, transporting them to where they must be, leaving the five entities alone again.

    Right after the four disappeared, another figure emerged from the manifested light, the Scholar Emperor, dressed in the greyish robe, he stood silently, gazing toward the five Gods sitting on the throne.

    "I won''t stop you from your plan, as long as it will not cross the line, the survival of the Humanity is the priority."

    The five figures spoke in unison.

    "I will only test him, if he could resist the temptation, he would gain my legacy, but if he couldn''t, he would rot away, not worthy of my knowledge."

    The imposing aura of Gods couldn''t invade the Sage Emperor''s soul, it was too weak, he just needed to lift his finger, and the aura would be extinguished, forever shattered and scattered within this isolated dimension.

    "He will be back again."

    "Yes, the myth will relive itself."

    Everyone within the room agreed to the statement, the Scholar Emperor once again fade into nothingness, the Gods, however, slowly concealed their aura, turning into the imposing statues, resting in this world.

    ...

    The Blood Emperor and the rest arrived at the gate, he turned toward the other, but to his surprise, nobody was talking about what just happened, it was like only he saw that legendary scene.

    After he verified that his thought was corrected, he vowed to himself that he would never tell anyone about this secret, or else he would be doubted even by a madman.

    He recollected his mind, chasing away the useless thoughts, he called for everyone''s attention, after everyone was ready to hear what he have in mind before he spoke up, the first prince suddenly spoke first.

    "Are we really going to use it?"

    The princess also nodded in agreement, but the mage didn''t display anything readable from his body language.

    The emperor didn''t get irritated, he explained his inexperienced children with patience.

    "There is no need to regret today''s decision, as long as the empire survived, there will always be one day that we will rebuild the peak of our history."

    Yes, as long as their legacy passed on, unlimited possibilities awaited their future.

    So, they must do their best to lay a solid foundation for the later generations.

    After the simple and straightforward explanation, the prince and the princess had their doubt disputed, they would open the gate without worry and regret.

    The Blood Emperor pulled out Despair, seeing that everyone else nodded to him, he calmly walked toward the Gate of Hope, pushing the gate lightly, the gate processed to open on its own.

    The next Wonder was like a ruin, numerous overgrown plants could be seen coming out of the cracked walls, various shattered crystal fragments floating around the ruin, illuminated the prehistoric remain in many colours, coupled with the alluring scent of the lovely flowers, this ruin was just like the paradise of comfort.

    After closer inspection, one would find that the broken walls had strange symbols engraved in an unknowable pattern, causing the onlooker to feel memorised by the magical force that it emitted.

    At the middle of the ruin stood a shine, covered in multi-colours crystals, the shine was unbelievably cleaned, not a single flaw or dust could be seen, in front of the shine was a stone pillar, with the hole resembled the shape of the key, the Despair.

    "Are you ready?"

    The Grand Archmage tapped the emperor''s shoulder lightly.

    The emperor inhaled deeply one more time, before he walked toward the shine, after a moment of hesitation, he bowed toward the gigantic crystals covering the shine to show respect before gently placed the Despair into the hole on the pillar.

    The engraved symbols shone bright everchanging shades, engulfing everything in the ruin at once, the magical density within the air raised rapidly, nearly suffocated the princess.

    ...

    At the Demi-human Kingdom, the deepest part of their kingdom, an old elf who was sitting carelessly on the rock suddenly opened his eyes, he gazed toward the direction of the Memorial Graveyard, the only intact building before the Ancient Era.

    While he wasn''t focused, the plants around him abruptly grew to the impossible extent, causing uproars in all direction, the overgrown plants created chaos and destruction toward everything around them, the nearby constructions collapsed by the weight of the imposing trees.

    But none of these mortals'' life mattered to him, his mind only focused on the source of the magical force outbreak, wandering about the darkest secret beyond the untraceable era.

    Before long, a handsome elf, dressing in royalty uniform with a magnificent scarlet crown on his head, could be seen rushing toward the old man, his face was full of panic and worry.

    "Oh, Great Ancestor, this unworthy one beseeched you, please help your descendants from the calamity."

    The Great King of the demi-human bowed down toward the absented-mind old geezer, and he smiled in response.

    ...

    "Your Majesty, there are an unusually high amount of violent shocks from the underground, both our armies and the Undying are speculated to be obliterated."

    The three horns succubus spoke with her soul-gripping voice, but her tone was not that of the arrogant demon, it was the tone of the respectful servant, serving their creator.

    "Your Majesty, the dying plants and seedlings show an impossible rate of growth, causing disorder and havoc around your capital."

    The four wings Skinless Demon sent forth its information wave toward its superior.

    "Your Majesty, the magical force has been continually pouring out of the Forsaken Tomb, many of our weak and injured people lost control of their magical force, collapsing and dying."

    The gigantic two wings eyeball''s distorted sound echoed throughout the hall.

    "We require your command, your majesty."

    All of them communicated at once.

    The figure sitting on the throne slowly stood up and walked toward the Forsaken Tomb, the feeling of excitement could be felt by every commander within the throne room.

    ...

    While the majority of the land of death was trembling, the Floating Citadel was unaffected, as one of the survivors of the Ancient Era, it was to be expected.

    "We beg your pardon, please issue your next command."

    The intangible banshee spoke reverentially, the Council of Damned was not to be taken lightly.

    They did not talk about the casualty of the Undying, only weaklings would perish under this circumstance, they only needed the strong, weakling will always be created and crushed endlessly, to produce the strong.

    "Send the Bone Dragons to suppress the fool, show them that we are laws."

    The seven figures who seated on the throne of blood and bone passed their decree to their servants, this bothersome work did not require their attention.

    "Although We benefit from this catastrophe greatly, we also lose many of our upper-class personnel, in the short future, we will focus on expanding the land of death and researching the new plague."

    After rounds of discussion, this was their conclusion.

    ...

 Chapter 11 : Symbol of Return

    From the action within the Forbidden Palace, the impact was far greater than just the change of geography, the world had fallen into the state of mass panic, only the handful of the extraordinary people knew the cause of the catastrophe, even less so the myth of the untraceable era.

    The four weren''t aware of the uprising of the outer world, as the separation of the Forbidden Palace was too perfect, they only felt that the magical force in the air increased overwhelmingly, and the ground shook lightly, there were no things that could escape the protection of the palace, the space they were in was virtually an isolated dimension.

    Without any worry, the Blood Emperor and the rest decided to wait patiently for the ritual to do its work, even if they didn''t wait, with their knowledge, they couldn''t do anything anyway.

    "Friend, is there any records about this ritual?"

    The emperor turned to his friend, only to see him fascinated by the work of the magical ritual.

    "Nothing, not even the record during the Dark Era that I have, as you could guess, this should be even before the Ancient Era. Anyway, I will go check on your daughter, it would be bad if anything happens to her."

    Having said that, he walked toward the pale face princess, doing the necessary checkup.

    After the checkup was completed, the mage quickly pulled out his worn out notebook, writing down all the experience, for future reference.

    The Blood Emperor smiled helplessly, that old man was still his friend, after all, he never changed, still strived for greater power, but never wanted the authority.

    Maybe in his eyes, politic was powerless against strength.

    The emperor calmed his wandering mind, putting this thought in the back of his head, and waited, waited for the emissary of hope to arrive.

    Before long, the princess woke up again, but she never spoke a single word, she just sat there, she must still process what just happen, after numerous fainted.

    The princess passionately consoled his sister, thus, everyone was minding their own business, creating a perfect distance between all of them, isolating themselves from each other.

    The prince and the princess, the mage, and the emperor, completely submerged in their intention.

    Time became meaningless when one didn''t pay attention.

    Without anyone noticed, the ruin magically regained its previous state, as if time reversed itself, the plants gradually shrank themselves into the crack in the walls, the floating remnants of crystals constantly reformed themselves into other flawless crystals.

    The ruin slowly recovered its majestic atmosphere, as time unfolded the secret of the past, revealing the heavenly palace that once stood above the firmament, the golden platform could be seen floating at the middle of the palace, lifting the huge crystal that blocked all outsider from viewing the mystery within.

    The four regained their own mind, they somehow became absented-mind, but the scene before them was no longer a ruin, but an exalted sanctuary, used to worship the highest god, praying for his descended on the mortal plane.

    Things that triggered their attention wasn''t the otherworldly decoration nor was it the imposing aura of the sanctuary, those things were the distorted and faded silhouette of humans, they could be seen but couldn''t be touch, they also didn''t pay any attention to the four.

    "The Echo of the Past."

    The Mage uttered absented-mindedly, the Echo of the Past was the phenomenon when the powerful one''s action remained where it was, never to cease away, forever repeating itself.

    Only those who could bend reality can leave their Echo, only those with the same standing as gods could do so.

    But at this very moment, huge amounts of Echo could be seen, shockingly, prayed and bowed down toward the floating platform, revered the entity within as their creator.

    The four were stiff, they didn''t dare to breathe loudly, afraid of the Echo, but after time passed, they gradually began to survey their surrounding, only to discover that they were still any the same place, just that the ruin restore itself to its peak state.

    Only the mage noticed the impossible phenomenon around them, there was no magical aura emitted from the Echo, none could be detected, it was as if they never existed at all.

    Then, the unthinkable solution struck him, these godlike individuals'' power was too great, those who were vastly inferior to them couldn''t possibly grasp their incomprehensible might, but, if they were godly powerful, then, who was the entity in the crystal they worshipped?

    He decided that they must not act carelessly, they must be respectful at all time they spent in here, so, he naturally told his old friend, the emperor, about this logical hypothesis.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

    "Let us keep a safe distance between us and the Echo, also, pay special attention to the shrine."

    The Blood Emperor called his two descendants and informed all of them about the discoveries.

    After their plan had been put to use, they all separately tried to find clues from the repeated scene before them.

    The Blood Emperor was the first person to notice this weird Echo, it did not pray nor did it bow down toward the shine, it just stood there, gazing at them, observing their every move.

    Wait, how did the Echo react to them?

    The emperor was startled, he swiftly notified his friend and descendants, they all retreated slowly while observing the Echo attentively, not daring to brink even once.

    The Echo lifted its hand, indicating the four to follow it as it turned around and walked toward the floating shine.

    With the emperor at the head spear, they walked behind the Echo, but, they kept some respectful distance from him, the Echo escorted them to the floating shine.

    As soon as the emperor got near the shine, every Echo in the sanctuary all kneeled downed at once, chanting the inconceivable mantra.

    The leading Echo shifted its sight to the Blood Emperor, it distorted face smiled faintly, with a hint of bitterness presented in the smile, it spoke one sentence before kneeled down on the ground like the rest of its kind, praying and chanting the mantra, waiting for their god to descend.

    The gigantic crystal on the floating platform shone faintly, it absorbed the magical power formed by the mantra, many small cracks appeared on its surface, multi-colours light could be seen leaking out from the inside.

    A flash of light entered the four''s soul, transferring the unknown sentences into their head, the mage was the first to realise that it was the mantra that the Echo was chanting.

    The four then continued to chant the mantra endlessly, slowly losing the sense of time, their conscious gradually faded away, becoming like the Echo, only the distorted silhouette remained.

    The crystal slowly cracked open its shell, the limitless light flew out of the rifts, revealing the scenery of the past.

    The mythical tree that all life stemmed from, the World Tree was at the centre of the vision, a beautiful maiden was resting beside the imposing tree, her smooth skin was flawless, making her like the snow on the field of grass, but, on her face was a hint of determination and sadness, she slowly closed her eyes, her mortal shell slowly disintegrated away, her life extinguished.

    Along with her end, the World Tree also withered, accompanied by her death, a voice from the sky resounded, it was filled with vengeance and madness, but alas, it also died down.

    Leaving behind was the aftermath of the war, the two figures stood beside her grave, the unspeakable vow had been made, and the vision ended.

    Unfortunately, nobody was there to observe such a grand vision, it was destinated to never be revealed to the rest of the world, forever became the forgotten legend.

    After the vision ended, the four regained their awareness, the crystal was about to be unsealed, the imposing aura flooded the palace, every living thing in the palace immediately kneeled down and awaited the order of their king.

    An old figure stepped out of the broken crystal.

    And the world went silent.

    ...

    Within the Memorial Graveyard, the everlasting marble coffin was stationed at the centre of the graveyard, along with many statues of historical figures, many types of vines could be seen all around the yard, but despite the old appearance of the building, the statues and the marble coffin had no dust on them, they were as splendid as the first time they were created.

    The sparkle that resembled the stars could be seen forming around the graveyard, behind the marble coffin was a majestic tree shaped pillar, it was the main pillar that supported the entire underground graveyard.

    With a slight trembled, the great coffin shook and the radiance glowing butterflies flew out of the gap of the coffin, as the coffin slowly opened, the vines and dyed plants regained their virality, the flowers blossomed and the graveyard became a garden, many spiritual creatures appeared and ran around the garden.

    After the marble opened, the inside was only specks of dust, an ancient ring and a beautiful crown, there was no living being in there, the marble coffin slowly closed down, and the garden lost its colour, returning to its former self, the Memorial Graveyard.

    ...

    "Your Majesty, we have arrived at the Forsaken Tomb."

    The succubus was the only one who remained in the carriage with her superior, the skinless demon and the floating eyeball were to remain at the capital, they needed to maintain order and suppressed the rebels for their monarch.

    The monarch only nodded his head, he wasn''t much of a schemer, but with many capable servants under him, he could get rid of his weakness and control almost all of Hell, if not for those Undying and their impossible magic of the death.

    That was why they needed the treasures within the tomb.

    When they had arrived, the seal at the entrance of the Forsaken Tomb had already broken, the monarch knew that it broke on its own, nothing would be able to do it other than the forgotten formation of the past.

    When they arrived at the gigantic Door of Judgement, the door had already started to crumble into ruin, many of their attendants were scared out of their mind, the special aura that the door emitted was the bane of the demon.

    A whisper entered into the monarch head, telling him to open the door, the monarch unknowingly lost control of himself, he suddenly walked toward the door, as his soul was damaged by the aura of the Judgement, his footsteps never stopped, he pushed only the door and the Door of Judgement crumbled into pieces.

    With his weakening self and clouded mind, the monarch continued to walk into the hall, the succubus also came to his side, helping him stabilised himself, she still didn''t know that her monarch was manipulated.

    Suddenly, the faint sounds of chains being broke could be heard within the tomb.

    The Demon Monarch had already kneeled in front of the dark vault, many remnants of shattered formations and runes scattered in front of the vault, the succubus had already collapsed onto herself, shaking, her eyes were filled with blood, she muttered something unknown to other, her mind focused on the whisper of the entity behind the vault.

    And the vault opened, brought with sounds of scream and chant, the world lost its colour, the river of time stopped its movement, all evil waited silently, welcoming his return.

    A black mess of darkness walked out, it gazed at the kneeled monarch and the mindless succubus.

    It shot itself into the monarch''s soul, corrupting his soul and took his physical body as its own, it used a moment to absorbed the memory of its body, after learning everything, it smiled lightly.

    "I have returned."

    The succubus slowly stood up, her blood-filled eyes turned into completed black, she walked toward the remaining attendants, hoping to sacrifice them to her new master, to help him regain his power.

 Chapter 12 : Arising Conflict

    After the intangible figure walked out, the Echo''s chant became increasingly high, their body converted into the purest form of energy, causing the Blood Emperor and the rest to wake from their mindless state.

    The Echo turned into the glittering light, they all slowly absorbed by the old figure that stepped out of the crystal, helping him recover his vitality, after slumbering for so long, one would need lots of energy once reawaken.

    The process lasted for a very long time, the Echo dissipated one by one, slowly reducing their number.

    The figure started to materialized itself, gradually became a real living thing, but due to its enormous soul, the physical shell needed to be of the high calibre, causing the process to be the long one.

    The Grand Archmage was the most excited one out of the four, this process showed him the way of the magical force, after this, his understanding of the law of reality would deepen significantly.

    A huge amount of time passed by, the last Echo, the one that guided them to the shine, suddenly stood up, it whispered unknown language to the floating soul and looked around for one last time, it closed its eyes, and just like the other, it slowly faded away.

    The cultivation of the physical shell had been completed, the holy soul immediately began to get into the body, the mountain-sized soul squeezed into the human-sized shell, it was the strange sight to behold.

    Because of the miracle of the Echo, the refined body was powerful enough to withstand the sheer size of the soul, once completed, the noble body started to move around, trying to adjust his own control over his new body.

    The figure gradually opened his eyes, they were sky-blue and could piece through the physical body and peered into the soul of other, he wore a white and black robe that concealed the true appearance of his, but one could guess that under the imperial robe was a wise old man who had experienced the world and heaven.

    He extended his hand, the Despair that was used to open the shine reappeared before them once more, it slowly moved toward the figure and merged within his body, the power of the artefact transferred into him, granting him the magical power unrivalled across the Human continent.

    He gazed toward the four, giving them the feeling of being exposed, they couldn''t hide anything from him, like the omniscient judge that dictated the world.

    The moment he was about to speak, everyone unknowingly stopped everything and quieted down, attentively awaiting his words with utmost respect.

    "Why was it that you woke me?"

    ...

    "Your Majesty, your soldiers are ready to serve you, please issue your command."

    The emissary spoke as he bowed down toward the figure who sat on the throne.

    "We shall process as generals'' plan, this time, the victory would be ours."

    His voice reflected his confidence in his generals, he himself also participated in the strategic discussion.

    "We shall not disappoint your majesty and bring them down."

    The groups of officials spoke with determination and slowly retreated toward the army, in their mind, the victory was already in their grasp.

    "What do you think? Would they fail?"

    The one who seated upon the throne suddenly turned his attention to the envoy.

    "This one didn''t dare, didn''t dare at all."

    He lowered his head even farther, avoided to offend the other party.

    The figure gestured his hand and laughed.

    "You are permitted to speculate about this matter, I will not take it to heart."

    The envoy smiled helplessly before he addressed his thought.

    "This little one is grateful for your magnanimity, this one personally doesn''t think that today''s plan will work, but, it will surely archive your goal, your majesty."

    "Why is that so?"

    The figure continued to ask the envoy.

    "Your Majesty is unrivalled across our history, you should have already know about this. The Human Empire stood strong since time immemorial, they surely must have at least some secrets that allowed them to rule over all other."

    The figure laughed soundly.

    "Very well, you are knowledgeable, if you continued to serve me with your best, your future shall be bright."

    "The envoy thanks your majesty, the Great King, may the Demi-human Kingdom rule over all other."

    The Great King nodded his head slightly, causing the envoy to brim with joy and happiness.

    The Great King has acknowledged me, my future will from now on be boundless!

    The envoy bowed one last time before slowly retreated back from the throne room.

    ...

    "Commander!"

    The warriors of kingdom yelled loudly, signifying their peak fighting spirit.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    A figure could be seen walking in front of the soldiers, his body radiated the mighty aura of the super soldier, he dressed in the traditional outfit of the military, but on his cloth were many dazzling stars and symbols, indicating his superior position of the army.

    The commander of the army, Ferror Morus, walked across the divisions, checking his troops and boosting their morale.

    As he walked past the captains of sub-legions, they commanded their men to salute him with respect, shouting the greeting phase of the military, hoping to gain some favour for themselves.

    At the end of his small journey was a well-prepared tent for the commanders like him, he was the last commander to arrive, but he was not late at all.

    "Ferror, you are as late as ever."

    A familiar voice travelled into his ears.

    "I won''t bother about the usual greeting staff, I only come here to ask you guys, will the plan surely work? I won''t risk my subordinates over the unreliable plan."

    Ferror was always very protective about his underlings, he personally hand-picked all of them, he had many uses of them all.

    Hearing that, the other commanders began to laugh uncontrollably, causing Ferror to feel shame burning on his face.

    "Why are you laughing? This is not funny."

    He was very confused.

    "Of course this is funny, so the rumour that you are a shut-in was true after all."

    A commander spoke with a hint of sarcasm.

    "This project was designed personally by the generals and his majesty, they had been working on it since the Mana Catastrophe."

    The commanders voiced out their information one after another, the overall information was laid out for exchange.

    "A plan that was created in six months? Even so, the situation of the world wasn''t the same as before, Monsters also started to appear as well as many new plants, can they guarantee that the plan won''t meet any unexpected circumstance?"

    "If you don''t trust the ability of those old generals, you should still trust in the foresight of his majesty, right?"

    "Many of the outstanding individuals participated in the strategic meeting, any of them can control a small army at ease."

    As they argued, a group of soldiers walked orderly toward their tent, they were the specialized force for information gathering.

    "Commander!"

    "The general is about to arrive, please make your way to the platform as soon as possible."

    The captain of the square spoke clearly and loudly, everyone within the tent could hear it without any problem.

    The commanders looked at each other and smiled, they stood up one by one, adjusting their attire and finally started moving to welcome their superior, the general.

    But, when everyone except one, Ferror, walked out, he observed the surrounding before hastily contacted someone with his magical equipment.

    A figure of a female elf manifested into the reality, her appearance was concealed by the fog from the void, only someone with high mastery of formations could undo it, even so, her aura of the superior could not be concealed, inspiring awe from the young commander.

    His eyes searched for the magical emblem, to confirmed the identity of the person before him.

    Seeing the emblem, he smiled.

    "This one welcome your arrival, your highness."

    Due to this being outside and unsecured, it was not appropriate to welcome with commotion, someone might detect it and come to take a look.

    Their interaction must be kept a secret without any strangers knowing.

    "The general has arrived, this one requires your command."

    The plan that her highness designed must not fail at all cost, for this plan will affect his future as both a commander and a member of Faceless.

    Faceless was an organization that came to light around six months ago, some said that they broke away from the Masked, but no one knew its true history, other than the figure that was standing in front of him, the leader of Faceless.

    She called herself the Faceless Princess, her information network was very vast, on par even with the entire Demi-human Kingdom, the unique thing about Faceless was the bizarre knowledge and magic spells that belong only to Faceless Princess.

    Physical body changing, body modification, blood remodelling, soul corruption. All sort of unusual knowledge about physical plane and soul, the abilities to turn into virtually anyone was the nightmare that plague the world, raising the organization to the top, alongside the Masked.

    The identity of Faceless Princess was another mysterious, the only known fact was that her gender was female, the only thing that identified her was her signified magical emblem, the picture of a hand that held a perfect-shaped skull gently, it was infused with magic that gave of the feeling of the reunion of love one.

    She could take the appearance of anything at any time, without the emblem, there was no way to know who was her.

    "You shall take your two bodyguards, Bloodless and Pollution, and participant the meeting, any information about the plan must be recorded at send to me."

    Her voice was distorted by magic, but it still gave off the feeling of intoxication.

    "By your command."

    She nodded her head slightly, and the connection had been cut off, the figure dissolved rapidly until nothing was left behind.

    The young commander then resumed his journey toward the stand, as if nothing had happened before.

    ...

    "Reporting, an army of twenty-five thousand warriors, seven thousand archers of the demi-human has been spotted at the south-east fort, five days until their arrival."

    The scout of the army quickly reported the information with a clear voice.

    "As expected, the third scenario was corrected, send the command toward the seventh and tenth army, surround them and captured their commander!"

    A dignified man spoke after a moment, then, he notified the others about this situation, he then prepared himself for a strategic meeting, after finished dressing up, he walked into his meeting room.

    In the room, many crystals could be seen setting in an orderly fashion, he sat in front of his crystal, waiting for the meeting to start patiently.

    After it was the time for the meeting, the crystals shone faintly, many familiar faces could be seen projected from the crystals.

    "Greeting everyone."

    "No matter how many times I used it, these Communication Crystals are really amazing."

    After a round of chatting, it was time for real discussion.

    "Fellow generals, everything has begun, the enemy chose the third route, prepared to counter-attack."

    "My army has already gone to its location, this should be our victory if there were no unexpected things occurred."

    "My teams are monitoring the Undying, although they showed no movement, it better to be safe than sorry."

    "The others will remain guard on their location, we can''t rule out the possibility of an ambush."

    "Agree." "That''s to be expected." "No problem."

    "Then, let us conclude this small meeting and get back to work."

    The light slowly faded away, the meeting had come to an end.

    Shortly after, a soldier hastily ran toward the general.

    "Reporting! The fifth princess has arrived and she requires your presence."

    The commander was sent into a daze for a moment, he wondered why the royalty came here without any news about them.

    Well, the fifth princess wasn''t the outstanding one, maybe she just comes here for vacation.

    Getting into the good side of the royalty was always a good thing, no one would pass this opportunity, the general dismissed the soldier and quickly changed his attire into his best-looking one, readied to welcome and flatter the fifth princess.

 Chapter 13 : Flawed Design

    "This is a joyous occasion that your highness, the fifth princess, to personally come to visit this one''s humble mansion."

    The general straightened his back and welcomed the fifth princess wholeheartedly, he was also felt like he was greeted by an angel from the heaven who descended into this insignificant world.

    The refined maiden in front of him was accompanied by a lowly and humble male servant, the general envied this servant that could be with the beautiful fairy all the time, but he knew how to conduct a proper greeting, he hid his thought behind his warm smile.

    The lady before him had a breath-taking appearance, her long blond hair that laid on her shoulder was like the sparkling stars on the sky, her cherry lip reflected her mature yet alluring air around her, her golden eyes would captivate all men that stared into them.

    She wore a yellowish well-made dress, many patterns of exotic flowers and nature was engraved to enchanted her appeal, it revealed not too much yet not too least, boosting her charm even more.

    "You have my gratitude, general, for you to host a welcoming party and even prepare so many gifts for me even though I came here without any notice."

    Her voice contained the feeling of gracefulness, she was like a real angel, those who heard it would fall into the state of absented mind.

    The fifth princess smiled lightly, causing a mysterious feeling to develop within the soul of the hot-blooded general and those who saw it.

    "This is nothing compared to your highness'' status, this one dare not receive your praise."

    He bowed toward the fifth princess again, he forced himself to remember all her beauty and committed them all to his memory.

    "Then I shall make full use of your assistance, come, let us go enjoy this first-class party that he prepared for us."

    She was evidently a caring lady, she thanked the general again and invited her servant to enjoy the party, her action was like a candle, slowly melting the heart of the general.

    Why am I like this today? This isn''t me at all!

    The general shook his head fiercely, trying to get rid of his lewd thought while he watched the fifth princess walked into the party.

    In the end, he was still a young man, he couldn''t resist himself, he marched toward the shy princess and offered her a dance, naturally, the fifth princess giggled shyly, she agreed to dance with him.

    With his burning eyes and soul, he stepped forward confidently, after years of studying and practising, he always dreamed of being a dancing partner with the royalty princesses.

    The music echoed the hallway, sending waves of note after note into the two''s mind.

    When the songs were slow and gentle, their steps were steady and elegant, the sound that was produced by their feet hitting the floor was subtle and very pleasing to ears, they both danced at the middle of the dancing platform, like the moon and the sun that flirted with each other, slowly circling each other, not too close yet not too far, creating the perfect show that the spectators applauded.

    When the songs were fast and uplifting, their movements also reflected their mood, lively and exciting, they moved in patterns, sometimes their lips almost touched, sometimes their arms stretched far and wide, they moved from the middle to the edge, then the edge to the middle, like the two lovely birds that travelled far away with each other, they will always be together, their face was full of smile, they belonged to each other.

    The scene caused everyone presented in awe, they cheered and encouraged the pair.

    But, all the good time must come to an end, the party was nearly over, the last song had almost ended.

    The last song filled the atmosphere with sadness and loneliness, it was like magic, making one felt the sorrow of the past once again.

    At the very end of the song, the two slowly moved closer and closer, their body inseparable, their hands entangled each other, they embraced their lover, not willing to part away, not willing to return to the boring and lifeless day after this moment.

    The last note had finally hit, tears manifested on the two''s face, they still smiled at each other, silently separated themselves.

    And the tears dropped on the floor.

    The sober princess whispered something into the general ear, causing him to tense up immediately, he turned to look straight into the princess stunningly charming face, he nodded strongly and promised the princess before he gave the parting words and officially ended the party that filled with love.

    "Tonight when the moon was at the highest point in the sky, the Sky Gazer must be clean and beautifully decorated, I and the fifth princess have something to discuss with each other, alone."

    He spoke to his servant, the underlying meaning was as clear as the sky, the servant bowed and retreated to make preparation for the sweet discussion of the two.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    "Tonight when the moon at its peak, I shall go count the stars with this handsome general, we would like to have some peace together, please wait for me in my room, I''ll be back after I and he spoke to each other till our heart content."

    The fifth princess'' face was cherry-red, the male servant pretended to not notice it and went back to prepare her the best cloth they had.

    After they all dissipated, they rolled on their bed, regarding what about to happen, they were very nervous, the two pure male and female, fantasized about their life, preparing their best, hoping their wish would come true.

    At the time of the death-silent night, when the moon was at its peak, the sound of water contacted dirt and rocks could be heard, the atmosphere was very peaceful and remote.

    The two figures, male and female, both hurriedly came out of their place, afraid to miss this opportunity forever, they both went to meet at the promised place, the Star Gazer.

    The princess finally revealed herself, under the watchful eyes of the young man, she blushed intensely, her cloth this time revealed the majority of her sexy curve, the seductive air around her intensified by magnitudes.

    The two chatted around for a very long time, they were still uncomfortable and couldn''t bring themselves to speak about the true reasons for their meeting, the brave general was the first to move, he placed his hand gently on the princess'' thigh, they both shivered at the same time, they looked into each other eyes, their hot burning gaze explained everything in their mind, they started getting closer and closer, their skin coming to contact with the other, the smooth hand finally caressing the soft and beautiful face.

    Under the moonlight, their body was attached with a string of love, their mind involved around each other.

    They were willing to lose everything, just for them to be together.

    Forget the duty. Forget the bloodline. Forget the war. Forget them all.

    Care not about the consequences. Care not about the status.

    Their soul interconnected. Their mind became one. Their love was everlasting. Their feeling was eternal.

    Their hands pressed on each other, they embraced each other, their heart united, their wish fulfilled.

    At last, they couldn''t control themselves, the general face moved slowly toward the destination, they could feel each other hot and tempting breath, their eyes clouded, their lip moving closer and closer, the flame of desire burning hotter than ever.

    The warm sensation ran through the general''s body, followed by the sensation of happiness and relieved.

    But, the feeling of agony suddenly rushed through his body, he instantly knew something was wrong.

    He opened his eyes.

    A dagger was stabbed into his heart, warm blood gushed out of him, he fell onto the floor, his mind confused.

    He looked in front of him, his lovely fifth princess, she stood there, her face was devoid of any emotion as if everything that happened was an illusion.

    With anguish and grief, he was unwilling to die, but alas, the life force in his body depleted, his soul extinguished, his heart shattered.

    "Glory to the Faceless Princess!"

    The fifth princess said excitingly.

    The male servant quickly ran to the fake human royalty and followed the next step of the plan.

    This event was not known by anyone, the general died by his own greed and lust, for the petty merit, he concealed the arrival of the fifth princess hoping to get into the good book of the royalty alone, for his lust, coupled with the bewitching spell, he let down his guard and went with the fifth princess alone.

    In the end, everything went according to the mastermind, the Faceless Princess.

    ...

    "Another meeting? It seems that your scouts are doing their duty properly."

    "Hello fellow generals, I have got a bad news and a good news for you."

    "Don''t try to waste our time, this is a war, not a childish game!"

    "Don''t be so mad, did your army suffer that much? Anyway, the bad news is the coming of the ambush force from the north fortress, their number is twice as much as the first one. The first army was a decoy."

    "Impossible! How could they be willing to risk losing that many soldiers?! That was one-fifth of the entire human army!"

    "We never really knew about their number, maybe these might just be some random civilians or prisoners, but the good news is, we have time to prepare before their arrival, from the report, they will arrive at the battlefield around five days."

    "There is only two army that will arrive before the deadline, and one that could arrive after the deadline one day."

    "Then it is settled, may the humanity remain victorious."

    ...

    "Prepare to intercept the enemies! They should be arriving now!"

    The commander did as instructed, he shouted loudly, boosting the morale of the human army, then he walked upright past all the captains, giving them specific orders, ensuring the overall plan to success.

    "I told you all about it in the past, I will still say it again! Our combined army is twice as many as theirs! As long as all of you follow the plan, we will destroy them all easily!"

    After the speech, the soldiers'' fighting spirit was ignited, they shouted loudly, repeating the last line again and again.

    Satisfied, the commander walked back into his tent, awaiting orders from his superior, while he was relaxing, a report had been sent directly to him, he smiled widely, everything was according to the information from the scout teams.

    When the time was right, the sound of the war drum and warhorn echoed through the battlefield, with the help of magic, the sound raised the resolve of the soldiers and signified the beginning of the war.

    "Forward!"

    "Forward!"

    The soldiers repeated the same word as they moved forward steadily, not afraid of dying, they were willing to get in and kill the enemies.

    For our homeland, for our family!

    The high-spirited army of warriors and mages marched forward fearlessly, they crashed with the unprepared army of demi-humans, the human''s side immediately executed the plan, forming the spearhead and charged directly into the back of the enemy, greatly weakened the long-range attackers.

    The tide was on the human''s side, using the advantage of quantity, the human grouped up and pressured the lone demi-human into defence, greatly limited the casualty of the mankind.

    The commander of the demi-humans naturally panicked and issued the retreat, the human commander was too greedy and want all the merit, he personally led the army and chased the demi-humans.

    As they chipped away the personnel of the demi-humans little by little, they also lost the support of the long-range mages who fell behind.

    Unknowingly, another factor came into play, that was the environment. Usually, they would fight on the grassland, but due to the foolishness of the human commander, he and his army directly chased into the forest, which was where the demi-humans always lived.

 Chapter 14 : Prey of the Cunning

    The sparse forest was filled with towering trees, they hardly obstructed the vision of the warriors, so, this human commander directly ignored those stupidly tall trees without any hesitation.

    If one were to enter the military cleanly without any underhand mean, one would receive numerously training and studies before ascending the ladder that was the ranking of the military, they would not create these mistakes or else they would be demoted long ago.

    But the reality wasn''t so beautiful as one might imagine, this commander only got to this point because of his little bit of talent and the precious connection with his father, one of the generals.

    Coupled with the defeated of the demi-humans, his ego was greatly boosted, he was blinded by greed and lost his wit. He ordered his army into the deathly traps of the demi-humans.

    Before long, the human army was surrounded by the hidden reinforcement of the demi-humans, aiming to cut their retreat and communication route.

    "Impossible! How did the scout teams not foresee this!?"

    The commander stomped his foot to the ground, shouting in anger.

    "Hurry up! Request for reinforcement!"

    "Reporting! Our communication devices were jammed by those demi-humans!"

    The commander cursed loudly, slapping his subordinate in the face, sending them flying.

    "Useless! You all are useless!"

    Although he is stupid, he had great talent in combat, so all the planning part would be the work of another, but because of his reckless actions, he ignored the plan and charged in alone. Thus leading him to his end.

    The fight shortly broke out at the retreat route, the commander was trying to get back to safety, so all the manpower would be focused on breaking out of the encirclement.

    And that was where he committed another mistake, because of his lack of brain, he chose to flee and not thinking of plans, directly concentrated everything on a single point instead of playing defensively and waited for the reinforcement.

    The demi-human commander had already been instructed of the plan by their generals, he organized his army and employed defensive strategy, slowly chipped away the rear of the human army while focusing on defending the retreat route.

    They crashed and fought, due to home ground advantage and careful planning, the demi-human always emerged victory, the morale of the human dropped to an all-time low, some even surrendered and defected to the demi-humans, offering themselves to them for the sake of survival.

    ...

    In two days, the human army was annihilated, their commander was captured, he was locked within the dirty prison, eating the rotten fruits to survive.

    "This stupid human sure was strong, we even needed eight of the elite soldiers to capture him alone! He still managed to kill three of them!"

    "Strong or not, he still lost, look at him now. Eating rotten fruits and drinking dirty water. No one can beat us, the demi-human!"

    "I heard that the commander will arrive today, so prepare yourself, you animal."

    The guards mocked the commander, as usual, he was ridiculed every day, but he silently gritted his teeth and endured it.

    The commander kept his mouth shut, if he didn''t tell them any information, he would survive a little longer.

    A while later, the guards slowly opened his ceil, they dragged him out easily, because of the rotten fruits, both his physical and mental were broken into pieces, he had no will and strength to resist.

    Another figure walked casually into the room, he sat opposite the broken commander and waved his hand, the guards saluted him and orderly walked out.

    The figure was naturally the demi-human commander that commanded this operation, Ferror.

    He pulled out a fine knife and slowly peeled off the apples, he seemed to enjoy every moment of it.

    "Hello, human. As requested, if you told us the location of the next meeting, you will not be ."

    Using the word "request" instead of "demand" would give off the non-hostile feeling toward the prisoner, lowering his guard.

    Too bad that the sensitive information liked the location of the meeting was selected just before the meeting started to avoid the leak, even though the commander was the son of the general, he still couldn''t pinpoint the location.

    A mocking smile surfaced from his face.

    "If you think that you could get it from me, you better entertain me well."

    Of course, the commander didn''t let any emotion present itself on his face, maintaining the lie, hoping to survive until the reinforcement came.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    Ferror stabbed the knife into the table, creating crack on it, the table trembled lightly, fear started to manifest in the commander''s mind.

    A hint of madness could be seen in eyes of the Faceless believer, his smile stretched across his face from side to side.

    "Very well commander, let us see how long yo-"

    A sound of the explosion could be heard even in the room, the chaos had descended, many demi-humans in the camp ran toward the direction of the explosion, trying to fend off the intruders.

    Ferror''s face turned ugly to the extreme, he immediately rushed out of the room, pushing the table and chairs scattered around, knocking the tied human on the floor, alone.

    Even though falling onto the floor hurt him, the commander could only feel the happiness of being alive, he forced himself to vomit something out, it was a yellow ring.

    His life-saving artefact was actually implanted within him, the enemies would never be able to tell even after a body checking. He transmitted his thought into the magical ring, the ring then dissolved into a small butterfly and flew toward the Human Empire.

    All the time he kept quiet and ate rotten fruits wasn''t in vain, he surveyed his surrounding and deduced that he was still within the boundary of the same forest he suffered his defeat.

    He struggled to free himself, in the end, he chose to try his luck with the fallen knife that Ferror used to peel apples. After numerous wounds, he finally freed himself.

    Afraid of exposing his escape, he slowly crawled toward the broken door and listened to the sound that came from the outside.

    The sound of yelling and gunshots were everywhere, faint screams and cursings could be heard.

    The outside was too occupied to notice the absence of an unlucky soldier who got dragged into a tent, the loud noise from the battle concealed a measly scream within the tent.

    The disguised commander walked toward the frontline, using his stolen uniform as the free pass, he managed to walk unobstructed into the boundary between his imprisonment and freedom.

    Many demi-humans yelled at him along the way, completely failed to see through his disguise, their greets would be responded by a knife at their throat.

    "You there. Stop moving at once!"

    Seeing the shiny ring on the commander''s hand, the human soldiers gradually walked toward the commander from behind, seizing the ring to inspect before bowing to him.

    "Respected commander, please immediately return to safety, we will escort you, sir."

    When the commander got out of the war zone, a big figure emerged from the darkness, in his hand was a magical necklace. Pouring the magical force into the artefact, the necklace twisted itself violently before disintegrated into dust.

    "Everything is within the grasp of her highness, may her goal be fulfilled."

    The commander of the demi-humans said solemnly before returned to the battlefield, continuing his slaughter against the pre-destinated battle.

    ...

    "Greeting, Lord Aceros. It had been a while since your last visiting."

    "Hello, old friend. Or should I call you the Agent of the Outsider?"

    Sitting in his guest room, he slipped his own black tea as he casually mentioned the origin of the man before him.

    "You could call me anything, I don''t mind. Also, about our previous arrangement, we would like to express our gratitude for such valuable information. The true location of the smaller brunch of the Pantheon is priceless."

    "No need to thanks me, this is a fair trade between us. You fulfilled my request while I fulfilled yours."

    Aceros snapped his finger, the young maid of his slowly knocked on the door, waiting for her master''s approval, before she opened it and walked in with a small wooden box on her hand.

    If one didn''t look closely, the faint yellow light that the box emitted would be ignored. The magical power of the box interfered with one''s mind to make the box looked ordinary and unimpressive.

    On top of the box which contained the secret that the Outsider desired was a page detailing the contact they both agreed on.

    Once they formed the contact with their blood, their soul would be shackled by the contact. If any of them broke the contact, their soul would immediately dissipate into pure energy. Even the high and mightly Sages from the ancients couldn''t bypass the secret of the contact.

    "As expected of the Grand Noble, even the ancient magic such as the Soul Bind would be in your hand."

    He picked the contact up and pulled out a medical potion, in it was blood-red liquid, he poured a drop of the liquid onto the contact.

    "Sir Agent, don''t praise me too much. Your organization had been the shadow of the humanity for eras. Something as little as Soul Bind wasn''t worth mention in this discussion."

    Aceros also pour the prepared blood of his onto the contact, the contact rapidly absorbed the blood.

    The contact burned itself slowly, leaving behind two strange-shaped seals, representing the two sides of the contact. The seals flew into the two''s arm, merging with the body of them, leaving only tattoos behind.

    "It has been a pleasure conversing with the lord today. But my time is tight, please pardon me, I need to report to the head immediately."

    The Agent took the wooden box with him and left the mansion, the location of the church of the Pantheon was too important to not promptly report to the head.

    After making sure that the Agent of the Outsider left, Aceros shook his head mildly. This Agent of the Outsider is a big fool. He seemed to be the new member and not the veteran one.

    He processed to tap his finger onto his newly-acquired tattoo, it slowly melted off and disappeared into nothingness. The tattoo that he got was just an illusion created by his underling.

    The contact itself was formidable, able to force the great legends to follow the rule, let along the measly human noble. But the language was not absolute, words weren''t always the truth, sentences'' structures weren''t static.

    The flowery decoration on the contact was just another way to write the seemingly forgotten language, without careful observation, it would go unnoticed.

    The name of his, Aceros, was not the same one as in the contact. He had various slaves, many were nameless. It was not impractical to name some Aceros and used them as the receiving end of the contact.

    Of course, for them to send the newbie to negotiate with me, it was another way to test my ability, if I fell to take advantage of this Agent. The Outsider would regard me as a weakling, lowering my importance and priority of archiving my goal.

    Thinking to this point, he felt regret that he didn''t take that much gain from the Agent, it was not often that the wealthy organization would send free treasure to him.

    "Just wait for me, Relica. I will get you out of that place before you turned into one of them."

    His only worried was the sanity of his daughter, for someone that was a mastermind, he perfectly knew that how fearsome brainwashing someone was, able to bend and distort their belief permanently, effectively making them a faithful slave.

    If his daughter were to become the believer of the Pantheon, even worse if she was saintess, his life-long work would crumble. The effort he spent grooming this young girl into a capable leader was immeasurable, he would not let anyone steal his lovely girl.

    "You, speed up the preparation, the faster it finishes the better. I would die as an incompetent father if my only useful successor were to perish."

    Little did he knew that the fate was cruel and merciless, the goal he hoped to obtain must be paved with blood. Countless suffering must be paid in exchange for his selfish wish.

 Chapter 15 : Corrupted Knowledge

    The foundation of every nation in this plane was created by many things, even the unpredictable luck would be a factor in it, but the most essential thing was always the knowledge, from politic to economy to strategy. The nation simply couldn''t sustain itself without capable assistants filled with knowledge. A great ruler was not the one with absolute strength, but the one that knew how to make use of his resource.

    But where did all the knowledge come from? Since the beginning of time, countless experiments and observations were carried out endlessly, incredible amounts of logs and records were left behind with no one to inherit them, causing them to be buried with their owner, not to be seen again.

    A mysterious sovereign in the past came up with a simple invention, an invention that once shook the world, but as time passed by, the people of now gradually forgot about it.

    Library. The first library was created for the purpose of storing all the information. It was called the Castle of Knowledge, the heritage of this sovereign soared up rapidly, quickly became one of the powerhouses of said era.

    The Castle of Knowledge quickly became the centre of all knowledge, from magical experiments regarding the law of the world to the inventions of the Sages. The Castle of Knowledge was the highest and unreachable dream of many scholars.

    Unfortunately, through the erosion of time, it was left as an unexplainable myth, the place was never documented anywhere, the location was the secret, many wondered if it was real at all.

    But since then, every wealthy clan would have at least a library in which contained the knowledge that was passed from their founder, some even have more than one of them. The library would withhold the secrets and forbidden knowledge, the true difference between commoners and upper-classes were this invention.

    But, commoners also had their way, with the wisdom of the Great Emperors, they built an Imperial Library, accommodating incredible amounts of information from many years of contributions of various Sages.

    Only the worthy person could view the knowledge. This was the only rule regarding the entry of the Imperial Library, achievements from battlements, contributions from various studies, records from the past, inventions that benefitted the empire. All of them could be exchanged for the entry of this heaven. Depending on one''s performance, how long the duration and which type of knowledge that could be given to said person was varied.

    An old man was sitting next to the roundtable, using the ordinary-looking pen to write the content on many books, he would occasionally lift his head and gaze around his surrounding. The book he was rewriting was naturally The Introduction of The Library, one of the must-read books along with The Manner of the Readers, How to Find Your Desired Catagory and many more.

    The surrounding was almost empty, not many people were in the building, and all of them were silently looking for what they wanted, not a single one of them would waste their precious time chit-chatting.

    Although every one of them was at least a renowned expert admired by many, none dared to act wildly and went against the rule, one of the reason was the reverence of the place, but the true reason was the librarian that maintained the Imperial Library. He was the old man that was granted limitless amount of time within the library by the emperor himself, the Father of Mist, the last Grandarch Mage, the true Guardian of the Human Empire, Lord Caligo.

    The current librarian of this scholars'' heaven was the old man who was rewriting the content of the introduction books, with the help of the mysterious artefact that was gifted to him, the Book of Learning, he was able to make several breakthroughs regarding his knowledge and experiments, reaching the new height.

    Maybe in the near future, he would single-handedly bring the new era of magic, or even better yet, archiving breakthrough to the realm of legends himself.

    But for now, the overall qualitative change of the professions was needed in order to regain some period of peace, the only advantage that the humans have above those demi-humans was the advanced technology. Using the formation that created super-soldiers with the cost of intelligence, using the superior accuracy weapons to battle the enemies. Without technology, the humanity would have fallen long ago.

    Although the reproductive rate of humans was enormous, the quality of the average individuals would fall flat against the counterpart. Without the contribution of the deceased Sages, we would be left with only numbers, whose quality was inferior to the likes of elves and demons, even our seemingly numerous population also paled in comparison against the Undying.

    In conclusion, humanity needed either great minds to continue developing technology, or talents to replenished the lost professions.

    As the old librarian reviewed the contents that we wrote, his gaze met with a slender scholar, who dressed in a casual greyish robe, the robe itself was notably worn-out, indicated that this expert was a wandering type. Not staying in one place but travelling around.

    The old man had always stayed within the library, an emerge of an expert was not worthy of his attention. But something about that man was ominous.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

    He felt that the gaze of that greenish eyes was different than the gaze of normal humans, there was some kind of mystical force concealing the man''s feature. His curiosity was aroused, using his newly-learnt ability, Soul Eyes, he tried to peer into the soul of the mysterious scholar.

    Spying one''s soul was taboo amongst the mages, because, with slight tempering, the victim might unluckily go deranged due to an abnormality in one''s soul. But with this marvellous ability that he got from studying the Book of Learning, he was able to spy on the soul of those that were weaker than him without being noticed.

    But all things under heaven were balanced, such a miraculous spell would be too taxing for multiplied uses, and the user could not temper with the target''s soul, coupled with heavy backlash if the spell was interrupted.

    Unexpectedly, his Soul Eyes was met with a formless barrier, when his wave of magic touched it, the barrier sent forth a mystical ripple, hitting his invisible eyes and decaying them slowly. The magical eyes gradually withered and had its power sucked into the barrier.

    The old man was stunned, praising himself that he decisively abandoned the connecting treat of magic after he knew that something wasn''t right, allowing the magic to dissipate naturally before the flow of magic turned chaotic and backlashed him.

    At that moment, this strange mage turned his full attention onto the librarian, causing the old man to be able to view the full extent of his feature, but only burry. Only his glowing eyes that weren''t concealed within the greyish robe.

    The man walked over toward the Father of Mist, his footsteps were not too heavy nor was they too light, but they were infused with supernatural force, with every step, the atmosphere seemed to turn colder. Noticing this uncanny change, the other experts increasingly shifted their attention toward the two.

    Upon realizing the identity of the old man, they subconsciously retreated a few steps, not willing to have a hand in this ominous situation. Alas, the wandering expert stood in front of the Human Guardian, they were separated by a wooden table and some books. Yet in the others'' eyes, those small and insignificant objects were like towering World Tree, shouldering the sky and separated the ground.

    "Lord Caligo, could we have a moment of discussion?"

    The voice of mysterious man was static and unchanging, it was obviously modified using some high-level magic, looking from how he was able to defence against Soul Eyes, his attainment in magic would probably be very high, maybe even rivalled himself.

    The last Grandarch Mage smiled lightly. If there was more high-level mages for humanity, the better chance to overturn the war and defeat those demi-humans.

    And of course, to discuss with fellow mages might result in an unexpected breakthrough that might change his fate forever.

    "Let us go into the meeting room, this place was not suitable for discussion. Remember, we are still in the library."

    He put his finger in front of his mouth, signalling everyone to be quiet.

    He drew a magic formation mid-air, its shape was changing continuously, sometimes it was a circle, sometimes it was a hexagon. Nevertheless, it produced the flowing bluish ball of flame. The experts in the way of magic gasped in awe, these balls of fire were the inspectors of the mage, able to send information to the owner instantly.

    For him to use such an ancient magic, his accomplishment in magic much be higher than ever before!

    The old mage then walked into the private room, those rooms were used for debate and discussion of the experts, every room was filled with protection talisman, aiming to intercept all spying magic. Making them the perfect place for information exchange.

    Watching the two figures leaving, the remaining experts slowly retracted their attention, continuing to effectively use their remaining time correcting information. With the surveillance of the floating heat, no one would dare to cause the ruckus.

    ...

    The room was covered in plants of varies species, the dark-greenish colour was reflected whenever the faint light hit them, the temperature of this room was cold, to the point that air condensed into the fog. The room itself gave off the ancient and depressing feeling, coupled with the seeming broken yet complete appearance, the onlooker would mistake it as the prison or jail, if not for the neatly placed roundtable.

    Next to the table were many types of furniture, the bookshelf that stored secret unknown to normal, the showcase that displayed extraordinary items converted by many, pictures of influence character from the past were hung on the stained wall.

    But the most noticeable item in the room wasn''t any of them, it was a mysterious item created by the legendary figure. It was placed at the quiet corner of the room. It was made by magic-infused wood, the highest quality of them all, copulated with the marvellous skill of said figure, it was created in three months.

    The lower part of it took the form of a wooden box, quadrilateral-shaped box, many incomprehensible mechanisms were connected within the box. The upper body of it was a large golden horn, created by pure gold, it was seemingly attached to the wooden box with no problem. The mysterious technique of the said figure was too strange.

    Two figures were sitting spiritually in the room, those were not their real body, it was their illusion that projected by their powerful mental force. Something that was called Avatar.

    The first one that moved was an old man, it wore a golden robe and carried a white cane with him all the time, his face was concealed by the strong divine light. He picked a circle-shaped object, the object was pitch black, the surface was smooth and had a word engraved on it.

    "Windy Night"

    With a flick of his pale-white finger, the object floated straight into the most valuable treasure in the room, it fell on top of the lower wooden part and connected with it, the object started rotating slowing. The entire thing trembled softly, many puzzling yet relaxing sound came out of the golden horn.

    "You seem to never get bored of this piece of art, don''t you?"

    The second figure was also an aged figure, but his long and pointy ears indicated that he was an elf.

    "This treasure, the Phonograph, was too amazing to not be used. There was no sign or trace of magic formation that could create sound within it, but, it still created pleasing sounds by simply powering it with pure magic."

    "The rumour said that the creator claimed that it was the production of fate, that he came to our plane. If not for this thing, everyone would think of him as a madman."

    "Alright, enough with the chit-chat, you should have known already, about the objective of mine. Why I came to this meeting."

    The holy light that covered his face flicked suddenly, indicating the seriousness of the discussion.

 Chapter 16 : Grand Scheme

    The Phonograph continued to produce the seemingly random yet organized sound, some were high-pitch while others were low-pitch. Each and every one of them combined in many different ways, creating and portraying unique feeling differed from one another. Enchanting the nonchalant air that rooted deep within the room.

    But the profound aura that was emitted by the two figures caused the atmosphere to tense up gradually. When the topic of their meeting was bought up, the casualness of the air disappeared and was replaced by the coldness and detachment. The aged elf and the ancient human sat silently in the middle of the chamber.

    "Old man, your scheme ran deep and persisting, I didn''t dare to think that something unexpected had caught you off-guard."

    Mocking words were spoken by the unrestrained elf, but due to the passage of time, the white-haired human had already experienced all there was, he would not be easily provoked by superficial words.

    The old man closed his eyes, but the next thing he spoke was enough for the elf to tense up.

    "The seal within the Forbidden Palace was undone, this is, perhaps the only chance to recover your race''s original status. To seek out the truth left behind from the myth, wasn''t that your purpose?"

    "What... did you just say?"

    His voice generated ripples across the room, violently shook the antiquated chamber. The aged elf illusionary body shivered as if his soul was burnt by the flame of desire.

    The mana flew unstably as his emotion descended into chaos, causing the sound that was produced by Phonograph to distort, the disturbing yet saddening atmosphere suddenly engulfed the entire room.

    But before long, his chaotic flow of mana stabilized, the peaceful yet uplifting sound of the Phonograph returned to occupy the omnipresent space in the chamber.

    "What is your relationship with that man?"

    His twisted voice echoed the chamber once more, it travelled directly to the old man soul, the perfected way to conceal all the detail of their conversation, to not let the third party pried into the taboo subject.

    "That man was once the great ruler, he still is. But his sin was unpardonable, causing pain and suffering to countless lifeform on our plane, turning the paradise into the nightmare."

    The ancient human spoke out his untraceable past, the complicated emotion ran deep within every word of the sentences.

    The venerable elf was surprised, throughout the entire time they spent on the meetings, this calm and composed man never once revealed his emotion.

    "It doesn''t matter what your objectives are, as long as I can verify the truth lost in time, nothing else matters."

    The gaze of the old man flickered, he relaxed his unreal body as soon as the elf stated his indifference reasoning. He laughed at himself softly, confusing the elf in the process.

    "I only came here to propose plans with you, for our end goal is the same. The closing of the history book, we would have ensured a better chance at success when we collaborated."

    In his mind, this detached elf would never take any notice of this matter. He thought that the legend was never carried over since that great devastation event, thinking about his naive speculation. He mocked himself with a laugh.

    "Seems like that you are not a shut-in, but rather a knowledgeable elf. I won''t force or ask you what you know, but the same would apply to you as well."

    His knowledge of certain matter was too sensitive for any discussion, some matter must be kept rotting in the insiders'' mind. Even the insiders were too fearful to reveal them.

    "I have seen things unbeknown to an ordinary person, live far more than any of my friends. Everyone has their own secrets, that must be sealed away from the world."

    Once the elf finished his somewhat inspirational speech, both of them smiled faintly at each other.

    The old man spread his palm, the artefact ring was produced upon the channelling of his mana. He handed the ring to the elf, who scanned the content with his mana. The elf''s expression became much more solemn.

    "Have you already gone mad? This plan is a madness by itself, we are talking about the eradication of a civilization here!"

    The old man smiled even wider, causing the chill to run down the elf''s spine. The maddening aura suddenly emerged from the old man, manifesting into the shadowy figure of a demon in the mental realm.

    "You have never known what kind of evil and disastrous events orchestrated by that sinner. My plan was only the revenge against him, but his ability was too great, much so that the destruction of a civilization was required."

    The elderly elf fell silent, he only heard the rumour from his decreased progenitor from the Dark Era, the hand-writing of his ancestor revealed many unbelievable secrets, albeit only parts of them.

    But in the end, the elf never refused the crazy plan of that old man, if this man succeeded, then he would also benefit greatly. Most importantly, the secret from the past might also be answered, fulfilling his purposed.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

    The elf exhaled a huge breath, he nodded his head to the ancient man, agreeing with the crazy yet compelling masterplan.

    "For the longest time that I have known you, you certainly never fail any bet against me. This time should also be the same, I''m willing to bet my entire life worth of work into this gamble. It might not be the best choice there is, but it is definitely worth a shot."

    The old man''s aura subsided, he responded with unparallel confidence.

    "This time, however, it is different. To tell that I''m certain about this design would be a plain lie, in truth, I lost to him once, but this time... It will be mine revenge."

    Many questions surfaced the mind of the old elf, with many intentional reveals of the man''s dark and unknown history, he could at least guess some insignificant portions of his past.

    While his mind wondered about the origin of the man before him, he noticed that an exotic scroll was being unfolded before him. The scroll was seemingly made out of the skin of the animals, be it goats or sheep, but there was an unexplainable and frightening power in the scroll, it gave the feeling of the ever-changing chains of promise, able to penetrate even the brightest mind and forced everything under them to obey their promise or they would crumble under the almighty pressure of the chains.

    "What is this scroll? It was clearly a normal agreement paper that hasn''t contained any magic, but the unforgiving force was detected within it."

    The elf instantly raised his intangible barrier created by his secret spell, it revolved around his body, protecting every part of his.

    "Don''t panic, old friend. This is one of the lost spells amidst the history, the Chain of Promise. The most secure way to sign the deal with someone. With the power from above, the chain would force both ends to obey the condition they set. But, only if both sides agreed would the spell work."

    He smiled faintly, and wait for the elf to speak.

    The elf shook his head, he smiled lightly.

    "No thanks, you are still despicable as always. If you want me to sign the contract, create a new one without anything but the requirement."

    Who would be that foolish to use the prepared paper to sign the contract? The prepared paper would be plagued with many hidden conditions in myriad and uncrackable form, if it really signed the contract, his soul would probably be for the old man to take.

    "I''m just testing your wit, there is no need to be upset."

    The crafty old man gestured his hand again, the new paper with the same enormous pressure was recreated. This time, on the paper, was the plain and simple conditions regarding the sharing of the plan, and that they were not allowed to leak it to anyone any part of the plan.

    After several checks with many different ways to assure that there was no loophole to be exploited, the old elf finally signed his name with a drop of his blood. The old man also did the same.

    After they signed the contract, the ever-changing chains penetrated both''s soul, clinging to it and threatened to crush the soul if someone broke the contract.

    "I would await the good news from you, we will be working with each other for a long time. Goodbye, for now, the Great Ancestor of the old Elven Kingdom."

    The official agreement sign under their true name, not their birth name, but the name of their soul. Upon attaining the higher layer of power, in the realm of the legend, those godly experts would learn their soul''s name. It would be used to create the spell unique to oneself or many more.

    "I hope that our plan would not fail us, the Pope of the Pantheon, farewell."

    The Great Ancestor spoke before his illusionary body distorted into nothingness.

    The Pope smiled in an evil manner, his body also faded out of existence.

    The Great Ancestor did not know the true objective of the Pope, he didn''t want only revenge, but something else. Something that was even crazier.

    The Coming of the Deity. The Opening of the Heaven. The Resentment of the Sinner.

    ...

    "Who are you, exactly?"

    Lord Caligo asked this question very casually as if he didn''t care about the origin of the man before him at all.

    "Who I am is not important, there are many more things that you needed to know, but this is not one of them."

    The distorted voice came from the concealed figure, only the distinct green eyes were shown.

    "Then, what are the things that I needed to know? How did you know the importance of them?"

    The curiosity of Father of Mist was ignited. He probed further into the mysterious man.

    The room they were in was protected with many layers of seals and formations, only someone from the legend could forcefully break through the seal. There was no needed to fear that the conversation would be leaked.

    "Maybe the Art of Soul? Do you want to know the secret of the soul? What about some records beyond the Ancient Era?"

    As the man spoke, many foreign items, such as scrolls, books, tomes and records, started to float around the man, the knowledge hid within those items was enough to cause a war.

    "What do you want?"

    Lord Caligo''s face turned serious all of the sudden, he knew the vault of those items. The other would definitely not show them for nothing.

    The man seemingly smiled, but there was no way to know.

    "I only have one little trouble that required your assistance before you can take the items."

    All the rewards were laid out on the table in the orderly fashion, beside them was a crystal ball, an Information Crystal. It was used to store classified information and secret.

    The Grand Archmage held the crystal and examined the information in it, after reading all of them, without a moment of hesitation, he smiled.

    "So, I only needed to find the location of this woman? The information you provided was more than enough to find her entire bloodline."

    "I only need her, I don''t care about the others. I hope for the good news, contacted me when you find her."

    The man spoke with no hint of emotion.

    Lord Caligo watched the man leave, in the end, he didn''t ask about how there was no sign of life force and how there was a thick aura of death from his body. Many people had secrets, to ask about them was akin to offend them personally.

    "From what I recalled, she should be one of the Saintess of the Pantheon, an organization created to eliminate the spies that demons sent?"

    He sat there and thought about many things.

 Chapter 17 : Secret Mission

    At the top of the imperial castle, above the cloud and near the stars, was the plain and old room filled with varies instruments and tools. The Everlasting Chamber was its name. Every qualified royalty would have to visit this room to receive the blessing and inspiration from those seemingly unremarkable objects. They were, in fact, the belonging of the deceased emperor. As they approached the void that was death, they would leave one of their precious possession within this exalted room. They would infuse their wills into said objects. For their descendants that would one day rule over their land, for them to receive the blessing of their ancestors.

    That was the traditional secret from the past, since the Ancient Era, every emperor would have to leave one of their possession in this place, the wills of the emperors and the extraordinary of the scared objects would nurture the mind and soul of their successors, even so, the ancient energy was not easy to absorb, only those with bloodline of the true royalty and strong-willed would be able to comprehend the profoundness of the objects.

    Another flaw was the strict rules and harsh tests that the royalty would require to undergo before they were gained the right to enter the Everlasting Chamber. Those with a tainted mind that would betray the humanity for their own gains must never to enter the imperial room, for they would inevitably bring the end of the Human Empire.

    These tests would also have to be conducted secretly without the knowledge of the target, using only the most loyal and faithful old servants to control and arrange the tests.

    Only when the successor was chosen among the heirs, were they to be informed of the secret personally by the emperor of that time. Then, they would be taken to the Everlasting Chamber to be baptised by the blessing and wills of the emperors, giving them both noble mind and unwavering soul.

    This imperial room also had another name, Chamber of Hope, it would be used by the selected royal bloodline to ponder about various thoughts, like how students asked their teachers some questions, the descendants also asked their ancestors for the solution of the cataclysm. The wills of the emperors would manifest themselves in the soul of the current emperor, guiding their thought process and finally allowing them to reach the solution of their questions.

    But, the wills of the emperors were not omniscient or omnipotent, they were also not everlasting or eternal, all the wills of the Great Emperors were exhausted and deformed into the shapes of memories, their ancient energy could only be used to nourish the soul and mind of their successors, but, their wills were no more, they couldn''t guide their descendants anymore.

    Because of that, only the truly persisting problem that risked the destruction of the Human Empire would be allowed to be proposed to the great ancestors, the more they used their ancestors'' wisdom, the faster the ancient energy depleted. Thus, the undocumented rule was created, one that lasted as long as the empire.

    Although the room had many restrictions and rules, its usage was a miracle by itself, the Human Empire was able to persist and not crumble under the far-reaching pressure of the Demi-human and the Undying since the Dark Era. It was the doing of their ancestors that the Human Empire created the formation that exchanged intelligent for strength.

    Beside a window of the Everlasting Chamber, there was a feminine figure, she sat on the small wooden chair, her elegant manner was revealed as well as her captived bodily curve, the faint silhouette of her could be seen under the yellow dress that was crafted from the finest thread.

    Her long and loose hair settled on her shoulder, her face looked down from the tower, gazing at the peaceful town and noisy market, the capital of humanity was lively at day and peaceful at night. She whole-heartedly wanted it to remain that way.

    Suddenly, her thought-process was interrupted by a faint knock on the plain-featured door. She turned her head to the source of the sound, causing her long hair to fail from her shoulder, hanging above her leg. She stood up from the wooden chair and walked peacefully toward the door that was waiting to be opened. Her delicate and pale hand reached out to grab the handle, she unlocked the door and let the outsider came in.

    The hardwood door was pulled open, revealing the handsome and magnificent body of a middle-aged man, his short hair flew with the gentle breeze, he stood in front of the young maiden and smiled tenderly.

    "Father has always told us to not sneak into this room, but you never listen to him."

    He handed a paper to the maiden, within the paper detailed many different reports about the empire.

    The angelic lady received it with a wide smile, she placed her hand on her breast while tilting her neck adorably, as though she tried to act cute.

    "My body is weak and fragile, only this room could nourish the physique of mine."

    "You don''t need to lie to your elder brother, the view of the capital was the best at this place. Remember, I have watched you grew up."

    Her elder brother teased his little sister. The pair of royalty then chatted about mundane matters for a little while.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    After their state of mind had reached the tranquillity, the second princess reached out her hand to grip on the cloth of her eldest brother.

    "Big brother, is there any record of that ancestor at all? Father started to act so much weird after he came to our palace."

    The frail princess asked her elder brother, with the youthful voice, the big brother of her found it hard to refuse her.

    The first prince revealed a hint of sorrow in his eyes before he forcefully suppressed it with the faint smile, he shook his head unwillingly.

    "I also wonder about his origin as well, I have employed my servants to search every rumour about that man. Alas, his origin is too far away from the present, not a single record of his remained."

    The matured prince used his firm hand to pat the head of his little sister, the way he did it was gentle, like how a father would pat his children''s head. A sign of sadness manifested in his heart, this second princess never saw her mother, the only pillar that supported her mentality was her father, the Blood Emperor, and her eldest brother, the first prince.

    Within her mind, her father was a great sage, he was all-powerful, all-encompassing and all inspiring. For her godly father to bow down for the unknown man that was sealed away from the world, that was unacceptable for her. She needed time to digest all the ruthless truth, this was also why her father allowed her to be at the Everlasting Chamber.

    The first prince pulled the white handkerchief from his pocket, the handkerchief flew itself toward the teary face of the heart-broken princess. She then picked it from the air, using it to wipe out the pure and transparent liquid on her moon-like face.

    The first prince continued to chat with the second princess for quite some time before he made sure that the mentality of his frail sister was stable before he bade her farewell.

    The second princess then continued to gaze toward the blazing sun, as if she wanted to venture into it, even if it cost her her life.

    After a while, another round of knocking sound was heard again, but this time, the respectful voice of the loyal servant could also be heard.

    "Your Highness, there are two letters that were sent to you, one has the seal of the Pantheon while another has the seal of the Grand Noble."

    "You are permitted to come in."

    The second princess face was devoid of her previous emotion, her valuable side must not be known by any outsiders, the image of the strong-mind princess who one day would rule the Human Empire must never be broken.

    "May your highness archive all there is."

    The servant showed their gratitude before slowly opened the wooden door. His every action was refined and well-trained, he was one of the elite force of the humanity.

    Only the most elite of the elites would be able to serve the royalty, and even fewer would be able to peer into the secret of this Everlasting Chamber. All of them were shackled with many soul-binding spells, all of their bloodlines were eternally loyal to the royal bloodline.

    The princess smiled lightly, the dignified aura emerged behind her, the servant kneeled to the ground as he slowly moved closer toward the princess. He handed the letters beneath her feet and kowtowed to her before crawling his way back.

    "This rude servant has finished his task, this one may request to leave this sacred chamber."

    The servant once again said his line with absolute respect.

    The second princess who was now resembling the goddess nodded her head faintly.

    "May your highness name forever echoed within the humanity."

    With that praise, the servant left the Everlasting Chamber. He himself was still in awe by the immensity of the ruler''s aura from the second princess.

    After the servant was gone, the second princess returned to her previous state of the youthful lady, she began to hum her favourite song as she gazed into the sky again. After she was done resting her mind, the second princess then unravelled the two letters, preparing to read the mysterious content within them.

    ...

    On the seventh day of the fifth month, eight generals of all twenty-one generals found dead in their resting manor. Along with other deceased fifty-six commanders. From the various tests and studies, we concluded that they were assassinated at almost the same hour of the night.

    All of the generals that were killed had done many crimes in the dark, this included kidnapping, heavy taxing and drug dealing. Many of these crimes were left unnoticed from the public view, only the small minority would be able to raise their unsatisfaction but they would be met with server punishment or death threat.

    No records of the assassination were announced, their death was also altered to be various types of the accident at the varies time, the royalty and the noble faction all overlooked the incident and never publish the truth, even the families of the victims didn''t show any response toward the silent attitude of the empire.

    Further investigation was needed to confirm the mastermind and the purposes of this operation.

    The Saintess of the Pantheon, Alita, was attentively reading the urgent report that their information gathering network sent to her. For such a large and calamitic disturbance to happen yet, no response was heard from the royalty and noble faction, there must be some dealings under the watchful eyes, something had happened after the Great Catasphere.

    The Human Empire''s internal structure of politic and economic had been undergoing a huge change after that dreadful event, the royalty had begun to suppress the noble faction aggressively. But they would always maintain the certain limit, letting the shaken foundation of noble faction had time to stabilize themselves.

    The royalty had already transformed into the unfathomable force that controlled over humanity, their mysteriousness only multiplied after their monstrous exploits of seizing the supplement base of the Demi-human Kingdom. Although they lost some bases at the south in exchange, from the strategical point of view, this exchange benefitted them greatly.

    Alita snapped out of her thought after the sound of consecutive footsteps travelled into her ears, she smiled as she adjusted her attire nicely before stood up. She knew that her friend had come to meet her.

    The door was open carefully, the figure watched her surrounding carefully to make sure no one saw her. After she was certain, she quickly walked toward her best friend and gave her a sweet hug.

    "I''m back, your highness."

    "Welcome back, Calin, you don''t need to call me your highness, it''s embarrassing."