Tragedy has befallen the land of Combrosia, a country that once stood at the top of the world. The cries of pleading and agony could be even heard in the depth of the Imperial Palace.
The na, Imperial Palace, would be an overstatent.
The title of Empire has long beca a joke in the ears of the world, only a remanent of a forgotten glory.
A joke indeed.
Who would have even thought that a country calling itself Empire would be cornered by a principality, an archdukedom, and a kingdom?
The Glory of the dynasty that once unified this continent, was tarnished to it's core.
Greatness in a lineage is difficult to maintain, but diocrity is like the plague: Once a generation is inflicted, there would be no way out for the ones that followed.
The examples were nurous: The Tsarian dynasty, the French kingship, the Ottoman sultans, the Chahs of Iran.
Besieged by the might of the alliance of their three foes, lands were abandoned in the raging flas of war, millions enslaved, billions departed.
Won raped, Starved children, eating the corpses of their one kin to survive.
A pathetic sight indeed, a phenonal joke.
Despair, death and desolation lood over the land.
The Imperial palace and capital, the last bastion of the resistance also lost all will to fight. The soldiers who have been under siege for 3 months have already lost everything they were fighting for:
Their wives sold themselves for the little piece of bread they were offered. Their children died to sickness and starvation. Their nation was trampled over.
What was there left to fight for?
What was even the point?
Is death and enslavent really any worse than this?
The emperor was already left motionless on the throne awaiting for the sins of his predecessor to down on him. The nobles escaped. The generals and officers all killed themselves and their families for the outco awaiting for them if alive was far worse.
No orders were conveyed anymore.
Everyone has already abandoned the empire.
Everyone but him.
His eyes were still brimming with light, unable to accept even the slightest defeat. Determination forged on his face as if the world himself owed him. Like a shounen protagonist, the Crown Prince was unyielding, unwavering, like he was to erge victorious from any challenge. His bloodied body, his clothes more torn than everyone present, the holes severing his abdon, his right chest, his neck. The lances penetrating his left tight and his right shoulders, he looked like the most miserable man in the world. Yet in this desolation, he shone the brightest.
The man who was still leading this country, the man who even in the dephs of insanity still continued to march like victory was within reach.
Yet no one knew about failure more than him. The Crown prince was known as the worst in the history of all the dynasty.
He was stupid, weak illiterate, talentless, and reckless.
Completely unfit of a ruler. If the Emperor was blessed with another child, he would be without a doubt replaced. Yet everyone close to him, knew one thing about him. The one thing that defined him the most, he had an iron will.
If he was stupid, he would spend all his ti in the library reading day after day.
If his body was weak, he would endure hell in training that would make even Might Guy blush with sha.
If soone would learn sothing in 10 min, he would need 100 hours to understand it.
If one needed 10 months to beco as strong as a rock, he would need 10 years.
Everything about him from head to toe was diocre. But in his heart, he had one aspiration:
'I want to beco great'
His unwavering will, that earned him the disdain of the whole kingdom, was the only thing that was keeping this Empire together.
Alone, his back straight, looking at his subject, reminiscing about the friends he lost in this massacre, then facing the millions of troops besieging everything he held dear he cried with a voice that seed to pierce the Heavens :
"I, Male Vega, will fight a hundred if a hundred were to face , will fight a thousand of thousands were to face , and will fight MILLIONS if Millions were to face !!! What is to fear my n ! IT IS ONLY DEATH !!!"
His frail, tembling body, contrasting with his powerful voice, making him seem like a mouse yelling at a storm.
But even that, has now stopped working. The warriors on his side were all looking down, the monsters on the other side of the walls were all snickering. All the high officials, and the generals looked at the Man with nothing but the utmost admiration.
They all thought the sa thing:
'What a sha'
That was already the seventeenth ti that this boy survived death. He was in no way stronger than the average lieutenant. But his will alone was still moving his body.
This was nothing short of a Miracle.
But even miracles were incapable of saving this god forsaken place.
Seeing that even the lions stopped roaring, Neilo Layi the general in chief of the alliance decided it was the right ti to erase this place. In no more than two days, the Cobrosia Empire would be but a vestige of the past.
Behind the Prince, a beautiful figure approached, she was a flower that had nothing to do with the battlefield. Her voice, sultry like honey drops sounded behind him :
"Elder Brother, the Emperor invokes you."
Her eyes looking at that scrawny back were conflicted. There was haughtiness, disdain but a trace of respect and even fear. Even since, Lina Vega, was young she hated the fact that she was a woman. She was niece of the emperor, but since she was a girl, no matter her military rits, her literary talents, her outstanding martial arts and intelligence, she was never in the discussion of the throne. Instead, it was this trash, who from the simple fact of birth was given everything. Gazing at the throne, she always thought that it was a matter of course for her to deserve it, yet no one even ntioned her na.
She hated that man, from the bottom of her heart, she hated him.
Yet looking at his figure now. Looking at the despair that overtook even the people she looked up too, completely unaffecting this person. Respect rose in her heart. And now for the first ti and probably the last ti she called him Elder Brother. Mal, oblivious to all of this, only happy that his dear cousin was still safe followed her.
The Imperial court, deserted, like a concubine waiting for a never coming spring, was a sad sight. The door of the Throne Room reflecting the bloodied light hovering over the capital seed rusting.
In the depths of the cosmos, in a very familiar planet nad Earth.
Asia continent, UAE, Dubai.
At the top of Burge Khalifa, the highest ever attained by humanity, a man was standing, contemplating this treasure under his feet, that dubai was in night. The beautiful night, the gorgeous skyscrapers, truly a wonder to behold.
'Humanity did indeed co from far.'
He looked at the nightly Dubai, with dead eyes, but a slight smile on his face, an ironic smile, an insolent one. One that seed to mock the world. But he knows best, what that smile ans. It was self-mocking.
'Look at what humanity has accomplished. To think, that I once saw myself as soone as great.'
Depression was the only aning of that smile.
The sounds kept coming and going, but nothing, absolutely could take his eyes off the scenery.
His mind was wandering, in distant mories.
Since a tender age, Tarek was always obsessed with one idea :
"Greatness"
What makes a man great ?
What defines greatness ?
Alexander the Great, Suleiman The Magnificent, Napoleon Bonaparte, Qin Shin Lyang
He wanted to be a man that great. Not because of ambition, but because it was a matter of course.
Since he rembered he was always smarter, stronger more talented than his peers. Not in a 'Eidetic mory, super computer' kind of way, no, more in a refined graceful superiority that seed natural, like a flowing river. He had intelligence, talent, and wisedom that was unparalled, everything was always easier for him. And that was for everything. If a super genius that was to revolutionize his field, would be biased towards a type of reasoning. His kind of gift, was otherwise, it was a gift that made comprehension, analysis and execution like one.
It was the kind of general affinity that categorized the people that do not stand atop of a field, but atop of others.
But wise as he was, he knew that sothing was missing him.
Yet he chose to ignore it.
'It would co with ti'
As the little boy grew, he began to dazzle all the people around him. The teachers would sing his praises. Yet, there was sothing that always bothered him:
Not once was he the first in his class.
There was always soone 'better' than him.
And that continued to happen again and again. Growing he would always be a step behind people below him. He would not seize opportunities. He would never get woman that were into him, he would not obtain jobs that he wanted.
Those people who he looked down on, would eventually all surpass him. And 'Greatness' he strived for never arrived.
Depression began to take over him, disillusion after another. The man in his mid thirties beca a shell of a person incapable of even functioning in society.
He quit. He quit ambitions. He quit love. He quit auto-respect. He quit on himself.
He threw himself on everything that could sooth his soul : Alcohol, drugs, series, ani, manga, web novels, gas
Everything that could distract that fragile pride of his.
Until that fateful night.
Drunk, in the middle on the street, he t 'her'.
'Its her again.'
Selma Dani, they first went to high school, gone to different faculties in the sa universities and even ended up in the sa departnt.
This woman was in a way always in his life. Her fierce and feline look seed to pierce throught anything. He hated her gaze the most. The way she looked him was always like that. Like looking at a lost puppy. She landed him her shoulder and sat him on a nearby coffeeshop. Looking at her familiar eyes, and with inibitions of alcohol he asked the question that taunted his self :
"What went wrong ? What went wrong with ?"
Hearing him, an elegant smile appeared on her, a really happy, like she was waiting for him this whole ti to ask :
"Nothing went wrong. This is was where you were supposed to end up, Tarek."
"Wha-?!"
"Do you believe every failed man is a stupid man with no talents?"
"I wanted to be 'Great'."
"I know, it was written all over you."
"I had everything."
"Yes, I know that too. Your shrewdness could topple countries, your wisdom could make old monsters redden with sha, your talent could make geniuses hate themselves. Tarek, I believe there is no one in the world who knows that more than ."
"You"
This lady has an even higher opinion of him than himself !
"But that's why you are so pitiful. If you were any less you would probably have led a beautiful life."
"What do you an ?"
"You lack sothing important, and that's Caliber. The Character of the Great. You pursue your goals not because you desire them, but because you were supposed to attain him. Your determination, your drive, your caliber is completely lacking. And you will always be."
"So what should I do ?!! Its easy to insult people like that !!!"
"Content with live among the mass or"
She drank from the coffee and got up :
"You know the end, right?"
Looking at this new city he just discovered, Dubai, his smile grew into laugher:
'Thank you, Selma. I already knew that but I needed to hear it. I needed to receive sothing else than praise for to accept it. That I was Incomplete.'
'Even if I lack drive, even if I lack desire. Greatness was always the only aning of my existence. I cannot bring myself to abandon it.
'My life, what pathetic existence it was.'
The jump was long like he was reaching for sothing beyond him. As he was descending at high speed one last sentence resonated in his mind:
"If I am incomplete where would my other half be ?"
Crossing the endless worlds and universes in what was previously the Combrosa Empire, inside the Throne Room, a silence overtook everything.
The Crow Prince was kneeling, a blade on each side of his neck threatening to execute him. His face was stern but calm as if life or death held no aning to him. He kept a steady gaze as he looked at his dear father who gave the order. In the room sobbing started getting louder and louder. Two woman were crying their heart out. It was his younger cousin Shehrazade, and his mother Devrane :
"Big brother, No !!! Let big brother go !!!"
"My Lion ! My Prince ! My son ! Your majesty let him go !"
On the side the elder cousin Lina was quietly watching what was unfolding blocking her sister. The left and right ministers were tired, way too tired to even discern the good from the bad. They only complied. Mal then opened his mouth, a knowing smile on his face :
"What are you orders, Father ?"
"The King Piece, it needs soone to hold it."
""-Noooo!!!!""
The won cried, they knew what accursed item the King Piece was. From the beginning of dynasty the King Piece was the biggest secret of the royal family. It was on its might that the glorious empire was built, the founder of the empire used it. Yet after the end of the conquest and the death of the founder, no other emperor could use it. No, it was wrong. Only the royal family could activate it, but everyti it would consu the hegemon. After generations of attempts, this 'King Piece' and its might were reduced to no more than superstition, it was only a pit that kept killing. To think the Emperor was reduced to even sacrifice his own son for a stupid gamble. Yet in response, the Crown Price only smiled :
"I was waiting for your majesty to bestow this honor"
"Big Brother!!! NOOO!!!"
This little Shehrazade loved her cousin the most. He was stupid, but he was kinder than anyone. His genuine smile, his brave and kind heart already made him irreplacable for her. The mont she heard about the King Piece, she knew her Brother wouldn't hesitate in the slightest.
At the natural response of his son, the father trembled, his shoulders lowered :
"You know, I could have done it myself. Used my own body as a sacrifice."
Steadily he answered:
"Yes."
"You don't want to know why ?"
"No."
His voice was trembling :
"Do you already know?"
"Yes"
Tears started dropping :
"Its because I am a coward !! I can't bring myself! I can't bring myself to forfeit my life !!"
Calm as a breeze, he answered:
"I know, father. Let take care of it. Lina take care of sister and mother as well."
"Don't worry."
"Lets start THIS !!"
As he approached the King Piece, Mal reminisced about all his life, about everything he worked for, about how many companions he lost, how many of his people have suffered. The powerlessness, the sense of weakness
'It is all my fault. If I was stronger!! If only I had more talent! I am so useless, my people! I can only do that!'
He slowed his pace in front of the King Piece :
"Father, take care of everyone"
The Emperor nodded, but that was only to comfort his dying son. He turned to face his family :
"Mother, Shehrazade, Lina, I am sorry for always dragging you down. May I be more useful in my next life. After all in this life I was always, Incomplete."
The last words sounded like a confession from the depth of his soul. Like sothing that has been weighting on him since his birth.
"Here I co !"
He took the King Piece in his hands and plunged in his heart. Waiting for his whole body to disintegrate.
Earth :
Tearing the sky with his fall, the eyes of Tarek that should have been focusing on the ground had already drifted elsewhere. Floating in front of him, was a
'A chess Piece ?'
A King's piece in chess. He then felt a throbbing in his chest, an unprecended magical feeling, like no one before.
'It feels like it calling onto .'
He reached out.
Imperial Hall :
Wails of pain were heard. The Emperor, the ministers, the princesses, and the Imperial Concubine were looking at was happening their eyes about to burst out of their sockets. The Crown Prince was screaming, his whole body already bloodied by the precedent battles, he seed like an undead crawling of its grave. Then a blinding light, descended like the sun on this apocalyptic land downing on him. Every human being saw this light piercing threw the infinite sky and blessing the Imperial Hall. The light enveloped the Crown Prince like the embrace of an Angel.
Sothing was happening, sothing mystical, beyond words.
After endless minutes, the cries finally subsided. The light suddenly transford in an ominous dark liquid that condescended into a black ball for what seed like an hour. Not a sound could be heard as everyone realized sothing that should in no way happen, occurred.
Cracks started appearing on the black spearing as a silhouette started appearing. For the first ti, 'He' appeared on the universe.
An existence born from despair, sothing that shouldn't happen.
He was 'The impossible'
The Crown Prince still had the sa body, the sa bloodied appearence, the sa pale complexion. But no one would dare say he was the sa person. His eyes were like a deep tranquil water, insondable and unreadable, a malicious smile on his face, like the devil was residing in his soul.
He took his first step. His hair which now was reaching his shoulders, gave him an ethereal aura, like a new born diamond. His face was still the sa, but his deanor was in another level. And then another step , his small smile plastered, he seed happy. Accomplished and more importantly, unshackled. As he walked out, realization after realization downed on him, mory after mory. The past, his two pasts, his two selves. Sadness, happiness, love, determination, ambition, hate, and disappointnt. And on top of that this sense of void. He opened his hands and kingly piece on it, gently flickering on his palm, like a smitten kitten. As he caressed the treasure, information ca one after another about his use. And his smile grew wider.
'With thisWhat a surprise. What a heaven defying itemWhat a great surprise! To think that it would choose of all people. We are a match made in heaven.'
As he stood, there all there, by himself, thinking about everything leading to this day. In his reverie he traversed his two lives, finally he let out a sigh. And for the first ti talked :
"Finally, I am complete."
His voice sounded like two people talking in the sa ti. One of them was familiar, the other was not.
But the majesty in this tone was undeniable. Shehrazade was looking saddened at him :
'Is it really my kind brother?'
Lina was baffled :
'Is it really him ? He looks different yet sohow the sa'
But in this situations nothing could topple the instinct of a mother :
"My Lion ! You are back to !"
As she approached him, the solemn aura around him dissipated and kneeled before her putting her hand on his head, like the custom was :
"Mother, even from the depths of hell, your Lion will roar back to you."
This answer moved the Imperial Concubine to tears :
"You brat, where did you learn to smooth-talk like that !"
The reassuring attitude, like nothing happened was his, the genuine, silly smile was also still his. But the grace, the tongue, and the gestures were all in another dinsion. The two voices talking in sync like a fusion from dragon ball were the most suspicious.
He stood up again. He then approached the two princesses, stood silently in front of them, with his piercing gaze and lowkey smile. He then moved his hands on each one's cheek like it was the most natural thing to do, startling everyone in the hall. His eyes brimming with light, he addressed Shehrazade by her na, for the first ti, in the most loving tone he could muster:
"This ignorant prince has made you worry all these years, and he is incapable of returning the favor he owes you. I implore you to watch over my troubles one more ti. Let's build the greatest empire, together, my Shehrazade."
As he finished his lips kissed her forehead. Confirming to all the court the aning of his sentence. The girl was still on her toes, her face facing the ground, incapable of even making even eye contact. She seed like she was lting on the spot.
'Its still big brother indeed. But when did he beca this dashing. He even called directly by na! '
The next mont a familiar voice resoned from his mouth :
"Hey, Bastard ! What do you think you are doing to my cousin !"
This is the Crown Prince voice, only his !
"Oh shut up stupid cunt ! Like I could hurt my Scheherazade!"
This was the new voice, that was in sync with his earlier !
"Why would you even do that ?!
"Why ? Could you be more dense ?! The girl is obviously in love with you ! And you like her too! What are you getting all defensive about? What are you, you dense shit? An isekai protagonist?!"
Among all the gibberish, the hall only understood one thing : "A new imperial concubine was born"
Scheherazade was fidgeting in place and stomping her feet as her man continued arguing against himself. As he realized, the show he was putting on, the Crow Prince regained his bearings :
"Sorry for that. It was unproper"
He then directed his attention at the older princess, and his gaze turned dark, like an unfathomable abyss, darkness coming from his eyes. A solemn expression on his face, he gently grazed her left cheek. She felt cold sweat on her back as she tried to back way.
"DON'T MOVE !"
A domineering aura ca from him, for the first ti . This was The TRUE BEARING OF AN EMPEROR!!
Lina gulped up and down, she resolved herself as she waited for what's about to co. It was then, that a she made a shocking discovery. His left eye was tearing up, sadness took over his stern face:
"My sister, I forgive you. For everything."
He then turned away, whipping his tear away. With his kingly aura on!!
Finally, he advanced to the emperor, the king's piece appearing in his palm. Facing him, with a devilish smile on his face :
"I mastered the King Piece. You know what this ans, right ?"
The foolish Emperor gazed deeply at his changed son, before taking of his crown and placing it on his son's head :
"I, Umbra Vega, abdicate from the throne and I make the Crown Prince Mal Vega the new Emperor of the Cobrosia Empire
"Hail the Emperor!"
The old man walked away from the throne and a new Emperor sat on it. Even with his bloodied body, he exuded an intense aura, like this throne was ant for him.
He then shut his eyes his right hand supporting his head in complete silence. It stayed that way for an hour before he reopened his eyes. He stood up a slight smile :
"Now, let's find a way to destroy this armies, shall we?"
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