The Emperor Who Was Chapter 7 : Chapter 7

Chapter . 7

Waiting for nightfall, I picked a secluded spot even within the palace garden and stood barefoot, concentrating. Nudity was absolutely unacceptable. If this thod failed, then I would consider the enemies' naked dance and various other things.

“Oh, my love! I have been waiting!”

“Shh, quiet! Soone might catch us.”

…The secluded spot turned out to be a crowded one. There are many rooms in the vast palace, yet there are always those who co outside to enjoy secret etings. What is so enjoyable about the friction of goosebumps rising in the cold air?

‘Promiscuous things. When I beco Emperor again, sex outside will be forbidden. If I fine them all, the treasury will burst.’

I considered secretly using magic to chase them away.

But bards who sing of court romance recited that moans are songs of pleasure and sex is a dance of joy.

Hoping the God of Magic would agree, I closed my eyes.

Life force overflows everywhere. Rocks, soil, each has its own energy. The energy embraced as soil becos rock, and rock becos soil.

‘Nature’s magic power.’

The body heat of my bare feet ets the warmth of the soil they stand on. My magic embraces the seed within the soil.

A sprout tickles my toes, then becos a vine of green leaves creeping up my ankle.

Hair brushes against the wind. My magic snatches the wind. One strand of wind, one strand of hair. As the knot is completed, a drizzle falls on the top of my head. I taste the sweet raindrops and send them down to the vine. The vine grows larger and envelops . Like that, I beco a tree.

As a tree, the water sucked from the ground, the rain falling from above, and the wind all et.

From here, it becos dangerous. The point where the circulation of the four elents reaches its peak.

-Are you crazy with a death wish?

Before regressing, when I voiced this thought, Master jumped.

-Elental magic relies on compatibility. Yet, far from finding a compatible match, you want to spin them all into one?

-If one leans only towards compatible attributes, other attributes beco weak. That is why everyone is limited to a single attribute.

-It is hard enough to walk one path steadfastly, yet you want to chase four rabbits?

-The four elents are not just different. Fire is hot and dry, water is cold and wet, earth is cold and dry―

-Are you trying to teach

now?

-Rather than focusing only on opposition and widening that difference, we must grow the commonalities. Instead of a relationship of eating and being eaten where water extinguishes fire and earth traps water, in a circulation where the beginning and end of everything connect as one―

-You say such things because you have no magic power.

At these words, even I, who was passionately arguing back, was speechless. And breathless.

-Anyone with magic power knows how dangerous the circulation of the four elents is. Who wouldn't want to use multiple elents together? But there are many cases where a person with fire attribute tried to use water magic and ended up unable to use even fire magic. When opposing attributes clash within, a wizard loses magic power or even dies. Since you have no magic power anyway, you can establish such a dangerous hypothesis.

To , unable to continue speaking, Master said sharply.

-Swear that you will never even think of that dangerous theory again. Otherwise, I will expel you. That expulsion will be the last teaching I give you as a master.

I was already banished from the Imperial Palace and wandering. If I were kicked out again, I had nowhere to go.

-I swear.

At that ti, I resented Master. Not knowing her past of losing her husband.

Thinking about it now, even those cold words were out of a desire to protect . However…….

‘Master never said not to experint with my body.’

It is dangerous for other wizards, but I now have much stronger magic power than them, and I also have the experience of dying. My favorite strength.

Above all, the God of Magic used all four elents. It might have been possible because he was a God, but anyway, I couldn't give up such a possibility before even trying.

Thus, I headed towards death.

‘Mind like a calm water surface… Quietly… Rowing on the surface……. Towards the vortex opening its mouth on the other side…….’

Soaked in rain, the tree roots into the ground. The wind brings more rain. Fast, strong, they et, crash, faster, stronger.

The tree writhes, swept by the rainstorm. The rainstorm blows away the soil dug up by the exposed tree roots.

All that friction and collision create an ignition point. Lightning strikes. To the top of the tree.

Struck directly by lightning, I ignite. I am no longer a tree. Pain awakens

inside the tree.

My whole body burns. The strengthened magic power burns

more fiercely.

Rain still falls, but it cannot extinguish the fire. Rather, it stops. Because the circulation has passed to the turn of fire. If I give up here and extinguish the fire with water, everything will be in vain.

But I cannot return to being a tree because of the pain either. Thus, I am no longer a tree, but trapped in a wooden coffin, burning alive.

mories of my past life blaze. The faces of nightmares glow.

But I do not raise water. I endure the circulation of fire.

Until I burn alive, burn completely, and my ashes fly away on the wind.

The ashes fall onto the soil and cover it. Rain falls, and using the ashes as fertilizer, a sprout peeks out. Conclusion, and beginning.

Before even opening my eyes, the world felt different.

Unlike before when I felt only soil if it was soil, and only water if it was water. I can feel water and fire in the soil too. Just as I feel water and fire in the air hovering above the soil.

‘Perhaps it is only natural, sothing that should have been.’

The four-elent circulation magic governing all four attributes.

Esséntia Divína.

I nad it so. Because the core elents that make up the world are sacred.

The mont the circulation of power accepting all four attributes evenly was completed, my heart beat wildly.

The circulation I felt when I first drank Lasilex was now responding fiercely to the circulation of the four elents.

As the magic power surging with terrifying montum rotated larger, the circulation of the heart beca solid. If it only had the movent of a circle before, now I could feel the shape of a circle engraved on my heart.

‘Under the scar left by Michelon, as distinct as that scar.’

The brand cos to mind too, but a joy different from the ruin the brand gave.

My essence eting the essence of the world.

Even though it was a sensation I felt for the first ti in my life, I knew its identity. Circenia Revoluto.

-Or it is also called Orbio Principia. This is a na given by the author of the doctrine book, although it is said the God of Magic simply called it a circle.

The secret to generating the mighty power that made the God of Magic, who was nothing but a god, the Chief God.

Although mainly called Circle Magic, it was lost to history while magic was oppressed over the years.

-Perhaps it was magic only the God of Magic could achieve. Even that remained only as a legend among wizards and disappeared from history.

But now it has been revived in my hands. Because I felt the power of that God existing vividly in the world.

An existence that never disappears, no matter how the world and people change. The power of one who enlightens oneself, a dream awakened in reality.

“My God, I thank you.”

After praying, I smiled. With this power, I can save my dragon.

As long as I find where he is.

A dragon has a lifespan incomparably longer than a human.

‘However, when the contracted Emperor dies, the dragon dies too. Although the reverse does not hold.’

If I hadn't released Michelon from the contract first, Michelon would have died with

when I died.

Dragons create eggs alone with their own mystery. If a male dragon, becoming a father dragon; if a female dragon, becoming a mother dragon. That egg does not hatch until the dragon dies. So a vacuum period occurs every ti an Emperor dies. An unavoidable difficulty in exchange for solidifying the guardian dragon’s obedience. Preparing to pass that gap safely is also the responsibility of the Emperor and his successor.

‘It grows fast once it hatches and makes a contract. Although the speed varies depending on the compatibility with the Emperor.’

However, Ilaves, my father’s dragon and Michelon’s mother, died before my father died.

Rumors circulated that my father suddenly went mad and killed the dragon, but so said it was a rumor spread by the First Prince’s faction and the Empress’s faction.

The truth was never revealed. However, perhaps because of Ilaves’ mysterious death, Michelon did not hatch from the egg even after his mother’s death. My father even claid the dragon egg did not exist.

No one believed this. Only rumors were rife.

-Did His Majesty hide the dragon egg?

-For whatever reason, does he intend to monopolize even the next generation’s dragon instead of the lost one?

-I don't know, but such rumors were circulating.

It was my eldest brother Maximilian who found the disappeared dragon egg after my father’s death, it was my illegitimate brother Alexander who stole that egg, and it was I who contracted with the dragon.

-The dragon does not hatch. Perhaps it has already died inside the egg. Since it was trapped inside the barrier for that long.

Empress Dowager Rhiannon said. Coldly even in the face of the danger that her strategy, which used any ans necessary to steal the egg, would co to naught.

-So the opportunity has co to you as well.

Without a hint of anxiety, a majestic voice as if bestowing grace.

Ultimately, even though Maximilian stole the egg before contracting, it was because both the youngest prince and the illegitimate son failed.

-Many questioned whether you were truly of the Armatia imperial bloodline.

Unlike my own brother who had the black hair and blue eyes unique to the Balaska Imperial Family, I had black hair and blue-gray eyes, resembling my mother greatly.

People whispered that my mother might have had

with a man other than my father. Even though my mother’s conduct was impeccable.

If a foreign-born queen is young and beautiful, it was sothing always heard.

…Rumors circulated that the late Empress Erngarde did not die giving birth to you, but was killed by the enraged Emperor because she committed infidelity.

Empress Rhiannon shook her head with a sympathetic face.

While being the very person who spread that rumor.

-However, I did not believe such rumors. I was a maid who served her closely, and I know well what kind of person she was. She was an excellent person. Only sowhat tender-hearted to be the Empress of a nation.

I listened to the story of my mother as if spellbound. Since everyone who served my mother, including my nanny, was dead, and those who knew my mother kept their mouths shut to .

-However, you were not like her son at all.

That calm remark felt like a judgnt delivered directly by the mother whose face I hadn't even seen.

-Since your birth and banishnt hard her reputation, how could you not risk your life as a son to make ands?

I did so.

I stuck close to the egg, and even slept hugging the egg at night. Pouring out whatever remained of my magic power or magical knowledge.

Looking back now, at that ti Michelon was resisting fate with all his might in his own way. Perhaps the First Prince had already failed too, only kept secret. If that were true, an unprecedented event where all direct imperial lines failed would have occurred.

When Michelon fought fate to escape the contract, I considered the contract with Michelon as the only way to escape fate.

To succeed sohow, I even secretly attempted magic. Although it ca to nothing because my magic power was weak.

In despair, I hugged the egg and sobbed.

-If you die, I die too.

Because the dragon was my last hope.

-Mother is lenient with you, but I am not. If you fail, I will send you to your own brother. To the one running wild saying he won't leave you alone since you joined us, sending only your head would rather be rcy.

I recalled Desmond grabbing my neck directly and threatening .

-Really, if I die, you die too?

At that ti, a voice ca from the dragon egg.

It was known that dragons speaking was nothing more than a legend.

So even when I said the dragon spoke, people thought I heard auditory hallucinations because I was too exhausted. Since Michelon never spoke a word from the ti he ca out of the egg until I died, I also thought I had misheard.

However, at that ti, I knew nothing about dragons, so I accepted it naturally. Since I prayed so desperately, it seed natural for the dragon to respond.

-I promise with everything I have.

It was sincere.

But looking back, what did I, who had nothing, have to bet?

Michelon, who refused to hatch and co out into the world, trusted

and woke from the egg, but was branded imdiately.

-Aaaaaaaah!