Tyrants of Earth - The Legend of Artigan

It probably should have been harder to locate the former Queen and King of Valmere.

A little bit of searching online should not have been enough to find them but apparently it was true. Their retirement home wasn’t secret and well… they didn’t really have any power or sway over the Kingdom and they did have some security.

All of which he had bypassed but that was beside the point.

The point was that… Ex-Queen Perinete looked old.

It shouldn’t have thrown him off, but it did. The royal confidants looked to be in the prime of their lives, unchanged from a century ago. But Queen Perinete…

Not that she looked truly old. Maybe in her mid fifties. Gracefully graying hair with regal wrinkles that showed she had truly lived a full life. One with both joy, sadness and anger.

She smiled as she answered his question.

“Of course, Theskar likes the view from behind the house.”

She led him behind their… house-mansion. A little distance away was a small hill that overlooked the countryside and likely had a bit of ocean views on the horizon.

They walked slowly, at a mortal pace. The warm breeze carried the scent of pleasant wildflowers as the sparse trees near them rustled.

Queen Perinete smiled.

“Have you been well?”

“No, not really no, not until recently anyway.”

It felt wrong to lie here.

Perinete looked at him over her back, her eyes twinkling in amusement.

“And causing a ruckus makes you feel better, does it?”

“Can’t argue with results, right?”

Perinete turned back to the top of the hill. Her smile had faded as she covered her eyes from the bright sun.

“Perhaps.”

A mindless conversation. It filled the time as they walked. Climbing the hill seemed to take forever, and yet Ryan would have preferred it to take longer. While he wasn’t one hundred percent certain what he’d find up that hill, he had a feeling…

Atop the quaint little hill, there was a small patio with a large umbrella that provided shade against the sun. Someone sat on a rocking chair underneath, enjoying the shade and the warm summer breeze. Someone because they were unrecognizable from who they had been.

If Queen Perinete was the epitome of graceful aging, this person was the polar opposite.

Gone was the eternally royal look and a fierce mane of hair. There was no pupils with deep seated golden flame within, just a cloudy white that the man could barely see out of. Deep drooping flesh marred the man’s face, part of his lower lip drooping, his shirt wet with saliva.

The old man only noticed them when they were five steps away. His head slowly turning to them with a pure dullness.

Then the old man flinched.

“Ah–ahh–hh.”

The old man panicked and tried to desperately get away from Ryan’s aura. A reaction that a child might have from being exposed to something terrifying.

Perinete immediately was by her husband’s side, talking to him in gentle, soothing words.

“It’s okay, it’s me, your wife. You remember Ryan, don’t you?”

“Ge-geh away!”

The old man put his wrinkled hands up in fear and Ryan… left. Moving as quick as he could without disturbing the couple. His throat was dry, his mind almost disbelieving at the scene in front of him.

The moment this Theskar had flinched from him, Ryan had flinched too. He had expected the worst—he knew that the King abdicating the throne wasn’t just some plot—but even then Ryan had not expected fear from him.

It hadn’t happened, not when Ryan charged Theskar’s castle, not when he told his story to the King, not when he explained how the Trial System was continuing without end, not a single time the King had shown even a single inkling of fear.

But this wasn’t King Theskar any longer. It was not—

It wasn’t the first time Ryan had seen something like this. He’d seen it before when he was in a hospital, and another time when he was waiting in an airport. Where their caregivers or their family had to carry them around and they didn’t seem to remember much of who they were.

The royally unshakeable king was like that now. A shadow of what he used to be.

It was a horror Ryan was not prepared to face. Though his mind did race at the challenge.

I’ve heard an entire regeneration potion can fix dementia. Maybe…

Hundreds of millions of dollars a vial, no [Mage] or [Alchemist] in The Realm was even close to recreating it and every single vial was considered a precious resource that dragonslayers, billionaires and governments bid over. People would consider it a complete waste to give it to someone in the Trials.

But Ryan could not stand it.

But would it truly work?

Theskar… wasn’t just mentally damaged, even his aura looked like it was shattered.

Even if I managed to obtain one for the next Trial… Would King Theskar even be alive for it?

As Ryan weighed the pros and cons of another insane decision, Ex-Queen Perinete walked down the hill and approached the copse of trees Ryan had been pondering under.

She gave him a smile.

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“It is quite tough to see, isn’t it?”

Her question snapped him out of his contemplations, Ryan shook his head.

“It must be nothing compared to what you’re going through.”

They stood there in the shade, as Ryan continued to stare out in space. Perinete’s eyes were still on top of the hill. Watching the shadow of a man that had once been her husband. She smiled again.

“He was glorious, you know.”

Ryan was silent for a bit.

“I bet it was.”

She did not say anything more because she understood that he had pieced the details together.

It was not Ryan that had changed the trajectory of the Trial, it was not Agrinth or the royal confidants that had changed his Trial far, far beyond recognition. To the point where the only challenge was for Ryan to be sent a hundred years into the future.

That had been King Theskar’s doing.

At every junction, at every point of disaster, Theskar had used his wisdom to guide his Kingdom. To ensure that it would not only survive—but would thrive. Theskar had made sure that the Trial System could not find a suitable disaster where Ryan would change the outcome in a significant way.

The wisdom and foresight of a King, challenging the Trial System.

King Theskar had used it once in front of Ryan. His real aura, the one where he accessed his knowledge and wisdom of thousands… no… millions of lifetimes. Using it once had completely exhausted Theskar in his prime.

And the old King must have done it again and again, pushed his body, aura and soul to the limit each and every time. To break the Trial System’s control.

The King had done that.

For nearly a hundred years.

All to make sure that a silly adventurer would have his answer.

And it had cost the King his body and mind. His mortal body could not withstand the continuous pressure that his real aura could produce.

And now Theskar had become… that.

Ryan clenched his fist.

“Glorious or not, it is unacceptable.”

Perinete raised a curious brow and Ryan just nodded at her.

“He did all of this, for an entire damned century, and I can’t even look him in the eyes. Because my damned aura isn’t under my control.”

She smiled then.

“What are you going to do?”

“Something I should have done ages ago.”

Ryan sat in the shade of the lush trees of the estate. He put his right hand in front of him, focusing on it.

The [Arm of the Aura Tyrant] was mostly fixed. Both due to his realization and because of the mass of aura he had gathered when he terrified the capital of a world-spanning Kingdom.

But as always, it wasn’t enough.

What was power without guidance?

What was the point of power if you couldn’t even face the man who had given everything for you?

Unacceptable indeed.

Ryan sat and closed his eyes.

[Class Change: Tyrant]

He paid attention to the concepts, embodying his entirety. He could do that but not the [Aura Tyrant]. At least, not yet.

The [Aura of Unrelenting Intimidation] skill stirred, it sensed a location more fitting than the arm and wanted to move to his chest. Ryan kept the rebellious flame at bay.

When the cooldown ended, he changed his class again.

[Class Change: Aura Controller]

He had never truly embodied the [Aura Tyrant] in its entirety. It had always been focused at his arm. The concepts had been in a symbiotic relationship with the [Aura of Unrelenting Intimidation] skill and that skill had preferred to stay there, where his all-encompassing circulatory technique had absorbed much of the concepts and continued to evolve.

It had been a balanced three way symbiotic relationship.

Now Ryan was disturbing that balance. He was now trying to embody the class in its entirety—and it was difficult.

He had no class crystal for the [Aura Tyrant], it had been eaten by that damned [Conceptual Reaver] in the Manager’s Abode. He had no pre-created structure tailored for him—only the arm.

But it was his class and he had basked in its overwhelming might many times.

The path of a Tyrant that gathered aura. He fed on the fear of others, demanding that they pay attention to his every movement. The class was his and he truly wanted it in its entirety.

For he had his answer.

[Conceptual Meditation]

Ryan entered his own conceptual space. Gamielle had done this to him with a spell and he was forcing it with his both the skill and his [Conceptual Metamorph] class. It witnessed it all.

Ryan was in a busy street once more. He was staring up at a statue, an ideal. The eternal infuriating question that he had been pondering over.

King Theskar had once said the answer to his question had been staring him in the face. Ryan had immediately rejected it without truly understanding what the old King had meant.

He smiled, having finally found his ideal.

It was so silly, couldn’t you have just told it to me in words?

Then again, without an overwhelming example to sway his mind, Ryan would probably have rejected it. He had seen a similar answer online and had rejected it before. That quote stuck out to him now.

It was said that society grew great when old men planted trees that they would not see the shade of.

But that wasn’t enough was it?

If it were true then the nations of Earth would not have waxed and waned as much as they did.

No. The answer, or rather, his answer was that civilization would only last if the old people truly fought for the next generation.

It was more than just planting a seed, you needed to maintain it, to fight for it. To continuously nurture it. In other words, you set the stage for the next generation.

Society might grow great if the old planted trees, but it would only last ifyou taught the next generation to plant the trees as well.

If you gave the next generation hope, if you gave them purpose, if you showed them that their actions mattered, if you did all of those things then…

Well then someone would rise.

Some delusional idiot would take the banner to fight the good fight, whether it was for their country, for their loved ones, or simply to fight for what they believed in. Then, like a single ignition in a world of tinder, it would set the forest ablaze.

In the end, it would not be a single person holding that banner.

You could not guarantee that a disaster like the Witch Tyrant would not happen, that had never been in the cards.

But when the stage was set, those that planted the seeds for the future would never let the lone idiot stand alone. It would give society the best chance.

A self-correcting mechanism.

That was what King Theskar had meant. It was what he had done with the Kingdom of Valmere, it was what the Witch Tyrant had done with Earth and The Realm, whether it was on purpose or not.

In the conceptual world, the Aura Tyrant stood in a crowded street, as it always had done, looking up at a statue that represented ideals. But this time, instead of Ryan staring up at the statue alone, it was everyone.

[Class Change: The Aura Tyrant]

With the change, the core of [Unrelenting Aura of Intimidation] flooded back into his chest. The concepts and the shift in his body was too tempting and Ryan did not prevent its passage.

It flickered—and immediately attempted to devour [The Rogue Adventurer] that occupied the space.

The Epic skill had so much arrogance and power. It had fed on the concepts—to the point where it had embodied much of the [Aura Tyrant’s] identity. There was a rudimentary instinct to dominate over everything and it refused to share with another aura.

But no matter how much it tried it could not devour [The Rogue Adventurer] class or push it out.

So it tried to smother it—it was bigger and more powerful after all. An Epic skill compared to a Rare class. It would not be stopped until it was the core of everything.

No wonder it was so difficult to learn Epic rarity Trial skills. They grew endlessly without control.

Something stopped the Epic from smothering the other aura. It raged as gentle hands lifted it up and away. Its instinct to dominate and not be controlled to strike fear. It tried to burn it all until it finally realized it was making no progress.

The Epic stopped in confusion, then it looked around and then up.

Until it looked up.

Up and up until it saw Ryan’s face.

[The Aura Tyrant] sat, staring at the unruly skill.

But it was the progenitor of the class, it was the original, it was—

“Settle down. Or die. You are mine, but you’re also a pain in the ass. I won’t hesitate to destroy you if that’s what it takes.”

The skill did not comprehend his words but its base intelligence understood some of the meaning, but for some reason, it stopped at the threat it barely understoond.

[Aura Command: Sit, stay, good boy]

Finally, the skill quailed at the overwhelming force, at the unity of class, skill and aura pushing down on it.

And finally, everything was quiet.