Chapter 113: Disqualification of the King
Across the subsequent week, instead of generating any dramatic, knee-jerk reaction across the court, Valeria Hall—the grand stone estate housing Lucia's court—demonstrated an unprecedented, hyper-vigilant calm.
Apart from the small handful of sovereign demigods who routinely cleared the outer ports to share his campfire, Lucia formally declined every solitary visitation requested by the high scions of the Royal Private School, citing a non-negotiable requirement to lock his focus onto deep spiritual cultivation. This calculated isolation completely thwarted the immediate strategies of the modern nobles and their families, who had desperately desired to deploy their children's "classmate" status to close the distance or manually test the operational boundaries of the Ancient Dragon Empyrean, while successfully keeping the surface world entirely blind to the turbulent storm brewing within the palace basements.
On the afternoon of the twenty-sixth of December, Princess Ranni stepped through the heavy cedar doors of Lucia's private study, her silk mantle rustling as she deposited a pristine, fist-sized crystal sphere directly onto the dark mahogany desk.
"The complex, encrypted rune matrix your hand commanded my circle to decipher a few suns past has officially been broken," she spoke, her delicate features mapping a relaxed, triumphant expression. "Omitting the surface warding layers that execute a basic identity recognition check, the deep liturgical geometry engraved into the absolute core of this crystal sphere compresses a total of three independent sorceries."
"The initial component defines a high-tier cloaking enchantment. The exact watch it triggers its compliance, it commands the capacity to systematically isolate the sphere within the void on a fundamental material plane. Not only does its presence evade the tracking lines of the naked eye, but its mass concurrently eludes the collision of a physical body. Strictly a specialized anti-magic counter-curse or an environmental energy impact out-scaling its absolute structural tolerance threshold can forcefully shatter the containment."
"Secondly, the matrix houses a complex projection sorcery. This crystal sphere functions essentially as an arcane eye commanding an extraordinary tier of panoramic vision, possessing the capacity to capture every variable across its perimeter without a solitary blind spot, archiving the raw visual data as a permanent magical projection. This scores as a conventional method deployed by high-ranking sorcerers to record sensitive intelligence across their archives; its presence triggers zero surprise."
"Yet, the single most advanced component defines the grand communication array hidden deep within the absolute core of the sphere—it comprises a remarkably novel methodology that grants the operator the capacity to simultaneously command hundreds, if not thousands, of identical crystal spheres deployed across a vast regional theater, systematically aggregating the collective magical projections recorded across their individual sectors. The controller can subsequently execute a selective playback, reproducing whichever specific fragments of those projections satisfy the administrative requirements of his house."
"In short," Ranni continued, crossing her slender, pale arms over her chest as her dark eyes audited the beautifully sculpted artifact, "this specific apparatus defines the exact framework the ministries deploy to hand-deliver the spectacle of the Battle Festival to the common citizens of the outer ring. By implementing a sequence of exceptionally simple editorial selections across the master console, the lords can guarantee an immense, blood-stirring entertainment value, while strictly exposing to the public view what their seals define as visible data."
Lucia hoisted the heavy crystal sphere, his fingers tracing its smooth, dark blue surface. Glimpsing through the translucent, twilight-colored glass, his sight could vaguely isolate the staggeringly complex, microscopic networks of golden runes and winding magic circuits mapping the interior. He could not help but marvel silently within his own thoughts. This apparatus operates essentially as nothing short of a high-wrought, arcane manifestation of a live-broadcast recording slate!
As his boots cleared a wider path to intersect the cutting-edge structural capabilities clutched by the elites of this age, his intellect parsed a profoundly deep realization—this realm was by no means a primitive, archaic world that merely happened to harbor an extraordinary volume of raw physical power. It suffered absolute zero technological deficit when matched against the parameters of the digital world his past life archived; rather, its civilizational trajectory had simply tracked an entirely separate, mythic path regarding the mastery of structural mechanics.
Evaluating the architecture, the empire boasted the Golden Royal Capital—a gargantuan municipal fortress engineered with highly complete domestic infrastructure capable of sustaining a census of nearly ten million living souls. Concurrently, the skies of the realm cradled Farum Azula, the legendary Sky City that remained permanently suspended across the clouds without a single watch of structural decay, balanced by the monumental Forge of the Giants anchoring the absolute summit of the northern peaks.
Across daily life, creations that seamlessly wove high-tier sorceries into complex mechanical vessels—such as the massive Gladiator Golems and the silent Carian Marionettes—registered as common, everyday occurrences across the provinces, to omit the incredible, reality-bending sciences of instantaneous spatial teleportation circles.
Granted a sufficient margin of chronological runway, an un-capped reservoir of raw material assets, and an influx of top-tier research minds, the ultimate developmental potential clutched within this cosmos out-scaled the limits of human imagination.
He quietly deposited the crystal sphere back onto the mahogany boards, his silver eyes lifting to lock onto Ranni's face with a hopeful, burning brilliance. "Since your focus successfully broke the encryption grid guarding its outer layers, your hands undeniably clutched a methodology to systematically counter the execution of these three independent sorceries, correct?"
"An absolute certainty!" Ranni's lips curled into a brilliantly smug, self-satisfied smile, looking exactly like a genius magician who had completely simulated this exact question before clearing her chambers. "The specialized artisans who cast these crystal spheres command a decent tier of craftsmanship, but their limits score as merely decent. By what metric could their clumsy equations ever aspire to match the height of my own line?"
She extended her slender, snow-white palm across the space, a vibrant, deep blue starlight mana violently igniting from her fingertips to materialize a magnificent, heavy metal badge. The talisman's base was forged from high-density cold iron, its face meticulously inlaid with dozens of glintstones of varying dimensions that pulsed with an internal, stellar rhythm. She transferred its weight into Lucia's palm, her voice carrying a soft, proud ring. "Observe. My own hand prepared this seal for your keeping a vast season past."
"This badge is meticulously engraved with the absolute highest-tier anti-magic array clutched within my private libraries. In theory, its alignment possesses the capability to systematically dismantle and assume control over any liturgical spell or runic circle that logs a lower structural altitude than its own matrix. By deploying a mere microscopic fraction of your internal mana, your will can effortlessly seize the primary command tracks of every crystal sphere operating within a ten-kilometer radius at any watch of the clock. Whether your strategy requires the seal to completely blind external prying eyes or replicate the absolute visual content archived within their spheres, the execution will score as an elementary task. Although your current sorcery level still mirrors the un-refined output of those wild glintstone dragon hatchlings nesting across the Liurnian cliffs... your focus is more than sufficient to properly direct the functions of this badge."
Absorbing the seemingly derogatory, yet profoundly protective and affirmative vocabulary formatting her speech, Lucia could not suppress a warm, amused chuckle from escaping his throat. This talisman bore a striking structural resemblance to the Carian Inverted Badges of the future legends, yet it scored multiple tiers superior regarding the meticulous precision of its runic engravings—a variable that explicitly demonstrated how much painstaking labor and personal focus Ranni had invested across the forge to guarantee his safety.
He clutched the cold iron badge firmly within his fingers, carefully tucking its mass into the secure inner breast pocket of his travel doublet, a relaxed smile breaking across his features. "Your house has my deepest gratitude, princess. My hand will guarantee its capabilities are deployed to achieve the absolute peak of optimization across the board."
"Lucia," Ranni spoke suddenly, her extended palm slowly withdrawing back beneath the folds of her silk mantle.
"Hm?" Lucia lifted his eyes, the casual warmth instantly draining from his gaze as his focus isolated a rare, deeply serious solemnity mapping her features.
"My mind registers the full ledger of the immense, high-fatality preparations your hand has engineered across these past few days," she stated, her voice dropping into a quiet, intense frequency. "Your two exiled brothers beneath the stone, Prince Miquella, Malenia, and my own star are all entirely willing to reinforce your vanguard with the full weight of our respective houses. But the reality of the board remains absolute, Lucia—your steel is not preparing to cross lines strictly with a common provincial lord like Duke Duolis or a corrupt arena manager like Marquis Osarion. Your vanguard is lunging head-on against the conservative Old Party ministries, the modern New Faction cabinets, the supreme scepters of their Majesties, nearly ten million fanatical Golden citizens, and the absolute sovereign infrastructure of the entire Erdtree system itself. Tell me the truth, brother... does your strategy truly command zero safer options to balance this account?"
Lucia remained completely motionless across a vast watch of the clock, his silver eyes lowering toward the floorboards as a low, quiet sigh escaped his teeth. "If our current watch sat positioned a mere week down the past timeline... my hand would have likely never authorized an executive choice of this gravity. My own mind desired to advance the pieces with a slower, hyper-cautious velocity—ensuring every variable remained securely bracketed beneath my control, systematically completing the sub-phases of the layout step by single step without ever forcing our vanguard to risk a total liquidation."
"But my calculations wove a massive, fundamental error across the board, Ranni... my true name defines the entity Luciassax." He deliberately, heavily emphasized the terminal, roaring draconic syllable Sax, the sound echoing through the quiet study like a physical response to an inextinguishable, primordial echo vibrating from the absolute depths of his genetic marrow.
"The ancient, un-diluted bloodlines of the Dragon Lord Placidusax and the Sovereign Consort Halaris circulate through my veins. My person stands across this cosmos as the solitary legitimate heir clutched by the Ancient Dragon Dynasty—the lone prince representing the ever-declining spires of Farum Azula—and the future King conformed to rule over all dragons, the stormfolk of the peaks, and the beastmen lineages."
"Tracing the line back to the catastrophic Forbidden War, across which un-counted thousands of our dragon pioneers perished to pave our path, down to this very sun... my people have shed an immense, un-bearable river of sacred blood. The honored remains of the High Priestess of Gransax still lie pinned beneath the cold stone floors of the Golden Temple; our great Dragon Mother, Greyoll, still slumbers within the rot-choked wilderness of Caelid, her ancient frame broken by catastrophic wounds that refuse to close. Every solitary watch of hesitation my mind tolerates... every tactical retreat my boots execute... even the most microscopic hint of cowardice festering within my heart, mutates instantaneously into a cold, jagged blade driving straight through their flesh. Every single second my vanguard hesitates in place transforms into an permanent source of un-mitigated pain and torment for the children of the sky."
He lifted his silver head, his eyes flaring with an un-quenchable, terrifying draconic fire that seemed to illuminate the rafters. "My own boots intersected the path of a young, horn-choked king dwelling within the absolute misery of that foul underground wasteland. Monitoring his character made my intellect decode a profound, universal truth: every single entity who is revered as a 'King' by the masses is conformed to manifest as nothing short of a monumental, un-yielding shield to catch the swords of the enemy, and a world-shattering blade to completely annihilate their ancestral blood feuds. To comfortably allow the very people your scepter is legally bound to shelter to bleed and perish for the sake of your personal security... defines nothing less than an absolute, immediate disqualification from being a King."
"Consequently, my spirit lacks the capacity to tolerate a single extra watch of waiting on the calendar."
"Maintain your faith in my steel, Ranni," he spoke softly, a relaxed, incredibly easy smile breaking across his features as if the monumental, crushing weights he had just articulated had completely evaporated into thin air within a microsecond.
"With the stars of your house anchoring my flank... our vanguard possesses zero capacity to lose the match."
Ranni stood entirely frozen, staring blankly at the silver-haired youth fronting her line. Her profound intellect parsed the reality proving those heavy, catastrophic responsibilities and generational emotions would never truly disappear from his heart; he had simply chosen to manually swallow the entire volcanic mass deep into the basements of his own spirit, exactly like a sovereign ocean whose surface remains completely calm, serene, and undisturbed regardless of how violently the tectonic plates are fracturing across the sea floor.
"Your steel is legally forbidden from losing this match!" she hissed, an inexplicable wave of intense, flustered annoyance violently flaring through her chest. She gritted her teeth together, her small hands clenching into tight balls beneath her sleeves. "My star will mathematically never allow your name to log a defeat!"
Before the terminal syllable had even cleared her lips, she frantically pivoted her chassis toward the exit, sprinting through the doorway as if executing a desperate, high-velocity escape from the presence of a predator.
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