"What makes you think you will have your way here?" prince Jaden barked, his voice carrying across the open space, in front of the palace like the crack of a whip. His words weren't merely a challenge — they were an accusation, laced with venom and dread. "You've come to kill Father, haven't you?"
He spat the accusation as if uttering a curse, his chest heaving with restrained fury. The words were not random. They were the age-old prophecy made flesh, the dark whisper carried through from the death of the chief priestess, Sarzi Uno: the vengeance of the last-born prince will come — and with it, the death of the emperor and the fall of the kingdom.
Jaden could overlook many things. Treachery, even. But not this. Never this. The right to sit upon the throne was sacred. He might never wear the crown himself, but he would sooner burn the kingdom to ash than watch Josh claim it.
Because if Josh sat on that throne — if a boy the court had mocked, humiliated, and written off as worthless rose to rule — it would change everything. It would send a message to every soldier, every servant, every farmer in the empire: power belongs to whoever is strong enough to take it. And that idea, that dangerous spark, could set the whole empire aflame. Jaden's jaw tightened. This wasn't just a family dispute anymore. This was survival.
But Josh stood calm, unnervingly so. His face was carved from stone, the fury in his eyes glowing faintly under the palace light. He could sense exactly where Groa Aratat — the emperor, his father — was hiding within the palace walls. He was not in a rush. If anything, Jaden's outburst only confirmed what he already suspected: his father's hand was in this.
All around them, Jaden's loyalists prowled within the shadows, using their stealth techniques to stay just out of sight. Defiant. Disobedient.
Josh didn't warn them again. He simply lifted his rod, its black surface gleaming with an otherworldly sheen, and slammed it into the floor.
The sound was like the toll of a cosmic bell.
"I AM KING."
The words rolled out of him like a command from heaven itself.
Instantly, a golden-black halo exploded from where he stood, rippling outwards in a perfect circle — two hundred and nine meters of divine judgment.
And then came the silence.
Every minion, every hidden archer, every assassin lurking in the shadows, dropped where they stood. No screams, no resistance — their life was snuffed out as though by an invisible hand. By the time the halo faded, there was no one left but the princes and princesses.
The air outside of the palace grew heavy, almost suffocating. For the first time, the royal siblings were stripped of their cultivated calm. Even the most battle-hardened among them stared wide-eyed at the boy they had once mocked.
Jaden's thoughts spun wildly. He had believed that by provoking Josh — by threatening him — he could summon the timid child who used to cower in fear at his words. But this… this was something else entirely. This was not the weakling younger brother of his memories. This was a king who feared nothing.
Because all fear, all arrogance, all pretense was useless in the face of absolute power.
Princess Jerusha was the first to find her voice. It was a ragged, breaking through, with more of fear than fury.
"You… you…" She pointed a trembling finger, her whole body quaking. "This is treason! You killed the royal archers!"
Her voice rose to a near scream, but it was hollow — as if she were saying the words more to anchor herself than to accuse him.
Josh didn't move. Didn't even blink. His expression remained as calm as a still lake, but there was a storm beneath that calm.
"I gave them a chance," he said evenly, his tone sharper than any blade. "I told them to stand down. They chose defiance. They chose death."
His ferocious gaze shifted to each of his siblings in turn, pinning them like insects beneath a magnifying glass.
"I will not repeat myself."
It was not a threat. It was a promise — and every royal present knew it.
For a long moment, the palace hall was silent, save for the sound of Jerusha's shallow breathing and the faint hum of power still radiating from Josh.
He had tried mercy. He had tried reason. He would not hesitate again. If they forced his hand, he would add every last one of them to the list of the dead.
""Within the next five seconds," Josh said, his voice so soft it barely seemed to belong in the echoing open air, "whomever still chooses to stand in front of me will be sending a message of defiance. And I will bring my judgment upon you — no matter who you are."
The words weren't shouted. They didn't need to be. They slithered through the air, filling every corner of the palace hall, settling into the ears of all who heard them like poison.
Even Granero — battle-hardened Granero — shivered as though an invisible chill had swept through the room. Josh's own generals, men who were bonded to him by loyalty and had in the past followed him through fire and war, swallowed hard and tightened their grips on their weapons, not because they intended to use them but because they needed something solid to hold onto. Behind them, the two thousand soldiers who had sworn loyalty to the black dragon, to Josh Aratat, felt the same creeping dread — a strange mix of awe and terror.
This was not the Josh they had known.
This was the Black Dragon unleashed.
He had always fought for the weak, always stood between his men and death, always struck only at the guilty. But this? This was different. This was the boy who had once been trampled by fate, now staring down his own bloodline and promising to erase them if they dared oppose him.
It wasn't just frightening. It was shattering every mental barrier to the understanding of the restraints of the black dragon. It was judgment day standing in the flesh before them.
The seconds dragged like hours.
One.
Josh's rod hummed faintly, the golden-black aura around him beginning to coil tighter, ready to strike.
Two.
Princess Zemira's composure cracked first. Her lips trembled as though she wanted to say something, but instead she slowly stepped out of the way, her royal dress whispering against the floor. She dared not look at Josh as she moved.
Three.
Prince Michael's jaw clenched, but he too moved aside, his every step deliberate — as if to say I am not against you or for you, though the sweat gathering at his temple betrayed him.
Four.
Princess Judith bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. Her eyes darted between Josh and Jaden before she exhaled sharply and backed away, her hands raised in surrender.
And then there were four.
Prince Jaden. Prince Rezbah. Princess Jerusha. Princess Karen.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, unmoving, their defiance a wall of ice before the storm.
Jaden's lips curved into a thin smile, though his fingers were curled so tightly his knuckles turned white. Rezbah's eyes burned with quiet fury, his hand hovering near the hilt of his blade — not to attack, but to remind himself he still had a weapon. Jerusha stood like a marble statue, her face pale but unyielding, and Karen tilted her chin upward, meeting Josh's gaze with a look that dared him to try.
The environment fell into a terrible silence, the kind of silence that lives only at the edge of disaster.
Josh's aura flared slightly, and for a moment it seemed as though the entire palace might collapse beneath the weight of his power.
He looked at them — at his siblings who had chosen defiance over survival — and for a brief second, no one was sure whether the next breath they took would be their last.