In the distant ages, before legends hardened into history, the highest rank of mage was not called Star Saint. They were simply Star Masters—those who drew power from the heavens. The title "Saint" came later, and it came in blood.
It began with the demons from another world.
Nearly ten thousand years ago—an age now called the Ancient Times—the world first learned true fear. The Star Masters were different from the Sky Mages. While Sky Mages excelled at flight, warding, and elemental might, the Star Masters alone held a single, terrible spell: the Star Curse.
The Star Curse was power distilled into a final answer. Once invoked, it erased everything within a vast radius—foe and land and sky… and the caster too. It was like a star falling from the heavens, burning bright and ending all.
Star Masters trained for centuries, some even millennia. They lived long and learned much; and as the years grew, so did their desire to keep living. That is the irony of longevity—those who live the longest often cling to life the most.
Then came the first Gate to Another World.
Demons poured through like a flood. The continent trembled. Kingdoms fell. Mages died. Armies broke. Nothing could stop the advance.
When the world stood at the edge of the cliff, ten Star Masters made their choice. They laid down their fear. They stepped through the main gate together, into the heart of the storm, and with steady hands and clear eyes, they unleashed the Star Curse.
The earth roared. The sky burned. The main gate vanished into white fire.
Without the main gate, the lesser gates collapsed, and the demon tide gradually ebbed. Humanity dragged itself back from the brink and swore never to forget the price.
But the world is wide and stubborn. Other gates remained, scattered like sores across the land. And in the ten thousand years since, new gates have continued to form. The hunger of the outer demons has not cooled; they test the walls of reality again and again, seeking a crack to slip through.
Before the demons came, the records of a Star Master using the forbidden Star Curse were rare—five times at most, each born from despair or revenge. Since the demons, the Star Saints—yes, that is when the name finally fit—have used the Star Curse more than two hundred times.
Only those who carry, in their hearts, the will to die for the entire continent can be called Star Saints. They are Star Masters who are ready, at any moment, to place their life as kindling upon the altar, to be the flame that saves everyone else.
It is a tragic path. Train for centuries, climb to the highest peak, feel the wind in a place few can reach—and then end your life in one last flash, more brilliant than any sunrise. That flash becomes your legacy, your gravestone, your song.
Even the cruel ones, even the proud ones—those who scorned mortals as small—kept their bags packed for death. Some died for the Empire. Some died for faith. Some died for a child they saved by accident. But they died for something, and that something was always larger than themselves.
---
Lusia left the Kingdom of Ross in silence.
Among the three Star Saints who had fallen to destroy the newly forming Gate, one was her teacher—an old mage over four thousand years in age, the gentlest man she had ever known. In the years after her mother died—and before she met Gavin Ward—that old Star Saint had been her anchor and her light.
Now he was gone, and Lusia returned to the Central Magic Empire to attend a funeral worthy of a legend.
---
Ross City, Kingdom of Ross.
From the rooftop of the hundred-meter tower at the city's heart, Gavin Ward stood with the wind tugging his coat and looked out over his work.
Ross City was already a wonder among mortal places—clean roads, telegraph lines, granaries, workshops, and a port that grew busier by the week. Steel sang in the factories; grain swelled in the fields. Orphans had schools. Veterans had stipends. Refugees had roofs.
And yet, to Gavin—who remembered the true metropolises of Earth—Ross City still felt small. He could see what it would become: a city of glass and iron, of rail and river, of light that pushed back the night for a thousand miles.
"Bigger," he murmured. "And not just the city. The Kingdom must be bigger."
He knew what was coming. The demons would return. Perhaps not today—the Magic Empire had bought time with the lives of saints. Perhaps in a year, perhaps in two. But return they would. And when they did, the world would need a shield stronger than any spell—a shield built from industry, discipline, and will.
To become that shield, Ross could not remain a kingdom among kingdoms. It had to step onto the stage as something greater.
Gavin turned to the man at his side. "Stephens," he said, voice steady, "prepare everything. It's time to change the Kingdom of Ross into an Empire."
Stephens, loyal steward to Gavin's family since his father's day, felt his heart hammer once in his chest. His eyes shone. "Yes, King—" He stopped, swallowed, and smiled through the sudden heat in his eyes. "No… yes, Your Majesty the Emperor."
The word filled the air like a bell.
---
On the continent of Loriland, names were not mere titles; they were classes carved into stone. A kingdom was thought lesser. An empire was greater. Only a nation with vast land, vast people, and vast destiny dared to call itself an empire. The idea was deep in the bones of the world.
The Kingdom of Ross had defeated the Orc Empire, split it into seven parts, and absorbed Loth and Kiswell. If it kept calling itself a kingdom, then the emperors of other lands—human and otherwise—would smile in front of him and sneer behind his back. The gap between King and Emperor was not only legal; it was psychological. It shaped treaties, frightened enemies, and moved neutral men to your side.
Gavin had no interest in second place.
If he was to carry the continent through the storm to come, he would do it as Emperor, and Ross would rise as Empire.
---
Word spread like fire in dry grass.
The news that Gavin Ward would proclaim himself Emperor raced across the country in a day, then across the continent in three. In Ross, people poured into the streets. Bells rang. Shops closed early as bakers carried bread to squares and barrel-makers rolled casks of ale behind them.
The army celebrated first and loudest. For many soldiers—especially the first cohort who had stood with Gavin from the beginning—this felt like fate coming true.
They had been there when a small Ross army held the line against the Nord Kingdom. They had marched when Ross toppled Nord. They had fought when Ross broke the Orc Empire, then watched their banners rise over Loth and Kiswell. In half a year, they had seen their homeland leap from feudal dust to modern steel.
They knew whose hands had pushed that change forward. They had watched Gavin in rain and fire and smoke, making choices no one else would, paying prices no one else could. Their loyalty was bone-deep now, beyond pay, beyond fear. It was faith.
So when word came that the King would take the throne as Emperor, an unstoppable chant rolled through barracks and camps:
"Long live His Majesty the Emperor!"
"Long live His Majesty the Emperor!"
"Long live His Majesty the Emperor!"
Even though the proclamation day had not yet been set, the cry filled the barracks, rattled the flagpoles, and rolled over the fields like thunder.
---
Back atop the tower, Gavin watched Ross City move. Messengers dashed. Banners unfurled. Engineers from the Ministry of Works hurried a new stage into the central square. The printeries hammered out leaflets: Protocol of Imperial Proclamation, Order of Procession, Edict of Founding. Tailors pulled needle and silk through dark cloth to finish a new imperial mantle before dawn.
"An empire," Stephens said softly, pride spilling into his voice. "Your father would have wept to see this day."
Gavin's eyes stayed on the horizon. "He knew this would come," he said. "He didn't see how—but he knew."
Stephens nodded. "And the world will know tomorrow."
Gavin exhaled. "Not just the world." His gaze drifted east, toward the Central Domain. "The demons will hear it too."
"Let them," Stephens said, steel under the warmth. "Let them hear and fear."
Gavin's mouth curved. "Yes," he said. "Let them fear."
---
Proclamation Day, Eve.
Edicts were drafted in clear, simple words every commoner could understand:
From this day, the Kingdom of Ross shall be known as the Empire of Ross.
Gavin Ward ascends as Emperor, sworn to protect all peoples under the imperial banner—human and half-orc, craftsman and farmer, soldier and scholar.
All treaties made by the Kingdom are honored by the Empire; all rights granted to citizens remain; all duties remain.
The Imperial Founding Code affirms: merit above birth, law above titles, work above words.
The Empire stands against all outer demons and any who aid them.
Scribes read the draft aloud. Generals stamped it. Clerks poured sand to dry the ink. A runner carried the first sheet to the printery while the rest were copied by hand.
In the square, carpenters raised a high dais. Blacksmiths set rings to hold imperial standards. Gardeners carried baskets of wheat to weave around the platform's edge—a promise of food, a promise of life. Children practiced an anthem written that morning. A choir of voices rose and fell as the sun slid down the sky and the city lamps blinked to life.
Somewhere far away, in a hall draped in blue, Lusia stood before three plain stone slabs laid side by side. She bowed her head and pressed a hand over her heart.
"Teacher," she whispered, "rest. The world still has protectors."
She closed her eyes and felt the line between grief and hope hold steady. Tomorrow, Gavin would stand before his people. Tomorrow, the continent would learn a new word:
Empire.
---
In the quiet just before midnight, Gavin walked the empty balcony outside his study. Ross City murmured below—distant laughter, the clack of a press, a final hammer-blow from a stage plank being secured. Above, the stars watched in their cold thousands.
He thought of the ten who fell long ago to close the first gate. He thought of the three who fell this week to close the second. He thought of Lusia kneeling in their hall, of a teacher who had been the whole world to a lonely girl.
"I will build it big enough to carry us all," he said to the dark. "Big enough to hold even our dead."
He set his hand on the rail and felt the city breathe.
"Tomorrow," he said, "we stop being a kingdom. Tomorrow, we start being the shield."
The wind curled around him, carrying a faint echo from a far barracks:
"Long live His Majesty the Emperor!"
Gavin smiled, sharp and sure.
"Long live the Empire," he answered softly. "And long live those who will stand with it when the gates open again."
---
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