The subterranean rotunda fell into a suffocating, absolute silence.
The dark parasite had been crushed into ash, its lingering shadow dissolving into the ozone-heavy draft. On the cold marble, Akio lay unconscious, his breathing shallow but steady as his body healed. Near the threshold of the first gate, Liana stirred faintly in her faint, the dark mind-control magic completely shattered.
Daichi forced himself off the floor, his muscles aching from the sheer gravitational weight of the royal aura that had just pressed him into the stone. He wiped a smudge of soot from his mouth, his dark eyes wide as he looked at the five towering figures standing in a half-circle before the four open gateways.
The atmosphere around them was dense, ancient, and pure—a concentration of royal bloodline mana so refined it made the very air hum like a drawn bowstring.
The feminine youth in the flowing white-and-blue robes stepped forward first. His pale, delicate hand rested lightly over his chest as his calm, ethereal gaze swept across the trembling guards and settled on Daichi.
"I am the First Prince of the Forgotten Era," he said softly, his voice echoing like ringing glass through the high vaults. "Caelum Ariston."
The tall, muscular figure standing to his right—a man with broad shoulders, scar-patterned arms, and a heavy greatsword strapped across a breastplate of dark cobalt steel—stepped up next. His deep, gravelly voice vibrated through the floorboards.
"I am the Second Prince," he grunted, his dark eyes sharp and unyielding. "Valen Ariston."
Beside Valen, a slender figure draped in silver silk robes embroidered with glowing crescent moons gave a small, solemn bow. His long silver hair fell over one eye, and his aura carried the chill of deep winter.
"The Third Prince," he murmured quietly, his tone smooth and distant. "Lucian Ariston."
The only woman among the resurrected siblings stepped into the light next. She possessed sharp, fierce features and bright amber eyes that matched Kairo's own. She wore high-collared crimson leather armor over fine silver chainmail, two curved scimitars resting on her hips.
"I am the Fourth Princess," she declared, her chin held high with regal composure. "Aurelia Ariston."
Finally, a young man who looked barely older than Kairo himself—with short, untamed black hair and fiery orange runes glowing faintly along his neck—stepped forward, resting a hand on his hip with a faint, cocky smirk.
"And I'm the Fifth Prince," he said, tossing his head back. "Soren Ariston."
Caelum turned his calm, feminine gaze toward Daichi, gesturing toward the dark inner corridor where Kairo was still studying inside the archive.
"Five siblings of the original lineage... sealed away by our father centuries ago to preserve the true martial foundation of Harmony," Caelum explained quietly. "And now, our adopted little brother has broken the seal."
Daichi swallowed hard, taking a slow, respectful bow despite the tremor in his knees. "I am Daichi... of the house of tacticians. It is an honor to stand before the royal bloodlines."
Valen let out a low, approving rumble. "A boy with quick wits and firm loyalty. Good. You'll need both for what comes next."
The oppressive stench of copper blood and ozone hung heavy in the air, but Daichi's mind was moving at a terrifying, analytical speed. His dark eyes darted across the five resurrected figures, cataloging every detail, every nuance, every scrap of historical knowledge buried in ancient academy ledgers.
Caelum Ariston... Daichi thought, his gaze lingering on the First Prince.
The man possessed an eerie, delicate beauty—a lean frame and a light, trimmed beard that somehow failed to diminish his strikingly feminine features. Yet beneath that soft facade lay the aura of a legend. The eldest. The wise prince who had been assassinated three hundred years ago. The dusty historical scrolls claimed his own brothers had slaughtered him out of bitter envy.
Then his eyes shifted to Valen Ariston, the Second Prince.
The man was a towering, rugged beast of a warrior, his broad shoulders and scarred arms exuding pure physical violence. Valen... he was already married before the seal. He is the direct ancestor of the Leonhart lineage—having wedded the matriarch of the Leonhart family three centuries ago. No wonder Renji Leonhart possesses such monstrous physical strength. It's in his blood.
Next was Lucian Ariston, the Third Prince.
Daichi felt a cold chill run down his spine just looking at him. Lucian had been completely erased from the imperial registries of the Ariston line. Cunning, silent, and utterly unpredictable, he was a ghost so elusive that neither King Ariston nor the entire royal intelligence network had ever managed to track his true motives.
Before anyone could react, the air where Lucian stood rippled like disturbed water. The Third Prince's form dissolved into a hollow mist—a mere illusory decoy.
He was gone.
Daichi let out a low, bitter sigh, adjusting his cuffs. "Great... Now we're going to be destroyed anyway."
"Damn you, Lucian! DAMN YOU!" Princess Aurelia shrieked, her regal composure shattering in an instant as she stomped over to the fading decoy, kicking violently at the empty air where her brother had been standing.
Daichi wiped a drop of cold sweat from his forehead, blinking in complete disbelief. Woah... she's acting completely childish. Is she really from the royal bloodline?
Aurelia snapped her head toward him, her sharp amber eyes narrowing into a glare. "Hey! Don't you dare look at me like that! I am NOT childish! Wait..."
She blinked, her eyes widening as she suddenly marched right up to Daichi. Before he could take a single step back, she threw her arms around him, pulling his face directly into her shoulder in a suffocating, bone-crushing hug.
"Hey there, my dearest great-great-great-grandson!" she cheered loudly. "It's been so long!"
Daichi muffled a frantic scream, his face buried in her armor, his legs dangling uselessly as he fought for oxygen.
"Yeah, Daichi!" Aurelia laughed, finally letting him go with a proud grin. "I am your three-hundred-years-old matriarchal ancestor!"
Daichi stumbled back, gasping wildly for air, clutching his throat as his chest heaved. "Uhh... Grandmother... you really shouldn't have done that. Besides... all of you look way too young. You look like you're in your twenties! You should all look like you're at least in your thirties!"
Soren Ariston, the Fifth Prince, let out a loud laugh, tossing his dark hair back. "Yeah, yeah! We got that youthful blood from our great father! But damn... I didn't think Lucian would slip away like that."
Soren's grin faded slightly, replaced by a sharp, sinister glint as he looked down at Daichi. "You know, Daichi... if Lucian were still standing here with us, I wouldn't have told you this. But the mastermind behind unsealing all of us was none other than Lucian himself. The strongest and smartest among us has escaped."
Soren flexed his fingers, fiery orange runes flaring to life along his neck as his voice dropped into a dark, murderous register. "And now... we will conquer this entire land and crush Harmony once and for all. Get ready to die."
Caelum Ariston stepped forward, his flowing white-and-blue robes rustling softly in the subterranean draft. He offered a serene, almost pitying smile. "Well... do you really think you can defeat your eldest brother, Soren? Let me humble you again... just like I used to do back in the old days."
Caelum raised one slender, bare hand, his posture completely open and defenseless. "It would be rude of me to go all out against kids like you. So... you may all attack me at once."
A sudden wave of rage erupted from the siblings.
"Don't you dare look down on us!" Soren barked, his eyes flaring as he launched himself forward with explosive speed.
Valen grunted, raising his heavy greatsword. A jagged, massive wave of dense black ice erupted from his blade, surging straight toward Princess Aurelia instead. "Take this."
Aurelia drew her twin scimitars in a flash of silver steel, shattering the ice block into a million harmless shards. "Damn you, Valen!"
Soren cracked up into wild, hysterical laughter mid-strike. "Haha! As always, instead of protecting her, you try to kill her!"
Caelum let out a soft, nostalgic laugh as he casually sidestepped Soren's fiery strike, catching Valen's massive blade with two bare fingers. "Ah... yes. This truly brings back memories."
"Hey! You—don't you dare try to laugh and take us tightly!" Soren roared, his face flushing crimson.
Caelum raised an eyebrow, a teasing smile playing on his lips. "Tightly?"
Soren stuttered, his fiery runes flaring wildly out of control. "I—I said lightly, damn it!" Blinded by boiling rage, he lunged forward, unleashing a devastating storm of consecutive sword strikes.
With a roar, Soren pulled his blade back, channeling his full fiery output. Pure, blazing combustion erupted from the steel edge, shaping itself like a taut bowstring aimed squarely at Caelum's chest.
Caelum didn't even draw a weapon. With his hands casually tucked inside the pockets of his pristine white-and-blue robes, he drifted through the roaring inferno like a phantom, dodging every searing arc of flame with lazy, effortless ease.
Thick, sulfurous black smoke ballooned across the rotunda.
Taking advantage of the visual blind spot, Valen materialized directly behind Caelum like an avalanche, wrapping his massive, scarred arms around the First Prince's waist in a brutal, bone-crushing suplex hold.
"Uhh... your grip is always so annoying," Caelum muttered, a faint grimace touching his otherwise serene face as Valen slammed him spine-first into the deep-blue marble floor with earth-shattering force.
The impact fractured the stone in a wide spiderweb pattern, kicking up a blinding cloud of dust.
Before Caelum could recover, Soren seized the opening. Channeling the absolute peak intensity of his fire magic, he compressed a blinding pillar of superheated plasma downward while Valen kept Caelum pinned to the cratered floor.
Caelum's eyes flicked open. The playful amusement vanished, replaced by a sharp, lethal edge. A crackling aura of pale blue mana flared around his skin.
"So..." Caelum whispered, his voice cutting through the roar of the fire. "You're actually trying to kill me, huh? Even after meeting again after three centuries?"
Valen grunted, his muscles straining against Caelum's defense as the heat scorched his own armor. "Yeah! Your tunic's already burned away—one more direct hit and you're dead—"
Before Valen could finish, Caelum vanished.
He didn't run; he simply displaced space, reappearing a foot away in the blink of an eye. Valen instinctively whipped his greatsword around, parrying a razor-thin palm strike with a deafening clash of metal that shrieked across the vault.
What followed was a blur of sound-breaking violence.
Caelum and Valen traded blows at speeds that liquefied the ambient air into sonic shockwaves. But a fraction of a second too late, Soren surged back into the gap. Twin streams of compressed flame and synchronized martial strikes wove a cage of inescapable death around the First Prince.
Caelum ducked, spun, and parried, but the relentless, fluid teamwork of the two brothers finally clipped his guard. He narrowly avoided a decapitating sweep, a thin line of crimson opening across his cheek.
Damn it... Caelum thought, his breath hitching slightly as a sharp pain flared in his chest. Why is our new little brother taking so long inside the archive? These two have spent three hundred years locked away in peak combat simulation, while I... I was just slacking off, relying entirely on my raw talent.
A subtle movement across the hall caught his eye.
Caelum glanced over—and froze.
Princess Aurelia was standing beside Daichi, a slow, predatory smirk curling her lips.
What is she doing? Caelum thought, cold panic briefly spiking through his veins. Is she actually using tactical manipulation and playing dirty?
Aurelia reached out, resting a warm, gentle hand on Daichi's stiff shoulder. Her voice dripped with honeyed venom as she projected it across the hall.
"Look at him, my dearest great-great-grandson..." Aurelia cooed, her amber eyes locking onto Daichi's wide, terrified gaze. "You know, our father—King Ariston—isn't what he seems. He is the true villain of this realm. Just a ruthless tyrant hiding behind a halo of righteousness, slaughtering thousands of lives to maintain his throne."
She gestured broadly toward her resurrected siblings. "Look at what he did to us! Join us, my grandson. We will conquer this world together. Join Lucian—he is infinitely cleverer than the old man. He will shape you into a monster of power, letting you conquer the entire continent before you even turn one hundred. So..."
Aurelia tilted her head, her smile turning razor-sharp. "Will you join our bloodline, Daichi?"
"Leave that child alone!" Caelum shouted, his voice cracking with sudden, genuine fury as he tried to push past Soren. "Don't you dare try to manipulate him—"
"Ah-ah," Soren mocked, grinning viciously as he intercepted Caelum with a blinding hook. "Now your act of playing the tough guy is over!"
Valen didn't hesitate. Seizing the distraction, he drove his massive, iron-hard fist straight down into Caelum's temple.
The impact sounded like a falling boulder. Caelum's face was driven straight into the stone floor, the entire foundation cracking beneath him in a massive shockwave of displaced energy.
Valen stood over him, breathing heavily, shaking his bleeding knuckles. "You have incredible technique and unmatched agility... but your durability is absolute trash."
Caelum lay motionless in the crater, his white-and-blue robes tattered and stained with dirt and blood, unable to summon the strength to stand. He coughed up a spray of dark blood, his eyes dulling. "Damn it... I couldn't defeat you two because... because I was already half-dead from this rotting sickness anyway... Ugh... damn it all..."
Soren threw his head back, letting out a loud, mocking laugh. "Oh, man! Thank the heavens—even after being half-corroded by disease, you somehow managed to hold your own in a one-on-two. But it's over now."
Before Soren could land a final, finishing blow, a flash of silver steel swept across the crater.
Aurelia stepped between them, her dual scimitars crossed defensively over Caelum's broken body, glaring daggers at her brothers.
Valen stopped dead in his tracks, his greatsword lowering a fraction as he stared at her in utter bewilderment. He narrowed his eyes, his deep voice rumbling with suspicion. "What in the hell are you trying to do, Aurelia? He's the eldest! He's far too dangerous to keep alive!"