CHAPTER 96: BEARER OF THE SACRED BLOOD

Imperial Capital: The Holy City of Solmarion, Imperial Palace

In the vast training gardens of the Imperial Palace, a young figure moved like the eye of a storm. His golden blond hair, slick with sweat, was pulled back in a ponytail.

Despite the exertion, his blue eyes, gleaming with power and nobility, scanned his surroundings.

The gold inlaid spear in his hand danced at a lethal speed, harmonious with the glint of the sun.

He was fourteen, perhaps fifteen, yet he fought like a seasoned warrior.

He deftly parried a whizzing arrow by spinning the shaft of his spear. Simultaneously, he blocked a cunning sword strike from behind with the butt of the weapon.

Without losing his footing, he rotated the spear and wounded an armored soldier attacking from another side, striking his shoulder.

Spotting a fireball materializing in the air, he slammed the tip of his spear into the ground, instantly conjuring a shield of bright golden flames to neutralize the spell.

The boy with the spear continued to deftly evade, parry, and counterattack amidst the multiple assaults.

He spun like a whirlwind, each motion flowing into the next. It resembled a one sided slaughter more than a training session.

Minutes later, dozens of men lay on the ground, covered in wounds, burns, and broken bones, writhing in agony.

The boy stopped. His chest rose and fell lightly as he shook his golden hair, wiping the sweat from his forehead. His opponents had failed to inflict a single wound on him.

These men were not weak. They were, by and large, Second or Third Star level, elite warriors and mages of the Empire.

The boy, seemingly unsatisfied by the easy victory, called out to the next group of soldiers, who were watching nervously from the edge of the field.

"Hey! You! You’re next!"

The soldiers stepped forward, weary and reluctant. They hated participating in this training.

After all, they stood no chance against him. And the boy’s training was ruthless.

He used real, unblunted weapons instead of wooden ones, and he never hesitated to attack, to wound.

Although the boy was not much higher level than them, he was on a completely different level in skill and instinct. Even if they outnumbered him, they could not land a single scratch.

And if they did manage to wound him... it resulted in a much worse outcome for them.

Prince Charles would beat the man who dared to harm his "holy" body until all his bones were broken.

No matter how much the man begged, no matter how much he pleaded for mercy, he would never stop.

Because for him, harming this holy body was an unforgivable crime.

The soldiers were trapped in a paradox: They had to fight their best, but at the same time, they must not harm the Prince in any way.

"Second Prince Charles."

Carrier of the holy blood. The first human to successfully forge a contract with the Golden Dragon. The Shining Sun of the Empire. He had many such glorious titles.

When the training was finished, Charles looked at the soldiers lying in agony. A normal person would be intoxicated with ego after such a display.

But on Charles’s face, there was not the slightest trace of satisfaction, not a crumb of pride.

His gaze shifted to someone standing in the shade in the corner of the training area, watching him.

It was a frail, bespectacled young man of seventeen or eighteen, with black hair and blue eyes.

He wore a simple researcher’s robe. There was nothing special about him; in fact, he looked distinctly weak for his age.

But in Prince Charles’s gaze, there was an almost anxious expression, as if awaiting approval from this frail young man.

The young man approached Charles with slow steps, his face devoid of emotion.

A single, ice cold phrase fell from his lips:

"You are still insufficient, Charles."

Charles’s face tightened instantly. He said nothing. As the young man turned to walk away, Charles shouted at his back.

"You’re overestimating him!"

The young man stopped. For a time, there was only the sound of the wind. Then, he slowly turned back. Behind his glasses, his blue eyes glittered with a piercing chill.

"Overestimating... him?"

He began to walk toward Charles again. His voice was calm, but every word stung like a needle.

"Unlike that ’holy’ blood you carry, he was born cursed and weak. A curse so potent that no one in history had ever managed to survive it. But he, somehow, continued to live."

"When I found him," the young man said, his voice momentarily tinged with nostalgia, "he was a pitiful, weak child who looked as if he could die at any second. I took him to my laboratory. Though he was just a baby, I subjected him to countless experiments. Experiments that make the simple enhancements I perform on you seem like child’s play in comparison."

A sick, proud expression flickered across the young man’s face. "He, with his weak and cursed body, managed to survive every single one. Even you, with your vaunted holy bloodline, could not have endured half of what he did."

The black haired young man, hands clasped behind his back, continued to circle Charles slowly, like a predator. Every word was both a humiliation and a sharp reminder of how far Charles was from his impossible goal.

"I made him. I was the one who turned him into that perfect monster. But one day... he broke free of my control. In truth, thinking back, that was my mistake. After all, giving him Kaiser’s Heart... was perhaps not the right choice."

The young man paused, as if recalling a bitter memory. "The boy surpassed all my expectations and became a true monster. I still remember his overwhelming, pure presence."

He glanced at the wounded soldiers on the ground. "He tore dozens of people apart in seconds, as if they were nothing. And unlike these useless toys you practice on, they were not weak. He slaughtered other children, his own age, suffering the same torments, just to save his own life, without a moment of hesitation. Unlike your pitiful, indecisive mind, he never hesitates in battle."

"I fought him with everything I had," he continued. "And still, I could not defeat him. That final explosion he caused that day... I can still feel it. How my skin and bones melted, dissolving in that pure power..."

"To annihilate a large part of an entire forest in a single move... Do you really think you possess the potential for such a destructive attack?"

The young man paused. His ice blue, piercing gaze locked with Charles’s, and everything else faded away. He slowly raised his hand and touched the Prince’s cheek. His touch, contrary to the sunny garden, was unexpectedly cold.

Charles wanted to recoil, to escape the impertinent gesture, but his muscles refused to obey. His body was frozen; his will, instantly paralyzed.

He blinked, just for an instant.

When he opened his eyes, the warmth and colors of the garden were gone. In their place was a pitch black, airless, suffocating darkness. He was suspended in nothingness.

Then, the eyes appeared. First one pair, then hundreds, thousands of bloodshot eyes, glaring with hatred from every corner, watching him. Cold hands followed. Bony fingers, torn from a nightmare, gripped his skin, pulling at him, squeezing his throat.

Charles thrashed in wild terror. His chest heped like a bellows, but the air he gulped down was not enough. The arrogant Prince’s confidence had evaporated; only primal terror remained. He had completely lost control.

Just as he was about to lose consciousness, the young man’s calm, almost mocking voice sliced through the dark.

The nightmare shattered like glass.

He was back in the garden; breathless, drenched in cold sweat. The young man’s hand was still on his cheek, his own eyes glittering as if he had witnessed the terror firsthand.

"Tell me, Charles... Do you really think you can defeat him?"

Charles’s knees buckled, and he collapsed hard onto the earth. He was breathless. He pressed a hand to his chest, trying to contain the heart that thrashed against his ribs. The icy terror of the illusion lingered on his skin.

He could not speak. Words were trapped in his throat.

The young man, Sebastian, leaned down toward him. When he reached his hand out again toward Charles’s cheek with that mocking intimacy, the Prince’s reaction was instinctive and pitiful.

Charles scrambled backward in panic, as if recoiling from a venomous snake. He lost his balance completely and crumpled to the ground. He was no longer a proud Prince, but cornered, terrified prey.

The young man straightened up with an almost clinical satisfaction, as if he had found the answer he sought. The shadow of a disdainful smile touched his lips. "I thought so."

Without another word, he turned his back and walked away from the training area as silently as he had arrived.

Charles gritted his teeth as he watched him go. He remained sitting on the ground, his ego and pride shattered around him like glass. He dug his nails into the hard earth, clenching his fists until his palms ached.

No matter how hard he trained, no matter how he pushed himself, no matter what painful experiments he submitted his body to... In the end, it all came down to that one sentence Sebastian had engraved on his mind:

"You are still not enough."

For Charles, these words were unacceptable. After all, he had been revered his entire life, cultivating the image of the "chosen one" in the eyes of all.

To be told that someone worthless, someone he did not even know, an "anomaly," was better than him... and for his life’s purpose to be the struggle to surpass that unknown person... This, for him, was the greatest torture.