NOVEL NEXT Chapter 569: The Emperor Who Defied Death
Ethan studied the throne carefully, his brow furrowed. The stone wasn't ordinary—it had the dark gleam of obsidian, its surface so polished it almost swallowed the light. The texture seemed familiar, as if he had seen it once before, but the memory slipped through his grasp. In the end, he shook his head.
"Then tell me," Aldric 's voice broke the silence, steady yet carrying the weight of centuries, "do you know why I despise crows?"
"Crows?" Ethan echoed, considering the strange question. He searched through the fragments of history he carried in his mind.
Long ago, during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States eras, the intellectual boom of the Great Concord of Philosophers had shaped destiny. Confucians, Legalists, Pathfinders, The Pragmatists, the Twin-Balance Order, and the War Scholars had fought with words and ideas, not just steel. Yet Aldric had risen from all that chaos to unify the land, and with unification came his obsession with conquering death itself.
The emperor had conscripted Arcanists, Mystics, and Warlocks from every corner of the empire, forcing them to pursue an elixir of immortality. He poured out wealth and manpower like water, building ships, temples, and laboratories dedicated to that single goal. In 219 BC, he had even spent three months adrift on the seas off the Blackridge Peninsula, hunting for the legendary Isles of the Immortals—Isle of Dawn, Cragspire, and Veilholm—where gods supposedly kept the secret to eternal life.
The man who had led him on this pursuit was Silas Marrow, a magician and alchemist. Silas claimed he had seen the immortal mountains with his own eyes and swore he would return with the elixir of life.
But there was another story. A folk legend whispered that after Aldric first unified the lands, he had heard of a crow that carried resurrection on its back. Soldiers had seen it: a crow perching upon a corpse, a plant dropping from its feathers, and the dead rising once more. Word of it had traveled up the chain of command until it reached the emperor himself. He had believed the crow came from an immortal island, and from that day forward his obsession had only deepened.
Ethan's eyes narrowed. Could that be the reason? Could Aldric hate crows because of this legend?
He recounted the tale cautiously, and sure enough, the emperor's expression shifted.
"The crow," Aldric said with venom, "was Silas Marrow transformed."
Ethan didn't flinch. After everything he had experienced since his rebirth, a sorcerer transforming into a crow was hardly beyond belief.
"Then it's true," Ethan pressed. "Silas Marrow really took three thousand boys and girls to the Eastern Isles?"
The emperor tilted his head back, his gaze drifting to the vaulted dome above as though peering across centuries.
"Yes. He left with them. He never returned… not at first. Five years later, he came back, but only I saw him."
Aldric 's voice grew bitter, shadowed with hatred.
"And he didn't bring back the elixir, did he?" Ethan asked.
History itself supported the suspicion. Records said Silas had returned with nothing but excuses, claiming the immortals demanded greater tribute, more young lives, before parting with their secrets. He had departed once more, never to be seen again. Aldric had waited for years, finally realizing he had been deceived.
The emperor had not given up, though. In 215 BC he met two more mystics, Lucian Gray and Hugh Rowan, who promised him guidance. They presented him with a so-called Codex of the Path, claiming it contained secrets of the Ethereal Way. Within was a single ominous line: "The one who will end Aldric comes from the House of Hallow." Terrified, Aldric unleashed his armies upon the northern tribes, desperate to snuff out any threat.
On their advice, he hid his movements from everyone, living in shifting secrecy among palaces, constructing tunnels and hidden corridors so no assassin—or perhaps no fate itself—could find him. But as the years passed and his paranoia deepened, suspicion turned to tyranny. When Lucian Gray and Hugh Rowan finally fled, his wrath consumed not only them but all scholars he mistrusted, culminating in the infamous Purge of Scrolls and Sages.
Ethan listened, trying to reconcile the man before him with the tyrant of history.
"No," Aldric said suddenly, his tone dropping to a growl. "He did bring something back. That night, he came to me in secret, without the drums or curtains warning of his presence. He appeared by my bed, told me Lucian Gray and Hugh Rowan were frauds, and gave me a pill. 'Take this before your final breath,' he said, 'and you will rise again, reborn into eternity.' Then, before my eyes, he transformed into a crow and flew into the night."
The emperor's voice trembled—not with fear, but with the weight of memory.
Ethan's pulse quickened. History had never recorded this.
When Ethan asked about the burning of books, Aldric only laughed, a thunderous sound that shook the chamber.
"Purge of Scrolls and Sages? Do you think the world knows the truth of what I destroyed?" His eyes burned with manic pride. "I buried not scholars, but false magicians. I burned not the wisdom of the ages, but three lies dressed as sacred texts. The first was the Book of Documents, recording the so-called sage kings. Tell me, which of them achieved what I achieved? I ended centuries of war. I forged peace across the land. My empire was the pinnacle of civilization! Why should I let the words of dead kings dictate to me? I honored the present and burned the past."
Ethan had no answer. The man's defiance was not aimed at him but at heaven itself.
"The second book was the Classic of Poetry," Aldric continued, his voice sharp. "A work that mocked me while praising the rulers before me. And the third… the Codex of the Path, the so-called scripture of immortality, beloved by Arcanist frauds. I burned it, buried its followers, and erased their deceptions from this world."
Ethan knew then that Aldric was not speaking of the Treatise of the Path written by Zorin the Ancient, but of a different book entirely—a lost scripture whispered of in legends, one that contained genuine methods of Energy mastery. Only a few words remained, carved into history like a riddle: The human heart is perilous, the Path heart is subtle. The peril and the subtle are entwined. Only the enlightened understand.
It dawned on Ethan that Aldric 's fury against the mystics had not been simple cruelty, but vengeance against betrayal.
At last, Ethan exhaled. "You've told me your story, Emperor. But you still haven't explained—where did this throne come from? And why are you chained to it like a prisoner?"
Aldric 's eyes blazed. He lifted one hand and struck the armrest with a resounding clap.
"This throne," he declared, "I seized from the Underworld itself. It once belonged to the Lord of the Dead. It holds power beyond comprehension."
Ethan froze. The Lord of the Underworld's throne? His stomach turned cold. That wasn't just any throne. If Aldric spoke the truth, then the throne of the Underworld… belonged to his mother.