Emperor Has Returned

“Juan….just now….how?”

Sina asked with a gobsmacked face.

Juan gave her a wide smile.

For some strange reason, Sina felt her heart skip a beat.

Underneath that smile of his, something was swaying her inner emotion.

“Rebirth through fire. You’ve heard of it, right?”

Sina was startled.

She knew what Juan was talking about. Where one casted their body into a fire to resurrect anew.

She was well informed of this as it was part of the emperor’s tale.

“…..That’s not possible.”

“Doubts of faith are a necessary part to prove one’s belief.”

Juan’s retorted back a sarcastic manner. To Sina who was striving hard to become a paladin, Juan’s reply felt like a bad joke.

But Sina didn’t let this bother her. She was now fully aware his words had some weight behind it, as she had seen what he was capable of.

“I will admit. Clearly you’re not an ordinary guy. But that doesn’t mean I believe every word of yours..”

“Hmm.. You have a lot of faith in what you believe.”

Juan didn’t mind. He wasn’t going to go out of his way to persuade her.

Meanwhile, Daaron had crawled across the floor and was holding out his cloak to Juan that he’d been wearing.

After Juan took the cloak, he looked down at him.

“I also don’t have any intentions of needing to prove myself, demand loyalty or become an icon of faith for that matter. But I did find it curious. What makes you believe in something so much?”

Juan looked at Sina with bright clear eyes.

And yet, Sina’s pupil stayed calm and steady.

Juan was expecting an answer like ‘you’re not strong enough’ or ‘you don’t have the characteristics of an emperor’ to come out of her mouth.

But the reply she gave was unexpected.

“If his descendants were in front of him, I believe the emperor would look at them with love and kindness in his eyes. I firmly believe that is who our emperor is.”

Juan’s eyebrows twitched.

“Meanwhile, your eyes are only filled with emptiness and hatred. I will not believe that you are the emperor. Even with definite proof, I will not acknowledge it.”

Juan went into a long silence after hearing Sina’s reply. His hands tightened, firmly grasping his worn out broken sword.

The air froze between the two.

Juan, who’d been standing there in bitter silence, sighed and gave his reply.

“And to think it was something so meaningless.”

Juan pointed the broken sword in his hands at Daaron who’d been lying flat on the ground and spoke.

“Do you know the reason why I asked you not to kill him?”

“To put him on fair trial? Or because he’s your follower?”

“Wrong. I decided that I would only kill him, after I’d killed Taltere.”

Before Sina could even move, using his broken sword, Juan instantly drove it down into Darrons’ head.

The elderly’s skull hopelessly broke apart in two and fell on the ground. Sina screamed out a sharp shriek.

While looking down at the Colosseum, Juan muttered.

“And with this, the Colosseum will never reopen a second time.”

*****

Ausrey discovered the fire spreading from the director’s room.

Judging from the momentum, there was no stopping it.

Sina had ran off in that direction. And although, she was anxious, she couldn’t spare any time worrying about her.

Their hands were full from the monsters that were pouring out and at the same time had to control the panicked crowd.

“Our knights are arriving soon! Just hold on for a bit longer!”

“Ausrey!”

It didn’t take long to recognise the voice. It was Sina’s.

“Sina nim! Did you find a way? What did that bastard Daaron say?”

“Daaron’s dead.”

Sina spat back a reply. Ausrey looked at Sina with shocked eyes. Noticing her gaze, Sina shook her head sideways.

“It wasn’t me who killed him. The perpetrator escaped. We need to follow him immediately! So round up the knig….”

Sina stopped talking once she looked at the situation unfolding before her eyes. Total chaos as monsters and people were running amok.

If she pulled out her knights now, the damage would be insurmountable.

Ausrey’s nervous face was telling her the same thing.

“There’s no one that we can spare Sina nim…. To make matters worse the fire is continuously spreading….”

“……….”

Sina was trapped in a conundrum. If she didn’t pursue Juan now, she may never get the chance again. But, people were dying before her eyes. Sina didn’t mull over it for too long.

“Tell the guards to lock down the entire city. I’ll stay here and protect the civilians.”

*****

It was dark and noisy. Every time the ground shook from the chaos above, bits of dirt dropped down from the walls that were clumsily built.

Sina thought when Juan disappeared from her sight, he had left the Colosseum but it was the opposite.

Juan walked into the Colosseum. Into the dungeon where monsters had poured out from.

Kiiieeeakk!

A desert troll suddenly popped out from beneath the ground. And when its strong hands went to grab Juan’s leg, Juan simply lifted his leg out of the way.

The desert troll eyes widened in frustration. It had thought for sure, on the precipitous of grabbing itself a tasty meal.

Meanwhile, Juan had already turned his body around in the air.

Kwa-Jjjiick!

Using momentum of his fall, Juan’s dagger accurately pierced the desert troll’s skull. Once its brain was destroyed, it instantly went still and tumbled over like a statue.

Juan pulled out his dagger that was rooted deeply in its head with difficulty. It took him longer to pull the dagger out than it took to kill the troll.

‘While my physical conditions have improved, I need to work on building my body.’

He wasn’t sure about the requirements he needed to use mana to heal his body.

The amount of mana within Juan was already significantly above what a normal adult man should’ve had.

His physical body state had grown to around thirteen years old. But ignoring muscle strength and mana, everything else had stayed relatively the same. Juan touched his upper stomach where his mana heart was located.

Although he had absorbed Taltere’s mana, it was a meager amount when compared to a real god.

He was still weak. Nothing much had changed since he’d revived. His mana heart was virtually empty, as the amount of mana currently wasn’t enough to fill the bottom.

It could even be said, his physical body was proportionately in a better state than his current mana level.

‘There’s still too many I don’t know yet.’

There were many unanswered questions. Why he had revived, how it happened and under what principle his body was operating.

If he had given up on life, these questions wouldn’t have mattered. But now it did.

‘If I had any say in alterations, I would’ve preferred a more bulky and manly look.’

But unfortunately, that was not something Juan could freely change. He could recover from sudden injuries with mana but nutrition, training and strengthening his body was something out of his control.

He thought to himself, once he began proper training, it shouldn’t take long.

Juan finally found the path he was looking for after wandering around the dungeon. He felt a mixed bag of feelings as he looked at the empty path in front of him.

Taltere’s apostles had built this dungeon.

They had kidnapped slaves, monsters and brought them to this place.

Those who resisted were made examples of and killed ruthlessly. The floor was tainted red from the blood that had been split.

After Juan had killed Taltere, he ordered all hidden passageways to be blocked.

But right now there was not even a single trace of a blockade having been here. Most likely, Daaron would have tore it down, needing more space inside the dungeon to accommodate his monsters.

Juan began to slowly walk forward onto the path.

He was thankful for the unnecessary trouble he didn’t need to go through. Juan was intending to use this hidden path to go escape out of Tantil.

People couldn’t enter this path from the other side, so he didn’t have to worry about being interfered.

Once he stepped his foot on the path, pitch black darkness surrounded him.

Juan started walking with authority.

It was several decades ago but the path layout was the same as he’d remembered it.

The darkness crouched and stared at Juan from around him.

While Juan continued to make progress, he stopped when he heard a sound from beyond the darkness.

Body being ripped apart, bone being crushed. It was the sound of a person being eaten.

Juan stood still and stared into the darkness. He couldn’t see anything. It seemed the other side had also noticed his presence. It stopped eating and let out a low growl.

A typical smell of a beast smeared in blood. Juan continued his march without even drawing his sword.

Kkung!

‘Creature huh.’

He only briefly gave it a thought and continued to move towards it. The creature let out a lengthy roar at Juan who was coming intruding its space. But chose not to rush at him.

‘Creatures have a sharp awareness unlike monsters.’

Although there were certain monster species that had good awareness, none could be compared to a creature.

Situations where creatures typically ignored their senses were when they had no other choice to fight or when their life was on the line.

The creature ran away before Juan had even made his third stride. As it had already eaten to its satisfaction, it had wanted to avoid any unnecessary fighting.

Something picked at his leg where the creature had just been. A half eaten corpse. A scent of blood trailed off as if it had been dragged here.

Juan followed the stinking trail of blood.

“This is….?”

Soon after, he discovered a door leaking a faint red glow.

Upon entering, in front of him he could see a huge space in the form of a pyramid made of red bricks. Juan lowered his eyes that had suddenly turned cold.

Stones emitting a faint red glow were embedded inside walls that were sturdily built by a mason.

On the ceiling a large gaping hole was dyed in blood. Below it, an endless number of corpses were stacked high, creating a pool of blood on the floor. The repulsive stench of dead bodies were making his head ache.

Creatures, monsters and humans. Regardless of what species, everything was rotting away. Only a few had its form intact.

It seemed all corpses from the Colosseum were ‘disposed’ of here.

A morgue if one could call it.

Juan pondered.

What made him think just blockading the passage ways were enough. What made him think the people would stop these kinds of behaviour once he had killed Taltere. How come he wasn’t able to smell out this disgusting place in the past…

Everything about this place was shaming Juan of his past ignorance.

Juan started to slowly walk down the stairs.

Monsters that were snacking on corpses around the pyramid sent him a wary look.

As they were used to feeding on dead corpses, they chose not to approach Juan.

As Juan descended, he looked at the walls that used to have Taltere’s symbol carved on in the past.

Instead of Taltere’s engravement, a circular symbol representing the emperor and various cross mark combinations were engraved over it.

Praise the emperor.

Above the pile of corpses, the intended message was stated loud and clear.

Descending from above, Juan stepped on the corpses, crushing the dry fragile bones. Finally his foot stepped into the pool of blood that had flooded the floor.

As he looked at the countless number of corpses, blood and bones, his mind thought back to two individuals.

Two people that he would never find out if they were rotting away, nor trace their whereabouts.

“It seems I’ve made a mistake.”

Out of his many regrets, for the first time, he recognized and admitted one.

He pulled out his dagger. The rusty blade looked just right for the job that he was about to do.

Juan put the blade on his hand and slowly made a cut. His red blood ran down his palm.

And once he applied some mana into it, the blood started to burn brightly as if it was oil that had caught on fire.

Seeing the flames, creatures started loudly barking. But even those that were growling, soon found themselves running away as the fire spread to the pool of blood.

In a flash, the fire spread rapidly and soon flames were burning from all sides.

The closed dungeon cavity soared in temperature. Inside the flames, Juan was calming using his mana to create more flames.

“It would’ve been better if it had been burned to the ground and started anew from the ashes.”