Chapter 1194: Emperor

The world warped around Vashno as he stepped through the passage. Space folded in on itself, then snapped open—revealing a hidden pocket of reality sealed inside the palace. Only the rune... or someone with a master’s command over space... could ever reach this place.

The distortion settled, revealing a dim, compact realm—no larger than a small courtyard. A single modest house sat at its center, its wooden frame quiet and still.

But the silence was deceiving.

Bodies littered the ground, sprawled in unnatural angles. Blood had pooled long enough to grow sticky and black, its coppery stench thick even in this isolated fold of space.

"They’re dead..." Vashno murmured as he stepped past a stiffened corpse, boots squelching softly in dried blood.

He approached the house. The door creaked open under his touch.

Inside, it was as if violence had never touched this place—no shattered furniture, no burned walls, no collapsed beams. The stillness felt wrong, as though the space itself had refused to acknowledge the carnage outside.

Only a few scuff marks on the ground hinted at a brief fight.

He swept his senses across the area. There was nothing. Whoever had lived here was long gone... or dead.

Judging by the corpses outside, the battle had happened about an hour ago.

His gaze drifted to a small table in the corner. On it lay a single notebook, its cover worn from years of use.

He picked it up and flipped it open.

A name caught his eye: Anne.

A high-ranking general of the empire.

Her handwriting was firm, confident—each stroke carrying the weight of someone accustomed to command. She chronicled her years of service with pride: the wars she fought, the borders she protected, the people she swore to defend.

Then the tone shifted.

Anne described the day the envoy of their goddess descended—radiant, terrifying, claiming the outsiders would soon invade. Many scoffed at the idea. Others whispered that the envoy’s words were a ploy, a manipulation.

But then came the demonstration.

The envoy revealed the might of the outsiders, power so overwhelming that Anne wrote of her emperor falling into despair... and of herself feeling something far worse: helplessness.

The following pages depicted the night the outsiders truly descended.

Armies obliterated.

Generals vanishing.

Battles lost the moment they began.

The envoy left them a single countermeasure: a pill capable of enhancing strength. But its cost was madness. Use too much power and one’s mind would collapse.

Vashno turned the page.

Blank.

Another page.

Blank.

Anne’s final words ended abruptly—mid-thought, mid-sentence, as if the pen had been torn from her hand.

Vashno closed the notebook slowly.

Either Anne was one of the mutilated bodies outside... or she had taken the pill and lost herself entirely.

Both outcomes were equally grim.

"Envoy...?" Vashno muttered, brows knitting. How did he even arrive here when the secret realm was closed?

He closed the diary gently, fingers lingering on the worn cover.

And if he truly meant to protect the empire...then where is he now?

A faint disturbance brushed the edge of his senses.

Vashno’s head snapped toward the door.

He stepped outside and then he froze.

The corpses that had once littered the ground like discarded dolls were now standing.

Stiff.

Jolting.

Heads twitching at unnatural angles as invisible strings reeled them upright.

"Undead...? Necromancy?" His voice dropped into a low growl.

Vashno scanned the warped pocket of space, searching for the one responsible. The air was still. No heartbeat. No breath. Just corpses—waiting.

Then they lunged.

Dozens of bodies charged at once, jaws gaping, limbs cracking in jerky, frantic motions.

Whoosh!

Vashno’s expression hardened. "Then I’ll send you back—properly."

His mana erupted like a volcanic detonation. The air rippled. His right arm twisted, expanding into a grotesque, writhing mass of flesh and tendons. Veins pulsed like angry serpents beneath the skin.

Long, spear-like strings of flesh shot out, cracking through the air.

They pierced skulls.

Ripped through hearts.

Snapped bone as easily as tearing dried twigs.

Dozens of undead were impaled instantly.

With a single command of his will, the strings twisted—grinding and shredding.

Crshhk—krrrch—splatter!

Blood sprayed in wide arcs. Chunks of flesh and shattered ribs rained down like gore-soaked confetti. The undead were reduced to nothing but minced meat within seconds, their pieces splattering across the ground in a steaming, pulped mess.

Silence returned.

Vashno retracted his mutated arm, flesh snapping back into its human shape with a wet, sickening noise.

He scanned the gore-covered space again—eyes narrowed, mana coiling around him like a living shadow.

Nothing remained, not a scrap of bone, not a smear of rotten flesh.

Only the metallic stench of gore lingered in the warped air.

But Vashno was far from finished.

A violent shudder ran through his back as golden wings streaked with a sinister purple hue burst forth, tearing through the fabric of his cloak. Feathers glowed like molten metal, humming with devastating force.

[Nine Layers Golden Purple Destruction]

His aura detonated outward.

Power surged violently, layer after layer, each one slamming into the folded space like a hammer blow from a wrathful god. The entire pocket dimension quivered. The floor beneath him exploded, unable to withstand the pressure.

Vashno shot upward in a streak of gold and violet.

He clenched his fist, bones creaking under the sheer volume of energy.

Then he struck.

Boom!!

The punch didn’t just hit the air, it shattered it.

Spatial cracks spider-webbed across the folded dimension. Reality itself warped and groaned like metal under impossible strain.

He hit it again.

BOOM!!

This time the cracks didn’t stop.

They spread.

Multiplied.

Then ruptured.

The entire folded space collapsed, swallowed by a violent implosion of warped light.

Vashno emerged back inside the palace, dust and distortion swirling around him. His presence filled the space like a storm descending on a field of corpses. His senses expanded—sharp, merciless.

Every body in the palace twitched.

Then moved.

Then stood.

"Just as I thought..."

His voice was cold enough to freeze blood.

He tore through the palace walls in a single sweep of his wings, masonry exploding outward. Outside, the night sky burned with clashing halos and dark wings. The angels and fallen angels still tearing the heavens apart.

Vashno looked up, jaw tightening.

He still felt the ripple of necromancy...

Still sensed something watching...

And the envoy’s intentions twisted deeper into obscurity.

Too many threads.

Too many schemes unfolding at once.

"Should I just leave?" he murmured, not out of fear but because even for someone like him, this chaos felt wrong.

Like something far bigger was lurking behind the fog, the undead, the envoy, and the war in the sky.

Turning his head, he saw the emperor—once a man worshiped from the lowest slums to the highest towers—now kneeling alone on the shattered rooftop of his own palace.

Wind howled through the broken spires, carrying with it the stench of smoke, blood, and burning stone.

The emperor’s shoulders trembled. Despair hollowed his gaze, turning his eyes into two dim embers staring across a kingdom reduced to smoldering ruin. The empire he had forged through decades of sacrifice... now erased in the span of a breath.

His fingers shook as he slipped a hand into his robes and pulled out a tiny transparent vial. Inside, a black liquid churned sluggishly, streaked with thin veins of glowing red—like blood pulsing inside a beast’s heart.

"Is this... the end?" he whispered, voice cracking under the weight of everything he’d lost.

The envoy’s warning echoed in his mind, "This potion will grant you power, enough to defy even the outsiders. But it will devour you piece by piece. Do not drink it unless you accept that price."

"Is there truly no other path...?" he muttered, his voice swallowed by the distant cries of dying citizens.

He turned left. Turned right. Everywhere, the same nightmare greeted him.

Majestic towers collapsed into heaps of dust and metal.

Streets he once walked as a triumphant ruler were drenched with blood.

The outsiders tore through the ruins, slaughtering each other while trampling his people beneath their feet.

The emperor clenched the vial so tightly his knuckles turned white.

For the first time in his life, he felt utterly powerless.

"Hahaha!! I’ll kill all of you!!"

The emperor’s laughter split the sky, wild and broken, echoing over the ruins like the cry of a dying beast. Rage flooded his heart, burning away the despair that had paralyzed him moments earlier. His eyes gleamed with a feverish, bloodshot light.

He lifted the vial high and shattered it in midair.

The glass burst like a tiny star, and the oily black liquid streaked with crimson splashed downward. He opened his mouth wide, letting every drop slide past his lips like poison willingly swallowed.

Thump!!

A violent pulse exploded in his chest.

The emperor’s eyes flew open then he collapsed to his knees as if the ground itself dragged him down.

Agony surged through his veins. It felt like a thousand burning needles were stabbing into him from the inside out, ripping through muscle, bone, and marrow. His skin crawled as if something beneath it was trying to break free.

He gritted his teeth, veins bulging, breath ragged.

The pain should have crushed him but instead, it fanned the fire in his heart.

His rage only grew sharper. Hotter. More monstrous.

And something inside him began to awaken.

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