Chapter 149: Ten Year Duel For The Crown
Hearing those words, Bonbon shouted, "Can’t I just have that?"
"No."
Auren frowned, ’Essence of what?’
In the other end, Romeov and the beast within him shuddered in a way that could have been called worship.
The Essence of a Primordial Beast—pure, condensed, legendary—was the stuff of song and nightmare. It was the power older empires whispered about and then pretended not to remember.
"Are you referring to the same Primordial Essence the Druka gave to Drakan?" Romeov asked, voice thin with greed and reverence.
"So you’ve heard of it," Ugha said, smiling with something like approval. Romeov tried to smile back, lips betraying the reach of his ambition.
Auren frowned at the name of Druka and Drakan.
History weighed on him then, heavy and black.
He knew the Banthaya Marshland and Kugaw Wasteland had once been bustling human territories until Drakan descended and turned them into a scarred husk.
No emperor worth his salt wanted to set foot into Dragon Mountain since. Drakan’s power had long been rumored to stem from a Primordial Essence, something that had kept whole nations in awe and fear.
Romeov drooled inwardly and stood up, pointing to Auren.
"Just to make sure, as long as I defeat this young man in a duel in the coming ten years, I shall receive your Essence Blessing?"
"You have my word," Ugha nodded.
"Eternal Flame Essence? What’s that?" Auren asked, voice small in the great hush.
Bonbon, always eager to fill a silence, answered in a chirpy, informative way.
"Eternal Flame Essence is basically a lump of extremely rare, pure fire energy produced by us Primordial Beasts. It manifests only once every three thousand years in a form of a tiny sparkly droplet."
Ugha leaned closer and tapped the tip of Auren’s nose.
"He is right. And in your case, consuming my Eternal Flame Essence would grant you the strongest form of fire-elemental affinity: Eternal Fire."
"Eternal F-fire?"
"Eternal Fire, the strongest form of fire. Not to mention, you get unlimited access to flame mana, the ability to adopt a fully elemental body. And," he added with a cryptic shrug,
"it can grant immortality, unless, of course, you are pulverized into dust before you ever manage to transform. There is no healing from that."
Auren smacked his lips after realizing just how powerful this essence actually is.
’In other words, the ultimate jackpot and my ticket to returning home!’
He remembered, suddenly and sharply, his deal with the cocky angel back on Earth—a bargain that had sent him spiraling into this world in the first place.
To return, he had to become an emperor before he turned thirty. He was thirteen now. If he could win this duel in ten years, if he could slip the crown onto his own brow and survive, he might claim that promised bonus and be sent home!
The face of his grandmother flickered into his mind—her gentle hands, that warm, faint perfume she wore when she braided his hair.
’I missed you, Grandma,’ he thought, and the memory burned like a gentle, warm excitement overwhelmed him.
I’m coming soon.
The words lingered in Auren’s chest like a whispered vow, carried away by the hot wind that swept across the battlefield of fates.
Ugha, arms folded and grin curling like firelight, watched the clash of ambition and fear burn inside both men. It amused him, like a smith watching sparks leap from a hammer strike.
"So?" Ugha asked, voice rolling like a desert storm.
"Do you both agree?"
Both nodded without hesitation, the motion so sharp it felt more like instinct than choice. To defy a Primordial was to invite annihilation.
Auren inhaled deeply, as though the very air could harden his resolve.
The scent of scorched stone and lingering mana filled his lungs.
He clenched his jaw, forced the tremor from his voice, and answered,
"I have no choice. Let’s do this." His tone rang steadier than the hammering of his heart, but inside, doubt scratched like claws.
Romeov, by contrast, was all confidence, the sly curl of his lips hiding calculation.
He turned toward Auren with the poise of a ruler accustomed to winning battles before they even began.
His bow was elegant, his words dipped in arrogance.
"I agree, and thank you for the blessing in advance," he said, and his voice slithered with both courtesy and threat.
"Good," Ugha boomed, clapping once.
The sound cracked through the air like thunder slamming into tin, reverberating across the mountains and rattling the souls of everyone present.
"Make the fight worth the wait. If it’s boring, I might change my mind."
Romeov did not flinch. Instead, he allowed a confident smirk to tug at his lips. "Do not worry. I shall ensure you are entertained, Lord Ugha."
Auren’s skin prickled at those words. He could feel it—the invisible gears of Romeov’s mind grinding, reshaping, planning. This wasn’t a promise of entertainment. It was a threat disguised as courtesy. Romeov’s eyes gleamed with the kind of ambition that built empires from the bones of nations, and Auren realized, with a chill, that he wasn’t just Romeov’s opponent. He was Romeov’s stepping stone.
I will win, no matter what, Romeov thought, his inner vow etched clear in the sharp glint of his eyes.
Auren’s hand curled into a fist so tightly his knuckles popped. His gaze swept across the gathering: soldiers standing rigid with unease, nobles whispering in hushed panic, zealots staring with wide fanatic eyes. And in the middle of it all sat Bonbon, that maddeningly cheerful oracle, chomping on his fruit and laughing as though the fate of empires were nothing but a passing joke.
The world seemed to blur around Auren, condensing into one unshakable truth. Ten years. A duel to the death.
The weight of a crown hung like a phantom on his head, waiting to see if he could carve a path to it. Yet the cold reality gnawed at him—right now, even his strongest skills, his so-called ultimate attacks, couldn’t leave a scratch on the emperor. Romeov wasn’t just a rival, he was a mountain.
I need to get stronger. Stronger than I ever imagined.
For the first time, Auren felt both impossibly young and unbearably old. Thirteen, yet staring down the kind of destiny that aged kings in their prime. The fire in his chest roared, and his heart whispered the truth: he was stepping into a war of years, and only one would walk away.
Fear and a strange, fierce clarity braided together in his chest. The path forward was a jagged line of fire and promise, but it was a path he had chosen.
He swallowed the heat rising in his throat and let it settle into something like resolve.
Somewhere beyond the dragon’s shadow, the world of kingdoms and scars and broken marshlands held its breath.
The Primordial Bargain was struck.
The cliff of fate jutted out, black and bright and waiting for him to step.
Auren looked up at the sky one last time before the crowd began to disband and reality stitched itself back together.
The constellation of his life rearranged itself into a single urgent goal: survive, grow, rule, return. He whispered to the memory of his grandmother, his voice small and certain, I missed you. I’m coming soon.
And the wind that blew down from the dragon smelled strangely of old wine and the iron tang of destiny.