Chapter 58: From Weakling to Strong
At the break of dawn—'I' awakened.
At the beginning of the Sublimation, consciousness was hazy, immersed within the Great Source, able only to feel the endless light and heat battering the soul, as if all the prayers and curses of the world were pouring into my mind.
Such days continued for an unknown span of time, and amidst the chaotic stupor, amid the howling of countless divine natures tearing at consciousness, 'I' gradually, bit by bit, found my name again.
—I am the Emperor, I am the master of the Helgamos Empire, I am the head of the Diamond Family, I am the one who exterminated the Orcs, the sovereign who suppressed all darkness. I once slew enemies on the battlefield, broke armies alone, I am one of the most powerful Legendary experts in this world.
—I am Israel Diamond, I am the heir of the God of Justice and Might, the first 'mortal who ascended to godhood' at the beginning of the Era of Falling Stars.
**[I am the Strong]**
All information gradually became clear in my memories. Immersed under the impact of endless, infinite information, I recovered my self-awareness. The individual 'Israel' gradually found himself again—but precisely because of this, one after another, questions heavier and more obscure than 'who am I' came crashing down.
—I am the successor of the God of Justice and Might, the guardian deity of civilization, the creator, maintainer, and improver of order. These are all my identities, all the most important steps in my self-awareness.
Therefore.
What is justice?
What is might?
And what, exactly, is a civilized order?
When these questions appeared in my mind, endless confusion arose.
—What is justice? The consensus among the majority?
—What is might? The oppression of the weak by the strong?
—What is a civilized order? The strong pruning the weak, the majority subduing the minority, truth triumphing over ignorance?
For a moment, I was speechless, unable to answer. Things too ethereal and elusive could not serve as answers. The more I thought about these aspects, the more 'I' felt my consciousness scatter, my spirit dazed. The soul named 'Israel' wandered amidst infinite flames, gradually sinking into eternal light.
If it were an ordinary person, they would surely be assimilated by the warm flames like this, silently sinking into the ocean of fire, becoming part of the eternal, infinite Great Source.
But the walls named memory, conviction, and will blocked the assimilation of the flames. The radiance that formed the core of 'my' convictions shone brightly, startling the dazed soul awake.
—Wake up, Israel. You have already found the answers to these questions long ago, and you believed in them without doubt.
Recall them.
So, 'I' recalled the past. Scenes from a distant past surfaced in my mind, making me feel as if I had returned to over forty years ago, to that innocent and simple era that knew nothing of the world's suffering.
It was the end of the year 799 of the Falling Stars, the Year of Collapse.
At that time, I was still young. My father and elder brother were alive, my mother was gentle and kind, the ministers were courteous, the interactions between nobles were elegant and proper, and the residents of the Imperial Capital lived in peace and prosperity, completely unaware of hardship.
At that time, I firmly believed in justice and reason, honor and rules. I believed the army was the iron fist protecting the people, the nobles were the solid shield sheltering the commoners. I believed sacrifice would be rewarded, effort would yield results. The powerful knights protected the weak subjects, leading civilization to expand territory in the Black Forest—I believed all this as if it were truth. I regarded it as my life, even higher than life.
At that time, I was so proud, feeling honored to be born into the Imperial Royal Family. I believed I was the guardian of all the people—this was my innate mission.
—But I was wrong.
At that time, I was so naive and simple, my convictions so weak and laughable. As a prince, born in the deep palace, raised by women, my father was the Imperial Emperor, master of a great nation of ten thousand chariots. My mother was a descendant of a border noble family, holding the lifeline of the frontier. My elder brother was the Crown Prince, deeply trusted by the ministers, destined to be a wise ruler.
Placed in such a garden, such a greenhouse, my future was naturally full of light, glory, and praise. They educated me to be the most morally noble knight, but also made me completely unaware of the people's suffering, ignorant of the farmers' sorrows—those were not things I needed to know. As the second legitimate son of the Imperial Royal Family, I only needed to become strong, to protect my elder brother in the future, to protect the glory of the bloodline, to carry on the family name, making the name Diamond shine like a flawless gem.
I thought this was my future.
—Wrong—all wrong.
It all began on that afternoon at the end of the year 799 of the Falling Stars. The Year of Collapse. The Imperial Capital played a dirge, all flags were lowered, the Morlai Palace's court was shrouded in a bloody shadow. The greatest disaster in the seven hundred years of the Helgamos Empire's inheritance arrived—the Orcs gathered all their elites and strongmen, launching a surprise attack on the Empire's border, the Thomas Grand Canyon Fortress. The Imperial Emperor, who was inspecting there, died in battle on the spot. The Crown Prince, supervising the army in the rear fortress, was also assassinated by an 'Orc strongman'.
In the court, shadows rose and fell. The eldest princess, overcome with grief, locked herself in her room for three days. When she opened it again, she had become a corpse. The Empress, losing her husband, eldest son, and eldest daughter in less than half a week, went mad and was forcibly sent into the deep palace. And the 'second legitimate son', who had almost instantly lost the protection of his parents, elder brother, and elder sister, was thus forced to take up the banner of 'revenge'. He was sent to the front lines by the 'grieving' ministers and nobles, to face the victorious Orc Royal Court's elite army head-on.
The strong and the weak, strength and weakness, justice and evil... everything was instantly reversed. When 'I' rode out of the Imperial Capital city with a small squad of knights, confused, what greeted me was the Orc iron hooves about to trample the entire Northwestern Plains, the 'Green Blood Calamity' already pouring down from the Tartarus Highlands.
At that time, I did not understand schemes and plots. My heart was filled with the fire of justice, overflowing with sparks of revenge. I firmly believed this battle would be won, the Empire united as one, able to drive out the foreign enemy and promote national prestige. I could also avenge my parents and elder brother, comforting their spirits in heaven.
Until reality shattered my illusions into pieces.
The blazing fire of rage was completely extinguished by freezing ice water.
Riding with the knights towards the front lines, I saw a village.
A village burned to charcoal, with not even ruins remaining. The villagers, in tattered clothes, hearing the sound of knights' hooves, scattered like frightened birds, their panicked appearance pitiful and laughable. The knights beside me laughed rudely, but my heart, after a moment of inexplicable confusion, suddenly plunged into an icy abyss.
—This was within the Empire's territory, far from the front lines. This was the Empire's hinterland, no Orcs here. This was within the Empire's domain, behind enemy lines—so why was there an Imperial village burned down? Why were Imperial subjects displaced?!
I roared in anger, wanting to go forward and question those villagers. But when the villagers saw me approaching, they knelt in despair and closed their eyes, as if what was coming was not a knight protecting them, but a demon bringing death and fear. Some even actively stretched out their necks, as if to make it easier for me to draw my sword.
"No, what I want to ask is why, why are you all..."
The knights held me back. These numb knights, with mocking smiles on their faces that could never truly become laughter, expressions uglier than crying, blocked my attempt to question the villagers. They pulled me away from that burned village.
"Probably deserters, Your Highness. Don't worry about it too much. We still have to hurry."
"Yeah, after all these years, the villagers still living near the border should be used to it by now... If they haven't moved away, it's their own fault."
"Sigh, our end might not be any better than these villagers'. At least they can eat some tree bark. When we get to the front lines, we'll probably be the Orcs' snacks."
"Let's go, let's go. Sigh, these young masters who don't know the people's suffering. After all these years, what's there to be surprised about..."
The knights' chatter was mixed with complaints, explanations, and helpless self-mockery. An older knight stopped this small commotion and said to me quite calmly, "Your Highness, there are at least a thousand villages like this near the border, if not eight hundred. You can't sympathize with them all. We need to reach the Clay Fortress before winter, or else..."
At that time, I didn't really listen to the knights' subsequent explanations.
I only saw that villager who had closed his eyes in despair. After watching us leave, after watching us—the demons who, in his heart, brought death—leave, that villager who had actively stretched out his neck actually burst into loud wails. His cries were shrill and mournful, as if questioning why even the easy escape of death was not granted to them, why they were forced to live after everything was taken from them, living so miserably and hopelessly, without a shred of hope.
I had received a good education. My father always told me that the people were the foundation of the Empire.
They paid taxes, served in the military, gave everything for the nation. Every grain of food, every bit of resources consumed by the Empire's army facing the Orcs on the front lines was obtained through the hard labor and countless blood and sweat of countless people. It was the thousands upon thousands of villages and towns, all the residents, farmers, hunters, and craftsmen, selflessly giving everything for the Empire, that allowed the soldiers on the front lines to hold back the Orcs' repeated fierce attacks and invasions for centuries.
But such people were being plundered and humiliated by their own kind. Such hardworking people, who had given everything, were being burned, killed, and looted by retreating deserters because they were weak and powerless, becoming targets for them to vent their fear and frustration from defeat. And it seemed this was not the first time. They had suffered hardship, again and again, at the hands of their own people.
I could see that in the eyes of those villagers, besides fear, there was deep-seated hatred—they hated the Empire, hated the soldiers, hated the invading Orcs, hated everything, including this world.
It shouldn't be like this.
The relationship between the strong and the weak, the honorable protection and dedication, shouldn't be like this.
"Israel, this is the truth of the Empire."
Teacher Nostradamus—he was also in this knight squad. The middle-aged mage rode his horse alongside me and said calmly, "Years of war have caused the weak to be endlessly exploited and oppressed. The soldiers on the front lines have also suffered heavy casualties. The standards for service have been lowered again and again, from respectable family sons to the current riffraff who can put on armor. And when the poor commoners can't meet their demands, it's not surprising that they meet their end."
"But even so, the nobles in the rear are still living it up, holding banquets for one inexplicable reason after another, spending in one meal enough wealth to support the front-line soldiers for a month. And the heartless Imperial Royal Family can even produce a naive prince like you—truly a great joke."
The harsh words stung my heart. At that time, I was incredibly angry, but not because I was hurt by the sarcasm... Nostradamus was my teacher. He had been teaching me since I was young, but before today, he had never told me these things, never told me the truth of the Empire. This made me feel a deep sense of betrayal.
But my teacher sneered at my naivety—he hadn't spoken before because he couldn't, and didn't want to. He was merely a prince's teacher, just an ordinary Ultimate-rank mage. Above him, there were other Royal Mages, other Ultimate-rank experts. He had no authority, no power, and his background was the most ordinary of the ordinary—he didn't even have a surname, having reached his current position purely through his own efforts.
So of course he knew that talking about these things to a clueless prince before was meaningless, and would even put himself in danger... unless this clueless little one grew up, gained awareness and conviction, wanted to grasp his own destiny, and become...
"Israel, you need to become Emperor."