Chapter 2: The Fourth Overlord (2) | The Hundred Reigns
Simon had inherited a legacy of bastards.
The first to sit on the Crimson Throne was the archdemon Mardok Endymion the Bloodthirsty, who gave the empire his name and led it during the aptly named Century of Terror; a period which included such pleasant events as the Walling of the Screaming Saints, the Red Forest Massacre, and the Despoiling of Nabadia. He terrorized the eastern continent for a hundred years until his successor ate him alive.
The second Overlord was the dragon Gargauth the Greedy, who while nowhere near as terrible as his predecessor, still drove his own tribe to near-extinction over a monetary dispute and personally set an entire metropolis ablaze to burn out a single rebel—who, as it turned out, wasn't even there. The dragonlord ruled for nearly three centuries until Balzam Magnos beheaded him in battle.
The third Overlord was Balzam Magnos the Cruel, the first human to hold the title; his relatively short but fruitful reign saw the subjugation of no less than five independent nations in a bit less than two decades and he suppressed all rebellions with ruthless efficiency. The empire had doubled in size during his tenure, and most expected him to complete his predecessors' dream of conquering the world… if his children didn't tear apart his dominion first.
In all cases, the Crimson Throne had awarded the Overlord Class to whoever murdered the previous holder; yet it seemed that Balzam had decided to break the tradition. The only reason Simon could think of why he had been awarded this power was that either Louis or Thalas murdered their father, and he wished to spite them both with his last breath.
Hence, Simon kept his mouth shut. He avoided his siblings' gazes the same way he had done his best to stay beneath everyone's notice for most of his life. His predecessor and father was literally drenched in his own blood; there was no way he wouldn't end up the same with a level 1 Class, even one as powerful as the Overlord.
He had to get away now.
But then that asshole Thalas ruined everything. "Mother, the bastard is trying to run away."
Simon cursed his rotten luck as he looked over his shoulder. Whereas Louis had inherited his father's appearance, Thalas was the closest to him in demeanor and attitude. A sharp man with crimson hair flowing down his helmet and golden eyes that seemed to glitter in the dark, he always wore a cruel smirk across his fair face. The Crestone of the Berserker glowed on his cloak, ready to transform him into the cruel, bloodthirsty beast he had always been.
"Leaving so soon, halfblood?" he taunted Simon. "Awfully suspicious, don't you think?"
"You'll stay right where you are, Simon," threatened the empress, her eyes gleaming with magic. "None of you shall leave this room until–"
"Your Grace, do not–" he heard a general shout, only for his sentence to end in a flash of fire.
Simon didn't know who struck first, and didn't care; all that mattered was that someone struck and everyone triggered their abilities in response. He barely had time to see Lauriane try to push him back as her body transformed into her Class form and the empress summoned a hammer into her hands before the entire room exploded in a massive detonation.
A wall of fire engulfed Simon, burning away his clothes and searing the skin off his flesh. Terrible pain beyond description seized him, wracking his body with agony. He would have screamed if the flames hadn't melted off his throat off his spine, and his eyes soon boiled in their sockets.
When the darkness came swiftly, it was as a mercy.
He dreamed of the Crimson Throne.
It glared down on him from atop steps of thick black stone, its seat drowned in red cloth drenched in the blood of the Overlord's enemies. The great, obsidian-horned demon skull worked into the backseat observed him with four ruby eyes gleaming with malice and hunger. Great wings expanded behind it as if to help it take flight before linking up at the top in the form of a clock with metal feathers for hours, while curled ribs and tusks served as armrests.
It judged him, Simon could tell. It judged him, and found him wanting.
This is the second of your hundred reigns.
You have earned the title of Simon the Short-lived.
The Short-lived: Your reign didn't even last two hours. +5 Agility.
The second reign? What did–
The dream ended like the previous one did, with Lauriane's hand forcing him awake.
"Put on your pants and come with me," she ordered, dressed as she had been a mere minute ago before the entire court began to tear itself apart. "We don't have much time."
Simon's mind struggled to make sense of the situation. He recalled the explosion, the fire, the entire imperial court tearing itself apart like crazed beasts… and now he was somehow back in his bedroom, with his half-sister shaking him like a bag of potatoes.
"Are you unharmed?" he blurted out. His eyes had to be deceiving him, for he didn't see any hint of burns or damage on her skin or clothes.
"Yes, yes, I am unharmed, don't worry… but I can't say the same for our father." Lauriane took a deep breath. "The thing you've been having nightmares about has happened."
Simon had the worst sense of déjà-vu. He blinked a few times, trying to make sense out of it all. Did he… did he dream of everything? No, no, that hadn't been a dream. He had never felt anything so vivid as the pain of being burned to death, nor remembered such clarity. Moreover, his status screen icon was still active in the corner of his vision.
What was going on?
"Simon, there is no time," his half-sister said, more sternly than before. "Dress up no–"
"Was he stabbed?" Simon inquired, trying to make sense of it all. "With his mistress? Gutted like a fish?"
Lauriane's eyes widened in surprise. "Did you dream of it?"
"I… I think I had a vision of the future." His throat felt sore all of a sudden. It was the only explanation that made sense. "I have no idea how, but I saw it."
"Did you see the assassin too?" Lauriane asked with a hopeful tone, her hands grabbing his shoulders. "If you know, Simon, you need to tell me now. The situation has everyone on edge."
"I… I didn't see the murder itself." Simon struggled to believe his father had been assassinated, even with the glaring proof that his Class had passed on to him in the corner of his eye. "We were in Father's bedroom, all of us, and then someone struck and it all went to hell."
"So you saw a vision of the future?" Lauriane inquired, more confused than anything. "Like with the Oracle Class?"
"Well…" Simon scoffed. "Either that, or I traveled back in ti–"
The word died in his throat.
Simon coughed as an immense pressure closed on his windpipe and began to crush his throat. He felt unbearably cold fingers press on his skin with inhuman strength, but when his own hands reached out to his neck on instinct, they found nothing.
Nothing but phantom pain, sharp and agonizing.
Simon fell onto the floor while the invisible force choking him squeezed the air out of his lungs. His vision blurred with flashes of the past and the present as the blood rushed to his head. The descriptions he had read in the library couldn't even begin to describe the horror of strangulation.
"Simon?!" Lauriane gasped in fear when her eyes set on his throat. "By the Light, what the…"
He had no idea what she saw, but it was killing him. Simon could feel it in his bones. Lauriane called out the healers and the exorcists, but it was already too late. His life, his very consciousness, had already begun to fade away.
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A single thought crossed Simon's mind as the black void of unconsciousness began to encroach upon everything: that he didn't want to die.
He had too much left to do. He never had a wife, never got to attend the academy or become an adventurer like he always wanted to, never got to travel and see the world, never got to live. He couldn't die here and now, with no explanation nor answer. He wanted to live to eighty, ninety, a century.
He needed more time.
He didn't want to die.
He couldn't die here!
But the darkness didn't care. It swallowed him all into an all-consuming void filled with a creeping cold, and then...
And then the end.
He dreamed of the Crimson Throne again.
It still looked down on him, but not with disappointment this time. Simon could have sworn he had caught a glitter of amusement in its four eyes. The damn chair was mocking him, laughing at him for returning so soon.
This is the third of your hundred reigns. You have earned the title of Simon the Blabbermouth.
The Blabbermouth: You said too much and paid the price. You are immune to the Silence Ailment.
Revealing the Crimson Throne's secret in any way, shape, or form to an outsider will trigger a failsafe and end your reign prematurely. Only the Keeper may know for the glory of all future Overlords.
Take the truth with you to your grave. You have been warned.
Simon awoke gasping for air.
He fell off his bed in his panic, his hands scratching his throat while he inhaled with all of his strength. His lungs expanded as they welcomed the fresh wind of life into themselves. Lauriane loomed over him with a hint of concern, her hand raised in his direction as if to shake him awake. "Simon?"
Simon was too busy inhaling and exhaling to answer. He panted for the Light knew how long, trying to calm down.
That… that was real. That was no vision, no dream. It happened. He could still feel the phantom sensation of fingers on his throat. He had said too much, and the Crimson Throne somehow killed him for it.
And it brought him back somehow.
"Whatever dream you had, I'm afraid there's no time to discuss it," she said. "Put on your pants and come with me."
It was happening again.
Simon stared at his half-sister, who stared back with growing concern and confusion. She made no mention of watching him die before her eyes at the hands of an invisible force. She expressed no relief at his survival nor acknowledged it. It happened, but she didn't remember it.
The curse said it would kill him if he betrayed the Crimson Throne's greatest secret, but it didn't touch him when he said he had a vision of the future. It only killed Simon when he joked about traveling back in time.
This cannot be time-travel, Simon told himself. Even the Chronomancer Class couldn't take its user backwards in time, only forward. It was an inviolable rule of magic and occult physics alike. You can't go back in time.
Unless…
Simon's mind worked into overdrive as a new and terrifying possibility formed in his mind. Father had been invincible for the last two decades. He had never lost a single war since he became Overlord, crushed all rebellions in the crib, deftly keeping the empire united and expanding through it all. His predecessors, too, had been near-impossible to put down. They had buried more would-be heroes and Class users than any other tyrants across history combined.
Were Overlords so successful at dealing with threats to their rule because they knew they were coming?
"Simon, this is an emergency, and I don't have time to coddle you," Lauriane said upon reaching the end of her patience. "The thing you've dreamed about–"
"I'm the Fourth Overlord."
Simon uttered the sentence without warning or triumph. It was a simple statement, perhaps of resignation.
Telling the truth was a risk, but Lauriane was the only person he somewhat trusted in this castle. She was the wisest of Father's children and had gone out of her way to befriend him, a lowly bastard, even arguing in his favor when Thalas tried to have him executed. Moreover, she had tried to save him twice. He could at least count on her not to murder him on the spot.
She stared at him for a very long time, her expression hardening. "Prove it."
Simon rose to his feet, and took a deep breath. "Overlord."
He wasn't sure he needed to utter the Class' name, or if he only had to think about it really hard, but it made no difference; his Class manifested in a burst of mana all the same. Purple miasma swirled around Simon with such strength that Lauriane's knight was flung back at the bedroom's wall, and his half-sister covered her face.
All Classes altered their user's appearance when activated, with Knights gaining armor shaped from mana and Wizards putting on robes and a pointy hat. The Overlord's outfit eclipsed them all. Plate armor of blackened, ethereal steel buried every inch of his skin, its breastplate shaped like a demonic ram's skull, a foul magic coursing through the metal. A mantle of ethereal shadows fluttered from his shoulders, while a dark scepter of a mace had formed in his gauntleted palm. A helmet crowned with fangs covered his head, but though it had two narrow slits for the eyes, they only oozed miasma through which he could see like daylight.
And the power… the power coursed through him was intoxicating. He felt the fire in his veins, the magic in his bones, the furnace in his soul. Simon had heard most Class users could only keep their Class outfit on for a limited time until they ran out of mana, but he felt no such pressure with the Overlord. Quite the contrary, his armor felt too restrictive for the strength now building up within him, like a dam holding back the ocean.
He could do anything. He knew it. All his doubts and fears of assassination were stripped away by the overwhelming confidence permeating his body and mind.
His half-sister stared at him with awe and disbelief, the former of which she had never shown Simon during all these years. That, perhaps, was a more intoxicating sensation than the power itself.
But then her eyes squinted at him.
"Did you do it?" she asked, quite dangerously.
Her words snapped Simon back to reality and brutally cleared the cloud that had taken over his mind. Father had wielded this power to its apex, with more levels and abilities than Simon would ever know, and he had still perished. Someone killed and outplayed him so thoroughly that not even time-travel could save him.
Remember that you are mortal. Simon shook his head, forced himself to focus beyond the thrill of the power trip fueled by his Class and anchored himself. He cancelled the Class transformation with a thought and returned to human form before someone could sense his aura. Caution. Caution first.
"No, I did not," he insisted to Lauriane. "I didn't think Father could die."
"I thought the same, but Father's corpse would beg otherwise," Lauriane countered, her voice heavy with suspicion. "How did you inherit his Class if you didn't kill him yourself?"
She was that short of calling him a father-killer and kinslayer. Her accusation made sense, since all Overlords had claimed the Class by killing their predecessor. Simon was the first exception as far as he knew.
"Father put it in his testament." Simon raised his hand at an empty spot. How did Father do it again? "Keeper, I summon you."
The Keeper of the Throne materialized in a puff of smoke to answer its master's call.
"Yes, Your Dark Majesty?" it asked without any emotion whatsoever, the imperial testament folded in its hands.
The Perk's description was right; it actually does obey my orders… "Show my half-sister our father's testament," Simon commanded the shade, who handed over the document to Lauriane. "See?"
"You could have asked the Keeper to falsify this, but…" Lauriane frowned as she read it, and then glared at her knight bodyguard, who had since picked himself up from the floor after being flung at the wall from his earlier transformation. "None of what you hear or see now shall leave this room."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Who killed Father?" Lauriane immediately asked the Keeper. "Thalas? Louis? Whom?"
The Keeper remained quiet as a tomb, which caused Simon to sigh. "Answer all of her questions, Keeper."
"I do not know who slew the previous emperor nor in which circumstances, but I can confirm his death happened at one hour and a half in the morning," the Keeper replied. "The Class transfer was completed at this time."
"Why did he choose him then?" Lauriane asked, waving her hand at Simon. "He's the last person who would want the throne!"
"I do not know," the Keeper replied. "I exist to serve, not to question."
Of course it wouldn't be so easy. Simon wondered if the assassin knew about this. They would have at least found a way to cover their tracks.
"Did Father say something then?" Simon inquired. Although he would shed no tears for his old man, he was in no hurry to suffer the same fate. "Did he tell you anything? A secret instruction only meant for my ears?"
"Yes," the Keeper replied.
Simon's heart skipped a beat in his chest. "Which one?"
"Kill them all."
A tense silence fell upon the room, which Simon shattered with a question he already knew the answer to. "Whom?"
"Your siblings. Kill them all. The well-born ones and the bastards both. Kill them all." The worst part was that the Keeper mimicked Father's voice as it uttered these words, probably because it registered them straight from the Overlord's mouth. "Those were the late emperor's last request to his successor."
Lauriane paled, her fingers trembling and clenching into fists. She glared at the Keeper for a while and then turned to face the bedroom window without a word.
"I'm not going to kill you, Lauriane," Simon stated the obvious. Then again, he doubted he could. She was at least level 60 from what he had heard, and a wise Class user never revealed their true strength to anyone.
"I know, I… I thought that Father…" Lauriane clenched her jaw. She had always been among the most loyal of Father's children, so the betrayal cut deep. She was barely managing to contain her anger. "That he cared."
He was called the Cruel, what did you expect? Simon kept that thought to himself. "I'm sorry."
"This is a giant mess, Simon. A colossal mess." Lauriane crossed her arms. "We can't keep the secret for long."
"We won't have to." Simon already had a plan in mind. "Keeper, how do I transfer the Class away without dying?"
This title was too much trouble, even with the ability to go back in time. Simon had no interest in playing politics or being caught at the center of the chaos that would surely befall the empire. The court had barely been able to last an hour without killing each other. He was better off passing the hot baton to someone else and let them deal with the fallout.
"You can't."
But then the Keeper crushed his hopes.
"An Overlord's reign only ends in death," it said without pity or sympathy. "An Overlord may select an heir, but the Class shall only pass on to its new holder once His Dark Majesty breathes his last. There is no possibility of resigning or abdicating."
Simon could read between the lines. The Class would only pass once he had exhausted all of his 'reigns,' however long those could last.
Simon was condemned to rule for a very, very long time.