A few days flashed past Elaris like embers scattered by war-wind. Kingdoms clashed, wagers were settled in blood or gold, borders shifted overnight. Ash returned to Velora with Seris, and her. He initially planned to clear all headaches, but the Lyrion Kingdom still standing only because he chose to let someone else earn their scars this time.
He dismissed everyone for three full days.
While the palace buzzed with new life, he locked himself in the war-room. Crimson cloak draped across the throne, golden-pink eyes reflecting a storm of holographic names, ten thousand of them, each one a seed he had marked for greatness. These would be the first to take the first step on the road he was building.... but seeds needed hands to plant them.
Seris commanded the armies.
Thalion moved supplies and futures like chess pieces.
What Ash needed now were blades forged for his own grip.
Two names burned brighter than the rest.
Caelan Relvar. Kael Relvar.
Fourteen-year-old twins carrying dormant SS-rank Aspects beneath the humble Relvar bloodline. With the Eyes of First Dawn he had already walked three separate 24 hours, during this time he had visited as many as of those 10,000 as he could.
In the third vision he stumbled upon these two.
He rose, form rippling into the familiar mask of King Alaric, silver hair, storm-grey eyes, the king the world still believed in, and stepped out into the corridor.
Thalion waited, bowing low.
"No need to bow every time," Ash said without slowing. "Report."
"Queen Sonna.... of the Voss Kingdom requests audience. She arrives tomorrow." As he spoke it was an evident tremor in his tone.
Ash's stride did not falter, but something cold and amused flickered behind the mask.
'Ah. The mastermind herself.' He thought. He faintly knew of her from the first 75 chapters in the novel. During those chapters she was introduced once before Kale left the kingdom. After that it was just faint mentions of her telling him which kingdom to head to next.
"And what do you see?" he asked, voice silk over steel.
Thalion's face paled. "Hundreds of futures, Your Majesty. Every single one ends with Velora's crown changing heads. No war. No wager. Just… Queen Sonna arrives, Kale Voss the world's first SSS talent, follows days later and the kingdom is simply his."
Ash smiled. "Good. Let her know, everything will proceed. You and Seris meet me in three days. It's time.... Velora truly rises."
He left Thalion standing beneath the weight of futures that refused to make sense.
Overreach lay half a day's walk from the capital, a border city of stone and stubborn hope. Ash travelled alone, plain cloak over royal mail, boots eating dust and distance. He needed to feel the kingdom that was now his.
Ash walked alone beneath the white marble boulevards of Velora for the first time without haste or mask of urgency.
Floating crystal lanterns drifted overhead, casting soft azure light that rippled across the canals of liquid starlight. Living ivy curled over bridges in gentle, breathing arches, and the air carried the faint sweetness of fruits that would never rot, suspended in preservation arrays older than most kingdoms.
Musicians stood at every corner, fingers dancing over harp strings woven from pure mana, the notes rising and falling like the heartbeat of a city that had never known war.
People moved in flowing robes stitched with constellations, their steps light, their voices soft. Children laughed as they chased glowing motes that drifted from the lanterns. Merchants greeted one another by name.
No one hurried.
No one looked over their shoulder.
The banners of crimson and white fluttered high above, the crescent moon cradling its single blooming rose, and everything was exactly as beautiful as the first day he had seen it from afar.
Harmony. Real, living harmony.
Ash felt it settle on his shoulders like a weight he had never been meant to carry.
He had taken this place with blood and silence, ended the previous royal family in the space between heartbeats, and now walked its streets as its king. These people did not yet know his name, did not know the color of the eyes behind the mask, did not know that the hand that would sign their laws had once stolen the light from the sky that resided above their very heads.
'Could I truly be a King to these people>'
The question tasted foreign.
Ash in both lives had never been one to question himself. He didn't complain he chose to do the work, to let results speak and let whatever happens, happen. When he was orphan on Earth who couldn't find a good home, he didn't complain and ask why he was so unfortunate, he only did what he could.
When Ash on Elaris was told he wasn't good enough, when he was born with a weak body. He didn't wallow in sorrow; he went a worked harder.
Then came the memories he lived through the lives of Nia, but especially Vaeloria. He practically lived 30,000 years adapting to the mindset of someone who was raised as nothing more than a killer.
It would be insane to say that so many years wouldn't affect some one 17 years old... at most 34 if you counted mental age of both lives combined. But even still in a world with monsters who had lived for who knows how long.... such time was minimal.
There was so much that made Ash less humane the more he went along. From Lust, to being a literal Fox as well.
His views on certain things had become skewed.
He watched a young couple share a piece of starlight-sweetened fruit beneath an ivy bridge, laughing when the juice stained her fingers. He watched an old man tune his harp for a circle of children who listened with wide, trusting eyes. He watched the city breathe, serene and whole, and felt something inside him cracks along a line he had never noticed before.
What truly was good?
What truly was bad?
Would it be good to enhance this harmony, their homes, their lives.... even if it meant tearing it all down?
Would it be bad if he had the power to give these people a change... even if they didn't seek it...
If he had the power to change this kingdom to something that could stand atop of this world, but didn't for the sake of their personal feelings?
He had killed half a billion people and brought them back as something new.
And he had plans that would perhaps lead to results steeper than that....
Ash stopped beneath a pillar of crimson and white, hand resting against stone warmed by centuries of gentle sun. The harp music drifted over him like rain he no longer knew how to feel.
He did not have an answer.
Only the quiet, terrible certainty that whatever he chose next, this seemingly perfect city would never be the same again.
But even then, he smiled at the thought of it all. He didn't know what would become of it by the time this Kingdom rose....
'Heh... we'll just have to see. Whether I'm viewed as a savior or a devil... I'll wear it with satisfaction.' He thought.
---
By the time the Relvar estate appeared on the hillside, the question had burned itself quiet.
He would be whatever this kingdom needed.
The twins were sparring in the yard, lightning cracking against invisible gravity wells, sweat carving clean lines through dust on identical faces. Their parents, minor nobles clinging to fading prestige, saw the royal crest and nearly tripped over themselves with bows and offers of wine.
Ash ignored them.
He looked only at the boys.
"I need swords," he said, voice carrying the weight of a man who had already ended nations.
"My swords. The ones I point at the heart of the world."
The rest was simple. He offered them a raise of status and funds. All in return for loyalty... which was something he would get from these two boys regardless.
The parents practically shoved their sons forward, eyes shining with visions of titles and favor.
Caelan and Kael exchanged one glance, lightning and gravity meeting in perfect understanding, then turned back to the king and dropped to one knee.
"We'll follow," they said together.
Ash's smile was small and sharp.
"Pack light. We leave now."
As the three of them walked the road back toward the capital under a sky bleeding gold and crimson, the twins, half a step behind their king.
Tomorrow, Queen Sonna would arrive.
The day after, the game would truly begin.