Kaden and Aurora had been thinking for a while now about how to properly bring down the empire, and at the same time leave enough for something new and better to sprout from the remains of it.

Kaden's goal was to kill the two princes for Aurora, and Aurora wanted to use her last two years of life to pull the Asterion family down from their high horse and take the empire into her palm.

But there was something dreadful about long-lasting beliefs. Aurora wanted the empire, but she had never planned to rule it herself.

She wanted an Asterion to do it, one she deemed worthy. All because she had lived her whole life bearing the conviction that only an Asterion could rule.

And, unfortunately, beliefs don't change overnight.

For Kaden, it didn't matter. The only thing he wanted was for Aurora to live her life freely. She had two years left to live, but that was only as a Grandmaster.

Aurora didn't know, but Kaden never planned to leave her with only two years. She needed to reach the Epithet Realm, or he needed to find a way to extend her life.

If he could, he might even obtain a glorious evaluation in this quest.

But all of these ambitions and wishes made them choose one possible path toward their desired outcome.

And that was to simply take control of the legs and arms of the empire, isolating only the head.

And there was nothing more vulnerable than a head unable to control the limbs of its body, especially when the body had worms eating its flesh.

Even more especially when the worms were the Heir of Death and the Last Star.

Thus, Kaden and Aurora decided to take Silver City, Morningstar City, and Green City under their command. They knew the Moonborn would not oppose them, not after what Aurora had done, and due to their natural closeness to the Starborn.

So here they were, taking the first step into their plan, standing in a dark space where thousands of doundous sprawled across the ground.

There was no wound on their bodies, at least none that had been there after the duo arrived.

One would wonder if they were dead or not.

But they were not, Kaden had simply made them sleep by temporarily killing their brains.

And yet the silver-robed man couldn't wrap his head around how it was possible to make thousands of doundous crawl on the floor without making a single sound.

He raised his head to look at the two beings sitting calmly atop the piled corpses of doundous, their faces ones no one would ever forget.

The man's face was covered in crimson-gold flame streaked with pink, white, red, and blue hues like stars. Everything was fire — his hair, eyebrows, skin, lips — except for his crimson eyes, which alone gave the silver-robed man a visceral chill despite the searing heat of the place.

The other figure was a woman, and dear heavens… what a sight she was. Her entire face was composed of stars, even her eyes, stars of countless shapes and colors layered atop one another and across her cheeks in a mesmerizing tapestry.

The two of them wore black hoods over their bodies, with gloves masking their hands, making it impossible to guess who — or what — they were in any way.

"You are trespassing into an owned territory," the man grated, trying hard to steady his voice despite his shaking body. "Who are you?" His right hand clenched the alert runic tool meant to signal those behind the silver door.

Kaden snapped his fingers, causing the runic tool to burst into flame and melt instantly.

Next, his body blurred from the top of the corpse-mountain, appearing a heartbeat later inches from the silver-robed man.

His right hand snapped to the side as Reditha spawned into it. He spun and cracked the man's leg, the sharp sound of bone fracturing echoing through the room, followed by a shriek of pain and a heavy thud as the man collapsed to the floor.

Kaden shifted his grip on Reditha, angling the tip downward before thrusting it deep into the man's chest, a wet gurgling sound escaping the man's throat as searing pain jolted through him.

"Arghh!" he wheezed.

Kaden let go of Reditha's hilt and watched him with apathetic eyes. Behind him, Aurora's starlight face was grinning, showing teeth shaped from constellations.

Next, Kaden crouched behind the man's head, his flaming mouth twisting into a chilling smile. "Let's do this fast, shall we?" He raised his index finger and pressed it onto his forehead.

Aurora's steps echoed behind him, strangely calm and rhythmic.

"What are you doing?" she asked, squatting at his right, her voice the sweet whisper of stars during moonlight.

"I want to know everything about this place," Kaden answered. "But this friend would likely tell us nothing out of loyalty to his master. Isn't that right?"

Aurora smiled. "Classic."

"Then I will simply incinerate his loyalty for his master, and amplify the fear he already has for us."

The moment the words left his lips, both the silver-robed man and Aurora widened their eyes.

But before they could focus, Kaden had already acted. His crimson-gold flame, now burning with a distinct shade of pink, enveloped his finger, then wrapped around the man's head and body like a bedsheet draped over a corpse.

Kaden focused intensely, his crimson eyes now tainted in pink as he searched for the particular emotions he wanted. With his Will, intelligence, and perception, he found them quickly. Then, without hesitation, he burned away every trace of loyalty within the man, igniting instead a far brighter flame of fear and of survival.

By the end of it, only a being without loyalty, terrified out of his wits, faced Kaden and Aurora. And he was desperate enough to spill any secret to survive.

"Now, little guy," Kaden said to a man who could have been his father, "tell me the purpose of this place, the beings you are creating, and the plan of Lord Silver. Tell me everything."

He leaned closer. "Understood?"

The man nodded quickly, his mask gone, revealing an old man, blood on his lips, with grey hair and silver eyes, wrinkled and exhausted. Reditha still lodged in his chest, pumping death intent and crimson sword intent through him, enough to torture him, yet keep him alive.

With all that pain, with no loyalty left, and with fear devouring every thought…

The man, Roel Silverdeath, began to betray his lord.

But could we call it betrayal if no loyalty remained in him?

…

The Lord decreed it.

The Lord decided it.

We simply obeyed. We had no choice.

Those were mostly the things Kaden and Aurora managed to hear from Roel.

Still, they succeeded in learning some things.

The existence of doundous, it seemed, came only from Lord Silver's own endeavor and not from the First Prince, Soleil Asterion.

According to Roel's words, Lord Silver came up with this idea after he returned from an expedition into a legacy ruin at the far end of the North, a place called The Frozen Landscape, a land of utter and dreadful cold.

Lord Silver claimed he had gone there to train his frost-starlight skills, as the Silver Star was a cold star and he could not intrude upon any Moonborn-claimed territory of frost-type already.

But he came back from that place with an eerie obsession toward the number 33, and with the idea to create the puppets he called doundous, beings he could discard at any time without the slightest remorse.

Kaden and Aurora didn't learn as much as they wished to, but they learned enough to plan something.

Ruins, Frozen Landscape, the number 33, Silver Star's power, and Lord Silver himself.

All of that made their only possible next action interacting with Lord Silver directly.

But that was the issue.

"Lord Silver is beyond the Epithet Realm," Roel had said, and that alone made both of them freeze internally.

It was not that they didn't expect it, but they had refused until now to fully acknowledge that they were one Master-ranked and one Grandmaster-ranked being going against beings who had surpassed the Epithet Realm.

A realm Kaden didn't even know the name of. And Aurora only knew the name, not the power it carried.

The beings called Elderling. The next step after the Epithet Realm.

Kaden turned his head from Roel to look at Aurora crouching beside him. His face was shrouded in fire, yet Aurora could feel the apprehension in it.

She moved closer to him, then went behind him and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him from behind. Kaden suppressed a shudder at the gesture.

Aurora laid her head on his back, and at that moment the silver door yawned open, letting beings in the same attire as Roel pour out.

They immediately froze when they saw Roel on the ground with a crimson sword lodged in his chest, the limp bodies of doundous everywhere, and Kaden and Aurora holding each other.

Their expressions, hidden behind their masks, twisted into monstrous growls before their weapons materialized in the air and spells rained down from the ceiling like an avalanche of blades.

"INTRUDERS! KILL! KILL!"

Aurora didn't even care about them, her voice loud enough for Kaden alone,

"You said it to me, didn't you?" she whispered, "you said we would be fine."

She paused, the spells now only heartbeats away from tearing through them. And then…

"You said you are Death's favorite, my dear. Was… all of that a lie?"

Kaden listened to her as he raised his crimson eyes toward the approaching attacks. Reditha glowed with a brilliant light that enveloped all the spells before killing them effortlessly, making them vanish instantly.

Kaden didn't even move a finger. The silver-robed men paused in disbelief, rising fear trembling in their eyes, while Kaden answered Aurora's question,

"I was not lying," he said, then with a wry smile, "but do you really believe I can go against them? In my current power?"

Aurora smiled, "You wished to save me," she said.

You wished to go against fate.

"Here is the price, my dear."

Fate was a petty one.

"Are you ready to bear it? With me at your side bearing the same burden?"

Will we succeed? Or will we only delay the inevitable?

Kaden sighed softly, looking at the approaching men that still did not give up, feeling Aurora's warm body pressed against him.

He lifted his gaze toward the bleak ceiling, then softly,

"No regret?" he asked Aurora.

She smirked, "you die, I die. I die, you die."

Kaden suppressed a smile,

"Weird," he remarked, "that brings back memories." Then swiftly,

"Fine, Aurora."

Reditha vanished and reappeared in his hand.

"Let's walk toward our death."

Aurora cackled, her eyes shining a brighter hue,

"Gladly, my dear."

—End of Chapter 327—

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