Soul of Burning Steel

It's nighttime—'I' wakes up.

At the beginning of sublimation, the consciousness is foggy, immersed in the great source, and can only feel the endless light and heat impacting the soul, as if all the prayers and curses in the world have been poured into the mind.

Such days lasted for an unknown amount of time, and in the muddled chaos, in the midst of countless howls of divinity tearing apart consciousness, 'I' gradually, bit by bit, found my name.

——I am the emperor, I am the lord of the Hergamos Empire, I am the head of the Diamond family, I am the one who exterminates the orcs, and the monarch who suppresses all darkness. , I am one of the most powerful legends in this world.

——I am Israel Diamond, I am the heir to the God of Justice and Power, the first "God Ascendant with a Human Body" in the Starfall Era.

【I am strong】

All the information gradually became clear in the memory, immersed in the endless impact of information, I regained my self-awareness, and the individual 'Israel' gradually recovered himself—but also because In this way, heavier and more obscure questions than "who am I" come one after another.

——I am the successor of the God of Justice and Power, the protector of civilization, I am the creator, defender and improver of order, these are my identities, and they are the most important in my self-cognition step.

so.

What is justice?

Power, what is it?

And orderly civilization, what exactly is it?

Endless confusion arises when questions pop up in my mind.

——What is justice, consensus among the majority?

——What is power, the oppression of the strong by the weak?

——What is the civilization of order? Is it the powerful who cut off the weak, the majority over the minority, and the truth over ignorance?

For a moment, I was speechless and unable to answer, and things that were too erratic could not be used as answers at all. The more I thought about these aspects, the more 'I' felt that my consciousness was drifting away and my mind was in a trance. My name was 'Israel' His soul wanders in the infinite flames, gradually sinking into the eternal light.

If it is an ordinary person, it must be like this, gradually assimilated by the warm flames, sinking silently into the ocean of flames, and becoming a part of the eternal and infinite source.

But the walls called memory, belief, and will blocked the assimilation of the flames, and the radiance that constituted the core of the belief of "I" shone, awakening the tranced soul.

— Wake up, Israel. You have already had the answers to these questions, and you believe in them.

Remember it.

Therefore, 'I' recalled the past, and the pictures of the long past came to my mind, making me seem to return to the era of innocence and simplicity more than forty years ago, when I didn't know the suffering in the world at all.

That was, the end of 799 years of Starfall, a decadent year.

At that time, I was still young, my father and brother were both present, my mother was gentle and kind, the ministers were courteous, the communication between the nobles was elegant and appropriate, and the residents of the imperial capital lived and worked in peace and contentment, with a good life and no suffering at all.

At that time, I firmly believed in justice and axiom, glory and code. I firmly believed that the army is an iron fist to protect the people, and the nobles are the strong shield to protect the common people. , leading civilization to expand its territory in the Black Forest - I firmly believe in all of this, just like believing in the truth, I regard it as life, even higher than life.

At that time, I was so proud and honored that I was born into the royal family. I thought that I was the guardian of all people, which was my natural calling.

—but I was wrong.

At that time, I was so naive and simple, and my beliefs were so weak and ridiculous-as a prince, I was born in the deep palace and raised in the hands of a woman. After the frontier nobles, they control the lifeline of the frontier, and the elder brother is the prince of the empire. He has won the trust of the ministers and will be a generation of Mingjun.

Being in such a garden and such a greenhouse, my future is naturally full of light, glory and praise. They have educated me to be the most noble knight, and they have also made me ignorant of the sufferings of the people and the sorrows of the peasants—those are not what I need to know The thing is, as the second son of the imperial family, I just need to become a strong man, to protect my elder brother in the future, guard the glory of the bloodline, inherit the family name, and make the name of Diamond shine like a flawless diamond.

I thought this was my future.

—wrong—all wrong.

It all started in that afternoon at the end of 799 Starfall. In the decadent year, the imperial capital played a dirge, all the flags fell, and the palace of Morlaix was filled with a bloody shadow. The biggest disaster in the past seven hundred years of the Hergamos Empire came—the orcs gathered all The elite and strong men of the empire raided the Thomas Grand Canyon Fortress on the border of the empire. The imperial emperor who patrolled here died in battle on the spot, and the imperial prince who supervised the army in the rear fortress was also assassinated and killed by the "orc strongman".

In the palace, shadows floated. The eldest princess locked the door for three days because of her grief. When she opened it again, she had turned into a corpse. The queen lost her husband, her eldest son and eldest daughter in less than half a week. The whole person became insane and was forced to be sent to the deep palace. The "second son" who lost the protection of his parents, elder brother and elder sister almost instantly was forced to take over the banner of "revenge". The "grieving" ministers and nobles joined forces and sent them to the front line to face the enemy head-on with the elite army of the Orc King's Court, which was about to win a big victory.

The strong and the weak, the strong and the weak, justice and evil... everything was turned upside down in an instant. When "I" rode a war horse in confusion and left the imperial capital with a small group of knights, what greeted me was that I was about to travel across the entire northwest The iron hooves of the orcs on the plains have poured down from the Tartarus Plateau in the 'green blood disaster'.

At that time, I didn't understand conspiracy and tricks. My heart was filled with righteous anger and sparks of vengeance. I firmly believed that this battle must be won, and the empire will be able to expel foreign enemies and promote the country's prestige. Parents and brothers take revenge and comfort their spirits in heaven.

Until reality beats fantasy to pieces.

The burning anger was completely extinguished by the frosty ice water.

I was running along the road leading to the front with the knights, and I saw a village.

The village was burnt to ashes, and there were no ruins left. The poorly dressed villagers fled like frightened birds when they heard the knight's footsteps. But after a burst of unexplained doubts, my heart suddenly fell into an ice cave.

——This is within the empire, away from the front line; here is the hinterland of the empire, there are no orcs; this is within the territory of the empire, there is no rear of the enemy——If this is the case, why are the villages of the empire burned, and there are people of the empire Displaced? !

I growled angrily, and wanted to ask the villagers, but when the villagers saw me coming, they knelt down in despair and closed their eyes, as if it was not the knights who came to protect them, but the ones who brought death and fear. Demons, some even stretched their necks actively, as if to make it easier for me to draw the sword.

"No, what I want to ask is why, why you..."

The knights held me back, these numb, mocking smiles on their faces, but they still couldn't really laugh, the knights whose expressions were uglier than crying blocked my action to ask the villagers, they took me Pulled away from the burned village.

"It should be caused by the broken soldiers, Your Highness, don't worry too much, we have to hurry."

"Yeah, after so many years, these villagers who still live around the frontier should have gotten used to it... If they don't move away, they deserve it."

"Well, our ending may not be better than these villagers. They can at least eat some bark. When we get to the front line, I'm afraid we will be eaten by the orcs as snacks."

"Let's go, let's go, alas, these young masters who don't know the sufferings of the people have been there for so many years, what's so strange..."

The chatter of the knights was mixed with complaints, explanations and helpless self-mockery. An older knight stopped the small commotion and said to me quite calmly: "Your Highness, such a village is in the border area. Around, there are eight hundred if there is no one thousand, if you don’t have sympathy, we have to rush to Clay Fortress before winter, otherwise..."

At that time, I did not listen carefully to the subsequent explanations of the knights.

I just saw that desperate villager who closed his eyes, after seeing us leave, after seeing us as the demons that brought death in his heart, the villager who stretched his neck on his own initiative was crying loudly—he The cry was shrill and plaintive, and the cry seemed to be questioning why they were not even given an easy death to escape from everything, why they were allowed to live after depriving them of everything, so miserable and desperate, there was no Hope to live.

I was well educated and my father always said to me that the people are the foundation of the empire.

They pay taxes, serve in the service, and give everything for the country. The empire's army confronts the orcs on the front line. Every bit of food and every resource consumed is the result of countless people's hard work and countless blood and sweat. It is the tens of thousands of villages and towns, all the residents, farmers, hunters and artisans who selflessly sacrificed everything for the empire, which allowed the soldiers on the front line to block the orcs' raids and invasions again and again for hundreds of years .

However, such citizens are being plundered and humiliated by their own people. The citizens who have worked so hard and given everything, because they are weak and powerless, will be burned, killed and looted by the retreating army, and they will vent their fear and anger. The subjects of failure depression, and it sounds like, more than once, they suffer, time and time again, at the hands of their own people.

I can see that in the eyes of those villagers, apart from fear, there is also an unforgettable hatred-they hate the empire, the soldiers, the invading orcs, and everything, including this world.

It shouldn't be like this.

The relationship between the strong and the weak, the protection and dedication of glory, should not be like this.

"Israel, this is the truth about the empire."

Teacher Nostradamus - he is also in this knight squad. The middle-aged mage was riding a horse, standing next to me, and he said calmly: "The years of war have caused the weak to be exploited and squeezed endlessly, and the frontline soldiers also suffered heavy casualties. Until now, the hooligans can put on armor, and once the poor people cannot meet their needs, it is not surprising that they will end in destruction."

"But even so, the nobles in the rear are still singing and dancing, holding dinner parties for one inexplicable reason after another, eating enough wealth for the frontline soldiers for a month, and the ruthless royal family can even teach you to A simple prince—it’s really a big joke.”

The pungent language stung my heart. At that time, I was extremely angry, but it was not painful because of being satirized... Nostradamus is my teacher, he has been teaching me since I was a child, but in Before today, he had never told me this, told me the truth about the Empire, and it made me feel deeply betrayed.

But the teacher laughed at my naivety - he didn't say it before, he couldn't say it, and he didn't want to say it, he was just the teacher of the prince, just an ordinary ultimate mage, above him, there were other royal mages, and As for other extreme powerhouses, he has no rights, no strength, and his background is even more ordinary among ordinary people—he doesn't even have a surname, and he has come to the present step by step purely by his own efforts.

So of course he knew that it was meaningless to say these things to a living muddle-headed prince before, and he would even put himself in disaster... unless this muddle-headed little guy grows up, he has consciousness and faith, and wants to master it. own destiny, to become...

"Israel, you need to be emperor."

Second update.