The Emperor’s Twisted Mirror

“We are departing now.”

I nodded at the knight’s report and gazed out the window. Perhaps because we had visited as formal guests, the people of the Great Forest had come out to see us off.

Behind Ita, who stood at the very front, lines of priestesses in scarlet robes stretched back. At the far end of the line, I spotted someone leaning heavily on two younger priestesses for support.

‘Ah…’

It was Meyril. In stark contrast to the rejuvenated Ita, Meyril had aged decades in a matter of days. Her hair was stark white, and her expression was vacant, as if her mind had fractured.

She wasn’t there to say goodbye; she was simply being moved, shuffling along with unsteady steps. In her unfocused eyes and slack jaw, there was no longer any trace of resentment or hatred.

A pang of discomfort brushed my heart. If she had been given a second chance, just as I had… would things have been different?

‘…There’s no way to know.’

A second chance was no guarantee of atonement. I decided to be satisfied with having severed the ill fate that bound us to the Great Forest.

As the carriage rolled away, I reached my hand out the window to take in the scenery I had missed while unconscious on the way here. Almost instantly, a hand reached down from the roof—Kaiern. We held hands like that, linked between the interior and the roof, for about an hour until a knight approached.

“We are approaching the first warp gate.”

“Your Highness, shall we slow our pace?” Viscount Travie asked, his face etched with worry. He clearly remembered my poor condition after the first warp on our way to the forest.

I shook my head to reassure him, but the concern didn’t leave his eyes. As the shimmering, multicolored distortion of the warp gate drew near, I involuntarily tensed and squeezed Kaiern’s hand.

The moment the carriage passed through the gate, nausea surged. But immediately, Kaiern’s mana flowed through our joined hands, soothing the turbulent energy in my stomach.

‘It actually works?’

I had been prepared to spend two months traveling by road if this failed, so the instant relief was a pleasant surprise. Chase and the Viscount, seeing that I didn’t fall ill this time, looked immensely relieved.

“It seems the first time was simply the shock of a new experience,” the Viscount remarked. I couldn’t exactly tell him the truth, so I just nodded along.

Ignoring Kaiern’s muffled grumbling from above, we passed through two more gates. In the end, it took us only a few days to return to the Imperial Palace—nearly a month after we had first left.

The Emperor was trapped in a cycle of dark thoughts.

‘Have I been deceived again?’

Chase, the boy he thought was his flesh and blood, was a stranger. Enraged by a humiliation he had never before experienced, the Emperor had intended to kill him on the spot, but Aillen’s plea had stayed his hand.

‘The Gods would not wish for Chase to suffer the future I saw.’

Aillen had claimed the Gods granted him those visions specifically to prevent them. To avoid offending the divine, the Emperor had suppressed his fury. But the more he thought, the more the seeds of doubt grew.

‘Why Aillen and not me?’

If the Gods intended to warn the Empire, surely they would speak to the Emperor, not the Crown Prince. He began to suspect Aillen was using the name of the Gods as a shield for his own agenda. Yet, he couldn’t confront him. To doubt a “divine vision” was to become the first heretic in Imperial history.

For a man who had never known failure or felt inferior to anyone, this entire ordeal was a stinging blow to his pride.

‘Is it because he is an Omega?’

The Emperor was not an Omega. When a man who believes himself the pinnacle of existence encounters someone potentially “greater,” his reaction is rarely admiration.

‘…Could he be more worthy than I?’

The thought turned into a paranoid obsession. He and Aillen were identical in many ways—cut from the same cloth. He had assumed Aillen would never betray him because it would be like betraying himself. But lately, Aillen had changed. He had become unreadable.

Furthermore, Aillen had known the truth about Chase’s lineage and kept it hidden. To the Emperor, this felt like a betrayal of the highest order.

‘Did he hide it for the Gods, or to undermine my prestige?’

The revelation of Chase’s true parentage had already chipped away at the Emperor’s dignity, though it was currently overshadowed by the looming “end of the world.” Had it been revealed under normal circumstances, the fallout would have been catastrophic.

He began to view Aillen not as a successor, but as a predator waiting to usurp his throne. This jealousy intensified when he heard about Aillen’s collapse at the warp gate.

“He collapsed after using the warp gate?”

“Yes, Sire. Viscount Travie reports he suffered severe nausea. He suspects that because the Prince’s Holy Power is so exceptionally strong, the gate’s mana caused a violent rejection…”

The Emperor’s face contorted. The attendant, assuming the Emperor was worried about his son, tried to comfort him. “His Highness will surely recover. Please, do not be overly concerned.”

The Emperor simply waved him away, turning his head to hide a face twisted not by worry, but by ugly, raw jealousy.

“Strong… Holy Power?”

The Emperor ground his teeth. He, too, possessed strong Holy Power, yet he had never felt discomfort at a warp gate. Unaware that Aillen’s “rejection” was actually a clash of different types of mana, the Emperor felt a crushing sense of defeat.

‘I thought he was my greatest masterpiece.’

Until recently, he had been proud of Aillen’s strength and his status as an Omega. He saw Aillen’s excellence as a reflection of his own greatness. But now that Aillen felt like a threat, every one of the boy’s virtues became a thorn in the Emperor’s side.

Then came the final blow.

A voice, booming and ancient, resonated within his mind. The sheer weight of the power behind it was unmistakable. It was Draconic—a Dragon’s Word.

“Ha… Haha… Hahahaha!”

As the voice spoke the words he dreaded most, the Emperor laughed like a madman. He had sent Aillen to the Great Forest thinking the task of changing a prophecy was impossible. Dragons were notoriously prideful; they did not retract their words for mere mortals. Yet, Aillen had succeeded.

The Emperor slammed his fist onto his desk, silencing the room. He looked down, glad he was alone. If anyone had seen his face, twisted into a mask of hideous envy, he would have had to kill them.

The fact that his rival was his own son only deepened the sting.

The Emperor was losing his mind. Murderous intent toward Aillen surged within him, flickering like a dark flame. He couldn’t kill him—not because of paternal love, but because Aillen was a “Heaven-sent Omega,” a vital asset to the throne.

‘If only… if only he weren’t an Omega…’