Let's start over, Your Majesty.

Chapter 9 The Great Destruction

He calmed himself down and then looked at the most important part: what happened after he entered the cocoon of origin, which is what the book recorded about what happened "after his death".

In 18 AD, the founder of the empire, Emperor Rehn-Tandin, passed away. The royal court announced that the emperor was unwell and needed to recuperate for a long period, with the Grand Preceptor and his cabinet acting as regents.

However, the news of the emperor's death spread far and wide, and under pressure from various quarters, the imperial court acknowledged the fact and initiated the casting ceremony for the emperor.

Because the power he wields exceeds the bounds of common sense, Rean is unable to have offspring with ordinary people, making the succession to the throne a problem.

In order to continue his bloodline, he did something unprecedented and most likely to remain so.

He used a drop of his own blood to forge the imperial artifact, the "Crown of the King".

The future king will be chosen from these crowns.

After the King-Casting Ceremony begins, ten children aged fourteen within the empire will develop sacred runes, a symbol of being chosen for the crown. They will become crown princes and be sent to the capital to complete six tests over three months. The one who succeeds will be crowned the next emperor of the empire.

Upon coronation, he will be granted the blood of Rean Tandin within his crown, thus inheriting his bloodline.

Under the supervision of the Crown Prince, all selected crown princes possess the character and morality to shoulder this important responsibility. Their every word and action during the assessment period will be fully recorded by the Crown Prince, and any improper behavior will result in the cancellation of their crown prince status.

The ceremony of casting a prince should have been held while the emperor was still alive, with the emperor personally nurturing and selecting the prince until he took over the government.

However, because the event happened suddenly, he had already entered the cocoon of rebirth when the king-casting ceremony began, so everything was left to the prime minister to handle.

Four months later, a new emperor was born. Because he was still young, Chancellor Sothos acted as the emperor's representative and provided him with imperial education.

The empire was in extreme chaos during that period. Various factions harbored their own agendas and were eager to make their move, leading to constant conflicts and a chaotic situation.
Fortunately, Sothos, the Grand Chancellor second only to the Emperor, was loyal enough to Rean. During this period, he nurtured the Emperor while keeping the court in check to maintain the stability of the Empire.

Furthermore, Grace also stepped in to govern the empire. As the emperor's closest confidante, she wielded prestige no less than Rean's, and her presence finally stabilized the situation.
The good times didn't last long. Four years later, Grace fell seriously ill and died in the palace at the age of 62.

Two years later, Chancellor Sothos also died of illness.

Caesar stared at the passage for a long time. It didn't say what the two men said before they died; it only contained this short sentence that ended their lives.

He remained silent for a long time before continuing to read.

After Sothos's death, the new emperor had reached the level of ruling in his own right, and the role of casting the crown became apparent. Rean II demonstrated the qualities necessary for a qualified emperor. After ascending the throne, he eliminated heretics, quelled rebellions, reformed the laws, and the empire's national strength was further enhanced, leading to unprecedented prosperity.

but.

In 50 AD, a fire broke out in the palace, and Rean II, who was only 43 years old, disappeared in the fire.

The fire remains an unsolved mystery in history, with various theories circulating among historians today. Since the palace, which was protected by various protective spells, could not have been affected by the fire, there must be a deeper reason.

Because the emperor's body was never found, whether Rean II was still alive and where he went became a historical mystery.

However, it is known that the core members of the royal court, including the prime minister, the Great Sage of Fata, and the newly elected prince, all perished in the fire. Overnight, the empire became politically hollowed out, an event known in history as the "Moon Rift Incident."

As can be predicted, various forces rose up at the same time, each with its own reasons, thus beginning another era of warlordism and chaos.

Upon seeing this, Caesar frowned.

The palace was engulfed in flames; the empire he had painstakingly built was destroyed by a single fire.
No, history books say it was a great fire, but the reality was definitely far more complex than what the books described. The empire's destruction had other causes. Because thirty years had passed since he entered the Cocoon of Origin, he couldn't be sure what caused it.

He made several guesses in his mind, and then ruled them out one by one.

Thinking about this now was giving him a headache. He shook his head and continued reading.

A year after the fire, in 51 AD, the already precarious imperial court finally collapsed completely.

The subsequent period of division lasted for nearly twenty years.

What ended all of this was not yet another emperor, but a great catastrophe.

Historically, this has been referred to as the "Great Destruction."

Starting in 67 AD, when the giant volcano in the Western Proses Mountains, which had been dormant for a thousand years, suddenly erupted, a series of natural disasters followed one after another for the next seven years.

Earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, meteorite falls, volcanic eruptions, plagues, floods, droughts.
These once-in-a-century catastrophic disasters seem to have been unleashed, one after another, even multiple at the same time, and they are global in nature, spreading to every corner of the world.

It was as if a god was angry and wanted to use this as a pretext to unleash the apocalypse and destroy all living beings on earth.

They might have just climbed to the top of the mountain to escape the flood when a powerful earthquake shattered the entire mountain range.

They might fall asleep in the sweltering heat at night, only to freeze to death in bed the next morning.

The land may be cracked due to drought today, but a torrential downpour may flood everything the next day.
Even more terrifying is the disruption of magical elements.

The magical elements, which existed in every corner like air, could not be restrained and reacted in a terrifying chaos, resulting in a nuclear explosion-like destruction.

All the sorcerers could no longer control the chaotic magical elements; even casting a simple illumination spell would result in a backlash, causing their entire bodies to explode.

In this context, disorderly, frequent, and unprovoked natural disasters ravaged the world for seven long years.
During the Great Devastation, society collapsed, and there was no order whatsoever.

No race was spared; those that were already few in number became extinct, and those that survived were reduced to the point of being endangered.

The Blood Demon Clan, mentioned earlier, was thus completely wiped out.

The world's population has plummeted from 600 million to 20 million.

There have been several speculations about the cause of this great destruction. The current mainstream theory is that the magical elements in the world had accumulated to a critical point, and going any higher would exceed the threshold limit, which led to the large-scale natural disaster.

Of course, there is also a more mystical explanation that the gods were angered by the various atrocities in the world and thus sent down punishments.

During the seven-year catastrophe, the dragons and elves were the hardest hit among the major powers.

Because of their small population size and difficulty in reproduction, these two races, which once dominated their respective regions, are now almost extinct.

The most significant impact of this natural disaster on the world was the massive death of sorcerers. In addition, after the Great Destruction, the magical elements in the world declined to an extremely low level, making it difficult for sorcerers in later generations to advance in their careers. Magic could no longer support the operation of society.

Thus came to an end the magical era that had lasted for over three thousand years.

(End of this chapter)