The blood of the Argon royal family is noble.
This isn’t just propaganda spread to extol the greatness of the royal family to the common people; it’s a proven fact.
The greatest king of Argon, the Usurper King, once declared:
“I am a descendant of a great dragon, and the blood of our royal family carries the lineage of the most complete being in Midland.”
In truth, the Usurper King was a superhuman who stood shoulder to shoulder with the heroes of the continent. He was not only the finest administrator but also a born ruler. Even the empire of old labeled Argon under his rule as “threatening.”
In this era, the Crown Prince possessed the most potent bloodline out of all royal lineage.
‘No, it might have been beyond that.’
What was clear was that the Crown Prince was an unparalleled genius and a born king. He was so exceptional that people often referred to him as the reincarnation of the Usurper King. Although historical records were unclear, it was possible that he possessed talents surpassing even the Usurper King.
The King of Argon had high hopes.
He believed that under the Crown Prince’s reign, Argon would restore its former glory, shedding the disgrace of being a weak kingdom on the outskirts and achieving power comparable to that of the empire.
‘His ambition was too great.’
The entire royal family placed immense expectations on the Crown Prince, and in response, the Crown Prince put in grueling efforts to meet those expectations. While ordinary children were learning to walk and talk, the Crown Prince was wielding a sword, reading spellbooks, and studying governance.
No child could typically absorb such education at that age. But the Crown Prince was different. His learning speed was astonishing.
People called the Black Wing Duke the strongest in the kingdom, but this wasn’t entirely accurate.
By the age of twenty, in pure swordsmanship, the young Crown Prince had no equal within the kingdom. The Duke was convinced that had the Crown Prince gone to the empire, he would have been granted the title of Swordsmaster. In fact, every sparring match between them without aura ended in the Duke’s defeat.
The Crown Prince’s magical prowess also shone brightly.
Even among the royal bloodlines known for their magical talents, the Crown Prince’s achievements were exceptional. By thirty, he had surpassed the royal chief mages in skill and mastery. This didn’t end there; he also developed administrative abilities that left even the most seasoned politicians awestruck.
‘He should have stopped there.’
Overambition.
Yes, it was overambition. Every time the Black Wing Duke thought of the Crown Prince, a part of his heart ached. As the guardian of the royal family, he could have halted the madness before the expectations turned into frenzy.
But he didn’t.
He couldn’t. He was the king’s knight, bound by an oath of loyalty that made it impossible for him to act against the king’s interests.
‘It was self-inflicted.’
The Crown Prince’s learning had far exceeded reasonable bounds, and the aging king intended to abdicate the throne before it was too late.
But disaster struck first.
As the Crown Prince’s talents blossomed, so did the intensifying power of the bloodline, overwhelming his sanity.
‘From that moment, everything changed.’
The wise king, believing the Crown Prince to be the only hope for the kingdom’s revival, abandoned his royal duties. Consequently, the influence of his trusted advisor, the Palace Steward, grew alarmingly.
Not satisfied with just neglecting his duties, the king resorted to desperate measures to save the Crown Prince. The royal family’s secret dealings with nefarious dark mages and the introduction of the enigmatic widow, Roswell, into the palace were all part of these efforts.
‘It should never have come to this.’
Necromancers are a blight not just to the kingdom but to the entire continent. Their dark magic thrives on the lives of innocents, fundamentally incompatible with the royal family’s duty to protect its people. Even bringing the ambiguous figure of Roswell into the palace was a grievous misstep.
“It was folly.” the Duke murmured.
“What was so foolish?” a voice echoed back.
“All of it. The king, burdening the young Crown Prince with too much, us, his guardians, who failed to stop it or even contributed to the weight, and those who exploited the desperation to line their own pockets. Everything.”
Blue brilliance flickered in the Duke’s eyes. The aura enveloping his body shone so intensely that it radiated outward.
“Everything went wrong. And even if it’s belated, I intend to set things right.”
The royal mausoleum’s forbidden chamber was like stepping into another world entirely.
The vast expanse below, with its mysterious trees and exotic plants, was breathtaking. It was hard to believe this underground paradise existed. Even the palace gardens couldn’t compare. Yet amidst the beauty, there were anomalies.
‘Those…’
One of those anomalies, a woman, provided an answer to his unspoken question.
“This is a dragon’s scale. More precisely, it’s an energy body condensed from a dragon’s essence…”
In the center of the forbidden chamber was a massive golden scale, almost the size of a person.
The intense aura emanating from it was almost overwhelming, even numbing his senses. The Black Wing Duke frowned slightly as he turned his head.
“No need to look at me with such scary eyes. I have no intention of running away.” the woman said.
“…Where is His Majesty?”
Instead of answering, she pointed a delicate finger to the ground beneath them. What could that mean? Did it imply another hidden space below the forbidden chamber? The Duke didn’t bother to check. There were more urgent matters to attend to.
Woooom…!
As he channeled his aura into the hilt of his sword, the royal family’s sacred sword let out a plaintive cry. It was a sign that he had pushed his aura to the limit.
“That was a foolish question. What I should do first is eliminate the root of this chaos.”
“Oh my, are you referring to me?” she asked.
“If not you, then who else? Lady Roswell.”
“Hmm.”
Lady Roswell’s seemingly innocent smile appeared defenseless, but the Duke did not relax. He couldn’t.
‘She is unsettling.’
Her hair, flowing down to her waist, was darker than the night sky. Her flawless white skin allowed not a single blemish. Her features were so perfectly crafted that it seemed like a Dwarf master had sculpted them.
Perfect beauty.
Such a description suited her appearance perfectly, which only made her all the more unsettling. Most disconcertingly—
“Oh, now I realize. This is the first time I’ve shown you this, isn’t it?”
Sensing the Black Wing Duke’s wariness, her eyes curved into a gentle smile. When they reopened, the Duke recoiled in shock.
“Those golden eyes… Impossible?!”
The Duke instantly recognized Lady Roswell’s true identity. As hard as it was to believe, her true form was—
Thud.
In a world turning crimson, the Black Wing Duke lowered his head.
A long tail, covered in black scales, had pierced through his armor and impaled his abdomen. When? No, how?
“Y-you…”
Thunk.
Before he could finish his sentence, the tail burrowed deeper into his abdomen, lifting him into the air and then slamming him to the ground. His consciousness began to fade.
“I’m sorry. But it couldn’t be helped. The completion is near. I can’t let you interfere with years of effort. Besides, this is what your beloved Majesty wanted, too.”
“What do you mean…?”
“Ancient sorcerers wielded spells that rivaled the powers of transcendent beings. But they themselves never became transcendent. Isn’t it ironic? They could wield the same level of power but were not transcendent beings. So the sorcerers of that era researched what ‘transcendence’ truly was.”
The sudden surge of bizarre information made the Duke’s fading consciousness struggle to make sense of the situation. What relevance did this have now…?
“What is transcendence? If it’s simply about possessing great power, then there are many who wield such power without being transcendent. So what sets them apart? What is the difference?”
“……”
“The ancient sorcerers hypothesized that to achieve transcendence, one needed a ‘specific qualification.’
Perhaps achieving extraordinary feats or becoming an object of worship like gods. It’s a plausible theory. Those who did attain transcendence were often known across the continent as heroes or individuals who left their names in history through monumental achievements. But even this hypothesis was eventually discarded—by the sorcerers themselves.”
Lady Roswell continued explaining, undeterred by the Duke’s silence.
“Creating something from nothing, founding new schools of magic… These great Grand Magus were akin to gods to their followers and unparalleled in their magical prowess. Who among them achieved greater feats than these sorcerers? Not many, and even among the transcendents, such accomplishments were rare. Their next hypothesis, therefore, was that transcendence is determined by inherent factors.”
In unison, the ancient sorcerers captured various transcendents alive and dissected them.
“The more they researched, the more compelling this hypothesis became. By breaking down the bodies of transcendents to the cellular level, they discovered something absent in mortals. They couldn’t identify what it was, but they named it the ‘Transcendent Gene’. Interesting, isn’t it?”
“…Are you saying this has something to do with the Argon royal family?”
“Ah, now you’re interested. Yes, it has a very deep connection.”
Roswell chuckled softly, clearly entertained.
“Yes, the Argon royal bloodline carries the traces of those ancient experiments. The kingdom was founded not by nobles but by slaves, failed experiments who weren’t disposed of. They were instead collected and contained in this ‘pen’ called a kingdom. The Argon royal family’s lineage is intrinsically linked to the experimentation and manipulation of the ‘Transcendent Gene.’”
The Duke’s anguish was palpable. What he had believed to be a noble bloodline was revealed to be the product of ancient, dark experimentation.
“……” z
“What do you think the ancient sorcerers’ next goal was after discovering the Transcendent Gene? Naturally, they wanted to implant it into the bodies of mortals. And, of course, they wouldn’t experiment on themselves. They harvested the Transcendent Genes from dragons, demons, and giants—those species born with the qualifications of transcendents—who opposed the ancient sorcerers. Injecting these factors into humans inevitably led to rejection, often causing rampages and mutations. Doesn’t that sound familiar?”
At that point, the Black Wing Duke’s waning consciousness suddenly became alert.
‘No way…!’
“Exactly. The bloodline you revere as noble, the Argon royal family, were originally the lowest of the low. They were slaves, countless test subjects sacrificed in ancient experiments. This Argon Kingdom is nothing more than a pen where these failed experiments were collected instead of being disposed of.”
“Lies… all lies…!”
“I swear, I’m not telling a single lie. But if it’s too hard to believe, just watch quietly from where you are.”
And witness the resurrection of the dragon—.