Chapter 714: 714

Roth’s eyes did not soften, yet they seemed to drift far past Chen, as if looking at something distant and unseen.

"Your life may be taken by me with just a breath," he continued, matter-of-fact, not threatening but stating reality itself. "But you will live. Because you are more useful alive than dead."

Chen’s fingers twitched weakly.

More useful... For what?

Roth lowered his hand slightly, but Chen remained floating, held up not by force but by Roth’s will alone.

"There will come a time when the ruler of this land will be decided."

His tone shifted, not dramatic, not grand, simply certain "Only then will you meet your end."

A cold shiver crawled through Chen’s spine at the calmness of it.

Death, spoken like a scheduled appointment.

"Until that time," Roth said, "stay your hand. Lead your people. Learn to be a competent leader."

Roth’s gaze sharpened, not with anger, but with a cutting expectation.

"I have a son," he said. "So similar to you. Blind, and arrogant, as you are."

There was no fondness in his voice, no regret. Just a resigned acknowledgment.

"I have little time to remain in this world and watch his growth," Roth said, almost to himself. "But you will do."

Chen’s breath hitched t from the weight of the words landing on him.

"This encounter," Roth finished, "should be a lesson for you. A learning experience for you to grow... to become the obstacle needed for my people and son’s growth."

The last sentence hung in the air. Chen felt the air around him tighten, then release as his body began to lower toward the floor, Roth’s will loosening but not yet gone. His heart still throbbed painfully. His limbs trembled. His mind spun.

"What you see around you," Roth said, his voice steady and resonant in the unmoving night, "is the sixth stage."

Chen, no longer suspended in the air and fighting for control of his breath, felt the words press down on him more heavily than the pain had.

Roth continued, expression unreadable, eyes faintly glowing like embers behind smoke.

"A stage you are a nitpick away from experiencing yourself."

Chen’s eyes widened with confusion and curiosity. And Roth seemed to notice that flicker of confusion, because the next words cut directly through it.

"This tier includes a worldwide domain."

He made no gesture this time, he didn’t need to.

"Look around you, Chen. The sky that refuses to change, the breathless silence of your palace, your empire every trembling pulse you and your people feel."

His red eyes flickered, reflecting the crimson moon outside.

"What you see before you is nothing more than a glimpse. A fraction. My domain overlapping with this world’s reality."

Only now did Chen finally understand why the night had stretched unnaturally long. Why the moon glowed faintly red even before Roth stepped out. Why the entire empire felt like time itself had been disrupted.

It wasn’t a mistake or accident, it was Roth’s presence, nothing more.

A domain so vast it brushed against the world without effort, bending the natural order simply because he existed.

Chen’s heartbeat thundered again, but this time it was not because Roth forced it, it was fear.

Real fear of once again facing an power beyond his.

Fear at the scale, fear at the realization of how small he was. Fear at how easily Roth’s claim of ending him "with a breath" now made perfect, terrifying sense.

Roth watched Chen’s expression shift and accepted it with a slight nod, as though this comprehension was one of the necessary steps.

"This is why your actions were foolish," he said calmly. "You cannot grasp the difference between your father’s hand and what he commands."

Chen felt his throat tighten.

Roth had not raised his voice once. He had not threatened him, beyond stating the truth. But the weight of his existence was enough to crush pride, plans, and illusions all at once.

"Understand this, Chen," Roth said, lowering his head to look down on the kneeling emperor. "You sought to challenge a being whose shadow alone dwarfs what you have seen tonight."

Chen’s knees touched the floor first, then his hands, trembling at his sides.

"And you are not ready."

Roth walked past Chen without slowing, the echo of his steps the only sound in the suffocating palace halls.

As he passed, his voice drifted to Chen’s ears "Let go of the guests my son and his people invited over."

It wasn’t a command, it wasn’t a threat. It was a statement of fact, something that would happen, one way or another.

Before Chen could answer, something shifted behind Roth.

Two wings emerged, dark feathered wings that swallowed the nearby light, bending it inward as if the air itself recoiled. They unfolded slowly, each feather drinking in the glow of the torches until Roth’s tall form was encased in a silhouette deeper than shadow.

He was preparing to leave.

Chen felt panic spike through the pain still lingering in his chest. His throat burned as he forced air into it.

"Wait!!"

The word tore itself out of him, raw and shaking.

Roth did not turn but he stopped.

And he granted Chen silence, space, permission to speak, though he himself remained motionless.

Chen’s hands tightened on the cold floor. His voice trembled, but something sharper than fear broke through.

"I... I would rather you kill me now!"

His shout cracked, echoing against the stone walls.

"Because your son" Chen’s breath hitched, but he pushed through, forcing the words out from somewhere deep, wounded, and angry.

"your son will meet his end by my hands!"

Roth still did not look at him.

But he remained listening.

Chen’s voice rose, the last chains of fear loosening as fury and exhaustion mingled.

"I’ve had enough of being treated like a pawn with no will of my own!"

"I refuse" His voice broke again, but he kept going.

"I refuse to accept being nothing more than a tool to train your son!" The final word left him like a strike, loud and desperate.

Silence followed.

When Roth finally spoke, there was no anger, no amusement just the same calm weight as before, the same factual indifference that made Chen’s courage feel small.

"You are so weak," he said, "even your own death and how it comes is no longer a choice you can make for yourself."

Chen’s breath stopped in his throat.

But Roth was not finished.

"Also," he added, voice steady, almost dismissively, "you misunderstood me."

Roth shifted slightly, wings lifting with slow, monumental grace.

"If you can defeat my son, then it is a great thing to celebrate."

The simplicity of the statement made Chen falter.

"As I would gain a new son," Roth said, wings beginning their first powerful movement, "and you, in turn... a new father."

With that, Roth’s wings flapped.

The pressure of his presence shifted.

And Chen could only stare frozen, breathless, shaken at the meaning of those final words.

In one great sweep of his wings, Roth surged upward, piercing the heavy darkness that had shrouded the empire. His ascent was so sudden, so absolute, that the air itself seemed to rupture around him. Within moments, his silhouette tall, and crowned with two wings that devoured the very light, rose above the highest clouds.

Across the entire empire, no matter where its people stood at market stalls, at riversides, in mountain villages, in deep forest paths, they all saw him. A solitary figure, suspended between earth and sky, black wings spread wide like the jaws of a great cosmic beast.

And then his wings flapped.

The motion was slow, deliberate, yet the effect was overwhelming. The world below bent. Horizons buckled as though the land itself was cloth being pulled taut by unseen hands. The darkness that had suffocated the empire peeled back like curtains ripped open by the rising sun. Blinding light flooded the world as though day had been restored after a centuries-long eclipse.

And as that light returned, the people realized something else.

The thralls were gone.

The grotesque puppets that had filled their streets, those eyes without will, those bodies without souls had vanished as though they had never existed. Not a trace of them remained.

The people looked up at Roth again, their bodies collapsing to their knees under the weight of instinct, reverence, terror, and awe. They bowed not because he commanded it, but because their hearts remembered what their minds had forgotten.

This was the being whose mere existence had woven terror through their bones.

Yet despite all the fear he inspired, despite the power that made the sky itself yield, he had never once harmed them.

And so they bowed.

Across the southern continent and throughout the empire, Roth’s domain had been a night that seemed as if it would never break, an endless veil of shadow and pressure that reminded all who lived under it what true power felt like.