TME 03

Chapter 3

02. On the Ruined Land

1

“Ah…….”

Cain had followed the road out of the Imperial Palace and stood silently for a long time.

Everything had turned to ashes.

He could not tell how much time had passed, but at least it did not seem that he had traveled into the past.

After all, since the Imperial Capital was founded, it had never been trampled like this.

There was no other word to describe the sight before his eyes except ruin.

Looking around, it seemed that all the city districts around the Imperial Palace had been burned down.

Whoosh…….

At that moment, something large that did not fit in with the ruins caught his eye in the distance. Cain turned his head and looked closely. It was something he had never seen before.

The Magic Empire Jergard has fallen.

The holy blood of the Holy Empire Alliance, including the soldiers of the Rohan Empire, soaked the earth, and the forces of evil have disappeared.

We shall burn everything in this land.

And we hereby declare peace upon this cursed land.

“Heh heh. Cursed? Cursed…….”

Cain looked at the monument with angry eyes.

Seeing the name written on it, Emperor Asen IV of the Rohan Empire, made his anger rise.

But there was nothing he could do right now. All he could do was grit his teeth in anger like this.

How much time had passed since that day……?

If they had destroyed everything so completely, how many mages and knights who carried the roots of the Magic Empire could possibly have survived?

Besides, Cain’s body had not yet fully returned to its original condition.

First, Cain searched for a place where he could hide while he refined the power he had inherited through the sacrifice of his subordinates.

Although the Imperial Capital had been completely burned down, the trees that had grown around the nearby mountains had become thick and dense.

Cain decided to first find out what had happened, and then hide himself in a cave on one of the nearby hills. He thought that, at least for the time being, it would probably be safe.

2

A month passed in the blink of an eye.

For that entire month, Cain diligently read the books left behind by Duke Forn and trained his magic.

The more Cain learned about the dark power he possessed, the more frightening it became.

Its nature was extremely violent, and its power was stronger even compared to other forms of dark magic.

It was not simply that dark magic was being released. The dark power contained in his mana also burst out together with the magic, causing damage.

Furthermore, casting dark magic required another ability besides mana.

It was vitality.

This was a concept separate from physical stamina. It was the demonic energy contained within the body, or the power needed to draw out the power of demons.

For this reason, just like becoming a vampire, human vitality was necessary.

Because of this, Cain would occasionally go near the Imperial Capital and ambush soldiers who came to patrol the area.

As time passed, the mana inside his body gradually became more stable. He also succeeded in refining it up to the 4th Circle without any major problems, making it possible for him to use magic more freely.

Meanwhile, throughout his magical training, Cain also traveled around the surrounding areas in search of traces of the old empire.

Ten years had passed since the day the Great Spell had been carried out.

And ten years was more than enough time to change everything.

Once, Cain even went as far as a village where people lived.

The news he heard there was that most of the surviving dark mages and dark swordsmen had been captured and taken to the empire as prisoners.

More than half of them had been publicly executed in the empire. They had met terrible ends, such as being crucified or burned alive.

He also heard that a bounty had been placed on Emperor Cain, whose whereabouts were unknown.

Bounties had also been placed on the late Duke Forn and Duke Aslan.

Although ten years had passed, it was still a period when many people remembered Cain’s face.

He also heard stories about the restoration movement.

Immediately after the Imperial Capital was reduced to ashes by the Holy Empire Alliance, some of the local lords who were loyal to the old empire gathered their forces and began a restoration movement.

They had been loyal to the Imperial Family for a very long time.

Because of that, they had been trusted by the Imperial Family and Cain and had been placed in charge of important strategic areas.

Although the sudden war, the Emperor’s disappearance, and the complete collapse of the central government had caused the country to lose its name, the soldiers in the provinces were still intact.

Their forces were at a disadvantage because of the schemes of traitors and the surrender of the central army, but the restoration army, united by loyalty, fought against the forces of the Holy Empire Alliance with everything they had.

During the process, they even temporarily recaptured the capital and dealt considerable damage to the Holy Empire Alliance forces, who were gradually becoming exhausted as time passed.

However, problems eventually appeared within the restoration army, whose unity had seemed as if it would last forever.

As the situation gradually became more difficult, the Holy Empire Alliance began to approach some of the lords.

They promised to guarantee their future interests and privileges, offered them high positions in the empire, and gave them so much gold and silver that it could not even be counted.

As a result, some of the lords began to waver.

The biggest problem was that no one knew where the supposedly missing Emperor was.

In the end, the restoration army began to split into hardliners and moderates, and even some lords began calling for surrender.

Before long, an internal conflict broke out.

To prevent the majority opinion from splitting apart, the hardline lords launched a surprise attack on the lords who supported surrender.

Their plan was to defeat and force them into submission, absorb their forces, and then fight the enemy properly once again.

However, the surrendering lords had been prepared for this and fought back just as fiercely.

The Holy Empire Alliance forces then pushed their way into the middle of the conflict.

Most of the commanders were killed in the process, and the Holy Empire Alliance was the one that benefited from the internal conflict.

Once the largest restoration army collapsed, the small forces that had risen up in the provinces soon faded away.

Most of them hid in the mountains or fled to other countries.

Others moved their bases to the far south, where the Holy Empire Alliance had little influence.

It was a place that was difficult to pursue because one had to cross a huge mountain range to reach it, but it was also difficult to leave.

In this way, even the restoration forces of the Magic Empire Jergard, which had once called itself a thousand-year empire, disappeared into places where no one could see them.

The Holy Empire Alliance did not miss this.

They organized dedicated defensive forces and deployed large numbers of soldiers in areas where the restoration forces might gather.

As a result, even if the restoration forces wanted to gather their armies afterward, they were unable to do so.

After learning all of this, Cain began to think deeply.

It was simply too difficult for him to dream of restoring the empire while remaining alone like this.

Above all, he had no military power to serve as the foundation.

Most of his forces had already died, while those who were still alive had been taken to the Rohan Empire and locked away in special prisoner camps.

So Cain came up with another idea.

He would hide his identity and start over.

Fortunately, the magic books also introduced a dark magic called Image Change, which could hide one’s original face and create a new one.

“Hmm…… Image Change…….”

But Cain could not simply rely on one image magic spell and walk alone into enemy territory.

Since it was the empire, there were many unknown methods through which his identity might be discovered.

“That’s right! What does this face matter?”

Cain hesitated for a moment as if thinking about something, but he quickly made his decision.

Instead of simply using Image Change, he decided to actually alter his face as well.

Not long afterward, he was reborn with a completely different face from that of Emperor Cain.

The overall structure was based on his old face, but the shape of his eyes, nose, and mouth had all been changed, making it impossible to recognize him.

“I will go to the Rohan Empire. If I want to understand everything that happened from the beginning…… I have no choice. Right now, I have less than a handful of sand left in my hands…….”

After making his decision, Cain headed toward the Rohan Empire.

His dark magic training had also stopped at the 4th Circle.

It seemed to be because of the problem of enlightenment, which the magic books had repeatedly emphasized.

Enlightenment was a very abstract concept, so it was something one could only obtain by awakening unconsciously while using magic.

Cain decided to slowly experience everything again in his new form, inside the Rohan Empire, the land of his greatest enemy.

If he recklessly raised the banner of restoration based only on his pride, all the sacrifices of his people would be in vain, and he would also lose his life.

Instead, he would penetrate deep into the heart of the Rohan Empire and destroy it from within.

They say that if you know your enemy and know yourself, you will always win.

Cain was calmly judging the situation.

3

Before entering the Rohan Empire, Cain first went to find the Imperial Family’s tombs.

As expected, several of the publicly known tombs of the Jergard Imperial Family had already been looted.

It was unfortunate, but Cain had expected something like this, so he decided not to worry about it.

Meanwhile, Cain searched for several secret tombs that were not publicly known.

According to the genealogy, these were the tombs of previous emperors from more than ten generations ago.

There were countless weapons inside the tombs of those emperors.

There were also magical tools commonly called artifacts.

The ancestors of the empire that had now fallen, and their tombs.

Cain walked around the tombs, asking the old emperors for forgiveness.

Then he took one artifact and several jewels.

The artifact Cain obtained was the Ring of Dark Mana.

Despite its plain appearance, it was an artifact that Cain desperately needed.

When magic was activated, this ring had the ability to convert the power of darkness into the power of light.

It had been buried in the tomb as a burial item because the empire had considered it a useless weapon.

But because of Cain, it had returned to the world.

Cain engraved the formula for the Image Change magic into the ring.

As long as he wore this ring, his original face would probably never be revealed.

Nor would his identity as a dark mage be exposed.

As for the other jewels he took, Cain went to an Imperial Alliance Bank near the border of the Rohan Empire and sold them for a reasonable price.

As a result, he suddenly came into possession of an enormous amount of money: 20,000 gold coins.

Cain exchanged some of it into convenient currency and valuables that could be traded immediately, and then went straight to the black market.

The black market was a place where countless kinds of goods came and went.

Cain also planned to change his identity there.

And for that, he needed to meet an expert in this field.