The bluish-white thunderbolts rumbled through the night sky, illuminating the grand city below it with flashes of brilliance. It was the capital city of the Empire of Aerthus, named after its first emperor, Aerthus the Conqueror. Six hundred years after the Calamity, he rose to power as a son of a small City State in the southern region of the continent of Dalhern. He was one of the first cultivators in the area to wield power never seen before, changing the course of rivers and slaying hundreds with a swing of his halberd.
After conquering the neighboring cities, soon ruling over land that spanned around 20 million square kilometers, he established his Empire and ruled for 260 years before abdicating the throne to his son Aerthus II. Since then, the line of successors always bore their forefather’s name, calling themselves Aerthus, representing the power of the Empire that celebrates its 2000th birthday soon, coming in only ten years from now.
In the Grand Capital, in the home of the most prestigious General of the Empire, the Lord of the house was pacing up and down in his mansion’s hall. He was anxiously looking out the window, watching the lightning strikes, listening to the thunderstorm. The heroic soldier who led the armies into battle time after time, standing tall and fearless against all odds, now looked like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
His tall and sturdy body was bent while he was incessantly fiddling with his maroon-colored silk robe’s sleeves, almost tearing them apart a few times. His long, curly blond hair was like a chicken’s nest, and his ocean-blue eyes were darting to and fro.
“Lord Xendar, should I bring a refreshment?” the old, white-haired butler asked as he followed him like a shadow.
“Yeah, yeah, that sounds good, Hal.” Xendar, the General of the Vanguard forces, replied, his voice nervous.
“Here, my Lord,” he said with a small smile and presented a jug of cold red wine from nowhere.
Xendar didn’t even ask anything, just grabbed the jug, gulping it down like a man coming back from his tour of the endless dunes of the Western Desert.
“Don’t worry, my Lord, the Lady is strong; she will deliver the baby healthily. If your soldiers saw you now, they wouldn’t believe their eyes.”
“Heh, those idiots wouldn’t dare laugh even then!”
“Well, you would punish them with running around the city walls naked… so…”
Xendar just let out a low chuckle, and his face somewhat became calmer; it seemed Hal’s words eased his worrying. This was about his bloodline: his wife and soon-to-be-born heir. He may have been a soldier, triumphing in more than 100 battles and commanded the army of the Empire for 30 years now, but still…
“The last time I felt this way was when I asked for the hand of Anya. No, this is even worse...” he sighed loudly, grabbing his hair, almost pulling multiple chunks of it off of his head. “F-”
“Ahem,” Hal warned him with a soft cough.
“Yes, yes, no cursing around the baby, I know, I know, I promised Anya that our child won’t inherit too much from me!” came another sigh. “But what takes this long?! It’s been what? 6 hours?”
“3 and a half, my Lord.”
“Huh? Bulls- BullBull. No way!”
That was when a lightning strike came crashing down, right onto the manor itself, triggering its defensive formation that instantly covered the whole estate like an indigo-colored glass dome.
“This would be the perfect weather to cultivate if I could concentrate.”
“My Lord, if you would try now, I'm sure you would perish with your current state of mind.”
Xendar didn’t respond to his butler and just watched the formation blocking off the might of the heavens. After the lightning strike dissipated, the dome itself slowly became invisible again.
“After my child has grown up and taken my place, I shall try it!”
“The Lady would not agree.”
“Everyone who starts walking on this road is destined to face tribulations. I can feel mine is coming; I can put it off until my heir is of age, but not longer. Anya should understand this too.”
“Mm. Understood, my Lord.”
“Good, and don’t bury me so soon, Gods be dam- khm, Gods be something-something. I’m still just past 60, and if the Emperor can do it, why the he- khm, heavens, I could not?!”
“Please watch your tongue, my Lord; the Emperor’s ear hears many things.”
“Hah, He still owes me his life, three times over!”
For his Lord’s words, Hal just shook his head and wanted to say something, but the double door at the end of the hallway suddenly opened, and Xendar almost bit his tongue. The old midwife stood there, wiping her hands with a towel and with a warm smile on her aging, wrinkled face.
“Congratulations, my Lord, she's a healthy girl!”
Xendar just laughed loudly, storming into the room, laying his eyes on his wife, who looked frail, pale, and exhausted, but her violet eyes sparkled and showed never before seen the happiness on her face. Her eyes were open, shining in a purple hue, looking around like a curious little puppy, not even crying. Her silver hair was sticky with sweat; she breathed quickly and heavily while a new, little life was lying quietly in her hands.
“Look, dear, she looks just like me!" She was finally a mother now and not just the wife of a General. "Thank god, I was afraid our child would take after you!” Anya said with a weak voice.
“As long as she inherited your looks and my brain, everything will be fine!” Xendar laughed as he sat down on the edge of the bed, kissing his wife’s forehead and then his child’s.
“Hah, It would be a catastrophe!”
It seemed the little one was blinking her eyes hard, trying to understand her parents’ words as she looked up at them but soon gave up and turned her head towards her mother’s bosom, soon closing her eyes and entirely focusing on eating her first dinner.
“How are you feeling?” Xendar whispered, stroking Anya’s head gently, running his fingers through her hair.
“Exhausted. More so than after the wedding night! Ren took her time coming out. She is as naughty as her father!”
“Ren? You already named her?”
“Why not? We had an agreement! I name her if she is a girl, you if she is not!”
“Ah… true. Ren, it is then!”
Ren slowly opened her eyes again, but not her mouth, as she was still suckling as hard as she could, looking up at her parents, and when Xendar gently stroked her head, she just closed her eyes again, enjoying her parents' warmth.
“Ren… Ren, it is. This taste… filled with energy...”
“How hungry she is; it looks like her appetite came from you!” Anya giggled, holding her daughter close.
“Are you sure about that?”
“What are you implying?”Anya’s mood darkened instantly, but little Ren did not bother with her parent’s antics anymore and solely concentrated on drinking her mother’s milk.
“It worked! A mortal with this much energy… no, she can’t be considered a mere mortal anymore. Good… good! I need to learn how much time has passed… Ahaha! This is going to be fun!”
“Look, dear! She's smiling!”
“I had the same expression a few nights ago.” Xendar nodded, scratching his chin.
“Can you… just for one hour… be normal?” Anya said, rolling her eyes around while her husband couldn’t wipe off his grin from his face, watching the two most important people in his life.
The rumbling thunderstorm slowly died down, and the dark clouds disappeared, giving way to the two moons whose bluish light shined down onto the capital, which was shaken up the next day by the news from the General’s mansion.
They f*ckin f*ckin
That motherf*cker
Poor guy 🤣
Will " be used for both spoken and thought stuff? Would be nice to have some kind of difference between. Or did i miss interpret "it worked. A mortal ..." as not being said out loud?
I always forget that when I replace the chapters the formatting goes away. It is supposed to be in italic. Both inner thoughts and voice transmissions.
I recently replaced the whole first book after editing it in Grammarly. I, once again, forgot to redo the formatting. Sorry about that, that was my fault. Later on, it won't be that confusing, I started to include when they speaking via voice transmission or not and there are not that much-unspoken words. I will go ahead and quickly edit back italics where I can the quickest.
ah ok thx
Great chapter
tftc
In the Grand Capital, in the home of the most prestigious General of the Empire, the Lord of the house was pacing up and down in his mansion’s hall. He was anxiously looking out the window, watching the lightning strikes, listening to the thunderstorm. The heroic soldier who led the armies into battle time after time, standing tall and fearless against all odds, now looked like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
What is happening!?
“Don’t worry, my Lord, the Lady is strong; she will deliver the baby healthily. If your soldiers saw you now, they wouldn’t believe their eyes.”
My condolences.
“Huh? Bulls- BullBull. No way!”
BullsBullBull truly wise words.
Xendar just laughed loudly, storming into the room, laying his eyes on his wife, who looked frail, pale, and exhausted, but her violet eyes sparkled and showed never before seen the happiness on her face. Her eyes were open, shining in a purple hue, looking around like a curious little puppy, not even crying. Her silver hair was sticky with sweat; she breathed quickly and heavily while a new, little life was lying quietly in her hands.
Fuchs, you’re going to die! She is a protagonists and silver haired, both of you are already as good as dead.
Spacing up and down should be pacing up and down
Fixed!
is it possible to reduce the empty lines between paragraphs ? its a little distracting...
I am going to look into it. Give me a little time to do so.
million square kilometers as he established his Empire and ruled for 260 years
Kilometers as he -> Kilometers, he
In the Grand Capital, in the home of the most prestigious General of the Empire, the Lord of the house was spacing up and down in his mansion’s hall, anxiously looking out the window, watching the lightning strikes, listening to the thunderstorm
Too many commas in one sentence
Well, you would punish them by running around the city walls naked
Grammatically this says that Xendar would run naked. I think maybe Author meant that the soldiers would run naked? Watching their captain streak is a bizarre punishment. Maybe "punish them with running" or "punish them by making them"? Idk
the words of Hal
Hal's words
tongue.The
Missing space after period
I want to add that it's really obvious that Author has a lot of passion for this story, and the narrative is very promising! Sure, the prose needs some work, but this is definitely going to turn out to be a good read.
I don't want to annoy anybody by posting an editorial comment for every small mistake I catch so this'll be the only one unless Author permits otherwise.
Thank you for the chapter!
@Modality I hope you are going to like it going forward! About mistakes, sure thing, if anyone takes the trouble to point out my errors I am happy to go and fix them. I went back and fixed the ones you mentioned!
I am still wondering why there is no genderbender tag in the title page. If I am not mistaken, the MC was an old man as a god before being reincarnated right?
Because (at least for me) gender bender means that a man or a woman is being transformed actively into the opposite gender while his/her life continues on. The story has to deal with the ramifications of that event and his/her previous connections with people he/she knew before the change. Take for example the X-Change visual novel series or ShindoL's TSF series. That is gender bender.
Here, we deal with reincarnation. He died. He has gone through reincarnation. The soul was part of the world, the reincarnation cycle for 2000 years. He only made sure to retain the memories to keep the drive of reaching the world behind the Sky intact. Then his soul went through the natural cycle of reincarnation and was reborn. Who says that it is coded into the soul that you always were a man or a woman in your previous lives? Who says someone who lived as long as a God would even care about the type of flesh he/she is born in? I could have easily written Ren to be reborn as a demon. Also, Ren's soul did not transmigrated. All of it was done by natural reincarnation. Ren was born as a girl. And not transformed into one. Hence no gender bender tag. The story's focus is not on the fact that what her gender she is. Ren herself says in the story: She is the daughter of Xendar and Anya, her name is Ren. That is who she is. That is my reason for not including gender bender tag. Because I am not considering the story to be focusing on that aspect of it.
And before a second question comes of then why it is mentioned in the synopsis. It is simple. People always come to me with the fact that she was a he and now a she and how can she do this and that, etc, etc. Which I honestly, can't fathom why would be a problem. One life ended and another has started. I put the facts into the premise so people could decide if they want to deal with that or skip the story altogether.
Hope this at least explains a little bit of why I decided to add or not add some tags it has.
@Corty Understandable and no, I did not have that second question lol
Mostly I needed that clarification because I see the tag used in wherever the gender swap is involved (at least physically). Now after your explanation, it is up to debate whether the tag is correct to be used in a transgender story where the MC biologically swaps gender when they are women at heart/soul.
Really brings into question whether the tag to be used when a biological swap is used or when a soul swap. Hope you bear with this as I went on a tangent here lol, but yeah I got your explanation.
@Reborn_kun Sure thing, and no problem! Sorry If I came out wrong with it, that was not my intention! I just get the question (on different platforms too) a lot and I may have sounded a little bit harsh. Sorry for that! When I first started writing this (more than a year ago by now) I didn't even thought about the 'issue'