The Martial Unity

Chapter 3808: The Awaited Moment

”Unlike many of the honored guests and my older brothers and sisters who have spoken wonderful words about our father...” she began with a thoughtful tone. ”I only knew my father at the dusk of his life, when he was perhaps not as energetic, youthful, and in his element as he was in earlier decades and eras. I was born at the inception of the Era of Darkness. The Beast Incursion has been the only reality I’ve known for most of my life, save for the past two years of the Age of Unfolding.”

Those words made several people in the audience do a double-take despite all of their perfect control over their body language. Rui couldn’t blame them. Her words made him feel old as well. And he was really old, of course, but his youthful body sometimes made him forget the full implications of his age.

Princess Ru was old enough to be his granddaughter or even great-granddaughter, and yet, she was already a powerhouse in the Throne War and created the anti-Rui and anti-Ranea alliance to oppose the overwhelming power that Rui possessed.

Just like their father, she was scarily competent at a very young age.

”The father that I knew was... weary.”

Her melancholic voice and her words contrasted with the brilliant praise of the Emperor of Harmony that the others had levied.

”He had creases on his forehead, and whitening hair that made his golden hair a shade lighter than it used to be,” she continued with a thoughtful tone that lacked the rigidity of a planned speech. ”He would often heave exhausted sighs, and dark bags under his eyes were a common sight when I worked for him in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

Just like Rui, she chose to wing it and speak her honest thoughts impromptu.

”More than anything, the unyielding confidence and certainty in the depths of his golden eyes that I’ve seen in older photos were a rare sight to see by the time he appointed me as minister after I became an adult,” she remarked with a hint of sadness. ”His eyes instead contained a hint of wariness and uncertainty. The present and the future were an alien world to him, extremely different from the Age of Martial Art and its many phases that he had gone through. In comparison...”

Her smile softened as she directed a sweeping gaze at the many gathered esteemed guests of honor. Her golden, harmonious eyes met with the pitch-black depths of Rui’s ethereal eyes for just a moment in a strange sense of familiarity.

”In comparison, the Age of Martial Art is merely history to me,” she spoke with a heavy voice. ”When I listen to tales of the Feudal Ages, the rise of Apprentices, Squires, the Reign of the Master Realm, and the Martial Revolutions, they feel like ancient history, even though many people here have lived through those ages.”

The Martial Sages stirred at her words with great, surreal disbelief.

”To me, the ages that my father was familiar with were unfathomable, and an era that I had grown up in and found normal was alien to my father,” she continued. ”I suspect that is why we worked together so well. I inherited his ideology greatly and was even taught by him personally, whenever he was able to make time, to pass on his knowledge and wisdom, but I contextualized the essence of his teachings and philosophy with the realities of the current eras, allowing him to essentially see who he would have been if he was born in the Era of Darkness like I had been.”

She turned to direct a deep, sad gaze at her father before turning back. ”...we worked well together. He was able to entrust the things that he would have been forced to do otherwise, thanks to my inheritance of his harmony, and he showed me the full extent of what it meant to be the Emperor of Harmony. To me, he was a great Emperor, but one that was unable to outpace changing times as well as he once was able to.”

Her eyes shifted to the dark skies in the open-air hall. ”I often wonder what his last emotion was. I have no doubt that he experienced great pain and suffering, but...”

Her expression softened. ”I like to think that he felt relief, as well. For only if his life was taken from him could he be freed from the burdens that he faced without feeling guilt over the consequences that we now face. As a Kandrian, I’m not particularly theistic or spiritual, but...”

A smile of hope emerged on her father.

A smile of hope.

”If there is an afterlife, then I hope he is experiencing the freedom and relief that he longed for. I hope he is watching us with expectations for the future. And... I hope that we live up to them.”

She stepped away from the speaker’s stand as a thundering applause emerged from the audience. Even Rui clapped in appreciation of what seemed like a sincere, heartfelt eulogy.

What ensued was a set of ceremonies and traditions established by the first emperor for the death of the ruler of a nation, as the officiants performed several chants praying for the safe departure of the soul of the emperor.

The casket was lifted and taken through a door to a hallowed graveyard.

The Royal Graveyard.

It was placed in a pit next to the grave of the first emperor, Emperor Ra, in front of the many other smaller graves for members of the royal family. The princes and princesses stood up, following the Apprentices who carried the casket, before lowering it into the grave.

They closed their eyes as the officiants spoke verses in old Kandrian, expressing their gratitude for the life of the passed soul, before the ceremony was finally over.

The princes and princesses returned to their seats as everybody’s gaze converged on the man of the hour as he took his place at the center of the stage, directing a deep gaze at each and every single person gathered in the Funeral Hall.

The distanced press, the guests of honor, the cabinet of ministers, and his brothers and sisters directed a deep gaze at him with bated breaths of expectations.

The moment had arrived.