Three is the Line

It was supposed to be a bright and uneventful day for the Emperor.

His future son-in-law had returned safely, and with him, the curse that had been steadily gnawing away at his life had miraculously disappeared.

It was an affliction he had resigned himself to enduring, a slow but inevitable decay that not even the most skilled court magi could fully halt.

Yet, the moment Riley stepped foot back into the empire, that burden had vanished as if it had never existed in the first place.

A miracle.

Or perhaps… something far more deliberate.

Riley had done the impossible—passing the revered trial of the last relic of the Goddess.

It was a feat that no mortal should have been able to accomplish, and though countless questions swirled in the Emperor's mind about how and why Riley had managed to achieve such a thing, he chose not to dwell on them.

If it was for the sake of the empire…

No, if it was for the sake of the future—