The Path of Power (The Emperor Trials)

It began with silence.

Not the kind that crept through rooms late at night, or the kind that blanketed cities before a storm—but a silence that stretched across continents. A pause. A universal hush.

Then, all at once, every living person on Earth heard it not through their ears, but deep inside their minds.

"A new emperor has been born."

The words were clear. Ancient. Powerful. Spoken in no language and yet understood by all.

Some froze mid-step. Some wept without knowing why. Others—those with power or knowledge of the unseen—felt a ripple of energy surge through the layers of reality. The message didn’t stop at Earth. It passed through dreams, planes, and dimensions. And somewhere deep beneath layers of forgotten space, ancient things stirred.

Beings locked away for centuries shifted in their prisons. Some smiled. Others screamed. Not all of them were sane anymore.

Most of these creatures once gods, demons, or monsters had been cast into the crevices of existence. Trapped in what humans now called hells, their forms and minds had twisted over the ages. Once noble or divine, they had become demonic, dangerous, desperate. The message had confirmed what they had long feared and hoped: the imperial line had returned. An emperor had risen.

In the deepest chambers of shadow governments and secret orders, alarms were triggered. Hidden organizations the kind that even presidents answered to scrambled into action. They knew what the return of an emperor meant: chaos... or salvation.

And somewhere on the slopes of an old mountain, a young man named Philip stood he had just accepted the final legacy

He didn’t hear the message. Not like the others. For him, the silence remained.

But something within him shifted.