Emperor of Steel

Chapter 475: Aether Monument 3

Luke, who stepped away from the Watcher, fell into a vortex.

As the surroundings made him dizzy, his eyes were shut, and his head was heavy.

But it wasn’t as painful as the time he touched the Aether monument.

When he was able to adapt to an extent inside the vortex, his eyes saw something.

‘You… Katarina!’

Around 500 years back, when she was doing chores in the Veritas Magic Tower, she was there, Katarina, handing Saymon a handkerchief with a smile.

It was his first encounter with her.

The memories kept passing. The next thing he saw was the time he fought with Rakan.

Again, the confrontation with Rakan, Luke’s enemy, made him feel displeased.

As he frowned, a strange sight unfolded in front of his eyes.

It was a beautiful half-elf dressed in a uniform of armed knights.

“Princess Sophia, where is this place?”

“Well, I believe that this is the place where Goddess Belize has led us to rest.”

‘Princess Sophia? The last princess of the Libiya Kingdom?’

The one known to have disappeared from the temple—the place where Luke’s party stood.

However, the place where they stood seemed to be different from Rhodesia Continent.

It was like the Southern Continent.

Nor surprisingly, a few moments later, thousands of the southerners flocked to them, a young man in golden armor reached out to the princess.

The moment, Sophia held his hand, the landscape changed again.

This time, the place was the same one he had seen a moment ago, the large monument.

And their faces seemed familiar to Luke.

It was Jo Won-rak, the 3rd crown prince he met in the Song Empire, and Zegal Hui, the general of Eorim Army.

“This is the place where Emperor Qin Chong and Empress Taifu met 500 years ago, right?”

“Yes, the Empress was said to be a fairy who came to earth because of the will of the heavens. The officers, who wrote the history, probably didn’t want to write down rumors or unverified facts, but she was definitely someone with extraordinary powers.”

“If only one had one percent of her power, if we could only get her power…”

“Yes, countering the forces would be a lot easier.”

Judging from the clips he was seeing, Empress Taifu was Princess Sophia.

If the scholars of history knew it, they would be very shocked.

The immediate lineage of the old Libiya royal family, which was thought to have been killed in the Rhodesia Continent, flowed to the far Southern Imperial, Song.

“This… What happened there?”

“Your Majesty, what is going on?”

“The ones who broke into the dungeon are alive, and they are in the closed ruins’ side!”

Suddenly, the landscape changed to Emperor Rudolf and Count Voltas.

From the outrageous magical three-dimension view in front of Rudolf, Luke figured out who woke up the little stone dolls.

However, Luke paid more attention to the progress of the video than the artifact.

First, it displayed the past, and now it was showing the present.

‘Then, will the future be shown?’

The future was a time that couldn’t be fixed on what was seen.

The future changed according to changes that happened in the present.

However, some believe that at the moment, a decision has already been made about the future.

Usually, the priests believed that great fates were already decided by God’s will.

However, they insisted that the destiny made by a man was merely a decoration carved by God for his big picture.

‘I don’t know what is true and what is not. But…’

Once again, the view in front of Luke changed.

Kuakk! Kuk!

The ruined image of a huge city.

Black rain pouring down from dark clouds, rotten corpses everywhere, and bizarre screams.

Thousands of men… No, tens of thousands of men.

‘They are Undead. Surely, they are zombies and ghouls, right?’

Leading the zombies and ghouls was a Lich and a Death Knight.

However, Luke was surprised to see where the undead legion was flocking to.

The Brandon Royal Palace, which he had decorated.

Inside the burning, and collapsed royal Palace were rusted broken Gigants and bloody soldiers; the ones who suffered from hunger, showing their bones.

They shot arrows and stone at the undead who were clinging onto the royal palace.

However, the undead, who flocked like ants, climbed on top of the fallen ones.

“We have no more Gigants that can move. We won’t be able to stand it anymore, so let’s evacuate…”

“Evacuate? The world is full of dead ones everywhere. Where can we run to?!”

In the royal office room, the roof collapsed on the old men while they were having a meeting.

Their images of grief and suffering was very familiar.

Luke could see who they were in a glance, but he couldn’t believe what he saw. A miserable situation like that had appeared and put everyone in despair.

“This is all because of you! If only you weren’t deceived by the words of that fake… this wouldn’t have happened if you believed His Majesty a little more!”

“Who knew that he was a fake?”

“Stop, this isn’t the time to fight about the past! We need to save our lord. The only flesh and blood of ours… and take the last wizard, our only hope.”

After that, the men argued for a while, but Luke heard nothing.

No, he didn’t want to hear it.

A world full of despair and ruins was in the future.

He didn’t know what happened, but he didn’t want to accept that, he couldn’t tolerate that such things were held in his future.

“This can’t be! I will never accept that!”

Luke closed his eyes and ears.

Nevertheless, the scenes continued to pass in his head.

It seemed like his head would be blown off with the tremendous amount of visual and audio information that was being poured in.

“Kuakk! Stop it! Stop it right now!”

With the screams spread in the air, Luke’s consciousness subsided.