Children of the Holy Emperor Chapter 1

001. Children of Seonghwang

Nathaniel Klein, Nate, the 17th successful person of Delcross.

He was a monarch so powerful that there was no precedent for him except for the first emperor.

With enormous divine power befitting his position as God’s representative, he is the unofficial youngest sword master and the strongest swordsman on the continent.

Under his reign, Delcross enjoyed extremely stable prosperity, and relations with surrounding subordinate countries were also friendlier than ever before. He deserved to be evaluated as a saint never seen before in this century.

However, he was more famous by his other nickname than Seonggun, which was [Seonghwang, the unprecedented libertine in history].

When he ascended to the throne at the young age of 21, he already had three wives, one lover, and five children.

Now, after more than 12 years in power, the number of officially known children has exceeded 7, so no one knows how many hidden illegitimate children there are.

For generations, Delcross’s success was due to its ascetic image as [God’s representative], but it did not have many children.

It is known that the first emperor was the only one to have more than 15 children, but considering that he, who is said to be a demigod, was in power for more than 300 years, it is not an incomprehensible number.

As the situation was such, even this young and talented Emperor could not prevent the image of a libertine from becoming attached to him.

Everything is probably the result of the foolishness of my youth. Seonghwang Nate humbly accepted the responsibility and decided to take good care of his children to the best of his ability.

Therefore, he ordered his chamberlain to report carefully on the children’s condition, and tried to delay his busy work hours to spend time alone with his children.

However, despite such efforts, parenting was not an easy task, as growing children rarely did what their parents wanted.

Sometimes, children do things that their parents cannot understand, even though they are children born inside themselves.

Let’s take the first child, 1st Prince Owen, as an example.

He was a child who was only discovered when he was an adult, and at first he seemed very happy to meet his father after all the hardships he had gone through.

But one day, he suddenly started talking nonsense, saying he saw something strange, like a document, out of thin air.

“Father, Soja is trying to become stronger with the power of this status window.”

And then he left for the southern front.

There were a lot of things I wanted to do for him as he was late in my arms, but isn’t he a mean son who doesn’t understand his father’s intentions at all?

The second child, 1st Princess Amelia, was not much different.

A poor daughter who lost her mother, who was the Margrave’s illegitimate daughter, and found her father after it was revealed that she was a princess.

Nevertheless, she was a lovely girl who hid her sadness under a bright smile and talked about her interests to her still awkward father.

My daughter, who was like a rose, also started to feel strange at some point.

One day, he said he woke up crying, as if he had had a nightmare, but then he suddenly started eating less and became very depressed.

Concerned, he asked the reason during tea time, and his daughter suddenly burst into tears in front of him and blurted out words like a thunderbolt.

“Father, Your Majesty, I… “Back from the dead!”

Nate was dumbfounded by the sudden story.

My daughter’s complaints that poured out like a waterfall afterwards were, to be roughly summarized, as follows.

Leonard, the handsome second prince of Rohan, persuaded his daughter to get married.

However, it was not out of love, but a ploy by the bastard to solidify his throne by using the power of the Holy Emperor.

After forcing the marriage, he later took on several concubines as a show of pride and used violence and abuse against his queen, Amelia.

And soon enough, they ended up imprisoning her alone in the tower.

“His Majesty was enraged by that fact and even started a crusade to save me, but Leonard ended up killing me. He cruelly wanted me to die in front of his Majesty’s eyes.”

“… … .”

“iced coffee! “Her Majesty was so against it from the beginning, but this foolish daughter of hers ruined everything!”

He was staring blankly at his daughter who started sobbing after saying that.

He married you, imprisoned you, and murdered you?

But daughter, aren’t you alive and well in front of me right now?

“So the girl will take revenge. I will pursue him to the ends of hell. He wants to crush all her hopes and completely destroy her. She won’t forgive anything that gets in her way!”

“… … .”

Nate sensed a small twinkle of light in his daughter’s wet eyes and involuntarily took a breath.

My daughter, who was once as beautiful as a delicate bud, became a poisonous rose full of thorns.

At this point, Nate couldn’t help but admit that he had taken parenting quite lightly until now.

Do all parents on the continent raise their children in this kind of agony, or is it only their own children that are so strange? The young Seonghwang held his head as he had a headache.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Among Nate’s eccentric children, there was one who annoyed him the most: his fourth child and third prince, Mores.

Prince Mores was the son of the extremely stubborn First Empress Lizabeth, and was an extremely ordinary child, except for being a naughty child when he was young.

Unfortunately, compared to his other siblings, he is not that special and is nothing more than an ordinary child who cannot live up to his mother’s expectations.

Thanks to this, Mores had to suffer from a fairly harsh early education under the empress, who was struggling to make her son a crown prince.

When I was young, I thought I would just follow my mother’s wishes.

However, at some point, he started engaging in vicious acts against the servants of the palace, but when he reached puberty, he became an uncontrollable pig bastard.

The empress’s hysterical scoldings and tearful pleas were of no use.

Nate also had no choice but to quietly wait for the child to come to his senses again, but paying no heed to the parents’ concerns, the prince’s misbehavior grew more severe as the years passed.

It seemed like that child would forever remain as an unprecedented stain on the history of the imperial family.

Change came unexpectedly. The child suddenly caught a fever and died, but it seemed like he was coming back to life, but when he woke up, he was a completely different person than before.

After stopping his vicious activities and being busy with basic training at the training center every day, he lost weight beyond recognition and his swordsmanship skills, which had always been at the same level, began to improve rapidly.

As if his once ordinary qualities had completely changed, he now knew how to show off quite a bit of sharp energy.

Although his son’s change was clearly a good thing, Nate felt uneasy inside.

It might have been better to have had an honest conversation with Mores earlier. However, because her child’s condition seemed a little uneasy, he had no choice but to treat his son with the same caution as before.

And the result of that indecisive response was a huge storm that could not be reversed.

* * *

Coooooo!

Suddenly, there was a loud noise of Mount Tai collapsing outside, and the imperial palace shook as if there had been an earthquake.

The cardinals and ministers, both large and small, who had just finished the morning government meeting, ran out into the palace courtyard in a panic.

What caught their eyes was a huge black lump thrown carelessly on one side of the courtyard.

It has large wings with no skin remaining and a bulky body with rotten, tattered flesh. And black demonic energy blooming from all over the body.

“Bone Dragon… … .”

“this… What on earth is this… … .”

Why does the demon species that is said to be rampaging in the eastern region suddenly fall in the middle of the imperial palace?

While the cardinals were stuttering, dumbfounded by the unexpected situation, the Royal Guard and Holy Knights rushed in and surrounded the dragon.

Despite the shock from the fall, he was still squirming intermittently as if he had not completely lost his breath.

However, at that time, I was unable to approach it because of the terrible demonic energy flowing from it.

“Uh, I didn’t mean to make a fuss… . “Go ahead and take a look.”

A boy wearing light armor appeared at the Bone Dragon’s bedside with an innocent cry. Light blonde hair with a gray tint, fierce eyes, and a mischievous expression.

“… “Your Majesty Mores?”

“Sir, how on earth is this happening?”

Despite Knight Commander Balthazar’s trembling question, the voice of the boy called Mores was extremely clear.

“The exorcists of the subjugation team said that unlike other demon species, even if you defeat this one, it is not completely reverse summoned and its corpse remains. So, in order to be purified, you have to move to the ecliptic where his father is?”

“… … .”

“But if they are captured far away in the east, the soldiers and villages on the way will be contaminated with demonic energy… .”

In short, in order to minimize the secondary damage that would occur while transporting the corpse of the demon species, the creature was driven here and then suddenly dropped at the main palace where the Holy Emperor resides.

“This is crazy… … .”

One high-ranking priest blurted out profanity without realizing it, but no one fell for it.

The same thoughts were passing through everyone’s minds at that moment.

I heard that that damn pig prince has evolved into a crazy idiot!

-Keeeeeeek!

The Bone Dragon howled with all its remaining strength and struggled to shake off the prince.

As the black magic energy wavered even more violently and spread out in all directions, the knights surrounding him flinched and took a step back.

However, Prince Mores, who was in the middle of that terrible demonic energy, pulled out the sword from his belt with a nonchalant expression.

Soon, a dark aura began to bloom from his sword, the Nutcracker.

The external air clearly condenses on the surface of the sword.

Considering the young prince’s age, it was an incredible feat, but the blood-red auror’s nature was quite ominous.

At the very least, he was definitely not an Auror worthy of someone like the prince of the Holy Empire.

“Now let’s catch this guy. “Be careful.”

With a carefree voice.

Phew.

The prince’s sword stuck straight into the dragon heart, which had turned black with demonic energy.

Soon, a crack appeared in the dragon heart with a crackling sound, and black magic energy began to pour out explosively from there.

Whoa!

In an instant, the dragon and the prince’s body were enveloped in black smoke and disappeared.

“Aaaah!”

“Your Majesty Mores!”

“Hey!”

The magical energy that seemed to cover the palace courtyard in an instant was blocked by a transparent silver curtain before it could reach the surrounding knights.

In that short period of time, the Holy Emperor had spread a huge sacred barrier that completely surrounded the dragon.

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon

The barrier filled with demonic energy seemed to have suddenly become a pitch-black hemisphere. However, the demon energy was purified by the Holy Emperor’s sacred barrier and became cloudy, and after some time, it began to turn transparent as if it had never been like that before.

Eventually, only the clear air as before and the skeleton of a huge creature that had turned white remained inside the barrier.

“Woah, what about the prince?”

The magical power of an undead demon species that is said to cause the entire body of an ordinary person to rot and crumble just by touching it.

It was not something a young prince without a ounce of divine power in his body could handle, and he was in the middle of a magical energy explosion.

Contrary to people’s worries, fortunately Prince Mores was safe. As soon as his barrier disappeared, the boy appeared, slowly walking towards the castle with his entire body covered in his aura.

He looks very carefree, as if he can’t be the slightest threat to the devil. An evil, dark red energy flowing from all over the prince’s body.

For someone who doesn’t know, it would be confusing as to which of the princes and the real dragon belong to the devil.

“… “Your Majesty, it may be presumptuous to say this, but are you saying that the prince’s power is not truly the devil’s?”

Cardinal Benitus, who was standing next to the Holy Emperor, asked in a trembling voice.

How dare you talk about the devil over the prince of the Holy Empire? In the first place, it wouldn’t be pleasant to be accused of blasphemy or treason. It seemed like he was half out of his mind with shock that this little old man didn’t realize it.

Nate, who was watching this absurd series of events in silence, slowly lifted one hand to cover his face and sighed softly.

Yes, Mores.

That child, who was just an immature brat, was suddenly becoming the eye of a new storm that would bring a huge wind of cause and effect to Delcross.