Chapter 144: Dominion

Theo had descended three steps when the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

He turned.

The Aurelian Dragonblade, which had been lying inert and extinguished since the Hand of Aurora struck, was glowing again.

The Dragonblade was feeding from the dynasty. And it was pouring everything into its wielder.

Golden light streamed across the fractured stone, up Aurelius’s outstretched arm, and into his core. The Crown Prince’s fingers twitched. Then curled. Then closed around the Dragonblade’s hilt.

He opened his eyes. The medical team, halfway across the arena with their stretcher, froze mid-stride.

Aurelius stood.

The crowd fell into silence for the second time in five minutes...

The Crown Prince had been struck down by a Primeval’s wrath. And he had gotten back up.

Aurelius paid the applause no attention. His eyes were fixed solely on Theo.

"That technique," he said,. "The Hand of Aurora. You cannot use it again."

Aurelius was right.

Theo couldn’t fire it again today, and possibly not for several days...

But Aurelius didn’t need to know the specifics. So Theo said nothing and smiled.

"The match has been called, Your Highness."

"I am aware," Aurelius replied. His grip on the Dragonblade tightened. "I am not contesting the tournament result."

"I am invoking Article Fourteen of the Imperial Martial Code. A prince of the blood may demand a Spiritual Reckoning from any citizen who has inflicted harm upon his person."

"A Spiritual Reckoning?" Theo raised an eyebrow. "During a tournament?"

"The tournament is over. I lost." Aurelius’s voice was stripped of pride. "This is a separate matter. A question of principle between the Crown and a citizen. Accept or refuse... the choice is yours."

Herald Octavian turned to the judges’ booth in a panic.

Lord Ashford and Master Cato exchanged bewildered glances.

High above, the Emperor’s expression remained unreadable.

Theo studied the armorless young man who had just been dismantled before fifty thousand witnesses and was now standing on two broken legs, demanding another round.

The rational move was to refuse. Walk away with the tournament victory intact. Let the Crown Prince nurse his wounds and his pride in private.

"Why not," he said. "I have never been inside a prince’s head before. Should be educational."

Aurelius’s eyes blazed.

The Imperial Sovereign Dominion erupted from his irises with devastating speed... leagues beyond the earlier Mandate Dominion in scope and refinement.

This was a domain forged from ten thousand years of dynastic willpower, designed to crush any spirit that dared defy the Throne.

When perception returned, he stood in a vast throne room.

At the far end, atop a staircase of forty-seven steps sat the Eternal Throne itself.

Aurelius’s spiritual projection stood before the Throne, whole and unblemished.

Within this domain, the Crown Prince was restored to his full and perfect form...

The domain’s pressure pressed down on Theo, a strange pull tugging at the edges of his consciousness, trying to drag his awareness toward the Throne. Trying to make him kneel.

He chose to let it look like it could.

He staggered sideways, as though fighting an invisible current.

"Your spiritual reserves are impressive for your tier," the Prince acknowledged. "But in this domain, I am not merely Aurelius. I am every Emperor who came before me. Their combined will flows through this Throne. You cannot outlast ten thousand years of accumulated sovereignty."

The Imperial Sovereign Dominion was his specialty...

The one arena where no peer had ever matched him. Ten Theos combined would not equal the spiritual mass of an entire imperial lineage.

He raised his hand. "There is no shame in surrender. Your spirit will simply be absorbed into the Mandate, and your body—"

"Your Highness," Theo said, "Before we continue. A question."

Aurelius paused.

"Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?"

...

Outside the Dominion.

"What is happening now?" Octavian pleaded, turning to the commentators’ booth with the expression of a man who had aged ten years in twenty minutes.

"A Sovereign Dominion," Lord Ashford said. "The Imperial bloodline’s ultimate technique. Cultivation, weapons, artifacts... all are irrelevant. Only the strength of one’s spirit matters."

"And the Crown Prince’s spiritual authority," Master Cato added, "In this arena, no individual among the younger generation should be capable of withstanding him."

Up on the observation deck, Duke Regulus allowed himself to exhale. A smile crept back across his face.

"The Sovereign Dominion," he said, "This is where Aurelius is without equal. No young cultivator in the Empire has ever endured the combined spiritual pressure of the Imperial lineage. The commoner may have his tricks, but in a contest of pure will?" He straightened his sleeves. "The Crown cannot be surpassed."

He turned to the Pontifex, "Your boy just made the worst mistake of his life."

The Pontifex said nothing for a long moment. Then she set down her teacup. Reached for the jade pot. And poured a cup for someone other than herself...

She placed it before Duke Regulus with both hands, "Drink while it is hot, Your Grace."

"I am afraid you will not have the stomach for it later."

Within the Imperial Sovereign Dominion, Aurelius’s spiritual projection blazed with ancestral fire.

Every name carved into the walls, every step of the forty-seven-stair staircase, every mote of golden light was an extension of his will.

The moment his spirit entered the domain fully, it began to grow.

This was the nature of the Sovereign Dominion: spiritual projections expanded in direct proportion to their psychic mass.

An ordinary cultivator at Theo’s tier would manifest at perhaps two meters... a fragile figurine on the throne room floor.

A typical Exarch might reach a hundred. Only prodigies backed by supreme bloodline amplification could achieve greater heights.

Aurelius’s projection, fed by ten thousand years of dynastic resonance, swelled to fifteen hundred meters.

A golden titan whose crown brushed the throne room’s vaulted ceiling. Imperial Aquilas orbited his shoulders like moons around a planet.

The combined willpower of forty-seven generations of Emperors flowed through his spiritual form like molten gold through cathedral veins.

Fifteen hundred meters...

Aurelius permitted himself a smile. In his experience, no opponent had ever exceeded three hundred.

Most crumbled below fifty. The commoner’s projection was probably somewhere on the floor, trembling, the size of a garden ornament.

The Sovereign Dominion did not permit concealment or flight. One could only stand and fight.

Had the Sovereign’s spirit been crushed so thoroughly upon entry that it had simply dissolved?

No. The domain would collapse if either combatant’s spirit was eliminated. Both were still present...