The Invincible Full-Moon System

Chapter 1818: Good Luck to You

It was quieter now.

No more screams. No more battles. No more struggles.

Emperor Dominar rested upon the throne and looked over the empty chamber. Memories flooded him. This place was where he was crowned emperor. Where he sentenced countless people to die. Where he married his first wife. Where he celebrated his first victory.

His veins turned purple on his right hand, and the purple is spreading.

Corruption that he now accepted fully.

From how much it was shaking, it should be painful. But his face remained neutral.

A rival emperor in the past once said to him that a sovereign will only be complete once he tasted sitting on the throne as the empire crumbles. It was more glorious than the most detrimental victory, and more devastating than the harshest of losses.

Emperor Dominar thought it was rubbish.

But now he realized it was the last epiphany of an incredible emperor’s last moments.

Right now, at this moment, Emperor Dominar felt both the most powerful and the weakest.

It’s a feeling exclusive only to the few.

For the longest time, he thought the oath he made during his coronation prepared him to keep going and prioritize the people even when times are hard. And as he walked out and waved his hand as their newly crowned emperor, he was reminded of whom he was fighting for.

His coronation was set to prepare him to face anything as an emperor.

Nothing should come as a surprise to him.

But he was wrong.

Nothing in the coronation prepared him to face the silence that surrounded him right now.

It was… suffocating.

And more painful than when his enemy drove a sword into his chest.

Now, he understood that becoming an emperor is set to make him selfless.

Even though the collapse of his empire was hard to accept, he knew that he had done his best.

He only has two choices, and both choices have their own risks.

Emperor Dominar lifted his head. He watched as the massive gate groan opened on the other side.

He was expecting one visitor—Rex.

But the person greeted him on the other side was not Rex. It was a mighty man with cracked, blackened skin. Lava is coursing inside him, and his very presence speaks power beyond normal measure. A smile broke on Emperor Dominar’s face.

No matter what, his empire was finished after Rex pitted it against the Sky People.

There was nothing he could do to avoid the sky’s wrath.

If he didn’t die by Rex’s hands, then it would be by the avenging Gatekeepers.

And it seemed like the Gatekeepers would be the ones to do it.

Dorn was accompanied by the Gatekeeper of Light and Shadow. He stared straight at Emperor Dominar sitting on his throne, and then glanced at the others. No words needed to be said, and the two Gatekeepers turned around to leave.

He came expecting resistance.

But seeing Emperor Dominar now… There will be no resistance.

Sitting on that throne is not a man with hope, but a man with acceptance.

Dorn entered. His steel boots sank into a deep carpet meant to muffle the march of soldiers—but the sheer weight of him still drove a dull, rhythmic thud into the stone, echoing off the walls until he halted at the foot of the stairs leading to the throne.

“Have you come to kill me?” Emperor Dominar inquired. His voice was feeble. Small. Not the kind an emperor would use.

“No,” Dorn shook his head. “He asked you for a sacrifice.”

A soft chuckle escaped Emperor Dominar’s lips.

He was confused as to what Dorn meant by no, but now it made sense.

“I will not resist.” Emperor Dominar reclined on his throne and extended his arms, like urging Dorn to restrain him. “I will accept my fate.”

Dorn didn’t move from his spot. He simply stared at Emperor Dominar’s eyes, trying to read what made a respected emperor make such a blunder. Even though the Gatekeeper’s main duty was to overwatch the Voidal Monarchs and usurpers from other realms, they knew about the superpowers inside the Spirit Realm.

The Haeltara Empire, led by Emperor Dominar, is one of them.

It rose to power because of the Reap and Sow Echo.

And rumour said the emperor is blessed by the land to the point of being able to foresee events.

Something like this should be avoidable for him.

“Why…?” Dorn asked a simple question.

“Why does someone like me, who is blessed by the land and has lived for milennia make this blunder?” Emperor Dominar completed the question inside Dorn’s mind and then offered a weak smile. “Because I’m now no longer blessed. I’m… corrupted.”

He raised his right hand, showing the corruption that has taken over.

Dorn’s eyes widened.

And almost instantly, he came to realize what made Emperor Dominar choose this path.

“Chaos…”

Crack—!

Dorn’s aura exploded, rattling the entire throne room as a massive double-edged sword of lava emerged in his right hand. Its tip was touching the floor and melting into the earth with each passing second. His calmness was replaced instantly by hostility.

Almost like this proved he made the right choice, Emperor Dominar laughed.

Not a hysterical one, but a genuine one.

Dorn now grasped the impossible tightrope Emperor Dominar walked. The hostility wasn’t malice—it was the instinctive flinch honed through eons from the very whisper of chaos. “You were afraid of us,” Dorn stated, the words heavy with understanding, not accusation. His eyes hardened. “So, you chose to offend him instead?”

“Yes,” Emperor Dominar nodded. His voice was hoarse now. “If chaos is involved, you people would’ve obliterated my empire, regardless of our innocence. So I chose to cover it up. To do that, I need to kill him.

“Who would’ve thought the usurper could even take the Sky City down?” Emperor Dominar shook his head. “Even you didn’t expect it.”

Now that chaos was involved, Emperor Dominar only had two options to save his empire.

Either he covered it up by killing Rex, who was involved directly, so that the Sky City wouldn’t know, or he came clean about the involvement of chaos and gambled the livelihood of the empire on the Skillian Divine Court’s hands, which was known to be merciless.

One is to offend Rex, and the other is to be scrutinized by the Skillian Divine Court.

Emperor Dominar chose the first.

And this happened.

“What truly happened?” Dorn drove his sword into the floor; the steel ringing as his frown deepened. He had not expected the situation to be this tricky. “If chaos is involved with this incident… with you, it had to start somewhere. It couldn’t manifest from nothing.” He paused for a moment, eyes widening. “Your new empress.”

Before coming to the castle, Dorn searched for the emperor where the gala was held.

There, he met with a dying noble—and learned about the incident at the Tomb of Heroes where the evil usurper, Rex, attacked the empress. Many were skeptical, including this dying noble—especially when Rex was the one who helped the empress’ most important mission.

And Dorn didn’t blame them.

He, too, found it logical for them to question that.

Earlier, outside the castle, he met with a normal-looking man called Kaine.

From him, Dorn learned that the empress was involved with an Archangel, which has a vendetta against Rex. There was no evident proof that the empress had a connection with chaos, but every problem revolved around her.

It’s easy to assume that chaos also started from her because of that.

“I’m not denying that she has something to do with this,” Emperor Dominar sighed. When Kaine told him that the land might be corrupted, he found it hard to believe. He doesn’t want to believe it. But now, it seemed that was the case. “But I feel like this corruption started before her.”

Normally, feelings should not be taken into account for an important decision or conclusion.

But it was different for Emperor Dominar.

His feelings were tied to the land. His land. And if he felt like the corruption started before the empress, then it had to be taken seriously. “Feel?” Dorn raised a brow, “Am I right to assume you have proof of her involvement, then?”

“I used a technique from the God Realm,” Emperor Dominar stated.

This caught Dorn by surprise, but he didn’t intervene, allowing Emperor Dominar to continue.

“It’s a technique I stumbled upon a long time ago. I forgot when,” He waved his hand dismissively. For someone as old as him, memories tend to merge together or blur. It’s hard to remember the specifics. “It allowed me to check for any sign of chaos incursion in detail.

“Kaine, my right-hand man… he suggested that I use it on the Tomb of Heroes, and yes, we found traces of chaos energy. It was wiped away by her. Normal means wouldn’t be able to pick it up. So, yes… I’m quite certain Morgana is involved one way or another.” He nodded, but there was doubt in his voice.

Not doubt about the empress’ involvement, but doubt that she was the one who corrupted him.

After all, before becoming the empress, she was already checked by the same technique.

No sign of chaos in her back then.

Chaos must’ve made contact with her after she became the empress.

Even as the silence stretched, Dorn didn’t interrupt.

He could see from the hard lines on Emperor Dominar’s forehead that he was piecing the pieces.

“Kaine…” Emperor Dominar muttered the name. “He was the first one to suspect the empress. And he told me he suspected her because things are becoming… odd when the empress started becoming active. She started to care—about her reputation. She pushed me to help her clear her name. Even going as far as to settle the new Voidal Monarch.

“I argued the land told me to make her empress, and he told me that perhaps the land was corrupted by chaos. Morgana was already checked by the same technique before her coronation, and she was free of chaos then. Since that’s the case, he must be right again. The corruption starts from the land. It did not start with her.

“And that… that made me wonder. If chaos corrupted the land only to tell me to make her the empress, what could be the reason?” His eyes sparked with a knowing gaze. He raised his index finger and pointed at the ceiling, or rather, the sky. “Is it not preparing for his arrival?”

“You mean…” Dorn’s heart pounded against his ribcage. His neck was slick with cold sweat. “Chaos… It’s preparing for that usurper’s arrival?”

It made sense.

Kaine was saying that things were becoming weird when Morgana was becoming active.

But her reason for doing that might as well be because of Rex.

Emperor Dominar knew that Kaine’s vision was narrowed because of his fixation on keeping the empire and its people safe. Naturally, he was going to pin it all on Morgana, who was involved directly and had the power to do more harm from within.

He, on the other hand, was an emperor.

It has always been his duty to look at the bigger picture.

And that’s how he could see things Kaine couldn’t.

“Of course, this might be simply a coincidence, and the corruption of the land and Morgana’s rebellion were two entirely different things,” Emperor Dominar shrugged. “One is to corrupt me—and turn the empire into a chaos doll, and the other is the Archangel’s holy vendetta empowered by chaos.”

“Both of us are rulers,” Dorn stated grimly. “We don’t consider the good outcomes. We only consider the bad. What is the worst-case scenario? If you’re really the inhabitant of this realm and care for its well-being, tell it to me straight.”

Emperor Dominar nodded.

He knew this very well.

It was their duty to always think of the worst-possible scenario.

That is the burden of power.

“If you ask me, there must be two forces of chaos that considered the usurper, Rex, a threat and were actively hunting him,” Emperor Dominar stated. Then, he raised his gaze to meet Dorn’s. “As for the worst-case scenario… There’s a higher being from chaos aiming for him, and it’s covering its tracks using my empire and the Archangel’s vendetta.

“If it is really the latter…” He paused. Tension rose—until he cracked a smirk. “Then I’d say good luck to you, Gatekeeper of Lava. I’m glad I wouldn’t be alive to watch the horror. But still, my advice is to stick close to Rex. There must be a reason Chaos considered him a threat.”