Chapter 35: Chapter 38 – Suzerain Lord Taurus

The oldest Suzerain Lord, Lord Taurus, was a regal man before meeting Lord Scorpius. Although the Suzerain Lords were known for their insatiable desire for sin, Lord Taurus was well mannered yet scheming, like the nobility of a far-off country, plotting to overthrow the young, kind, yet naïve King. As old as the past Suzerain Lord Antaeus, Lord Taurus was the last remnant of the older generation. Even though he was in good health, he knew his time was coming.

There was a reason Suzerain Lords rose and fell. The younger generation always sought to overthrow and surpass the previous one. He witnessed the rise of Lord Darkin firsthand and watched silently as the generation below him fell, one by one.

Lord Jezebel betrayed Lord Ahab,

Lord Virgo inherited his territory from the eldest Suzerain Lord, Antaeus,

Lord Achilles savagely conquered the territory of the weak Lord Elgar, and

Lord Capricorn managed to barter her way into an audience with the invincible Lord Ravel, where she killed him with deception and cunning. Now, even Lord Virgo was overthrown by a generation even younger than these Suzerain Lords.

Lord Taurus looked forward to the day Lord Darkin would emerge from his palace and conquer the seven territories. That would be the time Lord Darkin finished him off completely after his ascension. A glorious scene emerged in Lord Taurus’s mind, the new generation would be ruled by the deserving Lord Darkin, but things didn’t go according to how he envisioned the future.

The foolish Lord Eris gave her soul power to a Shade named Scorpius, who went mad from an unstable Shade Core, a direct result of her foolishness. Taurus once had a flawed Shade Core in his past, so he understood the insanity it caused. There was a problem with understanding the Shade’s problems and the reality of it, however.

“That Shade needs to be institutionalized!” Lord Taurus cried out to himself. As the last remaining person of the older generation, he was naturally the strongest besides the exceptional Lord Darkin of the generation below him. No one in the past, nor present, stood anywhere close to Darkin’s talent and potential, besides the upstart, Lord Theseus.

These five youngsters were all drunk on their own powers, and they failed to see reality in Lord Taurus’s mind.

When Lord Taurus was younger, the Suzerain Treaty had been reestablished by himself and Lord Antaeus after the fall of the Suzerain Alliance, a former pact aimed at breaking free from the Oceanic Realm.

They failed, losing four of the seven Suzerain Lords to the Desolate.

All of them were Rank D and above, but they couldn’t break through the chasm of darkness. Lord Antaeus was poisoned and died a slow and painful terminal death, but together with the last Suzerain Lord not involved with the Desolate, they raised the younger generation in the spirit of the former Suzerains. The sickest and most disturbed group of Suzerain Lords in modern history, Ahab, Elgar, Ravel, and Eris were disgustingly sinful. It was beautiful.

The last Lord who refrained from entering the Desolate, Lord Napoleon, stayed in seclusion. Ironically, Lord Napoleon was a war hungry person and wanted to control the whole realm himself, but he was too scared of the Desolate. According to legend, Lord Napoleon arrived in Hell from the Desolate, and he survived through barbaric and dangerous Authority Path skills.

When Napoleon entered the Oceanic Realm, he was beaten and permanently crippled. Without his arms and one leg, he created artifacts to replace them with Royalty Realm level beasts and Shades in the Desolate. Both of Lord Napoleon’s eyes were gouged out and replaced with the enchanted eyes of beasts. As far as the people of the Oceanic Realm were concerned, Lord Napoleon was the only living survivor of the Desolate besides Lord Antaeus and himself after the Alliance’s downfall.

The son of Lord Antaeus, the future Lord Darkin, treated Lord Napoleon as a coward and a traitor, ultimately killing him when he became a Suzerain Lord. Now old and alone, Lord Taurus was still strong yet also a relic of the past.

“But, damnit, I won’t die to that psychopath!” Lord Taurus yelled inside his office. Lord Scorpius was relentless and nonsensical.

Lord Taurus calmed down. Thinking about it, this new Lord, Lord Theseus, was just like Lord Napoleon. They both rose from the wilderness, maimed, and abused, then ascended to power through cunning Authority Path skills.

“It’s all the same. History repeats itself, over and over again.” Lord Taurus sighed. He was old enough to see where this was going. Whoever won the final battle, Theseus or Darkin, would eventually go on to explore the Desolate or the Moirai Dungeon, both futile endeavors.

The Moirai Dungeon was infested with endless hordes of monsters that even made an evil Suzerain Lord like himself shudder, whereas the Desolate was a pit of death and suffering. A horde of monsters or an endless abyss? He now knew better and would take Lord Napoleon’s route: a neutral stance for as long as possible.

The resemblance between Lord Theseus and Lord Napoleon was striking, but in the end, the core difference was that Napoleon saw the horrors of the Desolate while Theseus had not. This was why Lord Taurus sought the backing of Lord Darkin instead of Lord Theseus.

Lord Darkin was raised knowing the full extent that conquering the Desolate was futile. Even when Darkin grew arrogant and explored the Moirai Dungeon, he came back another man. Lord Darkin was a realist and sought to create a Suzerain World where he alone ruled. Lord Theseus was an idealist who had not personally witnessed the hopelessness of Hell.

The fact that the Oceanic Realm existed in the first place was a miracle. Hell’s first floor was an Ocean of Souls, and the ocean floor was rumored to be like the Desolate. As far as Lord Taurus was concerned, it was foolish to try and find somewhere safer than here. Hell was unforgiving and merciless, which was why they had to be merciless tyrants.

To Lord Taurus, the Suzerain Treaty was the last blockade between them and the endless horrors of Hell. Their fragile balance of power kept the masses from provoking the Desolate monsters and the Moirai Dungeon natives. The Suzerain Treaty was the last hope for civilization after death. The Oceanus experiment would eventually lead to their downfall. Freedom and hope would blind the masses into provoking the giants that slept close to their beds. At least with Lord Darkin, he wouldn’t act against the two existential threats until he felt strong enough to face them.

They were in a fragile political climate though.

If Lord Taurus or Lord Scorpius prevailed, the opposite side would invade first. If Lord Darkin kept his promise, Lord Scorpius would soon join their side, and the Suzerain War would escalate to include the other five Lords. The term ‘Elder’ was a meaningless term to Lord Taurus. As soon as Theseus died, the power hungry, selfish, people of the Oceanic Realm would rise up again and reinstate the Suzerain Treaty.

That was the beauty in the power of the Suzerain Treaty. It maintained balance because it played on the inherent sins of mankind. If given the chance, there would always be someone willing to step on the poor and needy to advance. Unless Theseus were strong enough to take on Hell itself, a savior like figure was like him rang hollow. Theseus couldn’t defeat the Ruler of Hell. He was just some guy who showed up to Hell wanting to make it a better place. What a fool!

One day, Lord Taurus knew, that no matter how high Theseus climbed, he would be brought to his knees by Hell.

It could be Lord Darkin,

It could be the Desolate,

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It could be Moirai Dungeon,

It could be the Administrators,

It could even be the Authority of Hell Himself, but one day, Theseus would see reality. And when he did, he would’ve wished he kept the Suzerain Treaty in place and lived a peaceful life stained with sin, instead of a tattered life of tragic purity.

Lord Taurus wished he would not be alive to witness that tragic outcome.

***

The Captain Boot Camp officially ended, but some of the Captains with more demanding problems were forced to stay, including Elder Capricorn.

“Get a move on Capricorn, we don’t have all day!” Theseus yelled and sent fireballs at the once proud Suzerain Lord. They were harmless to someone of her aura realm, but the brutality really brought into question if Theseus was really just a Suzerain Lord in disguise!

“Yes, sir!” She huffed.

Everything was going according to plan. At the dawn of the next year, the first phase of the Suzerain War would be finished. Lord Taurus and Lord Scorpius would have their definitive battle, and depending on the victor, either he or Lord Darkin would attack.

Theseus, who thought at multiple times the speed of his peers, already thought four steps ahead. If he were Lord Darkin, the best course of action would be to coerce Lord Scorpius onto his own side. The power balance was fairly even if it were Oceanus and Lord Scorpius versus Lord Taurus and Lord Darkin, but all three powerful Lords against Oceanus was enough to tip the scale in the Suzerain’s favor.

Sadly, Oceanus absorbed the weaker territories, and the remaining two Lords that were fighting each other were integral to both factions vying for control of the Oceanic Realm. Unless the Suzerain Treaty was completely abolished, Theseus knew the cycle of suffering could never end.

Theseus knew Lord Darkin could not sit idly by at this juncture. Lord Scorpius was insane, and it would be easy to rope him in because of it. Prepared for Scorpius’s betrayal, all of Theseus’s plans up until now took this into consideration. The Captain Boot Camp and the secret training regimens for the Elders were all aimed at growing Oceanus into an equal force to these three powerhouses quickly.

Some of his recommendations cut corners, especially for the former Suzerain Lords, but at large, his teachings and training for the Oceanus Army were legitimate critiques. It was incredible how shallow the younger Suzerain Lords’ foundations, skills, and armies were compared to the three eldest Suzerain Lords. Lord Scorpius wasn’t eldest in terms of age, but he technically was possessed by the former Lord Eris at the moment.

According to Aries, it was impossible to forcefully insert yourself into another person’s Shade Core against their will. In reality, what likely happened, if there was not an Authority Skill involved, was that Lord Eris used a Shade Ritual as a conduit for a Shade Possession. Since years had passed, the Shade Possession was permanent, and Lord Scorpius’s Shade Core was now either cracked or flawed as Lord Eris continued to erode his sanity. To save Lord Scorpius in the future, Theseus planned on using an Authority Skill or Aries’s Shade expertise to fix it.

If he used a Reverse Shade Ritual at this juncture, it could save Scorpius’s sanity, but his aura realm would be crippled, permanently. Effectively, Lord Eris and Lord Scorpius’s personalities were constantly clashing. It was even miraculous Lord Scorpius hadn’t died or completely forgotten who he was at this point. This was not a problem Theseus could solve in the short term, so Lord Darkin had the upper hand.

To defeat the forces of darkness, Theseus couldn’t rely on these older or deranged Lords. His Elders were his ace in the hole.

Elder Aries, a F Rank Shade expert,

Elder Jezebel, a F Rank Shade, who was in the process of fixing her Core under Aries’s supervision,

Elder Capricorn, a F Rank corporate hack,

Elder Leo, the S Sage Realm beast, and

Head Captain Gemini, the S Rank apprentice.

All five of them were needed in the battle against Lord Darkin, and his goal for these five were daunting.

Aries would rise to the D Rank,

Jezebel would stabilize her Core and foundation,

Capricorn would relearn the fundamentals of aura and grow her shallow foundation,

Leo would complete his comprehensive training and ascend to the Royalty Realm,

Gemini would astonishingly also climb to the Royalty Realm with his Gemini Twins skill, and finally,

The Captains would all address the fundamental issues in their foundations, increasing their combined combat potentials exponentially.

When this plan was complete, Theseus would also grow because his aura realm was tied to them through his unique Summoner Path skill. In the end, Theseus would be at D Rank and would challenge Lord Darkin and his two Suzerain Lords with the help of the Elders and Head Captain.

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