CHAPTER 189: EMPEROR OF SKADI EMPIRE

As the days stretched on, a strange ripple began to echo across the cosmos.

Powerful seers and long-hidden diviners—beings who hadn’t opened their eyes in centuries—suddenly awoke in alarm. Monks in celestial monasteries broke their meditation, their chants faltering as a blinding vision overtook them. Forbidden tomes in arcane towers flipped open of their own accord, pages whispering prophecies not seen since the Old Cycle.

A great ascension just occurred.

But the identity of the one ascending was veiled. No matter how deeply they peered into fate or forced open the seams of time, his name remained cloaked in shadow.

"Impossible..." muttered a cloaked oracle from the Moon Citadel, his voice trembling. "This... presence—it’s beyond Ascendants. Yet, the stars do not reveal him."

"Because he walks outside the Wheel," a divine priestess whispered, her golden pupils trembling. "He... defies causality itself."

A few grew fearful. Others grew eager.

And a few, the ones who truly understood the signs, began to move.

---

On the tenth day after his near-complete breakthrough, Igaris stepped out of the chamber, his body radiating quiet might. His aura was still sealed—he had no need to flaunt it—but even the air around him felt heavier. More reverent.

Not long after, he sensed five mysterious Aircraft landed in the ancient wilderness beyond Earth’s reborn capital. They came without banners, without noise. No one but Igaris knew of their presence.

"So they have come.." he muttered with faint smile.

Next, Igaris secretly set up their meeting.

In a closely sealed hall where only Evernight and Shirley remain present, he met the five figures.

They were the leaders of five powerful States.

Each had been wary Skadi Empire’s prying eyes and ears. So now... they had come in secret. To meet the Overlord.

Among them was Varnem of Yurelia, draped in sea-blue robes laced with living coral threads. His old eyes shimmered like polished aquamarine as he approached Igaris with a deep bow.

He looked at the young man on the throne, who very presence radiated deadly energy as if suppressing a energy of compressed stars within.

"I did not believe the tales," Varnem said, his voice calm but laced with awe. "But now I see why the stars scream your name in silence."

Igaris looked over the others—an elder with silver-plated skin from the Glorien Highlands, a young queen with antlered hair from the Sylvran State, a masked man of flame from the Obsidian Dominion, and an armored warlord from the Ashforge Wastes.

"I’m not here to be worshiped," Igaris spoke firmly. "I’m here to build something that lasts."

"And you propose... an alliance?" the masked man asked, arms crossed.

"I propose a unified front," Igaris replied. "You’ve seen what’s coming. The Skadi Empire may be wounded, but they are not dead. And behind them lie worse things. Beings that only know conquest, extinction, and entropy."

"If we wait, we die divided. But if we rise now... we become more than victors. We become the architects of a new Age."

The chamber fell silent.

Then Varnem smiled.

"Then let this meeting be written into our hidden annals, as the day the true Alliance of Stars was born."

The others nodded, one by one.

And so, in secret, the Alliance of the Stars formed.

A new storm was coming. But this time, Igaris would not face it alone.

---

Imperial Capital City: Durban, Skadi Empire

A city of grandeur and cruelty.

Here, blue-skinned humanoids roamed with pride, their robes billowing as they strutted through vast marble streets lined with obsidian towers.

Beneath their oppressive feet, chains clinked. Collars glowed with suppressive runes. Slaves—humans, beastfolk, sea clans, even once-proud dragonkin—moved with dead eyes and trembling limbs.

This was the heart of the Skadi Empire’s dominion. A place where cruelty was not hidden but flaunted like culture. Children of nobility laughed while riding atop chained wyverns. Blood markets thrived in daylight, selling not goods, but lives.

And yet, the city pulsed with discipline and fear. For beneath its towering spires and silken palaces was a system forged by war and preserved by absolute power.

Durban was not just a capital. It was a message. To Stay away from Skadi Empire as much as possible.

Located nearly a million kilometers away from Earth, Durban stood isolated yet untouchable. Its distance made direct retaliation from outer resistance forces a logistical nightmare. Even the mighty fleets of the Skadi Empire took days—sometimes weeks—to mobilize and reach rebel territories like Earth.

That was Durban’s Weakness.

And now, a whisper spread across the slums and palaces alike.

Earth had risen.

And somewhere in the shadows of the imperial halls, someone began to take notice.

---

Imperial Palace...

The grand hall of the Skadi Imperial Palace was vast enough to house a floating warship. Silver-black statues of past emperors lined the blood-crystal walls, their lifelike eyes forever watching. At the very center, atop a dais sculpted from the bones of extinct beasts, sat a boy who looked no older than seven.

He had pale blue skin. Short, snowy hair. Crimson eyes that gleamed with a predator’s mind.

He was the Current Emperor of Skadi.

Despite his childish appearance, no one in the room dared meet his gaze for more than a second. Ministers bowed until their foreheads bled. High generals knelt with trembling hearts. Even the palace beasts—massive things bred from war and sorcery—refused to snarl in his presence.

Because everyone knew:

He was not his father.

He was far worse.

Vicious beyond comprehension. Brilliant beyond calculation. His mind had once designed a strategy that annihilated three planets in a single cycle. And unlike the late emperor, who ruled with power and tradition, this child ruled with cunning and fear.

A holographic projection flickered into existence before him.

The face of a dead envoy. Burnt. Twisted. But smiling.

A single name glowed above the image:

Igaris Vance – Earthborn.

The silence was suffocating.

"...Igaris," the boy-emperor murmured, voice light as wind yet cold enough to make hearts seize.

"Earth. That discarded world? The one my father conquered with a spare fleet?" he said, tilting his head slightly. He leaned forward, eyes narrowed. "You’re telling me that some roach from a collapsed noble house managed to unite that trash-heap... and slaughter my soldiers?"

An advisor stepped forward, shivering. "Y-Your Majesty... there are rumors that this Igaris has absorbed an entire planet’s energies. He’s achieved Apex Rank, or maybe higher that. The reports say he has subdued powerful systems and even taken Skadi technology. Several state leaders—five that we know of—are said to be in secret contact with him."

The emperor leaned back.

His lips curled upward into a smile. A terrible, sharp smile.

"Apex Rank, you say?" he giggled softly. "What an adorable insect. No wonder the dog in Solana State burned the envoy. But five states allying in secret?"

He waved his tiny hand lazily.

"Send the Shadow Regiment. Let them rip apart the leaders’ families across the five worlds. Quietly. Remind those fools what loyalty means."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"And as for this... Igaris," the young-emperor whispered, eyes gleaming with bloodlust. "I want everything on him. His bloodline. His history. What color his bones are when they burn. Bring me his mother’s heart if she’s alive. If not... dig it out from her grave."

He rose slowly, his seven-year-old frame casting a long, monstrous shadow across the throne room.

"Let him rise. Let him think he’s an emperor."

The temperature dropped to a terrifying chill.

"Because when I crush him... the Orca will see what happens to those who defy me."