Long ago, a philosopher from the North once said that a person must pass through five stages to accept a shocking truth.

• First comes denial.

“You’re abandoning the North?” the Emperor asked, staring at his son in disbelief. “Just now you were yelling at the ministers who dared suggest such a thing. Aziel, this is no time for jokes.”

The prince, calm and unflinching, met his father’s eyes.

“You said we must not abandon the North, and yet you now speak of its destruction. Destruction and rebuilding? What madness is that?”

• Next comes anger.

“Your Highness! Say something! We’ve fought together, sword in hand, through the bitterest storms. We swore with mana-bound oaths to protect the North. But no part of that oath included destroying it!”

“Enough smiling. Explain yourself. What do you mean by such words? Destroy it? You speak of destruction as if it were a casual notion. That’s worse than abandonment!”

• Then bargaining.

“You must have meant something else. I’ve jumped to conclusions, haven’t I? This old knight got ahead of himself. You must have a deeper meaning behind your words.”

“Yes, Lucar’s right,” the Emperor agreed, rubbing his temples. “You’re not a fool. There’s some plan behind all this, surely. It was such a wild metaphor it threw us off. We’re listening now. Explain.”

The scribe watching all this trembled, uncertain how to record the scene. How could he possibly summarize the sequence of expressions between father and son, or the reactions of a knight once known as the Empire’s strongest? Denial, fury, negotiation… all directed at a single man who stood tall and composed.

And then the prince said calmly, without flinching:

“It is exactly as I said. I plan to destroy the North, and rebuild it from the ashes.”

The scribe’s pen stopped again. He had never, in all his years, imagined he would witness such a moment,a prince speaking casually of destroying a region of the Empire while the Emperor and a legendary knight watched in stunned silence.

• Fourth comes depression.

The once-furious knight Lucar now lowered his gaze. “I was a fool… I shouldn’t have believed in him.”

The Emperor sighed, weary. “Supporting Aziel was a mistake. All this time… it was a mistake.”

They sat in quiet despair, as if mourning something that hadn’t yet happened.

The prince allowed them their grief. He let their silence linger. He savored the shift of emotion. And only once they had sunk fully into despair did he speak again.

“The North will fall regardless.”

Those words struck like a blade, reopening every wound in the room. Denial returned. So did rage. More attempts at understanding. And still, the prince stood unmoved.

“It is already too late,” he continued. “Too much rot festers beneath the snow. Too much filth buried under the ice.”

He described the North’s condition in detail,the smothering magical seals layered over the Founding Flame, the dangerous instability of the flame’s containment, the rising unrest among the people, the corruption of the administrative structure, the entrenched networks of bribes and betrayals. The deeper he went, the more somber the Emperor and Lucar grew.

Of course they had known.

They had simply ignored it.

The decay was centuries old. No one wanted to dig through it. Not when it seemed easier to let time bury the problem.

But even if not now,someday,the North would collapse.

And that was Aziel’s conclusion.

The scribe, shaken from his stunned state, began to write furiously,not in the Empire’s official annals, but in the yasa, the unofficial chronicles scribes recorded for posterity when history alone could not capture the soul of the moment.

[Silence fell over the empty court.

Outside the windows, clouds rolled thick and gray.

No sun pierced the gloom,only a pale hush, like mourning.

It matched the fate of the North, bitter and inevitable.

The prince’s words were harsh, but truths are always bitter.

His voice was cold as snowfall and clear as prophecy.

He meant to kill the North so that it might live again.]

Lucar and the Emperor remained silent, unable to argue.

Aziel spoke again.

“Sometimes it is better to let a failing life end, and begin a new one, rather than pretend it can be saved.”

His crimson lips moved slowly, whispering like wind through the windows. Behind him, the clouded sky stirred. The heavy gray broke for a moment, allowing a sliver of sunlight to cut through.

It fell directly across the prince’s hair, lighting his platinum strands like a halo.

“To watch a tower crumble in sorrow is foolish,” Aziel continued. “Better to bring it down yourself and rebuild it, with purpose. With strength. Let it be rebuilt by our hands,the Empire’s and the North’s.”

The Emperor gazed at his son long and hard.

“And if even that fails?” he asked at last. “Destruction and rebirth,that’s just an idea, Aziel. Dreams crumble under the weight of reality. If your grand plan falls apart, what then?”

Aziel smiled,bright and white and terrible.

“Then I’ll already be dead. So it won’t be my problem.”

It was the most irresponsible, brutally honest answer possible.

Then he turned to Lucar.

“When someone is given a second chance,” he said, “it’s their duty to carry it forward. They must wield that chance like a weapon against fate. It’s not the one who grants the chance who bears responsibility,but the one who inherits it.”

The scribe nearly gasped aloud. He barely kept from writing “A god in mortal form” right there in his notes.

He had read so many accounts of ancient kings and princes, had studied their failures and tragic legacies. Always, always they had chosen safety over vision. Avoided risk for the sake of temporary peace. And time and again, the price had been ruin.

But here was a prince who understood.

This was a man who planned for a future he would not live to see.

And yet he did not flinch.

He dared to change the course of an empire.

“Then when you rebuild,” Aziel said at last, “give it your all. The Imperial House. The Border Counts. Let your resolve be the legacy. The rest will belong to the generations after.”

As he finished speaking, a shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds.

It passed through the high window and landed squarely on his head, casting a gentle radiance over him. It did not brighten the entire court, but it was enough.

Enough for everyone present to feel,

• The Empire had begun to shift.

Finally, the Emperor nodded slowly.

“So be it. Do as you intend.”

“I will,” Aziel answered, bowing his head. “And I thank you, Father.”

Lucar stepped forward as well, shoulders straight. “I will follow the prince’s lead.”

The scribe set down his pen. In the official records, he would write:

Imperial Year 1195: Prince Aziel proposed the destruction and reconstruction of the North. The reigning Emperor Augustus and Swordmaster Lucar Dvorzak accepted the prince’s proposal.

But in his private ledger, he wrote something else entirely … 

[The prince’s will was absolute, unwavering.

He had vision. He had madness.

He would entrust only willpower and environment to the future,not solutions.

Like the Founding Emperor who planted mystery into the North, Aziel sought not to control history,but to give it new roots.

And at that moment, the clouds parted.

Light touched the court,not in brilliance, but as a whisper.

And the hearts of all who saw it began to race.

The fate of the Empire was changing.

And the one who carried that fate… smiled.]