A rhythmic thud of boots echoed against the marble as two rows of eight royal guards marched into the room, flanking the door like iron statues.
"Make way for His Majesty, King Aerendyl Sylvaerion!"
Entering the room was King Aerendyl. Grey hair and mustache, tall bulkier wearing heavy armor, longer than normal elven ears, blue eyes, and a staff.
The room froze. The King entered with a cape of woven starlight trailing behind him, followed by his personal elite knights. His eyes immediately locked onto the High Elf.
"Lady Alara," the King's voice boomed, heavy with suspicion. "Explain this madness. First, a mana spike that rattled the palace windows, and now you summon me to your private quarters to find a strange boy in your bed?"
Beneath the silk covers, Zenith's heart hammered, but he kept his breathing shallow. He was awake.
"Your Majesty," Alara began, her eyes gleaming with a scientific hunger she could barely mask. "I found him in the Forbidden Woods to the south. His magical signature didn't just appear; it ignited. It acted as a beacon, pulsing with a frequency I have never recorded in all my years of research."
A murmur rippled through the knights. The Forbidden Woods were a death trap for adults, let alone a child.
"On what scale?" the King demanded, stepping closer to the bed.
Alara lowered her voice, a chill spreading through the room. "The output was... chaotic. Unrefined. But if I had to estimate? It surpassed Level 1,500."
"Impossible!" a knight shouted, his hand flying to his sword hilt.
The King paled. In this era, a child was lucky to hit Level 15. A medium-tier adult peaked at 300. To suggest a six-year-old held the power of a walking natural disaster was heresy.
The chamber erupted. Knights clashed with the royal scholars who had flooded the room, their voices rising in a panicked cacophony over the sleeping boy.
"SILENCE!"
The King's voice cut through the cacophony like a guillotine. He stood at the foot of the bed, his shadow stretching long over Zenith's small, still form.
"We are not children brawling in a tavern," Aerendyl snapped, his eyes flashing with a cold, royal fire. "Lady Alara, this room is no longer your private quarters. It is now a Council Chamber. Guards, bar the doors. No one enters or leaves until we have an answer for this... anomaly."
He turned to his lead knight, his eyes never leaving the small, silent boy on the bed. "Summon the Crown Prince. Contact the Ruling Council, the High Mages, and the Prime Ministers. We are convening an emergency Council of Arms."
A heavy silence fell over the room as the weight of the command settled.
"Tell them the fate of the Sylvaerion Kingdom may have just landed in our laps," the King whispered, his voice cold. "And it has the face of a child."
As the high-ranking officials began to scramble, the room grew stifling. Under the covers, Zenith kept his eyes squeezed shut, his mind racing.
The Ruling Council? Prime Ministers?
He had only been awake for an hour, and already the 'low-level' leaders of this new world were treating him like a ticking mana-bomb.
One by one, the heavy golden doors groaned open as those summoned by the King began to file in.
First came the heir to the throne. Prince Arthur entered with an elegance that bordered on arrogance, the holy-looking sword on his back humming with a faint, righteous light that seemed to pulse in time with his steady stride. Behind him trailed his brothers—Valeryn, whose dark hair and sharp, sky-blue gaze missed nothing as he scanned the room, and Aerion, the youngest, whose long blonde hair and thoughtful expression made him look more like a scholar than a warrior.
Soon followed the High Mages, a mix of ambitious court sorcerers and the elite disciples of the Ruling Council members.
As the six ancient elves of the Council entered, the temperature in the room seemed to drop. These were beings who had walked the earth for twelve thousand years—beings who had once stood as the proud retainers of a forgotten throne.As they approached the bed, the eldest member of the Council stopped dead in his tracks. His nostrils flared, catching a lingering scent in the air—the smell of ancient Aetherian incense and a mana frequency that shouldn't exist in this diminished age. His weathered hands began to visibly tremble, and he cast a panicked, wide-eyed look toward his colleagues.
"Silence!" the King thundered, his voice cutting through the growing panic. "Lady Alara, explain."
As Alara recounted the events in the Forbidden Woods, the room turned into a viper's nest.
"A child with Level 1,500 mana?" Crown Prince Arthur stepped forward, his hand white-knuckled on his sword hilt.
"He is a walking catastrophe. We should seal his core and throw him into the dungeon until we know his origin.""Think of the breakthroughs!" a High Mage countered, eyes wide with greed.
"Siphoning even a fraction of that Aetherian-grade mana would make our military invincible!"
The King looked toward the silent Ruling Council. "My esteemed Council, what are your thoughts?"
The six ancient elves exchanged haunted looks. Finally, the eldest, Rigurd, spoke with a trembling voice. "Your Majesty... it is too soon to say. But a new age is upon us."
"That is not an answer!" the King roared. "Your King demands the truth!"
The room erupted into chaos. The scholars began debating how to peer into the boy's mind, while one Minister suggested hunting down his family for experimentation.
Under the covers, the "child" could listen no longer.
Suddenly, the room went bone-chillingly cold. The candles flickered and died, plunged into a sudden, oppressive shadow.
[System: Stealth Protocol Deactivated. Initiating 'Prince's Presence'.]
Zenith sat up slowly. His eyes, though housed in a six-year-old face, held the weight of ten thousand years."
Is this how the 'kings' of this era treat a guest?" Zenith's voice was small, yet it echoed with the authority of an empire.
"How... disappointing. Your hospitality leaves much to be desired, King Aerendyl."
"How dare you!" Arthur lunged, his holy sword swinging in a golden arc toward the bed.
BANG!
A shimmering barrier erupted around Zenith—a Tactical-Grade Aetherian Shield. To Zenith, it was a basic cantrip. To the court, it was a dense, impenetrable wall of solid mana.
Arthur's blade bounced off the shield as if hitting a mountain.
"Impossible!"
Arthur gasped, his arms numbed by the recoil.
Zenith stood on the oversized bed, looking down at them. "I am Zenith Aetherian. Prince of the Aetherian Empire."
The name hit the room like a physical shock. The Aetherian Empire was a myth, a ghost story from the dawn of time.
The King turned to the Council, his face pale. "Rigurd... tell me he is lying."
Rigurd stepped forward, his knees hitting the floor as he knelt before the six-year-old. The other five councilors followed suit, their heads bowed in shame.
"Long ago," Rigurd whispered, "the Great Empire of Aetherion ruled all. We were the Prince's chosen retainers. On a fateful night, we were lured away by a false summons... and when we returned, the palace was ash and the Prince was gone."
Rigurd looked up, tears streaming down his ancient face. "The war that destroyed the world wasn't fought for land or gold, Your Majesty. It was fought for the birth of this child."
The King's voice shook as he looked at his own advisors on their knees. "What... what implications does this have, Rigurd?"
Rigurd didn't look up. His forehead was pressed against the cold stone floor. "The implications are unimaginable, Your Majesty. By Imperial Law, he outranks every soul in this room by lifetimes. You should be bowing with us."
"This is foolishness!" Prince Arthur roared, his face turning a deep crimson as he struggled against an invisible weight. "He is a child! I will not kneel to a—"
Arthur's words died in his throat. Throughout the room, the scholars and High Mages began to sweat. A primal instinct, buried deep in their elven blood, was screaming at them to drop.
Zenith watched them with cold indifference. He realized they were only seeing a fraction of his truth. It was time to show them why the world once trembled.
'Concealment Skill: Deactivate.'
[System: Deactivating Passive Skill 'Imperial Shroud'... Successful.]
BOOM.
It wasn't an explosion of fire, but an explosion of Presence. The air turned into solid lead. The King, the Princes, and every guard in the hallway slammed into the floor as if a mountain had just dropped onto their shoulders.
Necks strained. Teeth wheezed. The "Magic Kingdom" was being crushed by the mere existence of a six-year-old.
"You speak of dungeons and experiments," Zenith said, his voice echoing in the sudden, terrified silence. "But you forget. You are standing in the ruins of my garden. And I do not remember giving you permission to build your shacks upon it."