In the eighty-seventh year of the Empire’s calendar, the aging second Emperor Lindrick had a dream.
He dreamed that he returned to his childhood, when the Emperor and Empress were still alive, providing a vast sky for his younger self.
Although the outside world hailed the Emperor as great and the Empress as kind and wise, Lindrick knew that even in their official duties, the Emperor would secretly read novels and comics published by his Aunt Lilith, and the Empress would take his younger siblings to play in the Royal Palace, particularly enjoying riding bicycles.
The two of them would occasionally, like ordinary folks from the countryside, set up a campfire and roast ducks.
In the dream, Lindrick found himself crouching in the Royal Palace, using the most rudimentary equipment to roast wild ducks alongside the Emperor. However, young Lindrick did not enjoy this family gathering because he always felt his mother put in too much seasoning, and it left his hands greasy and made cleanup a hassle.
Moreover, as the heir to the Empire, crouching on the ground to eat roasted duck seemed too childish for someone of Lindrick’s age. He had dreams of inheriting the Emperor’s glory, fully developing the Pangu Continent, and going forth to conquer, to explore, to embark on a journey to the stars.
How could someone with such dreams crouch on the ground eating roasted duck?
Yet in the dream, Lindrick enjoyed it immensely. It was the first time he found his mother’s roasted duck so delicious that he began to cry while eating, and when he looked up again, the faces of the Emperor and Empress had already grown unclear.
“Is it good?”
The Emperor’s dignified yet peaceful voice rang in Lindrick’s ears.
“Uh-huh.”
“If you like it, eat more. You used to always have a stern face, just like when you work with your father.”
The Empress’s voice remained as gentle, youthful, and vibrant as before.
“Am I very serious during work?”
“That day in the round table meeting, the fourth prince scared you to tears!”
The two of them laughed and joked as Lindrick had seen before, as if it were always like this, and would forever remain so.
Lindrick was no longer aloof as before; he began to play around with them again, but the appearance of the Emperor and Empress grew increasingly vague, their voices seemed to drift farther away, until Lindrick’s eyes blurred with tears and he realized those voices had already disappeared, and he had woken up.
The Empire had conducted extensive research on dreams, and having learned about this field, Lindrick knew it was his own self-dream. After all, no one would invade the dreams of a retired Emperor; that would serve no purpose.
Since childhood, Lindrick had deeply admired his father, always measuring himself against his father’s state when he was in power, even committing to having only one Empress just like his father.
When he eventually ascended to power, the most important thing was that the first Emperor, wielding the Empire’s supreme power, chose to retire at his peak, smoothly handing the power to Lindrick. Having idolized his father since childhood, Lindrick naturally wanted to emulate him, passing on the power to his eldest son when he felt he had grown old.
However, when the time came for power to be transferred, Lindrick realized how hard it was to let go of that power, and how much determination his father must have had to completely relinquish it to him.
Lindrick cried out. The aging Emperor could no longer clearly remember his father’s features, but he still missed the days when he was the Crown Prince, tirelessly dedicated yet carefree, longing for the days when his father was still young.
When his father left this world, the Emperor had cried like this too. At that time, Lindrick had also felt heartbroken, but only now did he understand why his father, who had once seemed robust, so quickly fell into decline once he departed from this world.
His own end was approaching.
The lifespan of Professionals would extend, and with the current advanced medical standards, if one only wished to live, they could live longer, just like the former Emperor, who could still read newspapers, write articles, and even take the Empress to the Northern Border to check on his grandson, who was then serving as the ruler of the Northern Border.
However, after the passing of the former Emperor, the once vigorous Emperor had overnight become an ordinary old man. Even if the Empire’s medical standards could extend the life of this founding Emperor for several more decades, both the former Emperor and himself knew that continuing to live would merely equate to being a walking corpse. Just like the Empress had refused extreme measures to prolong her life, after completing a few matters, the Emperor finally descended into the depths of the Sea of Consciousness to accompany the Empress.
Lindrick felt that his time was also coming.
At this moment, the bodyguards had heard the commotion and barged into the room, only to see an elderly man, weeping sorrowfully while looking at family photos—a man who had been stable for a lifetime, viewed as the Empire’s best heir, now openly weeping for the first time in his life.
The next day, this second Emperor, who had inherited the Empire’s glory, left the Royal Palace, where he had lived for so long, along with his guards and attendants to solemnly pay homage to the tomb where the former Emperor and Empress were buried together.
In the following two months, after passing on his final wishes to his sons and grandchildren, this successor of the Empire also followed in his father’s footsteps and ventured into the depths of the Sea of Consciousness.
The second Emperor Lindrick is regarded by future generations as the most underrated Emperor.
During Lindrick’s reign, the Empire made significant breakthroughs in communication technology, achieving information transmission across the Sea of Instability, incorporating the Solun Continent as a directly governed territory of the Empire, rather than being under remote control.
Furthermore, Lindrick inherited his father’s will and completed the development of the Pangu Continent alongside the dragonkin. During Lindrick’s time, the Empire pioneered spatial magic, laying the foundation for subsequent journeys into the stars.
Because of Lindrick’s strong relationship with the dragons, akin to the bond his father had with the elves, some unofficial histories in later generations even claimed that Lindrick’s sole Empress transformed into a dragon.
Apart from his connection with dragons, Lindrick has been historically viewed as a ruler who benefited from the legacy of his father, because during Lindrick’s reign, few significant events occurred—only reports of technological advances, which had also been common during the tenure of the first Emperor. Thus, the populace had become accustomed to such progress.
Most people’s impression of Emperor Lindrick is that during this period, personal communication devices became widespread, and personal terminals began to emerge, initiating the foundations for the grand dream network.
Wise ruler and successor are the most common labels for Lindrick, but if one examines the records closely, it reveals that Lindrick is not as kindly and tranquil as he appears; he fully executed the massive and detailed Lars Family Split Plan initiated by the former Emperor, a plan that had already laid foundations when Lindrick governed the Northern Border.
The Lars Knights no longer refer solely to knights of the Lars Family; instead, it became an honorary title for the Empire’s knights and no longer had any substantial connection to the Lars Family.
Many remnants of the old era were completely eradicated during Lindrick’s time. Having dealt with administrative affairs alongside his father since childhood before being assigned to the Northern Border, Lindrick proved to be even more politically astute than his father.
If the founding Emperor Lind’s thunderous methods instilled fear below, Lindrick made others feel grateful for being sold to him. This is also a reason widely recorded in history, considering Lindrick to be a “good person,” as his methods appeared much gentler compared to his father’s.
This emperor, judged by later generations as a model for successors, seemed to constantly murmur something in his final moments—possibly issues regarding certain unresolved remnants of the old era or some strategies or plots he had yet to fulfill, as it appeared to those present that this was more befitting of an emperor.
Only his eldest son heard the last murmurs of this emperor: “Father, Mother, I want to go home with you…”
