**Chapter Eleven: A True Beginning**
Linder stood before King Nij in the closed room, the air between them charged with invisible tension, like heatwaves rising from a scorching desert. Tall windows allowed sunlight to filter through silk curtains, casting golden streaks on the marble floor and casting strange shadows on the faces of the two confronting kings.
"You won't get this document until we finalize the treaty as agreed," Nij said confidently, pulling a carefully folded paper from his inner pocket, its royal seal glinting under the sunlight.
Linder observed the document with piercing eyes, like a hawk surveying prey from great heights. That document was Nij's greatest asset—Linder's confession to Cain's murder, stamped with his unforgeable royal seal. Nij carried it always, as if it were a talisman shielding him from betrayal.
Linder smiled coldly, the expression never reaching his deep black eyes. "Good that you have it. You've saved me much effort."
Linder took a single step forward, smooth as flowing water. In a flash, a dagger plunged into Nij's chest, piercing cloth, skin, and flesh until it lodged in his heart.
Nij's eyes widened in shock and pain, his fingers spasming around the document still in his hand. "What… are you… doing?" he stammered, blood trickling from his mouth. "You… kill… a king… in his own kingdom?"
"This kingdom will no longer be yours," Linder whispered into his ear, his voice calm as a night breeze but cold as death itself.
As Nij breathed his last, his life flashed before his eyes—his impoverished childhood, his struggle for power, his betrayal of King Nork, and finally, his pact with this devil in human form. He regretted only one thing: dealing with Linder, believing even briefly he could outmaneuver a being forged by a millennium of cunning and deceit.
Linder pried the document from Nij's limp hand, folded it carefully, and tucked it into his inner pocket near his heart. He withdrew his dagger, wiped it with a white silk cloth, and let the corpse slump slowly to the floor.
At that very moment, as if signaled, shouts and chaos erupted outside the palace. Two hundred men, disguised as commoners, had infiltrated the city near the palace. These were no ordinary people but soldiers handpicked and trained by Linder himself for a week.
Linder had chosen each one, scrutinizing their eyes, reading their pasts, testing their loyalty. He planted seeds of revenge and hatred for Kuandor in them, leveraging his millennia of understanding human psychology and hidden motives.
They descended on the palace guards like starving wolves, with precision and coordination that couldn't stem from a week's training—it was the product of a military mind honed through centuries of battle.
Then came the palace occupants. Linder's orders were clear and ruthless: leave no one alive—not servants, cooks, or guards. No witnesses, no evidence, no traces of his secret pact with Kings Nork and Nij.
The massacre was horrifying by any measure. Blood splattered ornate walls like a grim abstract painting; screams echoed through corridors like a symphony of agony; bodies littered marble floors like autumn leaves.
Linder exited the room, his eyes carrying infinite emptiness, twin abysses of darkness. Had anyone else witnessed this sight, they might have fainted from horror. But Linder had seen far worse in his thousand trials—entire villages wiped out, cities burned to ash, corpses burned before his bound eyes.
To him, blood was merely another color, death a transition, and screams background noise in life's harsh symphony.
Amid the palace chaos, Abindor's army, led by the veteran commander and Ned, breached the capital's walls. Soldiers spread in small groups, moving with precision, exploiting the disarray following their king's death.
Abindor's army was the mightiest of the Five Kingdoms, highly trained and equipped with the finest weapons. Kuandor's chaos allowed them to swiftly breach defenses and occupy strategic positions.
By sunset, Abindor's banner—a golden eagle over a towering mountain—fluttered above Kuandor's palace, heralding a new era.
Linder had achieved the impossible: conquering Kuandor and uniting it under his rule. He now ruled two kingdoms, the strongest force in the Five Kingdoms' history.
Seven years passed since that fateful day—seven years of Linder's rule over the united realms.
These were years of profound change and radical transformation. Linder ruled with an iron fist, strengthening his army into an invincible force, governing with ruthless rigidity toward rebellion or dissent.
Yet he also ushered in unprecedented prosperity. Cities were built, roads paved, trade flourished, and arts and sciences thrived. A true renaissance, albeit forged in blood and iron.
Initially, Linder aspired to unite all Five Kingdoms, but witnessing the prosperity achieved and presiding over history's strongest realm, he saw no need for further wars—perhaps wisdom from his long trials or weariness from millennia of strife.
During these years, Linder formed a family. He married a princess from a neighboring kingdom, fathering three sons and two daughters. Despite everything, these were his happiest years.
Linder cherished prosperity, pursuing it relentlessly. Yet he remained merciless toward rebellion or betrayal. If a village harbored rebels, he razed it entirely—men, women, children—as a warning.
His rule was a strange blend of prosperity and terror, progress and oppression, civilization and savagery—a reflection of his complex, contradictory persona, tempered by a millennium of divergent experiences.
Now, sixty years into the trial, seventy-six-year-old Linder lay on his deathbed.
His frail body lay on a lavish royal bed draped in blue silk embroidered with gold. The dim golden glow of dozens of candles lit the faces around him—his children, grandchildren, statesmen, and doctors powerless against death's grip.
Linder's face was pale, cheekbones protruding under thin skin, his deep-set black eyes still piercing, probing depths beyond sight.
As he neared death, one bitter truth consumed him: *This was his final trial.* He'd lived a millennium, endured dozens of trials, died and been reborn countless times. But now, he felt this was the true end—no awakening in a new body, world, or trial.
"Was anything I did truly meaningful?" he whispered, voice weaker than a breeze. "What's the point if death is the end? Even if I achieved all I dreamed, I'd still die. Not all endings are satisfying…"
Perhaps this despair stemmed from knowing this was his last trial, that he'd truly die now. Or maybe it was exhaustion from a millennium of suffering and struggle.
Yet amid this despair, he recalled words from a past trial: *"Not all endings are happy, but between start and end, something worth living for always exists."*
Linder gazed at his family's faces—those bearing his likeness, those who'd inherit his legacy. Suddenly, he decided to leave final words—not wisdom or love, but raw, bitter truth tempered by a thousand years of betrayal and pain.
"Perhaps you don't love me," he said hoarsely but clearly, "because I never knew how to show love. But it doesn't matter. I don't care about your feelings. I die, you live—why mourn you? To hell with you all."
The attendees' eyes widened in shock, heavy silence filling the room. But Linder no longer cared. He closed his eyes, surrendering to the darkness engulfing his consciousness.
Yet instead of eternal void, a voice echoed in his mind—unheard for sixty years:
**"Trial Commencing."**
**"Duration: None."**
Linder never expected to hear those words again. His eyes snapped open in shock—he was somewhere entirely new.
"He's born!"
An eight-year-old boy shouted excitedly, pointing at a newborn swaddled in soft white cloth, barely stirring in his father's arms.
The middle-aged man, with thick black hair and a neatly trimmed blond beard, cradled the newborn with mixed pride and bewilderment. His eyes shimmered with joy, awe, and faint anxiety.
"He's beautiful…" the man murmured, marveling at the child. "His hair is white as snow, eyes emerald green… as if woven from light itself."
Then he frowned in confusion. "But… why isn't he crying?"
Moments of heavy silence passed. No cries, no wails—no sound at all from the newborn.
Instead, the child—Linder—was thinking.
*Where am I? Didn't I just die? Wasn't that the final trial?*
Suddenly, a calm, deep voice, not of this world, pierced his mind:
**"Trial concluded. This is your reward. Henceforth, your journey begins… to attain what you desire."**
But what captivated Linder most wasn't the voice—it was his surroundings. He was in a tavern, not a palace or hut. The tavern bustled with noise and movement, and the man holding him—his apparent father—was its owner.
As he processed this, he overheard a nearby conversation between two men:
"Did you really buy a star for three thousand coins?" one asked curiously.
"Yes, a Myth Mana star—offensive, fire-aligned," the other replied proudly. "But refining it's tough since I'm at the mid-stage of the Self-Manifestation Rank."
This final sentence made Linder suspect something monumental. *Stars? Myth Mana? Self-Manifestation Rank?* These terms were alien to all his past trials.
Suddenly, Linder realized he wasn't in an ordinary world this time. He was in a realm of magic and supernatural power—a world utterly different from any he'd known.
The newborn smiled eerily, unnaturally for an infant, and whispered inwardly: *"This is truly a wonderful reward."*
This was the true beginning of everything—a new journey in a new world, with new rules and limitless possibilities.
**To be continued...**
This is the true beginning of the novel. The previous ten chapters were just a brief summary of Leander's life before his birth into the world of magic, cultivation, beasts, and sects. The story will now go on a break and return on July 20th. Please wait patiently. I will pour all my effort, passion, and hard work into this novel.
The novel will return on 20 / 7 / 2025