Chapter 69 – The One Who Gave Back the Name
The throne hall had never known silence like this.
The great double doors creaked open, gilded with the Empire's sun sigil, and though dozens stood inside—the Emperor, the Crown Prince, the Empress, the nobles, the generals, the Pillars—no one dared to speak.
No fanfare announced him.
No herald called his name.
But the silence shifted—as if the air itself bowed.
And then he entered.
Sirius von Ross.
Two years gone.
But not returned.
Ascended.
He had always been beautiful, yes. Otherworldly. Unreachable. But now… now there was no word for what he had become. No mortal shape had the right to wear that face. No noble lineage could explain the way light bent around him.
His silver hair had grown past his waist, darker at the roots with shades of black like threads of night woven through starlight. It trailed behind him in slow, fluid ripples, as if the air held its breath to avoid disturbing it.
His features—once sharp and cold with youth—had matured into something impossible. The line of his jaw, the cut of his cheekbones, the calm gravity of his crimson eyes… all of it sang with a kind of perfection that felt dangerous to look at for too long.
He looked more beautiful than any woman—yet not even slightly feminine.
No softness.
Only elegance.
Only power.
Only distance.
He walked like one who did not need permission. Like the very marble beneath his boots remembered his footsteps. He did not wear armor. He wore dark layers of ceremonial cloth lined in silver thread, simple but regal. Impossibly clean despite his long absence. And he carried no weapon—but no one mistook that for vulnerability.
The moment his presence entered the Court, it was as though reality shifted slightly.
The Empress's lips parted—but she said nothing.
The Crown Prince, arms crossed, uncrossed them slowly without realizing.
The nobles in their jeweled seats stiffened. A few lowered their eyes. One duchess muttered a prayer.
He kept walking.
Every gaze turned to him as if drawn by gravity.
But his crimson eyes passed over all of them like winter fog.
Until they reached the man standing near the front of the dais.
The Grand Duke of Ross.
His father.
And then—for the first time in two years—Sirius paused.
His expression didn't change.
But something in the silence broke.
He stepped forward. One pace. Then another.
And before the eyes of the Imperial Court, without a word, Sirius crossed the final steps—and pulled his father into a quiet, firm embrace.
The Grand Duke froze.
Then breathed in once.
And closed his eyes.
No words were exchanged. None were needed. The embrace lasted no more than five seconds, but in it lived all the silent years. All the understanding. All the pain. All the pride.
When they separated, Sirius turned away.
He did not look toward his mother.
Not once.
Not even for a second.
The coldness of it struck sharper than any insult. Even the Empress noticed the slight curve in the Grand Duchess's lips fall into something bitter.
Sirius passed by her as if she didn't exist.
His steps were quiet. But each one felt deliberate—like a page being turned in a book the court was too slow to read.
He stopped ten paces before the throne.
He did not bow.
But he lowered his chin, respectfully.
"Your Majesty."
The Emperor leaned slightly forward.
Sirius's voice—no longer youthful, no longer clipped—was velvet over stone. Deep and clear. He had always spoken like someone above them. Now he spoke like someone who had seen beyond them.
"I did not come to reclaim anything," he said, calmly. "I came to return something."
A murmur ran through the nobility. The Pillars sat straighter. The Empress narrowed her gaze.
The Emperor, ever still, only watched.
Sirius's eyes—crimson, steady—met the throne's.
"My position," he said. "As one of the Ten Pillars."
"I return it freely."
Silence.
As if the words could not be absorbed fast enough.
The Crown Prince blinked, startled.
The Minister of Defense stood halfway, then sat again.
Even the Court Mage, long his quiet rival, leaned forward to listen.
"You no longer wish to serve the Empire?" the Emperor asked, his voice even.
"I never served the Empire for power," Sirius replied. "Or name. I served because I was needed."
"But now," he said, softly, "I am something that cannot serve by standing still."
"And what is it you seek now, Sirius von Ross?"
The nobles leaned in. All of them. Even the Empress now watched with unveiled focus.
Sirius answered with a truth colder than frost and brighter than fire.
"I have reached the peak of swordsmanship. The final threshold of magic. There is nothing more in courtly service that will challenge me."
"I do not ask for reward."
"I ask for freedom."
"Freedom to train. To search. To discover what lies beyond the edge of mastery."
The silence that followed was heavy. Not resistant.
Staggered.
Then the Emperor said, "And what if I refuse?"
Sirius tilted his head, not arrogant—curious.
"Then I will ask one question."
His eyes met the ruler's.
"Are you not curious, Your Majesty?"
"…Curious about what comes after a Grand Sword Master?"
"After a Ninth-Class Magician?"
His voice dropped lower.
"My father was the first human to reach the summit of the sword. I am the only one to reach both heights."
A pause.
"Surely you wonder," Sirius murmured, "what might come next."
The silence trembled.
And then—
The Emperor, the ruler of the known world, a man who had broken kingdoms in silence—smiled.
Just slightly.
And then gave a single, imperceptible nod.
The matter was decided.
Sirius von Ross turned without ceremony.
The court did not applaud. Could not speak.
The nobles sat stunned. The generals shifted. The Crown Prince stared at his departing back, jaw clenched in something unreadable.
And Sirius's mother—
—stood in the shadows of that throne room, unnoticed, unseen.
Left behind by the son who had already outgrown the world.