.4 - His nominal ’husband’

The vast amount of information he had just been given about the Rhine family was too complicated, and Xue Ling had to process for a long time before properly digesting it all.

He muttered to the system, “What’s going on in this world? Why are there so many strange settings? This body seemed like a normal omega when you showed its stats, other than having very good mental and physical strength, there was nothing odd. Why is his life and death related to the Empire?"

“Maybe he exists as a key.” The system hypothesized. “We can guess that perhaps the original body was a key to the most powerful weapon in the Empire. As long as he was still there, there was a chance that the weapon could be unlocked, so the Zerg would not dare to go too far. But once he died, that weapon would disappear along with the destruction of the Rhine family, and the Zerg would have nothing holding them back."

Xue Ling rubbed his chin and felt that there was some weight to this hypothesis. At least, it made more sense than the conclusion that he was born to save the universe.

“So, what kind of weapon is it?" he asked.

The system stayed quiet. It had only been sharing its thoughts and had no idea how to answer its host.

“All right.” Xue Ling felt rather helpless. The settings of this world were really a bit strange, but since he couldn’t figure it out he could only continue with his current plans. In any case, there would be no accidents as long as he stayed alive. People in this world generally lived longer, so he had enough time to find the truth.

After sorting out his plans, Xue Ling discovered that tomorrow was already the time when he was supposed to meet the ’ancestor’ of the royal family with the old King. To tell the truth, he was very interested in the forbidden area of the palace and what it was that the old Emperor had kept quiet about...

A night of sleep passed by quickly. Xue Ling woke up early the next day, so he went to greet the old King early. They had breakfast together before the old King led him underground.

The palace covered a very large amount of land, but it was still not as vast as the underground area. Xue Ling was somewhat surprised by the technological development of this world as the underground dungeons seemed to be even more magnificent and comprehensive than the palace above ground.

They went through innumerable secret doors and various tunnels, twisting and turning until Xue Ling felt a little dizzy before finally arriving in front of a large hall.

The solemn-faced old King commanded his attendants to withdraw before biting his finger, squeezing out a drop of blood to draw out a rune with stiff movements. His actions seemed to have used up a lot of his strength, and his face turned a little grey.

Xue Ling was worried and wanted to help him, but the old King signaled for him to stay where he was.

The rune condensed in the air and rushed forward after it was completed, transmitting directly into the door before letting out dazzling rays of light.

Xue Ling was somewhat blinded by the flash. He stretched out a hand to block the light, and therefore did not notice when the light landed on him and he subsequently also began to glow.

This scene went unnoticed by the old King. When the door was fully opened, he gestured for Xue Ling to follow him inside.

After ascending ninety-nine steps, they finally entered the main hall.

The decoration in main hall was incredibly resplendent, but on the very top of the dais where the throne should be, a rectangular object was placed there instead.

Xue Ling was somewhat surprised because the shape of object was very similar to that of a coffin. Had a corpse been placed here?

It turned out that it was not a corpse. The old King led him all the way up as he explained, “This is the first and only Emperor of the Empire.”

Just as he finished his words, a young man appeared before Xue Ling’s eyes.

Xue Ling really wanted to ask, what kind of joke is this?!! This was the founding Emperor? Hadn’t everyone said that he was a figure from over seven hundred years ago? Although people in this world could live for longer, that only meant that they could live over a hundred and would still be unable to reach two hundred! Were they really saying that this man who was lying here sleeping with a ruddy complexion actually was the ancient Emperor from seven hundred years ago? Even if this world had even more sexes, they would not turn into demons! This life span was totally on par with that of demons!

Seeming to understand that Xue Ling was thinking, the old King helplessly added, “I was also shocked when I saw the Emperor for the first time, but you’ll get used to it after a few times."

Although Xue Ling was still cursing in his heart, his face remained calm, and he even showed a little curiosity as was befitting of the younger generation, asking, “I have read the history books, but what happened to cause the Emperor’s disappearance? He looks to be quite young?"

The old King pursed his lips and said, “It’s not like that...”

“Eh?”

“According to the records handed down from our ancestors, it seems that he chose to put himself into a frozen state.” The old king sighed, “He was the strongest alpha in the Empire, so strong that he could not find his most beloved omega, and he did not love any beta, so he froze himself to wait for his lover to come into this world."

Xue Ling: “...”

????????

“He was too capricious, and no one was able to stop him. Back then, his followers could only make plans and do the best they could to ensure that he could sleep safely until now." The old King’s face was dull as he recalled the first time he had heard this story. At the time, he also wanted to curse his own ancestor. "According to what has been passed down, he will only wake up when he sees his lover. But this is the imperial mausoleum, and nobody other than the royal family will come in to see him, so he has remained frozen this entire time."

Xue Ling didn’t want to talk about this troublesome ancestor any more. He silently glanced at him again as he thought to himself that this man looked good, and was handsome, but it was useless since there was a problem with his brain.

After leaving the main hall, the old king brought Xue Ling to the other halls. Each hall held a previous king of the Empire, and they were all famous figures in the Empire’s history books. Only here could one see the marks left behind by their existence after they had left the world.

All the kings were buried with their loved ones. In a sense, the Empire’s royal family was especially loyal to their loved ones, but this was a type of loyalty that Xue Ling would probably have no chance to understand.

His ’husband’ was anxious for his death, and would definitely not be loyal.

After leaving the forbidden area, Xue Ling was full of vigor, and vented with the system for a good while before finally tucking away the previous expectations that had been in his heart.

What he did not know was that the light that had fallen on him previously did not disappear even after he left the underground palace. That night, while Xue Ling had already closed his eyes and was sleeping soundly, there was still a glow of light on his body.

At the same time, after they had stepped out from the forbidden area, the man who had been in a frozen sleep actually opened his eyes.

His eyes were a deep blue, like the deep ocean. If one looked carefully, they seemed to be filled with stars.

Normally, this palace was left empty, and the royal family only came once every ten or so years, so nobody discovered it when the ice coffin that had been placed on the top dais of the main hall suddenly broke open.

Over the years, not even the tiniest speck of dust had ever fallen onto this ice coffin, but it suddenly shattered and broke into countless pieces. And the man who was responsible for this was now leaning lazily against the wall with his hand raised to lightly massage his forehead.

There was a blinking nano-computer on his wrist. It was a seven hundred year old model, but it still magically started and soon began to update itself.

[ Established contact with the main server. Beginning connection with the main server and taking charge of all the main server’s permissions. ]

[ ... 100%... Permissions linkage completed. You are now in control of the Empire Star Network’s main server. Beginning transmission of the past 700 years of history. ]

Seven hundred years?

The man raised his eyebrows. So it turned out that he had been lying here for seven hundred years?

Hm, he had really waited a very long time for that person.

The man stretched, and then once again leaned back lazily, letting the nano-computer directly transmit the accumulated information and changes that had occurred over the past seven hundred years to him.

The palace was very quiet in the middle of the night. Xue Ling jolted awake from his sleep for no apparent reason and touched his suddenly feverish forehead. He frowned, finding it somewhat strange.

It didn’t make sense. Why would he suddenly get sick...

Soon, news of the Princess’ illness spread all over the palace. Doctors rushed over, and even the old King got up from his sleep to come and comfort Xue Ling.

Xue Ling was somewhat confused from the fever, and could not clearly tell who was in front of him. His miserable little appearance made all the visitors very distressed, and quite a few of them even began to curse the Prince again.

Warren stayed by his younger brother’s side overnight and once again renewed his determination to stay with Ashley.

Luther was definitely not a trustworthy person. If he were to hand Ashley over to him, he would absolutely destroy his younger brother.

As he looked towards their newly arrived parents, Warren made an approximate decision on which direction to go.

Xue Ling’s fever lasted all night and gradually faded away on the morning of the next day. The doctor was unable to find out what caused it, and could only prescribe some anti-fever drugs, but his fever disappeared even before he could take them, confounding the doctors.

When Xue Ling woke up, he was told by the system that his spiritual and physical strength had been upgraded even further. Before, he already had good spiritual and physical strength, but now, he was most likely the first SSS ranked spiritual power omega. His physique had also broken through from B rank to A rank, and it seemed that there was still hidden potential for improvement.

“System, what’s going on?”

The system examined its host’s body again, but could not come to any conclusions. It could only speculate, "It should be that the host’s body’s self-protection mechanism has kicked in. You will encounter a stronger and more fearsome existence, so your body was upgraded again."

Xue Ling did not fully understand what the system had said, but chose not to ask too much since it was a good thing regardless.

His sudden illness made the old King feel even more guilty towards him, and he agreed with Warren’s request to provide Ashley with further training. Xue Ling no longer had time to think too much, either. He went straight into special training as soon as he left the palace in order to adapt to using the mecha as soon as possible.

Warren initially disapproved of his move to practice with mecha, but acquiesced after seeing his fitness report. Although he was sure that his younger brother was an omega, with his physique, he could definitely do better than most alphas.

Xue Ling also trained desperately, learning about everything related to mecha and interplanetary warfare extremely quickly, surprising the teachers who were assigned to teach him.

Although Xue Ling had lived for a long time, he had never come across a world set in the future. The world he had lived in before had been set in the 21st century where space travel had not been developed, and the world where he transmigrated to afterwards that seemed to have been his birth place had similarly not developed space travel, although science and technology were further advanced. He had read a lot of interstellar fiction, but those things were fabricated. It was clear that personally experiencing and learning these things was much more exciting.

Xue Ling’s learning ability was very fierce, and his enthusiasm for learning was also very large. He even felt that this kind of continuous transmigration through worlds has finally begun to be fun. If he travelled to a few more different worlds, he could definitely learn many things that he had not been able to do before.

The days seemed to pass by as he was immersed in his studies. Half a month later, the "grievous" news that Xue Ling had been waiting for finally arrived.

His nominal husband, the Empire’s Prince, suffered from an ambush by the Zerg on the front line. His troops suffered heavy losses, while his own mecha was damaged and his whereabouts were unknown.

Xue Ling clapped his hands together, his face full of joy at the Prince’s misfortune.

The system had to prompt him twice before he finally restrained his smile and made full use of the acting skills he had acquired from his previous life as the Film Emperor, looking both anxious and sad as he went to the old King’s palace. At the same time, he contacted the public relations representative of the royal family.

Today, the battle between him and the Prince had officially began.

editors: alamerysl & BlueBug