Amber Calendar, Year 46.
Amber City, the capital of the Amber Federation in the Amber Central Domain, had a quiet cemetery in its outskirts.
Duke Mel Monochoria, now past seventy, linked arms with his white-haired wife, Annie Xuanfuhua. They had not brought along their children or servants, and the elderly couple quietly entered the cemetery alone.
They carried a large bouquet of flowers.
When they reached a gravestone, they took out a white acacia orchid and bent down to place it before the grave.
Duke Mel crouched down and wiped the photograph on the gravestone. In the black-and-white picture, Marquis Merlin gazed ahead with a faint smile on his lips.
"Lifelong Marquis of the Deep Dream Shadowflame Kingdom, Golden Sparrow Duke of the Amber Federation, Merlin Monochoria rests here. From September 9, Dragon Calendar 5509, to July 16, Amber Calendar 11, Duke Merlin completed his life."
This was the inscription on the monument. Marquis Merlin had lived to the age of eighty-seven. He had been granted the title of Golden Sparrow Duke after the Amber Federation was established.
When he passed away, the Dragon Sleep Continent and the Amber Dreamscape still coexisted. Thus, he was both a duke of the Amber Federation and a marquis of the Deep Dream Shadowflame Kingdom. It was an era of transition between the old and the new, a time when the two systems had yet to merge.
"Grandfather, Mel has come to see you," Mel, who had inherited the title of Golden Sparrow Duke, murmured softly.
His gaze shifted away from the gravestone and fell upon the long stone tablet beside it, which bore the epitaph.
"Times change, worlds part. This old man was born in the old era and gazes upon the new world. I have no regrets—Merlin Monochoria."
This was the epitaph