Nostria City.
Monarch City was extraordinarily quiet, because the king who had unified the world was dead. Even the Pope of the Sun Sect had come to Monarch City to pray for the blessing of the blazing sun upon that venerable old man.
His death was no different from a pall hanging over everyone's heads, lingering for a long time without dispersing. Every beautiful imagining of the future had turned confused and lost with the death of this old lion.
The king was dead. What would happen to the future? That was the question on everyone's mind.
Because of that question, the eyes of Monarch City gradually turned toward those imperial princes. From among them, the next king would be chosen. This could be said to be the only matter the king had failed to settle properly.
But people would not question the king so easily. Their loyalty was absolute, so the blame for this matter made many of them look toward the Sun Sect. If not for the Sun Sect's obstruction, the new Lion King would have been chosen long ago. Because of that, many people looked with dissatisfaction toward the leader of the Sun Sect.
But no matter what, Monarch City's process was fixed, and the city grew stranger and more treacherous by the day.
The lions began sharpening their claws for that sole throne. As far as the Holy Flame Empire's tradition of succession was concerned, rivers of blood had always flowed before the throne.
Blackwood Augustus, the brave lion beneath the Golden Lion Banner, the king's first child, was a burly middle-aged man with long golden hair draped over his shoulders. He had already put on the king's reward: a suit of golden armor. Holding a spear, he led his follower knights out onto the street.