Chapter 1: A Catastrophic Start!
Douluo Year 2625!
Inside the Starry Sky Kingdom's palace.
"Waaah~!!!!"
"Waaah, aah~!!!"
A cacophony of wailing gradually roused Xu Nian'an from his sleep.
"Where... am I?"
Xu Nian'an opened his eyes blearily, and a vast expanse of white cloth immediately filled his vision.
White... white silk?
Was this a funeral? Had the feast already started???
Just as Xu Nian'an was still bewildered, someone seemed to notice that he had woken up.
An old man in a black robe hurried over to Xu Nian'an, tears and snot streaming down his face.
"Prince, Prince, the late king was assassinated, and the queen was so heartbroken that she followed him to the grave. Please, don't let anything happen to you too."
"If anything happens to you, what will become of the Starry Sky Kingdom!!!"
The old man's voice was very strange, somewhat shrill and effeminate, like... a eunuch in a TV drama.
Wait, something didn't seem right.
Xu Nian'an's mind went blank...
Prince, late king, queen... Starry Sky Kingdom?
Wait, what was all this?
Xu Nian'an raised a hand and rubbed his eyes, trying to wake himself from this absurd dream.
What a joke. He hadn't even brought money, so how could he be eating at a funeral feast?
But as soon as he raised his hand and saw what it looked like now, Xu Nian'an's body stiffened.
Before he could react, countless unfamiliar memories flooded into his mind.
Douluo Continent, Martial Souls, the Starry Sky Kingdom...
He remembered. Xu Nian'an remembered.
He had transmigrated into a novel he had loved in his previous life: Douluo Continent.
And he had become the prince of the Starry Sky Kingdom, its sole heir.
But the current timeline seemed a little off.
The Clear Sky Sect had yet to go into seclusion, and the conflicts between the various kingdoms had not ended.
The clearest example was the Heaven Dou Empire and the Star Luo Empire, which were waging wars and seizing territory everywhere. By now, they had occupied most of the continent.
They marked the land with the empire's insignia, then enfeoffed it.
But according to the original owner's memories, his current situation seemed... not good.
His nominal father, the king, had been assassinated seven days ago while inspecting the kingdom's lands.
They hadn't caught the assassin. When the queen—his biological mother, and now his nominal mother—heard the news, it struck her like a bolt from the blue. She couldn't bear such a terrible blow.
She, too, had followed the late king to the grave.
In other words, aside from the eunuch by his side, Xu Nian'an had no one in the entire palace he could grow close to.
That was how things stood, according to Xu Nian'an's memories.
Not only that, according to the memories of the late king's efforts to train the original owner, many nobles in the kingdom held military power. Now that the king and queen had passed away, not a single one of them had come. Their meaning was obvious.
The Starry Sky Kingdom occupied a geographically unusual position, at the continent's far eastern edge, by the East Sea.
Half of it bordered the Heaven Dou Empire to the north, and half bordered the Star Luo Empire to the south.
The palace stood toward the north, facing the Heaven Dou Empire. Meanwhile, nearly half the Starry Sky Kingdom's territory in the south had already lost contact.
That was why the late king—his nominal father—had gone to inspect the lands.
Most likely, the southern half of the territory had been turned against them by the Star Luo Empire and lost.
That reminded Xu Nian'an of the two principalities that appeared in Douluo Continent, even though he had never heard of them at this point in time.
Besides, he had never seen the Starry Sky Kingdom mentioned in the book.
"Could it be..."
Xu Nian'an's pupils contracted sharply. The Starry Sky Kingdom would be destroyed and turned into a vassal principality of one of the two great empires.
And he was about to die~~~!!!
"Report!!!"
Just then, an armed guard from the Imperial Guard, clad in red armor, rushed over.
"Prince, the Gulei Kingdom says one of its soldiers disappeared in our territory. They demand to search the city!"
At this news, the wailing in the palace grew louder. Everyone looked deathly pale, as if their parents really had died.
Xu Nian'an's face turned pale too.
With rebels controlling the Starry Sky Kingdom and the two great empires watching like hawks, they had already begun moving against him, intent on carving up his kingdom.
A catastrophic start!!!
Could this... really be... fate?
But... I refuse to accept this!
[ Ding! Congratulations, host, on awakening the system! ]
(Please add this new book to your library!)