In the year 335 of the imperial calendar, many momentous events shook the Empire.
On the front lines, the Demons invaded Jiashan Fortress in force, leaving the Empire's realm hanging by a thread.
Amid the turmoil, a peerless prodigy burst onto the scene: the Empire's third prince, Lin Junyu!
Answering the call at the hour of greatest peril, he risked his life and defied both the emperor's orders and the marshal's commands, leading 100,000 soldiers from the Empire's camp at Danna Crossing to reinforce the front lines.
With eight hundred Feather Forest Army soldiers he had trained himself, he broke an enemy force of sixty thousand, cut down its warriors and generals, and repelled the hundred-thousand-strong Demon army attacking Jiashan Fortress. That single battle made his name, lifted the siege of Jiashan, and saved the entire Empire from disaster.
A later investigation revealed that the Demon commander in that battle was Kabu Lin, the Demon God Emperor's beloved third son and the foremost prodigy of the Demon God Kingdom!
Afterward, the Empire's god of war, Third Prince Lin Junyu, led eight hundred cavalrymen in pursuit of the enemy. Along the way, he rescued Zichuan Mingyue, the Flower of the Empire, who would later command the entire Southeast Legion and win glorious victories in the Empire's eastern campaign.
While Jiashan Fortress was under siege, Prince Lin, the first commander of the Southeast Legion, was assassinated by Demon agents during an inspection of Butler Province. His wounds proved fatal, leaving the Southeast Legion's 500,000 soldiers trapped in Bartley City.
Once again, the Empire's third prince stepped forward. He disguised his eight hundred Feather Forest Army soldiers, slipped through the blockade of a million troops, and entered the city. At that hour of crisis, he became the Southeast Legion's second commander.
Calm in the face of danger, he drew up a careful plan, coordinated the front lines, deployed his forces, and marshaled every resource. Then he resolved to bring the Demon army to a decisive battle.
In that battle, he led his eight hundred Feather Forest Army soldiers himself. Under the cover of 100,000 imperial Black Cavalry, he charged into the Demon commander's central camp, guarded by more than a hundred thousand enemy troops.
He smashed through formation after formation, cutting down enemies until he stood before Shaluoluo, the Demon God Kingdom's second-strongest warrior and commander of the Demon army in the southeast.
The third prince descended like a god among men. After only a few exchanges, he slew the Demon commander. Chaos swept through the million-strong Demon host, and the Southeast Legion fell upon it, winning a great victory. Nothing stood in the way of the Empire's eastern campaign.
Yet just as everyone believed this new star of the Empire was about to rise, his two elder brothers forged an imperial decree and ordered the young god of war put to death.
And so this peerless prodigy of the Empire, who had spent his life mocked as worthless, shone on the front lines only once.
But that single flash of brilliance was enough to dim every famous general and prodigy in the Empire's history.
The year's upheavals were not over. The second prince discovered that the eldest prince and the camp at Danna Crossing were plotting a rebellion.
Terrified, the eldest prince arranged a death trap for the second prince on the front lines and personally shot him dead with an arrow.
When messengers brought word of the two princes' deaths to Far Capital, the emperor flew into a rage. His wrath swept across the Empire as he ordered a thorough investigation.
That night, almost every leading family and faction in Far Capital was purged. It was the city's most chaotic, bloodiest night.
Afterward, the emperor uncovered both princes' collusion with ministers and the military. The second prince was already dead, so the matter was pursued no further against him.
The eldest prince was escorted back to the capital, stripped of his princely title, and imprisoned for life in the Empire's prison.
Of the Empire's three most promising princes, some had died and one had been cast down, all in a single year. The emperor's hair turned white overnight, and he poured all his anger and energy into the Empire's eastern campaign.
The emperor took the field himself. Over three years on the Far East battlefield, he led the Empire's armies from victory to victory, fighting his way to the Far East Holy Temple.
In the third year of the eastern campaign, the Flower of the Empire, Zichuan Mingyue, contracted a grave illness on the battlefield and died. Her younger brother, Zichuan Mingri, succeeded her as the Southeast Legion's fourth commander.
By the tenth year of the campaign, the Empire had gained complete control of the Far East. Lin Huang, the eleventh emperor of the Luminous Empire, led one million soldiers of the Royal Legion and two million other imperial troops onward.
They swept across the Solimia Plain of the Demon God Kingdom, crossed the Black River, and took cities and defeated enemies all the way to the kingdom's sacred ground, the Great Demon God Fortress.
Before the final battle, the Luminous Emperor and the Demon God Emperor spoke through the night.
The next day, before their armies of millions, they signed an agreement of vassalage.
Article One: The Demon God Kingdom could submit to the Luminous Empire but would retain its independence forever. The Luminous Empire could not interfere in its affairs.
Article Two: The Luminous Empire would send troops to garrison the Eastern Wasteland border alongside the Demon army, defending it together against incursions by unknown creatures.
Article Three: Both sides swore to choose a man and a woman with the purest inherited bloodlines from their respective peoples and join them in marriage to bear children. This oath would stand unchanged for a thousand years, until the union produced a powerful descendant!
No one knew what the two emperors had discussed that night.
Once the agreement was signed, the Luminous Emperor withdrew his troops of his own accord and ceased interfering in the Demon God Kingdom's affairs.
Instead, he left the Empire's marshal, Qin Zhuo, with a million soldiers of the Royal Legion to follow the Demon God Emperor's army into the Eastern Wasteland, a place cut off from the world. No word of them ever emerged again!
Yet under its eleventh emperor, Lin Huang, the Luminous Empire came to rule the entire West River Continent in both name and principle, ending tens of thousands of years of strife!
Five years after fulfilling his lifelong dream, the emperor whose life had been filled with glory died in the bedchamber where the third prince, long dead himself, had lived as a child.
A tiny pellet drum was clutched tightly in his hand, and his eyes were peacefully closed.
Looking back on the life of Lin Huang, the eleventh Luminous Emperor, people judged him in different ways, some praising him and others condemning him.
But on one point, all agreed: he had accomplished what eleven generations of emperors and people throughout the land had long hoped for. He had united the West River Continent.
That glorious achievement alone was enough to make him shine through the continent's history and live on in the memories of its people!
—From Biography of the Eleventh Emperor of the Luminous Empire, recorded by the historian Zhou Qingyun
River Hill City stood beside the sea. Beyond its walls, the long Golden Water River carried its surging waters straight toward the Eastern Sea!
Outside River Hill City, a young man lay on the golden sand.
He held a volume of imperial history, enjoying the cool sea breeze and the warmth of the sun as he read with avid interest.
"Overlord Lin was ridiculously powerful. How did eight hundred men defeat more than a hundred thousand?"
"Overlord Lin" was the nickname later generations of young imperial admirers had given Lin Junyu.
The young reader's eyes sparkled. He clearly idolized the invincible god of war who had appeared from nowhere more than two centuries ago and saved the Empire when its foundations were about to collapse.
His name was Lin Feng, and he belonged to a legitimate line of a collateral branch of the imperial family.
His ancestor was Lin Xingyuan, Prince Lin, founder of the Southeast Legion, the most glorious legion in the Empire. Lin Xingyuan had been hailed as the Empire's god of war before Lin Junyu was even born!
When the eleventh emperor died, he had no strong heir of his own bloodline. Unwilling to see the realm he had labored so hard to unite destroyed, he had chosen the most capable young member of his clan and carefully prepared him to take the throne after his death.
Over time, Lin Feng's family, once the legitimate imperial bloodline, had been pushed to the margins. They were now called a collateral legitimate branch and were seldom entrusted with important positions.
The reason was simple: the branch that had inherited the throne feared Lin Feng's line, whose bloodline was purer than their own.
Having tasted power, they had no wish to relinquish it. They meant to keep their hold on it forever, so they had continually suppressed Lin Feng's family.
As for the eleventh emperor's direct descendants, almost none remained.
Of course, Lin Feng knew nothing of these twists and turns.
For now, he was merely an ordinary flag officer serving in the navy.
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