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Narrator: An exiled prince, now a wandering drunkard, haunted by memory.
They say the Silver Flame cannot be looked at directly.
That to meet his eyes is to see your own insignificance reflected.
I remember the last time I saw my homeland—burning behind me, its walls shattered like glass, its temples drowned in crimson. And at the center stood him, wrapped in a cloak the color of storm clouds, his white hair flickering in the wind, as if even the smoke dared not touch him.
He had no right to win.
His armies were lesser in number. His men were half-starved. His front lines were made of farmers and orphans.
But he always fought like the war had already ended in his favor.
I saw him on the battlefield once—just once.
He did not scream. He did not flinch. He walked through a hail of arrows as if the sky itself obeyed him.
When his sword came down, it wasn't just men who died—it was hope.
They called it an empire, but it wasn't built with treaties or marriages.
It was built with smoke and iron, blood and thunder.
He didn't unify the eastern kingdoms—he crushed them. City by city. Wall by wall. He let survivors crawl back to spread fear. He sent nobles' heads in baskets as invitations to surrender. And worst of all?
He smiled through all of it.
That smile…
It wasn't joy. It wasn't cruelty.
It was certainty.
He believed—truly believed—that this world deserved to be ruled by someone like him.
Not a philosopher king.
Not a god.
But a devil who understood the price of peace.
Now his banners hang where mine once did. His statues rise where our heroes fell. His voice echoes in the training yards of every conquered soldier.
They sing his name in two tones: fear and awe.
Leonas.
The boy-king. The tyrant-god. The conqueror who never wept.
They say he took ten cities in five years.
They're wrong.
He took the world—and left it too afraid to count.
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