The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart

Much to their delight, General Aquila and Rook received an invitation to use the special royal transportation array which was to be used by King Jaren, Mana and Raven. This was primarily because General Aquila had to be within a certain distance of Raven, and Rook was very reluctant to leave his father and big brother behind. Since both of them were deemed trustworthy anyway, Queen Carolina and Bella had no hesitation when they handed out access to the special royal transportation array.

King Corvus, Crown Princess Pica, Enca and Dawe departed with the larger group. So did Head Sage Yue and the people of the Pearl Kingdom.

So, suddenly, it became really quiet in the Emerald Kingdom – it was an even more glaring contrast because it had been so lively and bustling in the recent weeks with guests and visitors trickling in almost on a daily basis.

King Jaren, too, suddenly seemed a bit morose – perhaps he was imagining how things would be when Jules and Bella went off to the Sapphire Kingdom.

Thankfully, Mana and Raven – and especially little Azar, were still with him.

And the children stepped up beautifully to help their beloved Papa out. King Jaren was amazed and proud when he saw how hard Mana and Raven were working right along side him, and their achievements were not little. Recently, he had found himself relying more and more on his children – be it Jules and Bella, or Mana and Raven, and every single time, they delivered so much more than what King Jaren had expecting – stunning everyone.

And right now, Mana and Raven really were taking their promise very seriously and making sure to help King Jaren with work and also making sure that he had his meals on time and was going off to bed at a proper time instead of overworking himself. In fact, for the last part, Azar had taken over the duty. He'd cling to his Grandpapa and when it would be getting late, he'd jump in front of King Jaren and say, "Grandpapa, sleepy?" with his big luminous eyes glowing in anticipation.

Because Grandpapa was supposed tell little Azar a story before he went to sleep.

Then King Jaren would be subtly manipulated by the clever little dragon into telling him a bedtime story, and Azar's sleepy eyes were super contagious to the royal family of the Emerald Kingdom – King Jaren, Jules, Mana – all of them would fall asleep in less that ten seconds at the sight of Azar's droopy, half-lidded eyes, heavy with sleep.

Thus, in the few days before they left for the Sapphire Kingdom, despite having to wrap up a lot of work, King Jaren was actually quite well fed and well rested, and he was glowing with health and happiness when the group arrived at the Sapphire Kingdom.

General Aquila was also looking much healthier, since his magic was stabilising rapidly in the company of Raven – plus he was filled with happiness at having such brilliant and enthusiastic students to pass on his battle skills to.

Mana was a deadly strategist – even surpassing Raven at times, and while she was reluctant to use a sword, she could aim pretty well once she got the hand of using bows and arrows. Back in her original world, Mana had been quite handy with guns – and she missed the convenience of those. However, she wasn't sure if she ought bring out something like that in this world, where, despite such advanced magic, they used only medieval weaponry. Which was good, in a way, because this world was far more peaceful that the one where she used to live.

Rook's superior warrior genes started showing their true colours as soon as General Aquila started teaching him. He was a natural at this, and soon enough, he had caught up to Raven. It was already clear who the successor of General Aquila and the next General of the Obsidian Kingdom was going to be.

All three – General Aquila, Rook and Raven were very pleased with this development. Raven himself was a very proud big brother, and praised Rook generously.

"I just want to be as good as Big Brother Raven," Rook said shyly. "I want to help you, too."

Raven shook his head. "You're not going to be as good as me – you're going to be better than me!" Raven told the younger boy. He looked up at General Aquila. "Isn't that right, Father Aqi? Rook is more talented than me in battle, isn't he?"

General Aquila laughed. "Both of you – and Jules too – you're really something else," he said.

Raven's skills, of course, were legendary. No one was even surprised any more – Raven was such a prodigy that now, his near and dear ones would be surprised only if he wasn't able to do something, rather than him doing extraordinary things in extraordinary styles with extraordinary talent! So, all of them simply settled for praising Raven for his achievements and showing off about the young prince to whoever was willing to listen.

Actually, it wasn't just the near and dear ones of Raven – the citizens of the Emerald Kingdom, too, absolutely adored their royal children, and to them, Raven and Bella had both long become their country's royal children. Raven and Bella were loved and adored as much as Mana or Jules in the Emerald Kingdom by now. And naturally, with such a prodigious young prince, there was plenty of stuff to be proud about, so Raven was well on his way to becoming a household name in all five kingdoms – more than any other royal child of his generation.

General Aquila, too, was suitably impressed – and quite pleased that the Obsidian Kingdom would fall into the hands of such a capable monarch.

"What about me, Grandfather Aqi?" Azar asked immediately, waving his sword in the precise movements General Aquila had just shown them.

General Aquila laughed and picked up the little dragon, swinging him around like a small child. Azar giggled happily. It was uncanny (and adorable, of course) how Azar loved every single thing that the little baby Raven used to love from ten years ago – it astonished General Aquila to no end, and it made Raven rather shy and proud, while the little dragon would have rather self-satisfied smug look on his face every time anyone mentioned how similar to Raven he was, especially when General Aquila said anything of the sort.

After all, General Aquila had known Raven when he was Azar's age, and one of the little dragon's absolute favourite activities was hearing about his beloved Daddy's amazing feats at any given point in time.

And General Aquila was always happy to talk about either of his sons – and soon enough, his dragon grandchild, too.

"Our little Azar is better than everyone!" General Aquila said, beaming at the little dragon.

Azar straightened up with a proud smirk on his face and nuzzled General Aquila's face with his head, as he was wont to do when he was feeling particularly affectionate.

General Aquila was not wrong – Azar really was the best – it took him even less time than Raven to pick up a technique, and he had even better natural instincts than Rook. General Aquila was already secretly dreaming of the day when Azar was old enough that his human form would be about Raven or Rook's age and he would be sparring with him…

Azar was blissfully unaware that his Grandfather Aqi was already making plans for his future.

Naturally, Grandfather Aqi wasn't the only one. Azar's Grandpapa King Jaren had been making plans for Azar's future for a very long time. He'd bought large tracts of land and started decorating them with the plants and things Azar liked and a humongous castle for Azar was also being built there. It was a huge project, and even with magic, it would take a long time – and with all the secrecy King Jaren was adamant on maintaining around the project (since he wanted the whole thing to be a surprise for his little dragon grandchild) – the construction and everything was taking even longer. It would take a few years to be ready – but the good thing was that Azar was a baby at the moment; it was fine to take their time on building the dragon's lair – because King Jaren wanted it to be perfect for his beloved grandchild.

Many years later, King Jaren's extravagant gift to his eldest grandchild would become the stuff of legends, and King Jaren became the gold standard of grandfathers for any child – after all, who wouldn't want such a jovial, protective and magnanimous grandparent? Naturally, the grandfathers weren't too pleased when they kept getting unfavourably compared with King Jaren, but then the grandfathers were also people who admired King Jaren themselves, so it wasn't even something they could become properly offended about!

That would come much later, though. Currently, the two doting grandfathers were thoroughly enjoying their time with their adorable little dragon grandchild, and the said dragon grandchild was equally happy to be with his favourite grandfathers!