The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart

Raven's trembling subsided as soon as Mana pulled him into her arms and poured her magic into him as she continued to murmurs soothing words in his ears. Instantly, he was engulfed in a warm, tender feeling, as if a protective layer was forming around him.

"I'm all right," he whispered quietly. "Thank you."

Mana pulled away a little, but didn't let him go completely. Instead, she peered worriedly at his face, which had turned rather pale. "What happened to you?" she asked softly. The diagnostic spell only told her that Raven was agitated and that his magic was becoming unstable, and surging higher and higher – that was until she poured her own magic into him and calmed him down. But she couldn't find anything wrong with him per se – well, at least there was no physical cause for the sudden disturbance in his magic and his uncontrollable trembling. She deduced that it was probably something to do with his memories or something that he remembered which had either frightened or unsettled him. Or…it could be something that the cursed living ghost corpse had done – which only Raven could sense because of his unique possession of all five types of elemental magic. Mana's own dark magic was miniscule at the moment, and so was her wind magic, so she would not have been able to sense it anyway. 

Raven sighed. "Nothing," he murmured. "I just remembered something."

Mana caressed his beautiful face with gentle fingers. "What do you need?" she asked softly.

Raven responded with a small smile. "Just your presence is enough to dispel my bad memories and nightmares, Mana," he replied in an equally soft voice.

"Is Raven all right?" King Jaren asked, looking at the two young children worriedly. "Is something wrong, son?"

Raven smiled at the man who had become the most beloved and most influential father figure in his life in a short few months. "I'm all right, Papa," he said with a smile. "I just remembered something unpleasant."

King Jaren didn't look very convinced. He walked over to the two young children and ran a diagnostic spell on Raven himself. Only then was he satisfied that Raven was all right. He sighed and patted Raven's hair.

"Don't worry, little one," he said quietly. "You are ours to love and cherish and protect now, and I can promise you that this old Papa won't let you come to harm while he's still alive."

Raven could only smile and pat King Jaren's arm. "Yes, Papa," he said in a sweet, obedient voice.

"What a touching display of familial affection," the cursed living ghost corpse Vir mocked, his entire face twisted into a hateful and disgusted expression. "You guys – all of you, every single one of you – you all disgust me to the very pore of my dead bones!"

King Jaren shrugged carelessly, and asked, "Do we even look like we care about your opinion? I love my children, and that's that. It's got nothing to do with you at all."

"Precisely," Queen Carolina said coldly. "It's not like you understand the first thing about a family or familial love."

The cursed living ghost corpse turned his dark red eyes to Queen Carolina. His eyes glowed menacingly, and a red haze began to coalesce around his body. The net of sparkling green magic created by Mana started to become unstable, and parts of it started to flicker dangerously.

"Mommy! Daddy! Grandpapa! Very big, very bad magic!" Azar cried out in alarm.

Acting purely on instinct, Mana and Raven joined hands and threw out another net of magic at the cursed living ghost corpse Vir. This net was much thicker and much more tightly packed than the previous one – in fact, it was roughly the consistency of a fishing net in terms of the size of the holes in the net. It glowed brightly with all the colours of the rainbow, and the figures of Mana and Raven, standing together hand in hand, also started to become surrounded by a riot of rainbow coloured lights, bouncing happily around the two children.

The cursed living ghost corpse Vir let out an inhuman shout as soon as the new net of magic touched him, and the red haze around him started dissipating slowly as the net grew tighter and tighter around his figure, condensing around his figure like a skin suit and adapting to the shape of the body of the cursed living ghost corpse Vir. The previous net that Mana had thrown at him – that had merely settled around him like a loose cloak, surrounding him, but not really touching him too much. It had been like a bright cloak of sparkling green hanging around his body, covering him completely, but not really making any contact with his skin as such. Only a few parts of his clothes had been touched by the sparkling green net of magic, woven with earth and water elements. It had been the primary element of earth magic, which is a nurturing, nourishing magic most of the time, that had made sure that the cursed living ghost corpse Vir had remained pinned to that particular spot on the floor of Bella's chambers.

But the new net was very different. As the red haze had been sweeping through and dissipating the net of sparkling green magic cast by Mana, similarly, the new net, bright and glowing with all seven colours of the rainbow, was devouring the red haze, and settling slowly on to the body of the cursed living ghost corpse Vir, until each last bit of the red haze disappeared completely, and the little bits of the tattered and torn net of sparkling green magic which still remained were slowly absorbed into the new net of glowing rainbow colours, shining brightly with all five elements of magic. This new net of rainbow colours and all five components of elemental magic wrapped tightly around the body of the cursed living ghost corpse Vir, like a skin suit that was so popular among the superheroes (real or fictional) in the modern world that Mana used to live in. Of course, it wasn't as tight as spandex, but pretty close.

The cursed living ghost corpse Vir was clearly in a lot of pain because of this new net of magic.

"Take it off! Take this vile thing off me!" he screamed loudly.

"No," Raven said flatly. "You were going to harm my family, and I can't allow that. We can't allow that at all. You are not allowed to bring even the slightest harm to any of us here."

"Your family?! How on earth does Queen Carolina of the Sapphire Kingdom and Crown Princess Bella of the Sapphire Kingdom become your family, young Prince Raven of the Obsidian Kingdom? Just because Bella is going to marry the Crown Prince Jules of the Emerald Kingdom, who happens to be the big brother of Princess Mana of the Emerald Kingdom, do you think you can claim kinship with the royal family of the Sapphire Kingdom as well?!" the cursed living ghost corpse Vir screamed loudly, glaring at Raven hatefully. "You think you're so great and precious that everyone is dying to include you in their own family?! Don't you have a family of your own?! How shameless of you, not only to claim the family of the little princess you are betrothed to as your own family – now you also want to reach out your grubby and greedy little hands and claim to be a family with the royal family of the Sapphire Kingdom as well, simply because their Crown Princess Bella of the Sapphire Kingdom has become engaged to the Crown Prince Big Brother Jules of the Emerald Kingdom?!"

Raven didn't falter, however – perhaps it was because Mana's hand was steady around his own, and he could feel the anger radiating from King Jaren, who was standing next to him.

Similarly, Queen Carolina, Jules and Bella were looking similarly incensed and outraged on behalf of Raven.

But their little dragon Azar was the fastest of them all.

"Don't you dare insult my Daddy!" the little dragon roared angrily, and the whole room shook around them.

A glowing white ball of magic flew out of Azar's mouth and sped towards the cursed living ghost corpse Vir, who suddenly looked extremely frightened, and tried to crawl backwards desperately to avoid the magic attack of the baby dragon.

The brightly glowing ball of white magic hit the cursed living ghost corpse Vir right in the middle of his chest and then it merged into the new net of magic which glowed even brighter with its glowing and pearlescent rainbow colours!

The cursed living ghost corpse Vir screamed loudly again. "Get this horrible thing off me! How dare a mere beast attack me like this?!" he yelled. "Curse you, and curse your entire family!"

A stream of extremely foul language, full of curses and invectives flowed out of the mouth of the cursed living ghost corpse Vir.

King Jaren quickly covered their innocent little baby dragon's ears with his big, warm palms! Their baby shouldn't learn this bad language!