Reincarnated Lord: I can upgrade everything!

Chapter 512: The King

After a long while, Asher walked into his chamber, the weight of the evening hanging heavily on his shoulders. His gaze drifted toward the bed, where Sapphira lay curled up, her chest rising and falling in the rhythm of sleep. Moonlight streamed through the arched windows, casting silver patterns across her serene face. He tilted his head slightly, studying her delicate features, lashes fluttering as if trapped in some dream.

He sighed, a sound laden with exhaustion, and quietly approached. Squatting beside the bed, he reached out and brushed a few stray strands of emerald hair away from her face. His fingers lingered in her locks, the softness grounding him in this moment of silence.

His golden eyes, once brilliant like twin suns, now shimmered dimly like fading torches. They locked onto her trembling eyelashes, and his throat tightened.

Exhaling slowly, he rose to his feet and walked toward the bathroom. Moments later, he stepped out, steam curling from the doorway behind him. His snow-white hair clung damply to his scalp, cascading down his neck and over his broad shoulders in wet strands. Droplets rolled down his collarbones and arms, his towel draped carelessly over one shoulder. Those golden eyes, once vessels of command, now bore the look of a man carrying centuries in his chest, worn, haunted, but unyielding.

He climbed onto the bed, careful not to disturb Sapphira, and leaned back against the ornately carved bedframe.

Arms crossed, legs stretched out, he stared blankly into the dim ceiling above. The flicker of candlelight from the chandeliers danced across the chamber, casting shadows that shifted like old memories.

This wasn’t how he used to do things, his life had been a fortress of control, isolation, and strength. He had always depended solely on himself, never bending to the winds of diplomacy. But now?

Now it would seem the very thing he lacked, connection, was what the world demanded of him.

He was to appeal to kingdoms and empires that bore nothing but hatred for him? To ask for their banners and swords to fight not for him, but with him? He knew well enough: marching thousands of soldiers would mean nothing if they were only slaughtering each other while the true threat loomed.

In the Abyss, there stirred things that were better left forgotten, behemoths of old, races lost to time, and endless legions bred for war. It was not an army. It was a living, gnashing maw of annihilation.

’I can’t unite them. I can’t make people who’ve shed my people’s blood, or whose blood I’ve spilled, suddenly stand for my cause. Not under my banner.’

He paused, eyes narrowing slightly. ’But… we can unite under something else. At least we all don’t want to die, do we?’

His eyes drifted up toward the chandelier, its golden arms adorned with slow-burning candles. Their flames swayed gently, a fragile warmth in the cold reality that awaited him.

’The Emperor of Cyrenia… surely he’s not foolish enough to prioritize vengeance or lost blood over survival. Not when the storm approaches… even if he wants his daughter back.’

He turned his gaze again to Sapphira, sleeping beside him beneath the soft velvet quilt pulled up to her shoulders.

’…A daughter who isn’t even his. Besides, we’re already bound, by love, by oath, by children born in our bond.’

He dropped his head, the weight of thoughts pressing down like iron. He shut his eyes, releasing a slow breath, then another, until it became a rhythm of sighs, each one an attempt to clear the fog in his mind.

Until he wasn’t in the chamber anymore.

The world shifted.

He found himself standing amidst a forest cloaked in ethereal stillness. Tall, ancient trees stood like solemn sentinels, spaced wide apart, their snow-dusted branches unmoving in the windless night. The earth beneath him was blanketed in a pure white layer of snow, unbroken and soft, crunching faintly under his feet.

Above, the heavens unraveled into breathtaking brilliance.

A dark sky stretched forever, but it wasn’t empty. It swirled with auroras, rippling ribbons of rainbow-hued light that danced across the firmament. The colors shimmered like living silk, cascading in waves of violet, jade, crimson, and gold, as if the stars themselves had chosen to weep light instead of fire.

And in that moment, beneath the silent cathedral of snow and sky, Asher stood alone, peace enveloping him like a warm blanket.

“It’s been a while, young king.”

Asher heard the voice ripple through the night like a whisper carried by the wind. He turned his head, eyes narrowing against the deep twilight. Though the moon was hidden behind heavy clouds, his vision was clear, sharpened by the bloodline of the Ashbournes.

There, emerging from the shadows of the pines, came a towering white wolf, its fur as pure as fresh snow, gleaming faintly under the starlight. Astride the beast was a man cloaked in a wolfskin mantle, his presence regal yet wild. His long gray hair fell in untamed waves down to his shoulder blades, catching the faintest breeze. At either side of his waist, wolf-headed swords hung in finely crafted sheaths. The steel was dark, ancient, and alive with dormant power.

“Lord Atticus?” Asher blinked, half-expecting the apparition to vanish. The familiar voice, however, cut through years of silence. It had truly been a long while since he had seen or heard from Atticus. A time had passed when he believed the old blood had forsaken him altogether.

“I see you didn’t expect me,” Atticus said, his voice low and steady, a voice that once gave command to armies and bent wolves to obedience. “Well, the Ancestor has summoned you. It’s time you saw everyone again. After all, we’ve all waited to lay eyes upon the first Ashbourne King… the one who surpassed even Lord Zenas.”

Asher offered no reply. There was no need for words. Instead, he followed as Atticus turned his wolf about with the ease of a seasoned rider. The beast moved like mist over ground, silent and purposeful.

They rode through a forest path that seemed to have existed for centuries , a trail carved only by the steps of beasts long gone. Then they came upon a clearing, vast and imposing. It was longer than it was wide, shaped like a blade embedded in the earth. At the far end stood four wooden thrones, carved from ironwood, their backs tall, their arms etched with swirling sigils of the Ashbourne lineage.

On three of them sat the Great Dukes.

Zenas, his aura ancient and firm as mountain rock. Torah, robed in flowing wolf-pelt regalia, eyes gleaming like a hawk’s. Ariel, serene yet fierce, her golden gaze holding a thousand unspoken words.

The fourth throne remained vacant, Atticus’ rightful seat.

But what truly made Asher pause was the sight on either side of the clearing. Both flanks were lined by scores upon scores of Ashbournes. A legion of kin stretching back generations, men and women of the blood, standing tall with regal bearing. Their gray hair shimmered like steel under starlight, and at their sides loomed their eternal companions, towering Polar Wolves with cold eyes and thicker manes than any common beast.

Over a thousand of these wolves filled the glade with silent majesty. Their breathing was the rhythm of the wild, their presence a thunderous silence. Among their masters were lords, warriors, some renowned, some forgotten by time, yet all bound by the sacred blood.

“Howl!”

From behind the thrones, a monstrous figure rose, a creature of myth. Shura, the first of all Polar Wolves, a titan among titans, lifted its head to the heavens. With a voice that tore through the fabric of night, it howled.

Then, one by one, other wolves joined in. Their howls weren’t wild, they were hymns. They were reverent. They were sacred.

Men and women bowed their heads. Even Ariel and Torah knelt slightly in respect, and a hush of awe descended.

Though Sirius, the current progenitor of their line, was not physically present, his essence pulsed in Asher like a second heartbeat. And it was terrifying in its intensity.

All eyes turned to Asher and though he stood alone, none could see just him. Behind him, the phantom of a titanic wolf materialized, its form only visible in their spirits. It loomed like a hill, a god-beast cloaked in shadow and starlight, silent and commanding. It wasn’t just an image. It was a presence.

An entity not to be disobeyed.

Asher didn’t need to speak.

He wasn’t merely a king. He was the King, the first in House Ashbourne’s history. The one who brought royalty to a bloodline forged in servitude and wars.

Step after step, Asher walked, as he grew closer to the thrones, Ariel squinted her sword like eyebrows. ’His presence is so overwhelming, when did he grow to this extent?’

“I have heard of the truth, I know what burdens you.” Zenas said when Asher drew close but just then, a scowl tore through the cold, night air.

“You bow to a man who doesn’t even dual wield? He might be a King but this is a lineage of Swordsmen.”

’The Devil!’ the eyes of many widened as they all looked toward a particular direction.