Rise of the Legendary Emperor

Finally, after taking the throne of Emir, Agoria, and Ishikara, Don announced the official date of the coronation ceremony. The people turned the entire kingdom into a festive land when they heard the announcement as they began to work with the black-armored men to prepare their kingdoms for the ceremony.

Emir and Agoria were feathers and sparkles, smiles and laughter. The coronation ceremony was the grand festival of their lifetime, the one everyone was invited to. The girls and boys wore whatever garish costumes they could dream up: magical beasts, black-armored men costumes, or they even dressed up as Arrora in white. Almost no-one walked anywhere, they danced, skipped, jogged, jumped, hopped, and wiggled ignoring the snowbanks. 

Everywhere one looked, the painted faces of children and adults grinned back at each other. Through the snow-covered street were performers of every type. There were jugglers and magicians, mime artists and dancers. 

On the white snowy atmosphere, the colorful winter garb, thick woolen jackets, mitts, and scarfs sparkled as they were as colorful as a summer garden. Bold reds, magenta, blue, and emerald green, There were sparkling in the snow and feathers of every color. The flute and tavern music was the heartbeat of the crowd and they swayed long limbs in time to the beat. Music filled the air, festive beats lifted the spirits and made the people want to move, jump, and sing

Food sellers weaved through the mass of onlookers and the aroma of their wares perfumed the air. The parade danced its way through the snow and occasionally one could see a black armored soldier dancing with the cheery crowd. To add to the celebration, most children carried a lamp of their own making, their gentle puffs of steaming breath made visible by the glow, only to disappear into the inkiness.

While the people were celebrating each day as the coronation day, the army was busy with hanging and building mirrors throughout the kingdom to project the ceremony to every three kingdoms.

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Because of the never-ending snowfall, Everlight looked like it was blanketed by a white thick bedsheet. The castle appeared quiet and peaceful under the falling snow. It felt like an aesthetic landscape painting, intoxicating, and addicting.

 "Your majesty, please take a look at the invitation list "

The coronation should have been a very complicated procedure. However, 

because of the black-armored men and happy citizens, the process had been going at full speed and soon they would finish all the decoration as well as all the things.

He was sitting on his throne as Arrora massaged his shoulder from behind.

When she saw Ken came running to him with a list in his hand, she stopped massaging for a moment and let him take a look at the list first.

The line began with the noble families in Emir, Agoria, and Ishikara and had all the names of the kings in the rank 4 kingdoms.

"Why are you inviting Mattia, King of Vreston, Queen of Enarin, and Harold?"

"Your majesty, it's customary to invite the kings and queens of the same rank kingdoms as ours"

"Don't send an invitation to Harold, as for the other three, you can do whatever you want, but they are not going to come, whether you invite them or not"

He handed the list back to Ken as he scratched Harold's name off the list.

"I will go and prepare the invitations, your majesty"

"Tell Amaryll to go and personally invite King Edward and Queen Sienna, Knight will invite the Lucroy family himself"

"As you wish, your majesty"

Ken bowed and rushed to continue the preparations for the coronation leaving Arrora and Don alone.

"In three days, you will be the king of the largest kingdom in the empire, officially"

"It's just a formality and a stage to welcome the Astrels into our kingdom"

"So...when's our engagement?"

Arrora's face slightly turned red when she asked this as Don turned to look at her. It was quite amusing for him to see her blush since she was not the blushing time but a bold girl.

"After the coronation, we can do a simple engagement in the castle, I would have done this during the coronation ceremony but I don't want everyone to know about our relationship"

"I understand"

She said and quickly pecked him on the cheek with a wide grin on her face.

"So shall we go to Agoria now?"

He gently brushed her hair and stood up from the throne. Everyone in the castle asked which castle he's planning to reside in after the coronation ceremony. 

He had three choices, Emir, Agoria, and Ishikara but he chose Agoria as his primary castle. Don liked Agoria more compared to Ishikara and Emir considering the first was occupied by Warren and running smoothly while the latter was occupied by Noa as he didn't like to live in the same castle as Noa lived and conducted inhuman things.

Besides, Agoria was located in the perfect spot in the continent where he could easily travel to Sigalla,outerlands, and Elvelon by sea.

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Chandeliers and torchers were burning and looked like stars in the dark castle. The King's Palace was brightly lit. More and more citizens started to crowd into the capital of Agoria to see the Coronation ceremony from as close as they could. The capital became a crowded place in the kingdom as except for the black armored men guarding the borders, almost everyone at Agoria was in the capital.

The real highlight of the capital was the extremely spacious stone square right in front of the palace for the ceremony that was built by the dwarves.

The square was made by collecting and assembling huge shiny silver and marble. On the east, west, and north sides of the square there stood many thirty or forty meter tall huge stone pillars and ten-meter tall statues covered in red cloth. The majestic King's Palace was behind all of these pillars and statues. The gates were at the south side of the square where the citizens and soldiers could enter.

At the moment, the celebration party was still going on in full swing despite the snowfall. The celebrating crowd was gathering together at the square. Six huge bonfires burned and lit up the dark sky. The black-armored guards and the dark angels patrolled the capital and the castle. At the square, some acrobats were tumbling back and forth on the floor, and beautiful women held their hands together and danced around the bonfire. People held up green tree branches that represented life and hope and laughed happily.

"Your majesty, where did you go? Or nevermind. Here's the crown designs for your coronation, your majesty"

When Don and Arrora appeared in the throne hall, Lord Clemo came running from outside and asked. Lord Clemo had already learned to ignore Don's sudden disappearance and appearance.

"Let me see"

The dwarves asked to forge a crown for him but since he wasn't going to wear the crown, he ordered them not to waste their time on forging the crown. Because of this, the matter of the crown landed on Clemo's hands.

The first one was an intricate silver headpiece that comes down just over the eyebrows. It was decorated with black and red gems as it was designed by a famous blacksmith in Ishikara and reached 3 and 1/4 inches at its tallest point.

The second design was a heavy silver crown that comes down to the middle of the forehead. It's accented with black and blue gems and designed by a blacksmith in Agoria.

"Arrora"

Don gave the designs to Arrora and let her choose one. Even though she needed to choose between only two designs, she took several minutes and glanced at Don a bunch of times to imagine a crown on his head.

"The second one"

Finally, she gave the green signal to the second one as Lord Clemo scratched the back of his hand seeing Don let his bodyguard choose the crown.

"Go on, run along"

Don shushed him away as Lord Clemo bowed and rushed straight outside to buy the crown.

"What about your robes?"

After Lord Clemo disappeared from her sight, she asked.

"Reghys is designing the robes, I hope it's black"

"Okay, that's new, who's doing the flag?"

"Knight and Arwen"

"Let me guess, the flag is also black?"

"Of course, it's going to be black, what? Do you want it to be pink or something?"

"Hahaha, the great Don is making jokes"

Arrora jokingly said and punched him on the chest gently as walked towards the balcony to see the kingdom outside.

Despite the snowfall and dark night, the people gathered in the capital and made the kingdom in front of his eyes sparkle with lights and bonfires. The square and the mirrors to project the ceremony all across the kingdom was almost finished building.

"You never said what are those statues covered in cloth?"

She pointed at the huge statues built on the capital and asked.

"You'll know soon"

He said and kept staring at the people and their celebration. Arrora stepped closer to him and clutched his hands as they watched the night go holding each other's hands.