Chapter 943: The Love and Hate Between Azir and Xerath (Part )

After Azir became the only prince of the Shurima Empire, Xerath, as his right-hand man and confidant, also felt for the first time the status and taste of being in power. That's why he would do whatever it takes to help Azir retain his throne so that he could seek a higher status and power.

Xerath has already experienced the taste of power. Whenever he recalls the nightmarish days when he was a slave, the ambition hidden in Xerath's eyes becomes more determined, and the magic power in his body becomes heavier and gloomier.

Xerath still remembers the scene of his father dying in front of him. Xerath's parents were originally a scholar couple from a small country around ancient Shurima. However, after the small country was conquered by Shurima, all the people became slaves of Shurima, including Xerath's parents.

During a labor, Xerath's father suffered a serious leg injury. If he had received timely treatment, he would have been left with a chronic disease and would not have been able to walk properly. However, because the Shurimans naturally despised slaves, they ignored the pleadings of Xerath and his mother. Xerath and his mother could only watch Xerath's father die.

Later, because of fear that Zerath would suffer the same fate as his father, his mother begged a famous tomb architect to take him in as an apprentice. Although the architect was reluctant at first, he soon discovered Zerath's excellent attention to detail and understanding of mathematics and language.

The architect agreed to take Xerath as his apprentice. Since then, Xerath has never seen his mother again, but he is smart and knows that his mother may still suffer the same fate as his father. From then on, Xerath has planted a great resentment towards Shurima and slavery.

What happened next was the story of Xerath going to the Library of Nasus to look for information for his master, while taking the opportunity to secretly learn knowledge, and then meeting Azir.

Under Xerath's evil magic, the emperor and queen failed many times to give birth to new children to replace Azir.

However, although Xerath tried his best to interfere with the queen's childbirth, Shurima still welcomed a new prince.

But Xerath had worked so hard for so long, how could he give up so easily? He started out as a slave boy, and step by step, through his own study and hard practice of black magic, he became Azir's confidant and right-hand man. He was about to succeed, so how could he let this guy who appeared out of nowhere take away the fruits of his victory?

So, on the night the new prince was born, Xerath used his growing magical power to summon elemental power from the depths of the desert, creating a terrible storm.

Xerath threw lightning arrows at the queen's bedroom one after another, turning it into flaming rubble and killing the queen and the newborn prince. Xerath vented his anger, looking at the collapsed palace, and suddenly a sense of revenge appeared in his heart.

Afterwards, the Emperor rushed into the chambers, only to be confronted by Xerath, who, with his arcane hands, vaporized the flesh and blood of the Emperor and his guards, turning them into skeletons and then into ash.

The Emperor and his men were not Ascended, so they were easily killed by Xerath. Since the Void War many years ago, the number of Ascended in the Shurima Empire has dropped sharply, and this once powerful warrior class has almost disappeared. The right to hold the Ascended Ceremony is firmly controlled by the Sun Priests, and in this vortex of power, all kinds of disputes and calculations emerge one after another, further hindering the recovery of the number of Ascended.

So under various circumstances, the number of Ascendants has not recovered to the most prosperous period of Shurima. Even the emperor can be killed easily, proving that the glory of ancient Shurima is gradually fading.

Afterwards, Xerath pinned all the blame for the blood debts on a group of mages that surrendered to Shurima. Under Xerath's trickery, Azir and the ministers of Shurima believed this fact. Perhaps because there was something wrong with this group of mages themselves, his conspiracy was not discovered under Xerath's manipulation.

Noah observed all of these stories about Xerath from Xerath's background story in his previous life. The background stories of Azir and Xerath have a high degree of overlap, and the narrative style is to tell the same story from two different perspectives.

Back in the main memory, although Azir was shocked by the death of the emperor and queen, the empire needed a leader. With the assistance of Xerath, he quickly ascended the throne as the Emperor of Shurima.

The first thing Azir did after ascending the throne was to lead his troops in a bloody act of revenge against the people of the region.

Azir is crowned Emperor of Shurima, and Xerath, the once nameless slave boy, remains at his side. Xerath has long dreamed of this moment, hoping that Azir will abolish slavery in Shurima and acknowledge him as his brother, as promised.

However, Azir did not do so. Instead, he continued to expand the empire's territory and repeatedly rejected Xerath's proposal to abolish slavery.

This was undoubtedly a betrayal for Xerath. Recalling the painful memories of being a slave, Xerath believed that this was further proof of the moral decline of Shurima. It turned out that his good friend Azir was the same kind of person as those hateful guys.

Until one day, Azir reminded Xerath with a grim face that he was just a slave and he should remember his position. At that time, Xerath had completely given up the hope in his heart and decided to fight for what he wanted.

When Noah saw these scenes, he was actually speechless about Azir. In fact, Azir had no intention of betraying Xerath at the beginning. He still had the idea of ​​overthrowing slavery in his heart. However, because slavery is a traditional system of Shurima that has continued for thousands of years to the present, it can be said that the prosperity of the Shurima Empire is inseparable from those slaves. Azir knew that although he had become emperor, he could not overthrow this system in one breath.

The foundation of this empire was built on the flesh and blood of slaves, and many nobles relied on forced labor to maintain their wealth and power. Such a stubborn foundation cannot be overturned overnight, and Azir's plan will surely fail if it is made public too early.

So Azir made a plan in his mind. In order to realize his plan, he had to become the most powerful person in the Shurima Empire, the kind that could truly cover the sky with one hand and not be constrained by anything.