Varian didn’t stop Thoren.
He genuinely didn’t care about killing the so-called Lion prince. Or the succession problems of Thoren. These were all distant pasts for him.
As he experienced repeatedly, History had its own momentum. No one, not the Lion prince of today or a Dragon prince of tomorrow could stop the arrival of God Emperor.
But if he pushed Thoren to not kill, the framework of ’benevolence’ would fall apart.
The God Emperor who could ally with him against Architect should be the one willing to use force for good reasons—reasons beyond personal benefits.
’I will help you to the best of my ability.’ Varian aided instead of obstructing.
Thoren joined hands with a few others in a secret realm during a prince competition and made a move on the Lion prince.
It was confirmed then that the Lion prince was indeed maintaining a facade. He was neither kind nor gentle.
The God Emperor was vindicated.
With Varian’s help, he staged a perfect death scene, absolving him of any responsibility.
Suspicions lingered but not enough to affect the race. In fact, the race of princes grew fierce with the favorite eliminated.
This chaos gave Thoren plenty of opportunities to get ahead who went to all lengths to progress.
Thoren saw all his actions as necessary for achieving the seemingly impossible goal of claiming the Throne.
As a peak rank 9 celestial, he had his own judgement and experiences.
If Varian tried to stop him for the sake of morals, he’d see it as his teacher’s impracticality and hypocrisy.
Varian watched, with apprehension but also hope Thoren struggling for a long time before finally taking that leap.
"Thoren, the empire confers you the position of tenth prince for reaching the divine rank.
From now on, you are Thoren Aur.
You are now just one step away from the throne.
May the best win."
Celebrations erupted across various duchies. The golden prince was kind, benevolent and wildly popular.
He gave people what no one else did. A promise of peace.
From his quarters, Thoren saw tens of thousands of people gathered outside his palace. Deep joy welled inside his heart and a gentle smile adorned his face.
Varian breathed a sigh of relief.
He didn’t know how the original God emperor was, but this one genuinely loved common people. Even Varian himself wasn’t so selfless.
"Teacher." He said slowly. "Once I gain the throne, I’ll change everything."
"Good. I’m looking forward to it." Varian was equally sincere.
"But will you able to last until then?" The student asked.
"I don’t know."
The connection with God Emperor was growing fainter and fainter as he was growing stronger and stronger.
Varian’s consciousness was ’phasing’ out of the timeline every now and then before reappearing.
It’s as if the current of time was trying to pushing him away and he was forcing himself back in.
And each disappearance easily spanned over a thousand years.
Thoren was really shaken the first time. But thankfully, he kept the teachings in mind and grew more resolute in the path of peace.
But they both knew he couldn’t keep returning. One day, it’d be the end.
"Don’t worry, teacher." Thoren broke the heavy silence. "Once I am the emperor, I will see if I can heal your dissipating soul. It’ll be alright."
The day was closer than either of them could imagine.
The Emperor of Jai was injured by the alliance leaders and pushed forward selection of the crown prince.
Through lot of blood, scheming and sheer grit, Thoren climbed the stairs of bones, reaching the throne.
He still wasn’t a rank 2. But he was already given the slivers for training.
Thoren’s talents seemed the highest with the slivers. He grew rapidly. Varian no longer instructed him diligently, for he was disappearing more and more often.
Thousand years, five thousand years, ten thousand years, hundred thousand years.
Their bond changed from a caring teacher who always stayed with his student to a master who visited every now and then.
Thoren still remained respectful and to Varian’s relief, his genuine desire in peace never wavered.
As he slowly gained more and more ruling powers, he began his reforms.
The severe interracial conflicts were systematically eliminated. Noble corruptions were slowly weakened.
There was severe backlash for each change. But the God Emperor was relentless.
At this point, with his own talent and strength, he had already won over many powerful figures whose minds were solely on the empire.
They all saw him as the man who could lead Jai to greater heights. So, he went all in on the changes.
What didn’t happen over a million years happened in a few hundred. The reforms were brutal, quick and well thought out.
The old generations who last witnessed his princely days were dying. For the new generations, he had always been an emperor since their birth.
Born into this new society he moulded, they began to fear him more than loving him.
Interestingly, Thoren didn’t shape the public opinion. He deemed it’s better for the peace if people feared the ruler.
With time, a lot of the old problems were solved once and for all. And sorting its infighting and excess exploitation, the Jai empire grew increasingly prosperous and strong.
The dominance of alliance was slipping away each century at a visible rate.
God Emperor, still a newbie at low rank 2, earnestly tried for peace several times.
"We are all members of Eden. Why are even fighting for? You have your slivers, we have ours. We can work together on a lot of things, we don’t have to be life and death enemies.
Too many people died already.
We don’t even know when the war started, yet we keep fighting it.
Let’s end this forever war and welcome peace."
God Emperor had to face a lot of backlash at home, even from his most ardent supporters for this move. But he remained steadfast.
The man genuinely hoped for peace.
Unfortunately, the alliance completely misunderstood his move.
They saw it as him stalling for time as Jai was catching up and growing stronger.
Instead of dialing down the tensions, the alliance launched a full scale war, breaking down any chance of peace.
As the war began, Varian’s consciousness was violently shaken out of the timeline.
While the world was flickering, he noticed an injured Thoren entering God’s Eye.
’Wait, we never got there! Was the primordial god’s corpse there?’
Varian tried to fight back the current but was fiercely thrown back.
When he returned, he realized the turmoil amplified his disappearance a thousand times.
A high rank 2 God Emperor greeted him.
"Teacher."