The Hazelgroove Royal family was started with the rise of the first emperor , who was a tier 5 swordsman , able to bend the continent to his will. Submitting kingdom after kingdom to finally unify the nothern continent under his banner to be crowned as the one true emperor.

  Following his death , one after the other , the heirs who succeeded him , were not upto the task of holding onto such a massive empire that he left behind. As such over the next 300 years , the size of the empire kept shrinking as more and more kings rose to rebellion.

  Finally before 250 years , the current Hazelgroove kingdom was formed , however the one who sat on the throne of Hazelgroove kingdom still kept the ancestral title of the Emperor! Instead of a king , even if they did not have a empire under their control anymore.

  It was the burning desire of each and every descendant , who took up the throne , to restore the glory of the past and expand the kingdom back to becoming an empire. But the times had changed and soo had methods of warfare.

  However one thing which remained throughout the years , was the opposition of the Hazelgroove Royal family to the Fallen Angel Lucifer.

  During the reign of the first emperor , Mazikeen Lucifer's fierce general wanted to establish the nothern continent as a place that worshipped Lucifer. Wanting to spread the church of darkness and propagate the one who ruled hell's ideology.

  But the problem was , that the first Emperor was a man who was of the light faction , and took pride in his practice of the white arts. For him to bow to Lucifer was unacceptable. Soo naturally he rejected the offer and made the church of light as the relegion of his continent.

  This is the reason why majority of the nothern continent still is under light faction kings and also the reason behind Hazelgroove Empire's fall!

  Mazikeen launched a great war against the then emperor , called the First Crusade , as the light faction forces of the Church and the state forces , took a combined stance against the invading forces led by Mazikeen.

  Mazikeen manifested Lucifer's power in that battle and for a moment used a terrifying tier 6 spell in the valley of blood. The place which is now called the Ghost kingdom . That decimated the light faction army.

  However divine power was not something that her mortal body could hope to support , hence the ramifications of using the spell were heavy for Mazikeen who lost majority of her powers following that incident.

  Eventually the light faction forces did win , capturing a weakened Mazikeen , as she was imprisoned in the now outskirts of Purplehaze city!

  In a massive underground bunker , kept hidden from the world , a location only those who took the throne in Hazelgroove kingdom knew about , she kept enslaved for 700 years!

  Generation after generation , she was guarded against , purple mist being released from her body , as she suffered from the recoil for using divine power.

  However healing for centuries , she finally attempted to break free when Cervantez was a young man who took the throne.

  An exceptional warrior , and a true Emperor , Cervantez fought a bloody battle against Mazikeen to keep her imprisoned for a few more decades. A fight that gave him all the scars on his body , a near death fight , that Cervantez won through sheer will , even when being the weaker party.

  The reason behind this was a forbidden technique that stole the opponent's power for oneself. It came at a viscous cost of excruciating pain, however it was the secret technique of the royal family passed down from ancient times . Yet over all the centuries , Cervantez was the only one who had the guts to use it and be left alive and sane even after it?, because the predecessor who tried to use it before , went senile .

  Yet Cervantez stole a very important power from Mazikeen , Mazikeens special move …… ( Immense time reduction! )

  This move slowed down the flow of time around the user for 5 seconds! It was the move that made Mazikeen unstoppable on the battlefield, and the move that was the key to Cervantez's arsenal as well.

  Cervantez was an excellent ruler , someone who could have easily annexed the two neighbouring kingdoms leading his troops to war , should he have wanted it …… But Cervantez did not! and the reason behind it was Lucifer.

  From the first time that he used Mazikeen's power , he felt an indescribable pressure on his body …… As if someone was watching him. Filling his mind with temptation and desire , Cervantez spent countless nights recovering from his injuries while trying not to loose his sense of self to Lucifer.

  Mazikeen's powers were indirectly linked with Lucifer and using them had consequences for the caster , which is why Cervantez never used it unless absolutely necessary.

  Yet this tale remained unsaid , a incident kept tightly under wraps as not even the queen knew the origin of the king's injuries , thought to be from fighting a bloody war. He never fought .

  The only person who came to know what transpired was crown Prince Aman , when Cervantez corronated him as a successor to his throne , and at that exact moment his greed for the power of Mazikeen grew. For Aman his father was everything he ever aspired to be , but no matter how high he climbed in life …… He could never reach his heights.

  With Rahim , an ambitious man from the blood merchant organization brainwashing him , feeding his poison against the king , he was lead astray to beleive that he could steal Mazikeen's power and become even stronger than his father.

  However he knew that untill Cervantez was king , he would ever let this happen , hence why he tried to usurp the power.

  When the time came , it was also Rahim who caused the problem in the ceremony , as he manipulated the magic runes to cause an explosion , the result being that Mazikeen escaped her bounds!

  But not before loosing half of her strength to Aman! The boy catapulted from level 180 to 255 and became tier 4! And learnt the necromancy spell of raising an army of undead skeletons.

  Aman at his full power could summon 500,000 skeletons of level 30!?, He could create an entire fodder army. With him increasing in power , he could increase the quality and quantity of troops. Given time he would have became a one man army . Alas , he went the wrong way!

  /// Bonus chapter for the supergift from Cervantez91 , thank him in the comments below! ///