Devouring Monarch: Rebirth of the Profane Phoenix

Suddenly, a gentle knock sounded twice before the handle turned.

"Mu Xue...?" Asura asked in his sleepy mood, climbing off the bed and walking towards the door in a daze.

"Forgive me, my lord. I am not Mu Xue but Su Fei. Good morning, Lord Asura. The lady asked for your presence at breakfast. Today, she said you depart for the tower and must be full strength. Ah!?"

The moment the maid opened the door, the naked body of Asura greeted her as he still seemed to be in a state of sleepiness.

"Ahhhh... I\'m so sorry! Please forgive me, lord. I\'m sorry."

Su Fei squealed and immediately slammed the door shut with a red face, her mind completely blank. Asura completely snapped awake from the sound of the door and realised he wasn\'t home anymore and his cute maid was travelling for several days.

A sense of loneliness filled his chest while he began wearing his underclothes.

\'Did Mu Xue stay up all night?\' He wondered, pondering over her condition as she had left for a trip before him.

\'This will be my first time leaving her side for a long time since... my last life when I married Verana.\'

Asura\'s thoughts shifted between two overlapping worlds and lifetimes so subtly in his mind became to confuse the two and mix them like a well-measured cocktail.

\'Will everything go according to plan?\'

Asura inhaled deeply and released a gentle breath, calming himself before he stepped out of the room after tying his hair back in a half braid, half up half down style, wearing a black long tail coat, white tunic and dark blue pants with his black scales visible from the open neck and his cheeks.

When he left the room, he saw Su Fei bowing to him with her bright red face, making Asura realise that just because some people of Drakkur were rotten, not everyone was.

"I apologise for my rude appearance, lady Su."

Su Fei jumped a little and blushed even more, her ears glowing red. "Please, you don\'t need to do this, Lord Asura."

"Not at all. My appearance was unbefitting to your presence, and I must offer my apologies. Unless you liked what you saw, haha." Asura patted her shoulder, feeling her body relax at his joking tone, before he headed to the familiar path to the dining room.

\'Although they never let me eat in the main room, instead in a side room with that... clone.\'

When he arrived at the door to the dining hall, a flash of silver crossed Asura\'s mind as he recalled Princess Vela\'s appearance last night before. She asked him to leave before she made a mistake unbefitting the crown princess.

"This way, my lord," Su Fei guided him into his chair, next to the head chair and across from Verana; still keeping his cool, he sat quietly, noticing that only he, the princess, the duchess and her daughter were present.

"Good morning, Duchess Valerie." Asura\'s greeting caused her to snap out of a daze, her gaze looking at the necklace on his chest as if he wore it at her request.

"Ah, good morning, my dear Asura. Please, you can just call me a mother. We will become family, after all."

Her words rang in his mind as the scene he saw in the dream returned to him.

He mistook the current world for a moment and almost screamed out before he noticed Vela\'s soft smile and could take a deep breath, "Of course, the sounds quite interesting, to have such a beautiful mother."

Verana\'s mouth opened as if she never expected such a joke or flirting from Asura towards her mother as she bit her lower lip and kicked his shin under the table. Valerie only smiled, her lips curling deeply as she waved a hand to signal breakfast to begin.

"Today, you will enter the tower for your trials. I hope you can achieve everything you desire in that cursed realm." Valerie spoke elegantly and softly, words guided across the table along the gentle breeze. "Not only you, Verana and the princess, but three people who applied for the tower directly for over six months."

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"Ah, could those be the arrogant trio?" Asura suddenly blurted out before he realised the situation and shut his mouth, only to hear giggles around the table.

"If you mean the Auction House heir, a bastard son of some noble and a genius girl from the town, then you are right to call them arrogant little ants." Valerie supported him as the servants around the room all shuddered from her voice and such a smile they never saw from their duchess.

Should anyone guess from the morning conversations, they would think Asura was marrying Valerie, not Verana.

"No wonder they didn\'t tell me any details yesterday."

"I heard they were quite sour that a random child, a mere former no-mag noble, could enter it so easily." The sweet voice of Verana sounded, drawing his gaze to her beautiful eyes.

"I am no mere no-mag noble, right, my dear Verana?"

The beautiful blush that painted her cheeks, as her ears twitched and her hair danced behind her chair, styled like a fishtail braid, made her look like a cute little kitten, making Asura\'s heart beat faster. It was too different from what he expected; the woman in his heart, his dreams and his past were so different that he couldn\'t confirm the true Verana.

"N-no, you\'re not a mere no-mag!" Her voice boomed with a powerful denial as she slammed her hands on the table, causing everyone to gaze in her direction; it also caused her mother\'s smile to widen. "Ah... forgive me for the crude display."

Valerie waved her hand gently as if not surprised by her daughter\'s behaviour. "Verana, eat your breakfast properly. Do you want to eat together with Asura to ensure he eats well?"

Verana blushed at her mother\'s words and glanced at Asura, only to see him eating the soft-boiled egg as if in a trance, his eyes shimmering strangely.

"Lord Asura, is everything alright?"

"No... nothing, just this breakfast feels nostalgic..." Asura whispered while Valerie\'s eyes trembled.

\'It tastes like the breakfast I ate for decades as the useless no-mag husband of Verana...\'

"Fufu, oh my dear Asura. My lovely daughter made this breakfast eager to please you. She got up so early, despite normally lounging in her bed until noon!"

"MOTHER!" Verana stood up, hitting the table with her thighs as she seemed embarrassed and angry at her mother\'s words. "I just... I just wanted to give Lord Asura a nice breakfast..."

The atmosphere turned so tense and awkward that Asura couldn\'t hold it back anymore, and after gulping down his food, he couldn\'t stop the laugh.

\'She gets so angry over stupid things.\'

"Why are you laughing, Asura!?"

"You two are so cute that I cannot help but laugh. Relax, Verana. I\'m enjoying your hard work."

Verana blushed, her gaze fixed on Asura as he smirked at her, her expression telling him that if they were alone, she might jump at him and try to beat him up. However, his feelings began unravelling, one fine thread at a time.

******

Breakfast ended after a few more jokes from Valerie and teasing from Verana before everyone seemed finished; then, after freshening up, everyone left the mansion to enter a black carriage with red roses atop the rounded roof.

Only Asura and Verana sat across from each other while the princess sat beside Asura; since breakfast last night, she became obedient and sat beside Asura, cushioning his arm while watching Verana with sharp eyes.

"The journey should take less than half an hour; the elite Black Serpent guard guards the tower. Only the royal family and the highest-ranking nobles or special people in this kingdom can enter there."

"Is that so? Ah, I saw something about it in the books I read," Asura replied casually, feeling Vela\'s hand holding his tighter.

Their ride didn\'t last long, just like Verana said; however, the more he spoke with her about the tower, the more Vela\'s grip tightened. It seemed the princess learned to feel jealousy over the recent days with Asura.

"Ah, Asura. You\'ve grown even more handsome since breakfast."

"Ah, yeah."

"Asura! You\'re not even listening."

"Ah, sorry, Verana. Is that weird thing the tower of death?"

A crumbling tower entered Asura\'s view... no, the tower had already collapsed and was half-buried under dirt and a forest. He could see black steel armour patrolling the perimeter and an entrance so strange he felt like an alien landed on this planet.

"Ah... Asura, that\'s the entrance to the tower of chaos. Don\'t let appearances fool you."

Asura gazed at the tower before him, feeling like an elderly man, not a young man; a dull ache began throbbing in his head and heart.

"Asura?"

"Don\'t worry, I\'m just a little excited about this."

"Hehe, you can consider yourself a legend once you finish the trials. After all, only four people have ever completed the trial."

"Four?" Asura asked, while Vela also seemed interested.

"Yes, over the long history, despite millions trying, the only successors are the sword saintess Sigurd, the illusive huntress Freyja Fenix, the crimson knight Lorem and finally... The fallen silver prince, son of the divine sun Auros, only those Four have completed the trial of death."

Asura listened intently, \'only those... and Auros, huh?\'

\'Eh? Lorem?\'

His gaze moved to Verana\'s charming face as she continued, "However, there\'s one more legend here who can count himself among them if he survives."

"Stop trying to flatter and butter me up; you will pass it, too, and so will Vela." Asura only knew Verana could clear it because she did so; in his past life, she first cleared the death trial and then announced the new techniques that would enrich the land.

"..." Verana glanced at her fiancé in bewilderment before she lowered her head, her ears dropping behind her head. "I don\'t think I\'m capable of that."

Asura could only smile while shaking his head as the carriage pulled up towards the strange vortex, a portal so unstable he felt the magic inside his body become volatile...

\'This tower is special.\'

"Princess Vela, Lord Asura, Lady Verana, we are here." A man\'s loud voice snapped Asura awake as he realised the carriage had stopped and opened the door.

"Thank you for guiding us," Asura replied after leaving the carriage, offering a hand to Vela and his other to Verana, not even bothered about how it looked; keeping appearances could be the difference between war and peace between their two houses.

Despite looking nothing like a tower, more like a ruin, the party headed towards the distorted portal that served as the entrance with their gaze on three people who looked at them with an unfriendly gaze.

\'No... The guy\'s gaze is on me.\'