It began with silence.
Not the kind that crept through rooms late at night, or the kind that blanketed cities before a storm—but a silence that stretched across continents. A pause. A universal hush.
Then, all at once, every living person on Earth heard it not through their ears, but deep inside their minds.
"A new emperor has been born."
The words were clear. Ancient. Powerful. Spoken in no language and yet understood by all.
Some froze mid-step. Some wept without knowing why. Others—those with power or knowledge of the unseen—felt a ripple of energy surge through the layers of reality. The message didn’t stop at Earth. It passed through dreams, planes, and dimensions. And somewhere deep beneath layers of forgotten space, ancient things stirred.
Beings locked away for centuries shifted in their prisons. Some smiled. Others screamed. Not all of them were sane anymore.
Most of these creatures once gods, demons, or monsters had been cast into the crevices of existence. Trapped in what humans now called hells, their forms and minds had twisted over the ages. Once noble or divine, they had become demonic, dangerous, desperate. The message had confirmed what they had long feared and hoped: the imperial line had returned. An emperor had risen.
In the deepest chambers of shadow governments and secret orders, alarms were triggered. Hidden organizations the kind that even presidents answered to scrambled into action. They knew what the return of an emperor meant: chaos... or salvation.
And somewhere on the slopes of an old mountain, a young man named Philip stood he had just accepted the final legacy
He didn’t hear the message. Not like the others. For him, the silence remained.
But something within him shifted.

After pacing around for a while, Frank finally gathered the courage to call his mum. "Franklin?" she asked, half-worried, half-relieved. "Is everything alright?"


He smiled. That tone—her voice always had the power to ground him. She was quiet, listening.


"Yeah, Mummy. I'm fine," he said gently. "Actually... I wanted to tell you something."


He told her he had come into some money—nothing too crazy, just one of the investments he had quietly made had finally yielded results.


He told her it was the solar panel business—something he had put a little money into ages ago. He said one of the managers finally got an investor, and it took off. Now, the returns were coming in.


"I'll send you a little from the profits," he said.


When she saw the amount, she called him back immediately.


"Frank! This money... where did you get it from? Are you alright? Are you in trouble?"


Frank laughed softly. "Mummy, it's legit. It's from the solar business. One investor put in huge money, and the business just exploded. I promise, it's clean. And this is just part of the profit. There's a lot more where that came from."


His mum, still skeptical but relieved, said, "Don't waste it all. Invest wisely. Put your money in different places. Start something for yourself."


His mother prayed the way only mothers knew how to pray—layered, firm, speaking to heaven with a mother's fire. She prayed for protection, for wisdom, for friends that would not lead him astray. She prayed against sudden death and strange women. She blessed his hands, his head, his voice, his future.


Just as he dropped the call, his phone buzzed again.


He stared at the screen for a long second, then tapped Accept.


"Hello?" he said, voice lower than usual.


There was silence on the other end for a heartbeat.


He had dreaded this moment since that night. But he also knew—he needed answers.


Chapter 14 - 14. The Call from Athena