The dust of the arena tasted like all the failures of his life.
Nicolas Confdo stood panting, the training sword feeling like a lead weight in his sweaty palm. Across from him, Lord Valerius of House Goldwin stood pristine and unbothered, his polished armor gleaming under the harsh sun of the Light Country's royal arena.
"Come now, Confdo," Valerius's voice boomed, carrying easily over the murmuring crowd of nobles. "Is that all the House of Confdo can muster? My guardsmen practice with more vigor before their morning ale!"
Laughter rippled through the stands. Nicolas didn't need to look to know his father, Baron Confdo, would be staring stonily ahead, his disappointment a physical weight. He didn't need to see Lady Isabella, the woman he had foolishly hoped to impress, covering a delicate laugh with her hand.
He was the third son. The mediocre son. The one with adequate swordsmanship, passable mana, and no prospects. He existed to make men like Valerius look better.
With a roar of frustration, Nicolas charged. His form was perfect, his footwork exact a testament to years of relentless, thankless drilling. He swung his blade in a clean, powerful arc aimed at Valerius's shoulder.
It was a move his instructor had praised. A solid, nobleman's strike.
Valerius, with a smirk, didn't even parry. He simply sidestepped with contemptuous ease. As Nicolas stumbled past, off-balance, Valerius brought the pommel of his own sword down hard on the small of Nicolas's back.
Agony exploded through his nerves. His legs gave way and he crashed face-first into the dirt, his sword clattering away. The impact drove the air from his lungs. He lay there, gasping, the taste of soil and blood filling his mouth.
"Pathetic," Valerius declared, his voice dripping with scorn. He placed a booted foot on Nicolas's back, pressing him deeper into the ground.
"This is the strength of our lesser nobility? No wonder the Elf-Queen laughs at our envoys. No wonder the Wolf-tribes raid our borders. We are led by weak blood."
The humiliation was a fire in his veins, hotter than the sun beating down on him. He could feel the gaze of the entire court the pity, the scorn, the indifference.
He saw it all in his mind's eye: his father's stony silence, Isabella's pitying glance, the smug satisfaction of the high nobles.
This is all I will ever be,the thought echoed in his mind. A stepping stone. A joke.
But then, another thought, cold and clear, cut through the shame. A memory surfaced. A childhood fever, visions of strange, warm light, a feeling of connection to the world that pulsed just beneath his skin. A power he had been told to suppress, to hide, to be ashamed of.
"No."
The word was a silent explosion in his soul.
As Valerius lifted his foot and turned to bask in the crowd's adulation, Nicolas pushed himself to his hands and knees. He ignored the pain in his back. He focused on that hidden well within him, the one he had been forbidden from touching. It wasn't the shallow pool of combat mana. This was a deep, dark ocean of something else. Something hungry.
He didn't know its name. He only knew its desire.
He let a trickle of it flow out, not as a weapon, but as a whisper. He pushed his will into the very stones of the arena floor, a silent command to the earth itself.
Beneath Valerius's heel, a single, seemingly loose cobblestone shifted. Just an inch.
It was enough.
The celebrated champion of the tournament, mid-victory pose, yelped in surprise as his ankle twisted violently. His arms flailed, his balance vanished, and with a deafening, undignified crash of metal, Lord Valerius fell face-first into the same dirt that stained Nicolas's tunic.
The laughter stopped. A stunned silence fell over the arena.
Slowly, painfully, Nicolas rose to his feet. His body ached, but his mind was preternaturally calm. That dark, warm power hummed in his veins, soothed by its tiny release. It felt... good.
He walked over to where Valerius was sputtering and struggling to right himself in his heavy armor. Nicolas didn't kick him. He didn't spit. He simply stood over him, a silent monument to overturned expectations.
He then turned his gaze to the royal dais, where the King of the Light Country watched, his expression unreadable.
"My liege," Nicolas said, his voice cutting through the silence. It did not waver.
He then unbuckled his sword belt. The fine leather, stamped with his family's crest, came loose. He let the sword, the symbol of his noble duty, fall to the dust with a final, heavy thud.
All eyes were on him. He could feel their confusion, their shock.
He reached for the silver brooch at his shoulder the stoic hawk of House Confdo. He unpinned it, feeling the weight of generations of mediocre nobility in his palm. For a moment, he held it. Then, he leaned down and dropped it onto Valerius's back, placing it neatly between his shoulder blades.
"I renounce it," Nicolas declared, his voice ringing clear. "I renounce the name Confdo. I renounce my title. I renounce my lands. I am no longer a son of this house, or a citizen of this court."
Gasps turned into shouts of disbelief. To voluntarily become nameless was madness. It was social death.
The King stood, his face dark. "You foolish boy! Without a name, you are nothing! You will be less than a peasant! Where will you go? What will you become?"
Nicolas met the King's angry gaze, and for the first time in his life, he felt no fear. He felt the dark power within him stir, whispering promises of a different future. A future not of serving, but of possessing. Not of following rules, but of making them.
He saw a vision, not of glory in battle, but of a private kingdom. A world of his own making, filled with beautiful, adoring faces. Faces that looked upon him not with pity or scorn, but with worship.
"The world is large, Your Majesty," Nicolas said, a faint, cold smile touching his lips. "And I find I have a sudden desire to redecorate a piece of it."
He turned his back on the sputtering Valerius, on his stunned father, on the gasping Lady Isabella, on the King, on everything.
As he strode from the arena, the strange warmth inside him blossomed, spreading through his limbs like a welcome fever. The path ahead was unknown, but it was his. The planet Saturn had eight countries, each filled with wonders, power, and beautiful, powerful women.
And Nicolas, the nameless one, would have them all.
The story of the Harem Emperor had begun.