What Became of the Tyrant After the Pregnant Empress Left - Chapter 231

To understand the starting point of Kazhan’s twisted world, one must travel far into the past.

A dark night, eyes brimming with madness. Kazhan’s earliest memory was his mother’s forceful whisper, gripping him as if brainwashing him.

Kazhan’s mother, the Fourth Consort, was the illegitimate child of a minor noble family. A woman scorned by her own father, the family head, for the commoner blood running through her veins.

She had entered the imperial palace as a maid before catching the emperor’s eye by chance, sharing his bed and rising to the rank of consort. But the emperor had never loved her, leaving the Fourth Consort to endure palace life alone, without a single ally to lean on.

If there was one light in her life, it was her son, Kazhan—the first red-eyed child born into the Tennilath imperial family in generations.

While the most recognizable trait of the Tennilath lineage was their black hair, every single one who had awakened their abilities was born with red eyes. Even if neither parent nor grandparent carried the trait, it emerged like a mutation.

Given how long it had been since the Tennilath’s power had last appeared, Kazhan’s birth naturally sent shockwaves through Uzephia.

The nobles were displeased with Kazhan, whose blood was a quarter commoner, yet they outwardly acted as though they would support him as crown prince.

At least, that was the public facade.

In a Uzephia where imperial authority had weakened, the nobles who had spent years expanding their influence weren’t about to surrender their privileges so easily. If the Tennilath imperial family lacked a successor with the bloodline’s power, they could keep tugging at the emperor’s leash—why would they ever help the Sixth Prince?

It wasn’t as if they had sworn a blood oath to him.

And so, aside from a select few, the nobles feigned loyalty while secretly undermining Kazhan. Meanwhile, his half-brothers and the empress openly tormented him and his mother. Their goal was simple: crush a strong crown prince candidate early, ensuring he either never entered the succession battle or was eliminated outright.

It was a merciless environment for a child just learning to walk and his young mother.

Surrounded by a neglectful emperor and scheming courtiers, the Fourth Consort gradually lost her sanity. The wild swings in her emotions—so erratic they hinted at mental illness—fell hardest on her son, Kazhan.

Kazhan, barely three years old, found himself wondering.

What exactly was this thing called love?

What was it that made his mother beat him so?

And why did she hold him and weep every day? The young boy truly wished to know.

But Kazhan turned four without ever finding the answer he sought. Despite his rapid growth—already resembling a child of seven, as if to prove the density of his Tennilath blood—he still hadn’t manifested his abilities. The Fourth Consort grew more frantic by the day.

What if he was a half-blood, incapable of awakening? What if he couldn’t even use the blood oath, rendering him ineligible for the throne?

Her fears were justified. Even among red-eyed descendants, not all were born with the power—it was simply that every awakened Tennilath had red eyes.

Fortunately, unlike the others, Kazhan had one last option, forced awakening. Yet no one knew the exact conditions to trigger it, thanks to the incompetent emperor who couldn’t be bothered to comb through the imperial archives—restricted to royals alone.

And so, just before Kazhan turned five… disaster struck.