Ah! Uhmmm. Yes. But as I said, prophecies aren't definite. So you don't have to worry so much. Just come along with me and do your thing. Don't worry!" Princess Louisa said quickly.

I frowned at her and narrowed my eyes.

"What are the words to that prophecy?" I asked her.

"I.. I don't remember." Princess Louisa lied and caused her cheeks to turn red.

I sighed.

Things were getting too complicated for me.

I just wanted to steal their most sophisticated design. It was supposed to be a simple and straightforward issue.

They hide and protect their stuff, while I sneak about and try to steal them. Just a regular, run of the mill, high stakes heist.

But the prophecies and marriages and crazy ugly bastards and pitiful princesses had to make it so complicated.

And the fact that the damned ancestor was so willing to send me to the Empire was also a cause of concern for me.

"Did he get another prophecy? Damn that old man. He would never send me on a mission for my own good. There must be something important about my going to the Empire that's beneficial to him and the Federation." I grumbled in my heart.

But after a while, I decided to just screw it all.

"Fine. To hell with the prophecies. I will go to the Empire, steal all your powerful offensive tech, gather intel, and kill your best warriors if I can. I won't be holding back." I warned Princess Louisa.

She gulped loudly and nodded without saying anything.

She knew earlier that she was letting a wolf into her lair.

She probably originally thought that her lair was that of a dragon which had nothing to fear from a mere wolf.

But at that moment, she was starting to feel less confident about their status as dragons.

And even if they were, I was starting to look less and less like a wolf, and more and more like a dragon as well.

But the die was cast.

"Let's go then. To the Empire." I said with a sigh. "Where exactly are we going?"

"We're going to the Royal Palace in the capital city, of course." Princess Louisa said with a pretty smile.

"Hmmm. You seem happy to be going back." I remarked upon seeing her smile.

"Yes. Home for me is a good place." She replied serenely. "Even if it's descending into chaos right now with the so called "Black Dragon" having his way with almost anything. After all is said and done, he is still a mere Crown Prince. My dominion is still my safe haven, and even his famed and feared Black Dragon Army is but one army among hundreds. My own Silver Legion can easily stand up against him."

"I see. I will need to learn about the politics of your Empire later. So I will be your VIP guest? How does that work?" I asked curiously.

"What do you mean how does that work?" Princess Louisa asked in confusion. "You'll be staying in my palace as my special guest. You will be granted access to every place I have access to, you will go to school with me, have meals with me, do all sorts of stuff with me. You are free to do your own stuff if you want, of course. But you will do so with armed escorts and a guide."

"Oh.. Right." I nodded as though I expected all that.

I hadn't, of course.

I was a junkyard scrapper turned superstar in the Chinese Federation. Money I had aplenty, and special treatment as well.

But I was completely blind to the lifestyle of Royalty.

Princess Louisa was rather perceptive, and she started to explain in detail about what I should expect.

"My father is the Emperor. His name is Emperor Ajax the First.

And as an Emperor, he has many wives and concubines and more children than you can count. All of them carry the title Prince and Princess. But of course, there are different levels of Princes and Princesses.

Those whose mothers are Queens are given the prefix High. So its High Prince this and High Princess that.

Those whose mothers are concubines are given the colour prefixes according to their strata. Blue. White. Gold. Red. In ascending order. Like White Prince Doran or Gold Princess Hella.

The use of these prefixes are very strictly enforced, and are more important than their names.

And finally, those of us whose mother is the Empress, we do not have prefixes.

I am Princess Louisa. Pleased to meet you." She grinned slightly as she stretched out a slender and soft hand to me.

"Pleased to meet you, Princess Louisa. I am future Emperor Justin." I shook her hand solemnly.

"Haha! Good one!" Princess Louisa laughed at my "joke" for a moment before realizing that I was serious. "Oh. You're being serious."

"Why not? With my power, it's just a matter of time until I gain control over a country as its overlord. And from there.. the world." I said pleasantly.

"Or we can get married and you can start your project of world domination with the Empire." Princess Louisa said casually and rather pleasantly herself.

I merely chuckled at her constant enthusiastic offers of becoming my wife.

"Go on. So you have Rainbow Princes, High Princes and Princes. How many full blooded siblings do you have?" I continued.

"I have three other siblings. Two elder brothers and one elder sister. Prince Wilford is the eldest. Prince Harris is the second. Princess Diane is the third. I am the fourth." Princess Louisa explained.

"And what about the Crown Prince? What type of Prince is he?" I asked.

"He was a Blue Prince. But now as a Crown Prince, he sits above every other Royalty, beneath only the Emperor and the Empress." Princess Louisa's face turned glum at the mention of the ugly bastard.

"Ew. So you're being forced to marry your half brother. That's sick." I scrunched up my face in disgust.

"Well, technically, he's not my half brother. He's the son from the concubine's first marriage. But it doesn't make any difference. He's.. filth." Princess Louisa scrunched up her face in disgust as well.

"I see. Well, I will help you kill him if I get the chance." I said to her comfortingly.

It truly felt strange to be talking about murder as a form of comfort. But I guess that's just life.

Princess Louisa smiled her beautiful, perfect smile at me appreciatively.historical

For the next hour or so, she told me almost everything I needed to know about the inner gossip of the Empire.

Who's with who, who hates what and who wants what. She even showed me holograms of the characters so I can put faces to the names.

Basically long story short, the Empire was divided cleanly into two over the Black Dragon.

The Emperor and most of those who were sucking up to him firmly supported Richard Draco as the Black Dragon and Crown Prince. They were even looking forward to the invasion of USAA. And as the current ruling power, things were unfolding according to their will.

Well, the Emperor's will. But he was very old, and he would be stepping down soon. He thought that he was handing the Empire into good hands.

In his defense, old age probably made him senile and led him to believe that Richard Draco was the Black Dragon.

But I guess it makes for a very poor defense as to why he had to go all in and go to war with USAA during a time of global crisis.

Choosing a fake ass dragon as a successor was dumb. But going to war with the only other superpower in the world when the Oceanic Tribes were about to attack..

It takes a special kind of senility to do that.

The retarded, idiotic kind.

Or the brainwashed kind.

Anyway, there were a group of sane people within the Empire, and they were firmly opposed to the entire idea of Richard Draco being the Black Dragon, his Ascension to the throne, and the planned war with USAA.

But because they were not the Emperor, they could only scheme in the dark and try to set up plans to thwart the above mentioned disasters from happening.

With spies, traitors and conspirators everywhere though, it was difficult to get much progress. Everybody was extra cautious, and everybody worked through proxies.

Identities were kept secret from each other as factions tried to execute their own objectives and block the other party's.

Assassination attempts were on the rise, and to the dismay of both sides, successful assassinations were also starting to become a daily occurance.

No big shots had died just yet, but the way things were going, it was only a matter of time till the first one fell.

And as soon as one fell...

The situation was simmering. It was a massive powder keg about to explode.

It was the perfect situation for me to make my entrance into the Empire's intrigues and conspiracies.

And boy, what an entrance I made.