Dadan sank to his knees with reverence, each movement deliberate, as though he were laying his very soul upon some ancient and hallowed altar.
Yet it was not the act of kneeling that shook him to his core, it was the quiet revelation unfurling within.
An inexplicable stillness cocooned his spirit, like a whispered benediction from something vast, venerable, and unseen.
The weight of fear, which had moments ago clutched his chest, melted away, replaced not with courage, but with surrender.
A trust deeper than reason, older than doubt.
Before him stood not merely Zara, the student he once knew, but Queen Vexia, regal, resplendent, and resolute.
Her bearing was that of sovereignty carved by aeons, and yet, from her poise flowed not cold dominion, but a warmth vast as the heavens.
Her eyes met his, luminous, unyielding, yet they did not scorch. They sanctified. They did not command obedience through fear, but through understanding.
In her gaze was no pride, only purpose. And in that purpose, Dadan found something rare, clarity.
Three paces behind Zara, Doctor Zein stood in contemplative silence. He did not utter a word.
Only a faint, enigmatic smile played upon his lips, a smile that concealed a tempest of thought raging beneath his composed exterior.
His eyes lifted to the sky, where the noonday sun cast its indolent gaze upon the earth.
Yet Zein was not looking at the heavens. He was conversing, inwardly, with time itself, with memory, with fate.
“Perhaps,” he whispered, “the hour has truly arrived.”
“The hour when old truths of King Aramia, of the Seven Great Queens, of the wars that scorched the ages can no longer be buried beneath the sands of forgetfulness.”
“Perhaps… this is the long-awaited unlocking of a destiny that has slumbered too long.”
Zara or no, Queen Vexia now, in all her rightful majesty turned her gaze slowly towards Doctor Zein.
Gone was the soft, deferential look of a pupil gazing upon her beloved. In its place stood the solemn regard of a sovereign acknowledging her equal, her king.
With the elegance of one born to rule, she inclined her head in a gesture both regal and reverent.
Then, in a voice as measured as it was mighty, she spoke, “My king…”
And with that, the world itself seemed to fall still.
Her words, though softly spoken, echoed with a resonance that defied the boundaries of time and space.
The air trembled. The hearts of all who heard them quivered.
Eman and Dadan stared, unblinking, as though struck by revelation itself.
A great silence swallowed them whole, not the silence of peace, but the silence of awe.
Eman’s face drained of colour. A chill ran down his spine, and sweat, cold as river-stone, clung to his brow. The suspicion that had haunted him had now taken form.
This was no ordinary girl. This was no ordinary boy.
The young man who stood amid the storm, unbowed, unmoved. He might have worn the face of youth, but Eman saw through the veil.
He bore the countenance of one who had inherited a power that time could not erode. The blood of kings, undiluted and undiminished.
“It cannot be…” Eman murmured, his voice barely audible. “King Aramia has been dead for centuries… But this man, if he is who I think he is... he is the one…”
The name came to him as if drawn from the ashes of legend. A name passed only in shadows, spoken only when thunder drowned out the ears of the world.
Al-Ghifari. The hidden line. The forbidden name. The rightful heir.
And if it were true, then this young man was not merely a remnant of history, he was its living continuation.
The inheritor of a legacy so ancient, so divine, that no force of man or time could counterfeit it.
“He is no one,” Eman breathed, trembling. “And yet… he is all that remains of a glory the world was never meant to forget…”
Doctor Zein inclined his head with composed gravity, his eyes still resting upon Eman eyes that no longer belonged merely to a man, but to one who had once gazed upon empires rising and falling.
There was no need for raised voice or gesture. His very presence carried weight.
“So then, Master Eman,” he murmured, his tone almost gentle, yet bearing the undercurrent of a force unspoken, “has this been enough? Or must I, too, follow Zara’s path… and remind you of the power I wield?”
The air itself seemed to hesitate, the silence stretching taut.
The final words, steeped in a cool, sardonic lilt, hung there like the shadow of a blade suspended mid-air.
Eman dropped to a deeper bow, his frame betraying a subtle tremor, “W-With the deepest reverence, my liege,” he rasped. “I… I have erred. I was blind, a fool, undeserving to stand before Your Majesty.”
Doctor Zein acknowledged the submission with the barest nod, a motion as restrained as it was regal.
Power did not shout in his presence. It whispered, and all still listened.
“Inside,” he said simply. Not an invitation but a decree. “This chaos has wearied me.”
“Your will be done, my King,” Eman replied, steadier now, though his voice remained laden with humility.
Dadan stood beside him, unmoving. He did not dare raise his head. Something within him had shifted, beyond fear, beyond confusion.
A quiet, consuming awe had taken hold. In the man who now led them, Dadan no longer saw a doctor. He saw history. He saw sovereignty incarnate.
Doctor Zein’s gaze shifted to the still and silent ranks of karate disciples.
Their bodies held mid-motion, their expressions caught in time.
Not statues carved by chisel and mallet, but by will alone.
His eyes turned next to Zara, whose posture remained statuesque in its poise, her presence steeped in quiet majesty.
“Zara,” he said, his voice low yet laced with command. “Release them. Cleanse their minds of what they have seen. The world is not yet ready to bear this truth.”
She bowed, the grace of her movement echoing something far older than the flesh it inhabited.
“Your word is law, my King,” she answered.
Raising her hand, Zara summoned the crimson light once more.
It surged from her form, dancing upward in arcs of liquid flame, coalescing into a sigil, the sacred crest of Aramia which hung above them like a constellation long buried by time.
“Lethe Eravia…” she intoned, the words no louder than a breath, and yet they rang out like thunder through the unseen chambers of the soul.
The red light cascaded gently down upon the students, seeping into their skin, their minds, their memories. One by one, they stirred.
Eyes blinked. Shoulders rolled. Voices returned, unsure, bewildered.
“Were we… training?”
“I could’ve sworn… I had the strangest dream just now…”
They exchanged puzzled glances, the moment before wiped clean, like fog drawn from a mirror.
Whatever they had witnessed, whatever had shaken them to silence, was gone, locked behind a veil spun by Zara’s will.
She lowered her arm and turned back toward Doctor Zein, “Their minds are quiet once more, Your Majesty. No memory remains.”
Doctor Zein inclined his head, yet said nothing. His face was composed, almost serene.
But deep within, the long-sleeping waters of fate had begun to churn. The story of old was awakening.
And the world, though silent now, would soon remember.