Sequel-Read at your own risk!

I never named it? Be warned, it is extremely long

Dong! Dong! Dong!

Five more times the holy bell rang throughout the vast city. Eight lucky rings mark the start of a royal funeral procession resonating throughout the newly reformed kingdom of Daigal. The heart-wrenching mourner's cries, peaks at high crescendo silencing everyone else. The somber notes carries far to the distant and seems to still linger.

Thousands of Court Paladins, ranking from the lowly Bai Guardians to the highly ranked Jin Guardians, held their heads down in respect as they stood motionless in the courtyard outside of the palace ceremonial hall. No court officials was spared, they too are kneeling down inside the hall, the higher ranking in the front and the lower ranking closer to the door.

The muted color of white covers the luxuriously intended Heaven Hall. In the front, many name plates carved on priceless jade covers the ancestral alter. And yet everyone knew, by the end of this tender ceremony, yet another royal name will be added to the vast sea. But at the moment, that name tablet is still being held by a young man who looks more akin to a ghost than human. Behind him stood more people dressed in the similar dull white cotton robes.

"Your majesty the auspicious time approaches, we cannot delay any longer."

The ghostly looking man eyes flickers, being pulled out of his trance and his eyes scans the massive hall. He looks for someone but that someone was not there. After a while his eyes stops looking and sighs.

"High Priest please proceeds."

The old man nods upon receiving the Emperor of Daigal's approval.

"Close the coffin!"

Palaces guards came fourth and began to lift the heavy lid over the coffin. In the last few moments before the lid would forever shut out the light into the coffin, the Emperor of Daigal's eyes lingers affectionately at the corpse. Slumbering in the impressively crafted coffin lays a young lady in her early twenties, delicate of features and nearly peerless in beauty. For it would not be wrong to say when crimson life still ran through her, she was a lovely. But now, death and time has stolen from her and she was more now than not, an empty shell. And yet, in the Emperor's eyes she was still the most dazzling in her faded brilliance.

"Your guilt and my crimes will not allow you to see her off."

The Emperor whispers quietly as his eyes languidly scans the crowds.

Clank! Clank!

The sharpness of metal on metal seals the coffin firmly and in harmonious unison, each strike also strikes a nail into the Emperor's heart. No matter how much each ring hurts, he was still the father of a nation and he could only stare and for such humanly affections it can only be hidden away.

If it should hurt, he could only stare. If it was painful, he could only endure.

He led the funeral procession in the similar manner, a face voided of any emotion to mask what was beneath the flesh. Through the strangely mute crowds they march towards the royal burial grounds located in the high hills. This land, it reserved only for the royal family.

The deceased young lady was not merely a simple princess. In life, she was granted the title Grand Princess, her future as an Empress, sealed in stone. Whether it is luck or fate, this princess truly did fall in love with her future king. Yet, death had robbed her of that fate too. In passing she was granted the posthumous title "The Virtuous Princess." Whether she was virtuous or not, the kingdom could not say, for who's to doubt the high monarchy. She lived through nearly two hundred years but she, and the world, only knew twenty-three of those years. It is said that the princess was born with a frail fate intertwined with two deaths through a silent long life.