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Orthros Reise Arnor (オルトロス皇子), also known as the False Emperor (偽帝), son of Emperor Valius Reise Arnor V, was the fourth prince of Erebonia during the 10th Century of the Septian Calendar. He was one of five self-described Emperors during the War of the Lions and one of only two to achieve de facto rule, the other being Valius' recognized successor, Dreichels.

Profile

Appearance

Orthros was a young man with shaggy, medium length hair. He wore a long overcoat with an upturned collar and a crown upon his head.

Background

Orthros Reise Arnor was born to a claimless (non-duchess) daughter to the Cayenne Dukedom, the first of Emperor Valius V's secondary wives.

Main article: War of the Lions

Following the death of his father, Valius Reise Arnor V, and assassination of his half-brother, Crown Prince Manfred, Prince Orthros seized the Imperial capital of Heimdallr by force in a military coup d'état. Once in control, he declared himself the new emperor and began purging all those who dared to oppose him.

Testa-Rossa

To give himself the upper hand against the armies of his half-brothers, Orthros revived the Divine Knight, Testa-Rossa that had once been sealed away by Emperor Hector I underneath Heimdallr. This brought about a shift in the balance of power during the civil war. With its unmatched strength under his control, Orthros decimated his greatest competition in one fell swoop, and the fifth prince, Gunnar, was defeated.

It seemed inevitable that the armies of the other princes would share the same fate, but it was at this pivotal point that the war took yet another surprising turn. This unexpected development came in the form of another Divine Knight: The Palatinate Knight. The famed champion was acquired by Prince Lucius, the sixth and youngest of the feuding brothers. A mercenary in Lucius' employ piloted the knight on behalf of the prince. With its aid, Prince Lucius was poised to challenge Orthros.

Vermillion Apocalypse

Orthros remained at the pinnacle of strength and dominance for some years. It was not till the reappearance of Dreichels Reise Arnor, his half-blood relative, that the tide of war was turned. In S.952, Orthros felt pressured by the combined force of Prince Dreichels; the warriors from the Nord Highlands, the Eisenritter under command of Lianne Sandlot and Shion Arseid, and the remnants of Prince Lucius's army (most notably his mercenary pilot of Zector, the Palatinate Knight). Prince Orthros schemed to elevate the cursed Vermillion Knight to even greater power, and thus created the Vermillion Apocalypse. The demonic god emerged in Heimdallr alongside the Infernal Castle, decimating the approaching allied forces of Prince Albert and Prince Gunnar in one battle. Neither the Magic Knights of Albert and Gunnar nor even the Palatinate Knight under orders of Lucius could contend with such a foe and were felled. As the thousand-arm Knight decimated all who challenged Orthros, countless crimson spirit veins spread out from the Infernal Castle, stealing life force from the capital's citizens as well as those in the surrounding area.

With the Ashen Knight in Dreichels's possession and the Argent Knight in Lianne's, along with their many aforementioned supporters, they marched on the capital for the final time, eventually making their way to the Infernal Castle at its center.

Three days later, on July 4, S.952, Orthros was defeated by Dreichels and Lianne, albeit at the cost of the latter sustaining fatal wounds. The Infernal Castle vanished from existence and the Heimdallr was liberated.

Legacy

Unbeknownst to the general populace, the modern noble line of the Cayenne dukedom descended not from the ducal line, but instead from the bastard blood of Orthros. Croire de Cayenne inferred that, after the War of the Lions concluded, newly-crowned Emperor Dreichels deliberately buried the truth of House Cayenne's surviving lineage to avoid stoking further conflict amongst the deflated peerage. Not only did this decision prevent the name of Erebonia's oldest and most powerful duchy from being sullied, but also prevented any need for leadership turnover within the Lamare Province. The result was as intended on Dreichels's part; House Cayenne remained the nobility's (and thus, the Noble Alliance's during the October War) de-facto leader for two centuries to follow.

However, in the process, Dreichels's decision resulted in a quiet resentment and humiliation being sown in Orthros's descendants, culminating in Croire and the actions he took by claim of what was 'owed' to him and his Cayenne blood. This also informed his course of action directly. From the military occupation of Heimdallr, to reawakening of Infernal Castle and Vermillion Apocalypse, Croire replicated Orthros's methodology to the letter, hoping to realize his ancestor's dream in the process.

And so, during the Erebonian Civil War in S.1204, Croire tried to put his plan into motion, but was ultimately unsuccessful in much the same light as his Orthros: Upon the return of Giliath Osborne.

Trivia

• It was long unknown whether Orthros was officially acknowledged as Emperor of Erebonia by the state at one point in time. However, in Trails into Reverie, we learn such is no longer the case if ever it was: For Emperor Valius V is referred to officially as the seventy-second emperor, rather than the seventy-first. With Dreichels being the seventy-third, this confirms that despite sitting the throne for five years, Dreichels had Orthros's reign annulled just as he did for all his other half-brothers of whom declared themselves Emperor during the war.