Marriages in Numidian culture are not comparable to the marriages on earth. On earth, regardless of their culture or religion, a marriage typically involves taking some form of a vow centered around their devoted God. However, in the cultivation world of Altheria people have no concept of God. They just gather their loved ones and well-wishers and inform them that they are married and proceed with their lives as usual. However, that is only applicable to commoners.
Nobles assemble every other noble or their representative in the royal court before the emperor and declare their intent to marry. And only upon the approval of the emperor would the couple be considered as wed. It is a tradition designed by the first emperor of the Numidian dynasty and was used to check the political power of nobles.
Children born through a couple who are talented will outshine their previous generations. So, if two talented nobles have children together, their talent might surpass the talents in the royal family. In order to control the military might of the noble clans, there have been many instances in the long history of Numidia where the emperor rejected political marriages.
However, in the past 10,000 years, this tradition has become a mere formality as the power difference between the royal family and the noble clans significantly increased. Even if a new talent is discovered in any noble family, they might be poached into the royal family through marriages. Thus, it can be interpreted that the entire royal family is related to all nobles of the empire to some degree. Through these policies, the royals have cemented their rule in the empire of Numidia for eternity.
Marriages of emperors follow the same procedure. The emperor would summon the royal court (which includes the representative of every noble in the empire) and declare his/her wish to marry in front of them. Not even their harem or children can object to this. There are no chances of political maneuvering as the emperor possess the ultimate strength. Typically, when a presiding emperor's cultivation reaches the peak of 9th stage of Nascent soul realm, they abdicate the throne and seclude themselves in hope of breaking through to the next realm. When this happens, their most talented child will inherit the throne. The talent of a person is mainly determined by how quick they break the Qi accumulation realm and how sturdy of a foundation they established. External materials can aid a person to reach the peak of Qi accumulation, but the quality of foundation established will solely depend on the inherent talent of a cultivator.
Although, the emperor's harem and children cannot object to the new marriage, they can show their dissatisfaction by harassing the new member of the harem. The emperor usually only marries highly talented people, so the concern of harassment is not high as they can fend for themselves with their strength alone or through the help of their families.
However, in this instance when Erik declared that Olivia who lacks in talent and status as his sixth wife, he was met with bafflement from all the people present. To some degree, they could understand the emperor's compulsion when they looked at the beauty but they could not understand why he simply had to wed her.
The hubris of a powerful cultivator such as Erik made it difficult for him to comprehend any of the political intricacies and suffering that Olivia would go through in the future. He simply was excited to declare her solely as his and was in a hurry to fuck her as much as possible.
He took it easy on her for the first time as she was a virgin. However, he gave no concessions from the next day onward. He placed Olivia and Cassian in a room near his chambers and would fuck Olivia for hours on end. Thus began the monotonous life of Erik and Olivia who fucked every day while Cassian was in crib bemoaning the harsh life that he had to face. Initially, he tried to make known his presence in the room, but was soon silenced by a milk bottle.
Erik took her in every position possible and in all the three holes until they were dripping with his seed. He taught her how to pleasure him as well as how to cultivate. However, with her talent in the league of commoners she could only cultivate until the peak of Qi accumulation realm and could not establish foundation no matter how hard she tried.
After a year, Erik declared that Olivia borne him a son named Cassian Numidia and is to be tenth in line to the throne being aware that the chances of him inheriting the throne are zero. Thankfully for Cassian, after he was declared to the world he was allotted a personal room near Olivia. The only people who were aware that Cassian is not biologically royal were Erik, Olivia, the royal advisor and the maid who was drafted as a personal maid to the prince Cassian.
--------------------------- Seven years later:
Throughout the seven years, Erik has been fucking Olivia tirelessly everyday. He was extremely jubilant after each session and would leave soon afterwards, however, Olivia had to struggle from excessive stimulation for at least three more hours due to her low cultivation. Thus, Olivia's daily life after waking up from sleep consisted of taking care/playing with Cassian the entire day and looking forward to her fuck sessions in the evening.
Cassian grew up aware of his history as Olivia did not want to hide the truth from him. However, she insisted he call her mother. When he first looked at his mother, he immediately felt jealous that she now belonged to his father. That feeling became even more intense after he realized that she was being fucked passionately everyday for the past seven years. However, he was also grateful to them for adopting him and ensuring that he led a peaceful life.
His comfortable life soon came to an end though, as one day Erik had to go to the region of Ironridge, located in the north-eastern part of his empire near the mountains of Morea to stop the onslaught of numerous beasts.. Beast tide is a common occurrence every year in the northern part of the empire except for a small region called Nurid. This region is located in the north-west of the empire and has the highest unscalable mountain in Numidia as its shield in the north and the great Numidian ocean in the west.
Every year local nobles and the royal army could manage to stop the beast tide. However, adventurers urgently reported the sighting of a Nascent soul beast heading towards the empire. The peak strength of most nobles is 9th stage Golden core and the royal army does not consist of cultivators in nascent soul realm. In order to protect his empire, Erik and his advisor Gareth, who is also in an early stage nascent soul realm, went on the expedition to kill the beast.
Nascent soul beasts usually do not come out of the mountains. Moreover, it is extremely difficult for cultivators to kill a beast in this cultivation realm because the fight in the mountains attract other beasts as well and can be life threatening to a cultivator. The meat of a beast is extremely advantageous for the progression of cultivation of humans in the same realm. And so, the meat of a nascent soul beast becomes especially alluring.
The day after Erik left the castle to the northern regions, Olivia was attacked by unknown cultivators of high strength. They were particularly nefarious as they attacked not with the intent of killing her, but to cause her pain and suffering. They used the vilest of poisons meant for eroding tough golden core beast's scales on her face and escaped soon after. The poison melted her once beautiful face completely.
Hearing the intense and horrified screams of his mother, Cassian found her in an extremely tragic state and immediately called the healers. He also alerted the security, but they unfortunately could not find the attackers. Although capable, healers did the best they could to cure her but they were only able to remove the poison. They could not reverse the poison's acid like effect on her face.
Meanwhile, Erik and Gareth despite combining forces could only stop the beast tide, but were unable to kill the nascent soul beast as it realized that it was outnumbered and retreated. When they returned to Siga disappointed, they quickly found out about what happened to Olivia.
Erik soon entered the chambers of Olivia and found her in the bed along with Cassian. He looked at her who once was the epitome of beauty, but now looked like a hideous creature that crawled from the abyss. Olivia got up from bed and intended to hug Erik, but he took a step back and stopped her as well. Erik was disgusted by her face but did not show it on surface. All he did was apologize and left soon after. He never once looked at Cassian either.
Although Olivia could not understand what happened, but Cassian being older in soul understood what happened just then. He was disappointed by his adopted father and realized that he only cared about Olivia's beauty.
Although the security of the castle were unable to find the perpetrators, Erik and Gareth had a general idea but did not intend to pursue. Starting that day, Erik never entered Olivia's chambers and did not bother about Cassian.
Met with indifference from everyone, Olivia and Cassian soon adopted through this grueling life for a year. Then the situation was further exacerbated when people discovered that Cassian only possessed commoner talent.