The Kingdom of Saint Perod.

The royal capital.

The Palace of Sacred Haze.

The sprawling complex sat atop the hill at the very center of the city, like some colossal divine beast adorned with gold and jade crouching there.

As the legendary work of Master Calant, whose name had left an indelible mark on the history of human architectural art, this ancient palace had stood on the continent for seven hundred years. It had weathered countless storms of time, been damaged twice by fire and war, and yet even now it had lost none of its grandeur, majesty, magnificence, or the refinement and beauty that coexisted so naturally with all of those things.

It was the royal palace of the Kingdom, and its most famous landmark. Its fame across the continent, and its artistic achievement, far surpassed that vulgar thing in Belrand of the Empire, crudely piled together out of savage stone and dirt without the slightest sense of art.

"Beautiful..."

Aurier walked into the magnificent palace, the golden roofs brighter than the sun reflected in his eyes. This should have been an ordinary sight to him by now, but at this moment, an unprecedented surge of ambition rose in his chest.

As if in just a little while longer, he would become this place’s master and stand at the very top of that palace, looking down on the masses below like insects.

"Soon... very soon..."

Aurier murmured under his breath, forcibly pressing down the naked ambition and excitement visible in his eyes. He knew that moment had not yet come, so he still had to endure.

Endure.

Keep enduring.

As the son of a king more cold, more ruthless, and more pitiless than anyone else, endurance was the first thing they had to learn from the moment they were old enough to understand.

Otherwise he would end up like that idiot Milne. He had flaunted his talent and ability so freely, been valued, protected, entrusted with heavy responsibility, glorious and untouchable, seeming as if he would one day stand at the very highest place... only to become, in the end, a pathetic stepping stone for the Kingdom’s advance, a discarded piece thrown aside without hesitation by that emperor, by their father.

But he was not Milne. He was different. He would never repeat that mistake.

He was the truly intelligent one.

"Look, it’s Prince Aurier."

"He won again, didn’t he?"

"Mm. I heard he already broke through the Empire’s sixth fortress and pushed the front forward two hundred miles. And every time he leads from the front."

"Incredible... that’s what the future ruler of our Kingdom should look like!"

"Shh, be quiet. How can you talk about something like that in the palace?"

As Aurier walked into the palace in armor, he kept hearing the palace maids whispering things like that along the way, only to be sternly dispersed by the guards.

That was only natural. Against the broader backdrop of the Kingdom having been at a disadvantage against the Empire for over a hundred years, the things Aurier had accomplished as commander of the Kingdom’s vanguard were already enough to count as remarkable feats of glory. On that point alone, he had already surpassed his brothers and sisters competing with him for power by a wide margin.

But the more that was true, the more humble and respectful he behaved. By the time he stepped into the great hall—said to be even more spacious than the Imperial Throne Hall—he appeared more submissive than an ordinary noble making an audience. He dropped straight to his knees at the feet of the old man on the throne.

"May Father be blessed with peace. To see that Your Majesty is still as healthy as ever fills your son with boundless joy."

"Oh, little Thirteen Aurier has returned."

The old man on the throne laughed as he rose, personally helping Aurier to his feet with a warm smile.

"Why go so far? Between father and son, why care about such formalities? Are you trying to embarrass this old man?"

"You jest, Father. This is not etiquette. Who greets someone like this?"

When Aurier lifted his head, the corners of his eyes were already red, as if he dearly wished to throw himself at the old man’s feet and pour out all the sorrow of being separated from his father.

"This is simply the feeling in my heart for Father. It’s so overwhelming that I could not help but act this way."

"Ugh..."

Several ministers stood in the great hall, as well as some of Aurier’s brothers who had likewise been entrusted with important responsibilities.

So no one knew exactly where that faint sound of disgust had come from.

But that inappropriately timed noise was quickly drowned out by Aurier’s heartfelt display, and seemed never to have reached the old man’s ears at all.

"Good, good, good. Just seeing you return safely makes me happier than hearing any good news."

The old man... King Saint Peron V of the Kingdom... wore an expression of gratification, his face seemingly full of fondness for this son of his.

"I hear you’ve recently won no small merit as the vanguard, driving the Imperial army back again and again... There are already people in the country calling you the most gifted young commander the Kingdom has seen in a hundred years. Excellent. Ha ha, very well done."

"..."

Aurier’s heart tightened, and he hurriedly said,

"Father overpraises me. All of this is only thanks to your glory. If not for your wisdom and might, how could the Kingdom possibly have won such great victories?"

"Come now, why be modest? Do you think this old man would steal your credit? Here, a seat for him. Now that the boy is here, this meeting can properly begin."

"Thank you, Father."

Aurier sat in the royal seat personally granted by the king with tears of gratitude, every motion full of filial reverence and humility.

Once Saint Peron V returned to the throne, Aurier let his eyes flick sideways and swept a glance over the people in the hall.

The Kingdom’s ministers and his imperial brothers were all people he knew too well already. There was nothing worth mentioning there. The only one who truly caught Aurier’s attention was the man in black standing closest to Father.

The man’s entire body was concealed beneath a broad black robe, including his face. In this hall, before the king, covering one’s face like that was clearly a grave discourtesy. More than that, he stood even closer than the king’s own sons.

Yet Aurier felt very little displeasure at it. In fact, it was only when he saw the black-robed figure that he finally felt genuine ease.

The sense of reassurance that figure gave him far exceeded even what he felt toward the father seated on the throne.

The reason was simple. As commander of the Kingdom’s vanguard army, the only prince here who actually possessed a portion of real military authority and who had stood on the front lines in every clash with the Empire, no one else in this hall bore pressure as immense as his, nor understood better than he did what a terrifying enemy the Empire truly was.

He understood very well that for such a terrifying enemy, the only way for the Kingdom to have any hope of winning head-on was for someone to restrain it from behind, as they were doing now, so that it could not respond with its full strength.

So although such a matter could never be laid out openly—lest the nations of the continent condemn and despise them—Aurier, now deep enough inside the Kingdom’s core circle of power, knew very well who their ally in this war really was.

...The demonfolk.

That was right. Only the Abyss demonfolk, so savage that even the Empire feared them and had to face them with every nerve tensed, were worthy to become the Kingdom’s ally. One from the front and one from the rear, they would devour the overbearing Empire piece by piece.

And that same process of devouring would also be the process by which he steadily accumulated strength and prestige. That was exactly why, while his useless brothers and sisters were still thinking about infighting, he alone had gone to the dangerous front.

He understood this was his best opportunity. In a Kingdom where the heir had not yet been formally decided, if he could defeat the Empire, then the prestige he gained would naturally push him into the position of crown prince.

"Father has actually allowed an envoy of the demonfolk into the hall to take part in this meeting, and stand this close... It seems this alliance with the demonfolk really has gone astonishingly smoothly."

After making that analysis inwardly, Aurier immediately felt even more confident about this war—and, more importantly, the division of spoils afterward.

After all, as king, Saint Peron V’s posture of intimacy already made his attitude and trust perfectly clear.

And for that cold old monster to trust anyone meant that the benefits the demonfolk’s envoy had brought must already have reached a level worth taking enormous risks for.

"It seems I made the right bet."

A sharp gleam flashed in Aurier’s eyes. He felt immeasurably fortunate that he had chosen to join the army and become commander of the vanguard.

"Hm. Since little Thirteen has arrived, then let us continue the topic from earlier—what are your thoughts on the war as it stands now?"

Saint Peron V said, "Speak freely, all of you."

He looked over the people in the hall, his tone mild, his expression kindly, without the slightest trace of regal pressure. It seemed as though no answer could anger him.

But after Saint Peron V waited patiently for quite a while, not one person in the hall stepped forward to speak.

"What is this?"

At last Saint Peron V could not help frowning. "Do I look so frightening that none of you even dare speak?"

"Your Majesty misunderstands."

After exchanging glances for a while, it was ultimately the Kingdom’s Minister of Finance, Marquis Duncan, the man best at smoothing things over, who stepped forward.

"It is not that we fear Your Majesty’s authority and do not dare speak. It is simply that there is truly nothing much to say."

"Oh? What do you mean?"

"It is very simple. Our opinion of this war was already fully presented to Your Majesty from the very beginning."

Marquis Duncan straightened his back. Around him, most of the other ministers seemed much the same.

"We believe that in this war... the Kingdom will certainly win!"

"Certainly win?"

"Yes, certainly win!"

Duncan was already very old, not much younger than the king on the throne, yet the brilliance in his eyes at this moment was almost hard to look at directly.

"Now the Empire cannot attend to both ends. Its internal affairs are chaotic. Its new emperor is incompetent, lost in romance. This is its weakest moment, and if our Kingdom strikes with full force now, we will certainly crush the Empire. If victory is certain, then what more is there to say?"

"Minister Duncan... if I remember correctly, at the start you were the one most opposed to this war." Saint Peron V sounded surprised. "Why have you changed so completely now?"

"Yes. At that time, I did not realize the Empire had already grown so weak that we would drive it back so easily."

Duncan said solemnly, "At the time, I did oppose it. But now that the war has already begun, I believe any dispiriting talk would be nothing but cowardice that drags everyone down. At this moment, we should only push forward more bravely. At the very least, as long as I am here, Your Majesty need not worry about the Kingdom’s logistics."

"But I hear the front has been stalled for quite some time..."

Saint Peron V could not help sighing.

"I am only worried that if this turns into a war of attrition, our peace-loving Kingdom may, in the end, still be unable to outlast the barbaric Empire..."

"Father!"

Aurier rose at once, because he knew this was exactly when he had to step forward.

This kind of moment felt as though it had been delivered to him on purpose to let him perform.

"Father need not worry. The situation at the front is only temporary!"

"Oh?"

Saint Peron V looked surprised again. "What do you mean?"

"The current stalemate is nothing more than a deliberate performance I have been putting on for the Empire."

"Deliberate?"

Saint Peron V craned his neck forward, baffled. "What do you mean, deliberate?"

"Hmph. During this period, I kept sending out small forces to harass them, yet never launched any large-scale attacks. Thanks to my deliberate restraint, the Empire has surely lowered its guard against us by now."

A confident curve appeared at Aurier’s lips. "That young emperor of the Empire must still be confused by the Kingdom’s slowing offensive, wondering whether we’re running out of steam or whether something has gone wrong inside the Kingdom. But she has no idea that during this time, we have already found the sure path to victory!"

"What sure path to victory?" Saint Peron V grew even more curious.

"That..."

Aurier glanced around at the brothers nearby, then said after a pause,

"It is not that I distrust everyone here, but this concerns military secrets. It would be difficult to speak of it openly now. Afterward, I will present it to Father in written form. I only ask Father not to be impatient."

"Good... good, very good!"

Saint Peron V said "good" several times in a row. Not only did he show no suspicion at Aurier’s empty declaration, he even looked as though he had already foreseen the Kingdom’s victory, slapping his knee and laughing in gratification.

"Ha ha! With such fine ministers in the Kingdom, and such a fine son as mine, how could we worry about not winning?"

"It is all Father’s merit."

Aurier said humbly, "We have only been fortunate enough to bask in a little of your light."

"Enough, stop flattering me. What is the point of repeating the same thing over and over? Since you’ve rarely returned, rest properly for a while. I’ll have a ball arranged specially for you, to welcome you back."

Saint Peron V stroked his beard and smiled.

"I must decline."

Aurier’s face turned solemn as he said with full seriousness, "This return of mine was only to press for more supplies for the front. How can I indulge in pleasure? The front is urgent. I must return at once!"

"Look at that, look at that."

Saint Peron V looked even more delighted, pointing at Aurier.

"This is what my finest son should be!"

"Father overpraises me."

Aurier lowered his head deeply, but in his eyes, an ambition loftier than the palace itself was swelling at last beyond suppression.

The scene he had just witnessed outside the Palace of Sacred Haze surfaced once more in his mind...

The performative whispers kept drifting into his ears, and inwardly he could only sneer.

"Idiots."

...

...

"Idiots."

After everyone had left, Saint Peron V gazed at the empty hall. The kindly expression from before had already vanished. His whole face looked as if it had been cast in metal, cold to the extreme.

In a low voice, he rebuked, "How did I end up with such a stupid son?"

"Didn’t you seal off the news yourself?"

At some unknown point, the black-robed figure had moved to the side of the throne and gently lifted the hood.

But the face revealed at this moment was not the face of a demonfolk at all. There were no red pupils, no symbolic horns. Instead, it was an extraordinarily beautiful and striking woman, refined and ethereal in bearing.

She rolled back her sleeves, revealing her fair wrists, then lifted her hands and gently began rubbing Saint Peron V’s shoulders.

"You were the one who single-handedly pushed this war forward. The nobles who used to oppose the war were purged by you personally. After the upheaval on the demonfolk side, you were the one who completely sealed off the news. Now the whole Kingdom is of one mind and driving the Empire back again and again, and your finest son leads from the front, yet you still call him an idiot? There’s no world where all the reason gets to sit on your side."

The woman laughed with a trace of reproach.

"That’s exactly why I call him an idiot... If all he can see is what he wants to see, how can he ever amount to anything?"

Saint Peron V sneered. "And with that level of ability, he still wants me to hand the Kingdom over to him. Far too naive."

"At least compared to your other sons, who only want to sit back and enjoy the fruits without doing anything, he still has a bit more courage, doesn’t he?"

The woman leaned in close to Saint Peron V’s ear and teased,

"So what next? Are you going to kill your own son again? If you think about it carefully, the reason you’ve never managed to find an excellent son fit to inherit is because the truly excellent ones were already killed by you long ago."

"..."

The woman’s laughter echoed through the empty hall. Those words were enough to provoke the wrath of any ruler, yet what Saint Peron V let out was only a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his soul.

"I was only... only doing it for the Kingdom."

That was right. Only for the Kingdom. He had sat on this throne for sixty years. During that same span, the Empire had already gone through three emperors, yet he was still here.

In those sixty years, he had already enjoyed every pleasure the mortal world could offer. The only obsession left to him now was to make the Kingdom stronger and steadier still.

And to achieve that, the great beast crouching beside them—the Empire—had to be dealt with in advance, or at least maimed.

Otherwise he knew very well that if one rose while the other fell, then in the future the Kingdom would forever remain beneath the shadow called the Empire. That young Empress of the Empire was no harmless figure, and more than that, she had an increasingly outstanding fiancé. The descendant born from the union of the Imperial House and House Campbell would surely be extraordinary as well.

That was exactly why he had acted. Taking advantage of the Empire’s internal purges, the new emperor’s ascension, and the still-unstable situation—the weakest the Empire had looked in a hundred years—he had decisively launched this war. For that, he had not hesitated to collude with the demonfolk, nor even... to personally use his own son as the pretext for war.

But after all these schemes, the situation had changed because of that bizarre incident into something...

"This is not your fault."

The woman bent down and wrapped her arms around Saint Peron V’s neck. "Who could have imagined that the mighty demonfolk would suddenly vanish from the continent overnight? I think it’s not just you. Even the Church is in chaos right now, which is why they still haven’t made it public, allowing you to seal the news inside the Kingdom so easily."

"It still caught us completely unprepared."

Saint Peron V sighed again. "For now, poor little Thirteen will just have to suffer."

"That’s fine. I rather enjoy watching you kill your own sons. They’re not my sons, after all."

The woman giggled. "Better if they all die."

"..."

Saint Peron V lowered his gaze. His pale brows drooped like snow.

Belrand, the capital of the Empire, was now enjoying the gentle warmth of autumn winds. But Saint Wells, the Kingdom’s royal capital, seemed as if it were about to receive its first snowfall.

"I am old," Saint Peron V said suddenly. "After this winter, I will be exactly one hundred."

"Yes, you are old."

The woman sighed as well. "I never realized before just how many wrinkles you have."

"And yet you still look so young."

Saint Peron V fondly touched the woman’s hand. Her hand was still as smooth as a young girl’s.

"Those who wear the crown always get to live a few more years. That is the world’s # Nоvеlight # reward. If only you had trained yourself properly back then."

The woman said gently, "If only back then you could have given up the throne and followed me wholeheartedly down the path of the strong, instead of the path of kings. How wonderful that would have been."

"That was never possible," Saint Peron V said.

"Yes. It was never possible."

The woman sighed.

"That is simply the kind of man you are."

"..."

"..."

Another stretch of silence followed.

Saint Peron V looked at his own hands, thin and shriveled like tree roots. He looked at the reflection of his aged, wrinkled face on the marble floor, then slowly raised his head and gazed out at the lights of the royal capital in the distance.

He thought back to sixty years ago, the first time he had sat in this very place and looked out the same way.

Back then he had been full of ambition, convinced that under his hand the Kingdom would enjoy an age of prosperity unlike anything before.

And in truth, the Kingdom had prospered. In some respects, it had even grown capable of standing on equal footing with the Empire. But the final outcome would still have to be decided on the coldest and cruelest edge of the blade.

And so now, at this moment, the wheels of war had already begun to turn, rolling ever forward, impossible to stop.

Among them was the Minister of Finance, who had once been a conservative but had become a committed hawk because he could reap profits from war. There was also the "excellent prince," far braver than most nobles, who wanted to accumulate power. And then there were the common people, wrapped up in the excitement of defeating the Empire, without even knowing what those victories depended on.

Everyone was on this war chariot now, charging forward with it. And as the one holding the reins, the king had no choice but to keep the truth about the demonfolk hidden, lest the chariot collapse and shatter itself from a sudden braking and internal turmoil before it had even suffered a fatal blow.

Now this chariot could only keep charging forward. Either it would destroy the Empire, or it would destroy itself.

There was no third possibility.

"But..."

Even a king who had sat firm on this throne for sixty years and witnessed countless storms could not help falling into confusion at this moment.

"Is this really the right thing to do? Seventy percent of this country, including myself not long ago, were devout believers of the Goddess. And yet I am about to do something that so deeply violates her teachings... After death, will my soul truly be able to find peace?"

"Can the Goddess you speak of help you? Can she help the Kingdom?"

Tilting her head, the woman met Saint Peron V’s eyes.

"No, she cannot, can she? The countless believers of the Kingdom offer their faith to that so-called Goddess with utter devotion, yet at a moment like this, the help she gives you is less than what she gives that Empire where hardly anyone believes in her. How laughable. How tragic. That so-called Goddess is nothing more than this."

"...Yes."

Saint Peron V closed his eyes.

"The Goddess cannot help us. We can only help ourselves."

"Not only yourselves. Don’t worry. You still have me... us. At this very moment, we are together."

The woman pressed a light kiss to Saint Peron V’s forehead, as if to erase all those wrinkles completely.

"Believe me. We... are what justice truly is."

"And truth as well."