He Who Covets the Abandoned Bride (10 Chapters Left to Complete) - Chapter 71

According to the palace map that Rilvan had obtained, there were no rooms with doors on all four sides on the ground floor or the first and second basement levels. This was not unusual—such room designs were rare to begin with.

Adrian had personally visited almost every part of the palace’s ground floor, so there was no reason to doubt the accuracy of the map.

The problem was that the palace’s underground levels were as intricate as a labyrinth.

Adrian himself hadn’t been down there very often, simply because he’d never faced an urgent enough situation to require using those passages.

That area functioned like an underground fortress, equipped with emergency shelters for the Emperor and stocked with enormous quantities of food supplies.

In truth, what royal residence wouldn’t have such facilities? Any building housing a nation’s ruler ought to include them as a matter of course.

Even the now-fallen Wessex or the decadent Pilmer royal palaces likely had similar arrangements.

However, Harkin’s basement levels had one key distinction: the first and second basement floors were ordinary underground facilities, but the true heart of the complex began on the third basement level.

From the third floor downward, the corridors were arranged like a maze. Moreover, a stream of water flowed along the lowest level—and crucially, following that current would eventually lead directly into the river cutting through the Imperial Capital.

Thus, from the third basement level downward, the palace was utterly forbidden territory.

Only three people in the entire Empire knew of the underground waterway beneath the Imperial Palace: Harkin’s Emperor, the Crown Prince, and the Emperor’s Head Steward.

Even the Empress had never been granted access to this secret.

Disguised as a palace servant, Adrian cautiously walked along the covered walkway hugging the palace’s outer wall.

It was the dead of night, cloaked in darkness, yet palace guards patrolled relentlessly—inside and out—regardless of the hour.

Afraid they might sense something amiss, Adrian kept his head lowered and slipped past lamplight-lit sections of the walkway, carefully avoiding their gaze.

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