A sound like the scorching midday sun. The vibration created by two swords was transmitted to those watching.

Kailem’s hands were empty. His sword was shining, stuck in the ground far away in the arena. His empty hands clenched tightly.

Lebel continued the answer he couldn’t give earlier.

“Does that answer your question?”

It felt like a breath that had been blocked was suddenly released. Kailem, catching his breath, broke into a slight smile.

He was truly an interesting opponent. A man with not a speck of manners, perhaps even of slave origin.

A raw human, but what if he were properly tamed? No, what if he were left untamed and allowed to run freely across the fields?

For a brief moment, Kailem was glad he hadn’t injured him. He was clearly too valuable a talent to lose to poison.

Rather, he felt relieved. He intended to take full responsibility for the failure.

Kailem straightened his posture and extended his hand towards Lebel, offering a handshake. Although the mission had failed, it was a courtesy to an opponent who had provided a moment of enjoyment.

Lebel felt the same way, so he grasped Kailem’s hand that appeared before him.

“Did we win? That’s it, right?”

“We won! If we beat the captain, it’s over!”

Cheers erupted from the mercenary group’s camp. There was a momentary stir in the shaded spectator stands. Was it really over like this? The nobles who had been grumbling quietly began to stand up one by one to applaud.

“No, not yet.”

Cledius extended his arm towards the chief attendant beside him. The attendant was holding the emperor’s sword with both hands, ready as if it had been prepared beforehand.

He slowly descended into the training ground, holding the sword decorated in gold and white. Lebel’s eyes began to burn slowly as he saw Cledius’s red eyes.

Cledius pointed his sword at Lebel. A smile that appeared when meeting an interesting opponent was on his lips.

“I am your final opponent.”

He couldn’t bring himself to sneer in front of the emperor. Lebel suppressed the laughter that was about to burst out and bowed his head to the sand of the training ground.

Perhaps Cledius had intended to come out here from the start. What was he scheming? Was he planning to kill after making them completely exhausted?

But this confrontation was exactly what Lebel had wanted.

He had to cross swords with him someday. A human who considered trampling others as natural. The person who had taken away the happiness Lebel had briefly held. The one who had driven those who were like family to death.

And he had made Ilarid unhappy.

Everything surrounding Cledius was a sin. If it were anyone else, it might not matter, but he had to defeat Cledius at all costs. Losing to him meant death for Lebel.

Lebel slowly raised his gaze from the ground. Before him, he saw Cledius drawing his sword from its ornate scabbard.

He would face this with the resolve to lay everything down. He closed his eyes and exhaled a sigh mixed with the anger accumulated at the pit of his stomach.

Kailem, still in the arena, looked at the emperor with undisguised bewilderment. Cledius glanced at him briefly, then signaled for Kailem to go inside.

The plan had clearly failed. Neither the captain of the imperial guard nor any of the others had managed to wound Lebel. It would be right to approach with a different opportunity and method.

Kailem briefly collected his thoughts, then knelt on one knee before Cledius.

“Your Imperial Majesty. I humbly submit that this is a match between the imperial guard and the mercenary group. If you are disheartened by the poor performance of the imperial guard, the responsibility is mine…”

“I am not here to place blame.”

Cledius coldly cut off Kailem’s words. He was now standing face to face with Lebel.

“I want to duel with this one. I haven’t seen such a lively expression on the captain of the imperial guard in years, so I want to experience what it feels like.”

Any excuse would do. Every time he witnessed the imperial guard officers being swept away without even demonstrating their proper skills, he felt both interest and irritation rising.

If they failed their mission, he would just solve it himself. Cledius felt he wouldn’t be satisfied until he had injected poison into Lebel’s body by any means necessary.

The mercenary captain who had faced the nobles without hesitation and grasped victory. People following him had already increased. If the fact that he had defeated all of the imperial guard in this situation were to spread?

It would be troublesome if the name ‘Lebel’ were to become some kind of symbol.

‘What if those republican bastards come up from underground and make contact…’

Although many of the republican forces had died thanks to Cledius’s constant suppression and arrests, it was clear that they would have survived underground in some way.

He must succeed. It would be difficult to make natural excuses afterwards. Cledius raised the sword in his hand. In case all others failed, he had also applied poison to his sword.

This was the poison he had forcibly developed for this purpose. Injection, not ingestion. Poison that needed to be drunk had a high chance of failure for someone who was very cautious.

But if he created and built up the situation properly, then injected the poison without suspicion within it?

‘If successful, the guy would live at most a year… an appropriate grace period.’

A poison without an antidote. There was nothing better for dealing with political opponents. It wouldn’t even be detected by silver spoons, and it was suitable to be passed off as an appropriate death by illness.

Cledius glanced at Lebel standing before him. The eyes looking at the emperor were full of defiance and rejection. It was more fun when they squirmed and resisted than those who meekly complied. He deliberately spoke in an indifferent tone.

“Well, if you refuse, there’s nothing I can do. I’ll declare the mercenary group victorious even if you forfeit here.”

It was a tone suggesting he should just take the victory and leave, as if winning was everything. Even without such childish provocation, Lebel was prepared to accept Cledius’s challenge for a duel.

Lebel immediately knelt down. The murmuring in the spectator stands and each camp ceased for a moment.

“How could I refuse the honor of facing Your Imperial Majesty’s sword?”

It was what he had wished for. Lebel stood up again and gripped his sword. The blade of the sword shone white as it caught the sunlight pouring down from above.

He quietly looked at the area near the sword’s handle, the very bottom of the blade. The trace of an engraved name he had long held in his heart remained in black.

Before that name, Lebel swore to himself that he would surely be victorious.

Kailem, with an unusually anxious look, glanced at both the emperor and the mercenary captain before moving his steps outside the training ground.

The one shining brilliantly under the sun and the one endlessly dark even under the light faced each other.

Before the referee could even shout the signal to begin, the two swords clashed.

It was a sound so loud that it seemed to crumble everything around. The reverberation was so powerful that it made everyone forget all the previous matches. Those who witnessed Cledius’s first attack all froze.

“His Imperial Majesty here is quite fierce…”

Eddie muttered quietly with his hand over his mouth. No one dared to shout that the emperor’s action was a foul. Not only because Cledius was the emperor, but also because they were overwhelmed by the momentum.

If Lebel’s matches with the imperial guard officers had seemed like playing with neighborhood children, and his match with Kailem had felt like a master and disciple facing off evenly, then Cledius was…

“…Do those two have some kind of grudge?”

Lailo, who had been watching quietly, grumbled. His tone was closer to trying to reassure himself than complaining. The duel between the two was enough to make the flesh of those watching tremble. It seemed like it would only end when one of them shed blood.

It was the same on the imperial guard’s side. Everyone was frozen stiff, witnessing the fierce clash of swords. Kailem, who had been watching the match, was ready to jump in and intervene between the two if necessary.

Under the awning, Ilarid’s heart was beating fiercely.

If no one had been watching, she might have naturally brought her nails to her mouth to bite them. She kept fiddling with her fingertips to suppress the rising anxiety.

Who would have thought Cledius would step in? Was this why he had most of the pro-imperial nobles attend?

The number of people who had gathered wanting to join the Rikas Mercenary Group must have exceeded Cledius’s expectations. From the emperor’s standpoint, he should have been wary of them. Did he want to show the gap between nobles and commoners in front of everyone watching?

‘No. It can’t be that simple.’

Ilarid quietly denied this to herself and focused on the match. At the end of her gaze, only Lebel existed. If others saw her, they might have mistaken her for being completely absorbed in the match.

Selina, seated one space away, observed Ilarid’s expression. Her usual calmness was gone, her fingers constantly fidgeting.

‘Acting like she’s not interested in the match, isn’t this just pretense?’

It certainly wasn’t the look of someone focusing solely on the match. It definitely wouldn’t be the emperor whom the empress regarded as an enemy, so could it be that mercenary captain? Selina pretended not to notice and spoke to Ilarid.

“Your Majesty the Empress. Who do you think will gain the upper hand?”

At her words, Ilarid’s fidgeting with her fingernails suddenly stopped.

“Who knows.”

Ilarid dismissed it briefly, but inside her mouth, the words that Lebel must win were swirling. If not, Lebel’s life would be in danger.

As a child, she had learned basic swordsmanship from Limless. Although her knowledge was limited, Ilarid could tell from watching the movements of Cledius’s sword.

He intends to kill Lebel.

Cledius never let an opening in Lebel’s defense pass. With every attack, he persistently swung and thrust his sword repeatedly.

The act of pressing on until the opponent collapses from exhaustion. It was truly Cledius’s style. Ilarid bit the inside of her lip. Even though she was under the awning, the heat rose over her body.

Fortunately, Lebel had not suffered a single wound yet.

The problem was the accumulated fatigue.

It was a match that anyone could see was disadvantageous for Lebel. Facing the emperor while tired from the physical drain of the previous matches was physically overwhelming.

Cledius’s sword still had room to spare. He looked at Lebel, who was catching his breath at a distance, and gave an unpleasant smile.

‘Not much longer now.’

He was certainly not just a figurehead emperor. Lebel suppressed his rising breath and focused once again.

He despised those red eyes to the point of grinding his teeth. This was the man who had driven the person he wished to be happiest into the abyss of misfortune and violated them.

When Lebel was living in the mansion, he had seen portraits of Ilarid and Cledius in the newspaper. The image of the two together even seemed quite fitting.

His lady was someone he could never approach. So, may she be happy there. Lebel would gently stroke the portrait printed in the newspaper article.

The imperial palace was a shining place not easily reached, so he prayed that at least in her daily life, there would be more days of joy than tears.

He had inscribed in his heart many times that he was used to letting go. If he could just see her from afar, that would be enough.

But with the annihilation of the Melpiram noble family, even that became difficult. Who could enter the imperial palace bearing the name ‘Melpiram’?

‘My lady.’

Ilarid still exists in that high place. My person who shines brightly even in the shadows.

The stronger the light, the deeper the darkness became. The darkness that overshadowed Ilarid was right in front of him.

Lebel hated Cledius standing beside her, the emperor wielding his sword before him, to the point of madness.

The one who had taken away the happiness he had barely grasped.

The one who had plunged the person he most looked up to and held in his heart into the swamp of despair.

That figure was now in front of Lebel.

‘I have lived to kill you.’

Lebel dropped his defensive stance and leaped towards Cledius again. It was time to put a full stop to this match that had been difficult to conclude.