184. The Fact You Overlooked

2024.04.01.

Bollonico really did move at the perfect timing.

This was also why he had let his son linger all this time—slithering like a snake, quietly coiling around his father, teasingly waiting for a chance to strike.

Igor already knew that what Bollonico sought to confirm was ultimately what he himself wanted to verify.

Even a useless eldest son could occasionally do something worth indulging.

From the very moment he first learned of the Pelliese treasure, up until now,

Yuan Pelliese had been brought and secured without a single order from Igor—truly deserving of a reward.

Noel and Bollonico alike had acted exactly as he anticipated, not deviating even a hair’s breadth—how fortunate indeed.

But then…

“Has Bollonico overstepped his bounds, I wonder?”

The Emperor murmured darkly toward Clade, who stood in silence.

Even if the son was a fool, he was still flesh of his flesh, raised and trained for decades.

It was absolutely unacceptable for Alexei’s son to kill or harm his own grandson.

“I tolerated his antics because, as a father, I found them amusing. But they must have irritated you, didn’t they?”

It was a statement assigning blame for the eldest son’s disappearance.

The Emperor spoke gently, as if soothing someone’s heart, yet his face held not a trace of warmth.

And Clade’s face was just as cold in return.

His tightly sealed lips parted without so much as a tremor, his voice flat.

“Do you think I care about that insignificant wretch?”

“Then who else but you could possibly eliminate Bollonico?”

“I don’t care.”

Clade, who had been patiently listening, finally gripped the hilt of his sword so tightly it seemed ready to shatter.

The tip of the blade, reflecting his face in a pool of stagnant blood, lifted sharply toward Igor, whose eyebrows arched high.

The sword’s master answered in a chilling tone.

“I came here to take your head.”

No explanation. No hesitation.

Clade pushed off the white ground and lunged toward Emperor Igor.

The Emperor’s eyes widened momentarily before he silently drew his black blade, intercepting the strike aimed at his opening.

With a grating metallic screech, their swords crossed in an X, violet eyes clashing fiercely with blue.

The Emperor smirked slightly, almost approvingly.

“That’s right. That’s how it should be. But what can I do? I have so much I want to say.”

An overwhelming force pushed hard against the locked blades.

The two men’s feet slid apart in opposite directions without any additional movement.

Igor, now at a distance, gazed at his opponent with an unprecedented spark of interest.

For someone who’d been locked away for over ten years, he was surprisingly capable.

Had he been training relentlessly even while crawling like a beast on the ground?

Yet the Emperor’s brief moment of amused contempt didn’t last long.

Because in that short instant, he noticed a faint scratch on his temple, a thin trickle of blood beginning to flow.

Igor flinched slightly, then casually wiped it away with a thick finger, breaking into a loud laugh.

“You see,”

his bright blue eyes now gleaming with a different kind of interest,

“I’ve always thought this.”

The lips, constantly twitching beneath his thick golden beard, stretched wide.

“You resemble me far more than your own father.”

Excited, Igor’s breath grew slightly ragged as his eyes blazed an intense blue.

“I’ve always thought so. Unlike your dull father, you were always bold, unafraid, roaming freely…”

Clang!

Their blades clashed again, and Igor’s blue eyes locked directly onto Clade.

“Perhaps you might even be my son.”

“!”

“That possibility…”

It wasn’t a rational speculation—it was closer to a delusional longing.

His blazing blue eyes shoved the sword aside in irritation, then relentlessly closed in on Clade, who had stepped back and now gripped his blade with both hands.

“Your mother and I were each other’s first love. You’re grown now—you understand what that means. It’s not impossible, is it?”

“Shut up.”

“Alexei, that fool, would have gladly taken any woman, even one carrying another man’s seed, as his wife.”

“Nonsense.”

Igor parried another sudden strike with haste, chuckling shrilly.

“If you had lived as my eldest son. If Eleonore had become my Empress as planned. If my father hadn’t made Alexei Emperor—what do you think would’ve become of the Euphris then?”

With each word he spat out, Igor swung his sword like a madman, deflecting every thunderous strike hurled at him.

The blade, swung as if lashing an archenemy, cleaved the air with immense power each time.

The white steam rising from the hot spring waterfall below the cliff was shredded into tatters by the countless colliding sword auras.

Clade blocked every heavy strike from Igor—strikes that were incomparably heavier than those from Solen Racha.

Igor’s filthy delusions, aimed at breaking him, had no effect whatsoever.

Yet Igor continued swinging his sword wildly, spewing words like a madman insisting his twisted theory could not possibly be wrong.

“Then perhaps I could’ve understood what that pointless thing your parents called love truly was, hm?”

Clang!

“Eleonore would’ve told me.”

Clang!

“I would’ve cherished you—you who would’ve become the perfect son.”

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Their blades met again and again, neither able to cut the other, then separating once more.

The ragged breaths of the two men scattered endlessly into the mist.

Feeling the violent heaving of his chest and the rapid pounding of his heart, Emperor Igor unconsciously raised a trembling hand and tilted his head slightly.

How long had it been since he fought with such full effort?

His hands, long unused in battle since mastering swordsmanship at a young age and living a life untouched by defeat, had lost much of their calluses—but he was still a Swordmaster.

Yet to be drawn into such a prolonged fight…

…He had talked too much.

He still had so much he wanted to say, but it was time to stop indulging and bring this to a close.

“I knew you would come here, Clade.”

Emperor Igor stood at the end of long footprints etched into the white ground, meeting the gaze of his nephew who glared at him, breath ragged.

He could no longer suppress the upward curve of his lips.

“I knew you’d eventually want to start a rebellion and reclaim the throne.”

The tender, doting look he’d reserved for the son he’d nurtured with sweet delusions had completely vanished.

In its place, the Emperor’s true face—driven mad by clinging to an incomplete throne, mourning more what he’d lost than what he’d gained—now wore a surprisingly solemn expression.

“The other half—the ones I couldn’t eliminate easily despite hating them, the ones who still strive to climb up even now—I let them all side with you, knowing full well. Why?”

He smiled secretly, like someone proud to save the best dish for last.

“Because only when you bring them all here, raise that pitiful sword of yours, can I paint this place crimson with your blood and theirs—under a perfectly justifiable pretext. Why would I stop or guard against that, when you’re helping me wipe out all my troubles in one stroke?”

At a single gesture from Igor, knights from the north began emerging one by one from the forest thick with eternal snow.

Igor welcomed them with delight.

Yet even as Igor openly admitted it was a trap, Clade’s face remained as solid as a statue carved from ice.

It was from this moment that the smile slowly began to fade from Igor’s lips.

Igor did not realize

that seeing Clade, who had come exactly as predicted, remain utterly unmoved—was slowly making his own heart restless.

Clade showed no sign of agitation, even as he sensed the approaching enemies closing in, radiating oppressive pressure like a noose tightening around his neck.

No—he actually smiled. A bright, beautiful smile, utterly out of place in this bone-chilling snowy mountain.

“I’m not doing this to become Emperor or anything.”

The face resembling Eleonore spoke toward Igor.

The blooming spring-like smile froze instantly, turning into delicate snowflakes.

“Father, uncle… Why can’t you understand?”

Clade whispered, a cold smile lingering at the corners of his lips.

“I was never someone with such a grand destiny to begin with.”

Clade slowly closed the distance, as if in this world, only he and Igor remained.

His hand on the sword was calm, utterly still—unlike Igor’s.

“I can neither easily forget kindness nor grudges. And I don’t desire the throne so much that I’d trample everything for it.”

“Hah! You crawl all the way up here, yet your words are so smooth.”

“Most of the fools like Marquis Rev’s brothers, or those who followed you here—they’ve been deceived, just the same.”

Clade closed the gap faster now, allowing Igor’s dazed blue eyes to scan him freely.

“Don’t you understand yet, Your Majesty?”

The blade, calmly poised, didn’t waver despite dozens of enemies surrounding him.

And Emperor Igor’s eyes—beginning to sense through his skin that this swordplay was unlike any he’d faced before—trembled for a brief moment.

“I simply came here to kill you.”

And his insolent nephew, giving him no time to falter, murmured in that same icy voice.

“By the time they bury dozens of blades or arrows into my body, your head will already be rolling on this ground. And I truly don’t care about that.”

A sword aura incomparably stronger than any previous clash surged toward Igor’s front.

His hastily raised black blade vibrated violently.

“I don’t care about being Emperor, Uncle.”

“You…”

“That’s the fact you overlooked.”

A far more explosive force collided in midair than any previous exchange—so intense that even highly trained knights felt their legs tremble and struggle to stand.

The killing intent—relentless, merciless, aiming to slash and pierce each other’s hearts—overwhelmed the surroundings.

The endless clangs eventually merged into a single, continuous metallic roar, and the surrounding knights began stepping back, one step, then two.

A powerful, instinctive warning screamed at them: to interfere in this duel between Swordmasters, isolated from the world in a state of pure oblivion, would result in their entire bodies being pulverized.

Of course, the most stunned of all was Emperor Igor.