187. The Emperor’s Sore Spot

2024.04.04.

The Emperor, still unable to tear his gaze away from the edge of the shattered cliff, raised his flushed face and issued an order.

“Immediately pursue the Crown Prince in exile! Bring me his corpse! Find Yuan Pelliese! Bring me my sword still embedded in that woman’s heart!”

His excited voice, unlike usual, rose to a shrill pitch and raged out of control.

“To whoever brings him, I shall grant a title and a fiefdom!”

Eyes blazing with sudden fire, Eddie stood frozen at the broken cliff’s edge.

Like the wind, he lunged forward and blocked the narrow path leading down the cliffside.

Eddie drew his sword, disregarding the threatening glare of Muirel, commander of the Three Knights.

His face, already fatigued and irritable, twisted into a fearsome scowl.

“If you wish to reach the exiled Crown Prince and his wife, you’ll have to draw your sword against the new Marquis Rev!”

Eddie’s shout reached not only Muirel, but also the distant Emperor and those behind him.

Elite knights who had ascended with Eddie began emerging one by one, closing in to form a perimeter.

“Protect Marquis Rev!”

“Protect His Highness, the Crown Prince!”

As the Emperor’s knights hesitated, the Emperor finally snapped back to his senses and opened his mouth wide in laughter.

It was the smile of a clown who had succeeded in a stunt and now demanded applause.

“The exiled Crown Prince Clade Euphris has rebelled! I have defeated him, and I alone have the right to witness his end! Solen Racha! Clean this place up!”

Eddie’s group, having already split from Lancelot and rushed ahead as a vanguard, wasn’t particularly large in number.

The Emperor had already assessed the entire situation from the surrounding movements.

The approaching shouts would quiet down soon enough once Clade’s death was confirmed.

With the remaining troops and Solen Racha, he could tidy everything up—retrieve Clade’s corpse, and reclaim the Imperial treasures.

The Emperor, still savoring the image of Clade’s utterly shattered face, raised one eyebrow sharply when Solen Racha, who should have charged forward with a roar, remained silent for a long time.

Solen Racha, who had been silent like a stone since earlier, stood clutching his wounds like a defeated soldier, not even drawing his sword.

The knights behind him also reacted with a strangely cold detachment.

The Emperor twitched his eyebrows several times before glancing around.

Due to Solen Racha’s silence—the man who should be leading the Imperial Knights—the Northern knights, who had been restraining Eddie and his group, now hesitated, watching cautiously.

Despite their numerical advantage, all they could hear were the cries of the rebel forces, making their nerves frayed.

“Can you not hear me? Seize the heads of the rebels at once!”

Those who were supposed to protect the Emperor began to murmur.

A frail hand rose slowly, landing with a soft thud on Solen Racha’s bandaged shoulder, as he stood rigidly against the sharp wind.

At last, the Emperor’s expression turned subtle upon seeing the revealed face.

“…Jurgen Racha?”

The man who, having failed to become a Grand Duke, had remained in the North while sending only his eldest son to the capital—once the King of the North—now appeared atop the gorge.

And he wasn’t alone. He stood with dozens of warriors, each honed like a blade. The Emperor chuckled, amused.

“What exactly is going on here?”

“The North follows the strong.”

Jurgen Racha pulled Solen Racha from behind and placed him once more in front of himself.

Solen Racha’s startled eyes dropped to the ground, as if he understood the meaning.

The Duke of Racha stared coldly at his son, who stood trembling with clenched fists, then continued in a flat tone.

“The eldest son of the late Emperor has bested my son, Your Majesty.”

“And?”

“It seems the exiled Crown Prince has defeated more than just my son.”

Jurgen Racha’s aged yet sharp eyes turned toward the Emperor’s side.

The Emperor, still elated from witnessing Clade’s downfall, had failed to notice the wound—now exposed along with his torn clothes—revealing a deep, crimson gash.

It wasn’t a fatal wound capable of killing him, but in a duel, it would have been a decisive strike.

The Emperor stiffened momentarily, then snorted and widened his eyes.

“My old friend. My loyal subject. Are you not seeing that I have finished off that traitor?”

“I wonder.”

The Emperor’s brow furrowed. Jurgen Racha, like a deaf man, repeated the same words.

“We must first find the exiled Crown Prince.”

“Do you think this is some tribal gathering where chieftains are chosen?”

It was a disparaging remark, referencing the North’s barbaric method of selecting leaders just a few generations ago.

Yet Jurgen Racha replied as if accustomed to such words.

“I heard that Your Majesty personally declared you would determine the winner. Did I misunderstand? The North has its own ways.”

It was merely an excuse—an excuse to swiftly transfer loyalty, amounting to less than a handful, to another.

The Emperor Igor’s blazing eyes glared fiercely at his former friend.

“Whether I stand on Your Majesty’s side or not will be decided once I find the exiled Crown Prince and see him for myself.”

“You insolent—”

“Or will you make me your enemy as well?”

Only then did Emperor Igor begin to take in his surroundings.

In his fluster over Jurgen Racha’s appearance, he had gone along with the man’s barbaric logic without counting the numbers.

Now, an overwhelming number of knights had packed tightly into this space, too many to count.

The Duke of Celentina from the West hastily averted his eyes, and then—

“Drietter, how dare you.”

Unbelievable—there stood Grand Duke Drietter, not even avoiding eye contact, openly drawing his sword.

And someone else made Emperor Igor’s brow furrow completely.

A blond man stepped forward through the crowd, still awkwardly holding a sword.

Intelligent and quick to learn, yet someone who had persistently turned his back—again and again—on his own father. With the eldest son gone, now the closest to the imperial succession.

Noel Euphris.

The second son stepping over the eldest.

That was Emperor Igor’s sore spot.

Then, someone boldly broke through the hesitant encirclement and stepped close to the Emperor.

He appeared just as Solen Racha hesitated, unable to arrest the sovereign he was sworn to protect.

“There’s no loss for me either way. If I serve the Emperor now, even if I fail, I have nothing to lose.”

Federico Companni stepped forward. From within the dense crowd of knights, he shouted.

“I come from explaining the current situation to Her Majesty the Empress!”

Behind him, the fierce swordsmen of the South drew their blades in unison.

“The Empress has declared she will tolerate this rebellion.”

Beneath the golden cord around his neck hung the watch of the late Marquis, executed unjustly—a watch that now clearly reflected the expression of Emperor Igor, completely surrounded by the rebel alliance.

His eyes were wide, his lips curled upward, but his face was anything but composed.

***

He didn’t know what state of mind had driven him to throw himself like that.

Only the horror of the moment when Emperor Igor, without any warning, hurled his sword toward Yuan remained in his senses.

The sensation of every hair on his body standing on end, as if the cliff he had steadfastly climbed was collapsing entirely beneath him.

Clade desperately swam through the scorching current, trying to escape that feeling.

Yuan, held in his arms, choked and convulsed as she swallowed water.

Clade lifted her body as high as possible, not resisting when her hands instinctively pressed on his head, trying to push herself above the surface.

Instead, he leaned his body deeply toward her weakening legs and fought through the rough current.

The hot spring water, deep and powerful, rushed down from upstream.

After struggling for a while, Clade hoisted the limp Yuan onto his head and reached out.

His desperate fingers brushed the end of an unfamiliar, long thicket—slipping, grabbing, tearing, repeating over and over.

Damn it, damn it!

Breath rising to his throat, curses grinding in his mouth, but more urgent than that was Yuan’s condition.

He had no time to check if she was breathing.

He tightly embraced Yuan’s lukewarm body and smashed a boulder rushing toward them with his fist.

Had he not possessed a Sword Master’s physique, the impact would have shattered every bone in his wrist.

How much time had passed? Swept along by the violent current, he finally seized a long overhanging branch and a jutting rock that reached the surface.

Clawing desperately against the current, he crawled onto land.

Yuan, draped across his shoulders and head, lay soaked on his crimson cloak.

Hah—hah—hah—hah.

He crawled across the ground, gasping for breath. He didn’t even realize how ragged his own breathing was.

He quickly pressed his fingers beneath Yuan’s nose.

His face crumpled and straightened repeatedly before his swollen fingers could detect the faintest breath.

Thankfully, thanks to his efforts, Yuan, who had swallowed little water, coughed several times and spat out water.

He pressed his forehead against her chest, knelt on the frozen ground, and exhaled harsh breaths in rapid succession.

Then, suddenly sensing an undeniable presence of a blade, he snapped his head up.

His wet hand reached for the hilt again and again, then pulled back.

A dark blade was buried near Yuan’s heart, and each time she twitched, blood seeped out.

An overwhelming urge to pull it out surged within him, but he knew better than anyone that he must not.

He tore a piece of his cloak and pressed it firmly over the wound to stop the bleeding.

Removing a blade from the heart without medical intervention would cause excessive blood loss, leading to certain death.

He looked down at Yuan, pale beyond pallor, barely gasping for breath.

Beneath her hair, clinging like seaweed, her face was so pale it verged on blue. Droplets of blood fell from beneath her wet eyelashes, and her lips, stained clearly with blood, opened and closed repeatedly before letting out a groan.

“Yuan.”

Her breathing grew increasingly ragged. Her chest, pierced by the blade, heaved, then writhed in agony.

Helpless, flustered, he restrained her hands to prevent them from touching the sword.

No matter how much he scanned the surroundings, he saw no caves or shelters to escape the blade-like wind.

Gritting his teeth, he broke off long, dangling branches of unknown trees and hastily lit a fire.

They had been swept quite far downstream—perhaps the knights stationed below would find them.

But even now, blood continued to trickle steadily.

He couldn’t move Yuan recklessly without medical attention.

He threw off his armor and stripped off his tunic shirt, wringing out the water.

He tore apart Yuan’s sack-like dress, so inadequate it was embarrassing to call clothing, and wrapped her body in his shirt.

Even with a strong physique that rarely felt cold, his jaw trembled uncontrollably.

“No, no. Please….”