Round 33: The Night of Conclusion (IV)

The situation was beyond salvage.
Most of the crystal beads hanging as decorations from the chandelier had fallen, yet it still continued to sway.
The emperor and nobles like Spencer Lucas had left the inner chamber to reunite with the rest of the aristocracy.
Emperor Stanley III stood by a floor-to-ceiling window, gazing at the dim darkness outside.
The increasingly dire reports from the royal guards tasked with “protecting” the palace had plunged his heart into despair. Yet, from Lucas’s cold perspective, the young emperor showed no sign of retreating. Was he determined to perish together with everyone else? If so, even if Chairman Singh could quickly regain control of the situation, he himself would not escape death.
The once graceful ladies and young ladies could only huddle together in a side room, weeping under strict surveillance by royal soldiers. The hall was mostly filled with bureaucrats and nobles, who stood or sat listlessly, showing no extreme reactions. Those who dared to act arrogantly as nobles at this moment lay dead—given no chance to argue or defend themselves. The royal soldiers’ warnings were nothing but the cold edge of their swords. These loyal imperial guards clearly weren’t selected from among noble offspring as usual; they acted without hesitation against the nobles, whether ordered by the emperor or simply to vent their pent-up anger.
“Your Majesty, for your safety, should we evacuate from here first…” Spencer, the only one who could speak, finally spoke up.
“Hmph. Lord Spencer, can’t you see the determination of our young emperor?” Lucas still liked to interrupt others, but this time he wasn’t cutting off some minor disgraced count—he was interrupting the foreign minister standing beside the emperor. With his chin raised, he looked down on Spencer with contempt, ready to go to extremes: “There’s no possibility of peace in this battle. Can’t the blood of our colleagues here remind you? Are all those in this room, except for you, truly loyal to the Council? If the Council is the roof that shields the Agus people, then they are the foundation of the empire! Your Majesty’s tyranny today is nothing short of destroying our own strength… But our emperor understands that once the Council regains control, although we noble officials may face severe punishment, most of us will still remain nobles. Even if we can no longer participate in Agus politics, we’ll still have fine clothes, delicious food, and estates…”
He turned around with sarcasm, sneering at the emperor who was spouting nonsense: “What will be left of our emperor… the young Emperor Stanley III? By then, he won’t even be able to retire with dignity! A spell, a cup of poisoned wine, or even a rope—these will be the only things our emperor can get!”
The young emperor smiled faintly, but his eyes were filled with murderous intent: “You seem quite aware of the situation. Lucas, it’s a shame to have you as the chief judge. Do you think I’ll lose? Even if I’m doomed to lose, why do you think Singh, that dog, will care about you and come to save you?”

“Chairman Singh certainly won’t take me to heart. In fact, I really hope that Your Majesty the Emperor can succeed right away and take control of the Council. That way, even if I’m not forgiven by you, I can at least live a little longer…” Lucas spoke calmly, no longer showing the panic he had at first. “But Your Majesty, you must be as aware as I am that defeating the Council and Singh is utterly impossible! What you’re doing now is only digging your own grave, and by extension, that of the Agus Empire! If Chairman Singh really gets angry, it will be a piece of cake for him to turn Agus into a mage-dominated country under the Council’s rule. By then, the empire will truly be doomed!”

“Shut up!” the Emperor snapped, his face turning ashen. “You cowardly wretch who fears death!”

He wasn’t just shouting at Lucas but also at all the officials and nobles in the hall. “Agus’ glory was earned by generations of emperors who led their people through hardships and battles! Not by some ignorant mages! Where’s your courage? Where’s your honor? Do you think nobles are just parrots in the court, socialites at balls, or perverts in bedrooms? Do you know what nobility means? Why are you nobles now? I tell you—this is because your ancestors killed everyone who stood against them on this land! Nobles are made up of the strongest pirates, bandits, and horse raiders! Even if Lucas is right, I’ve made up my mind! There is only victory—no defeat. Defeat means death! Death means the end of the Agus Empire! So as nobles of Agus, you must die with me for the empire!”

The Emperor’s roar caused chaos in the hall—Had His Majesty gone mad? Even as the emperor, he had no right to decide our lives and deaths. How dare he say such things?

“Your Majesty! This is sheer stubbornness! For the future of the empire, you must consider making peace with the Council’s archmages—” a fat noble who seemed to be a military officer but was clearly going bald and gaining weight shouted from the crowd.

Stanley III immediately turned his gaze toward him, like a lone wolf trapped in a desperate situation. That look made the fat noble shut his mouth instantly. He tried to shrink his big belly, wishing he hadn’t said anything, realizing that no matter how proud one’s noble status might be, it was unwise to anger someone who had gone mad.

But it was too late. With a fierce wave of his hand, the fat noble’s shiny skull, along with the hair around it and blood splattered on others’ faces, flew into the air like a poorly thrown frisbee.

The fat noble opened his mouth, looking confused. His eyes rolled back as if trying to see what had happened to his head. Then he collapsed to his knees, falling forward onto another noble official. That man’s eyes bulged in extreme fear as he stared at the part of the fat noble’s skull that had been removed. He frantically tried to push him away but accidentally inserted his fingers into the fat noble’s head. Along with a warm, sticky sensation and a sound like a burp from the fat noble, a desperate scream echoed throughout the hall.

“Aegis has no way out… I have no way out… neither do you.” The emperor cast an approving glance at the soldier who was sheathing his sword, his voice icy: “Gentlemen, calm down and wait with me for the outcome!”
“The outcome has already come, Your Majesty.”
Everyone turned toward the door—except those who had already fainted.
O’Sullivan appeared at the door in an uncharacteristically disheveled state.
“Count O’Sullivan? Excellent! How is the situation? Have Master Darna and Kant taken control of the Council? What about the successive earthquakes?” Spencers stepped forward immediately. Since he had returned from the Mage District, Yuri O’Sullivan was once again a person of importance.
“O’Sullivan, my friend, I hope you bring me good news.” The emperor stood straight, but the little reason he still had told him it was best not to hold any hopes, as he could guess roughly from O’Sullivan’s appearance—yet he still said it, just like a dying man clutching a priest’s hand and asking, “Can I recover?” It was nothing but self-deception.
O’Sullivan moved through the crowd and knelt before the emperor.
“Your Majesty, I implore you to leave Vatan City immediately.” O’Sullivan spoke slowly, word by word: “The Royal Guard is utterly unable to match the Council’s armored weapons. Mage Kant left before the battle began and is now missing. Lord Darna is leading the troops in resistance, but the odds are heavily against them… There’s reason to believe that the entire Seven Sins Tower has now become Singh’s steel fortress!”
The emperor was stunned. Leave? If I leave Vatan, am I still the emperor?
O’Sullivan raised his head. “Your Majesty, you must come with me right away! The only course of action now is to flee Vatan City and regroup elsewhere, rallying the people to rise up against the mages! Our previous plans were too simplistic—we cannot confront the Council head-on with just the army!”
A slap landed on O’Sullivan’s face. As a warrior who could compete in speed with demonized elves, the emperor’s slap seemed like slow motion to O’Sullivan, but he didn’t dodge it. Instead, he stared at Emperor Stanley’s twisted face, his eyes filled with shock, humiliation, and defiance.
Seeming unsatisfied, the emperor raised his leg and kicked him down. “Scoundrel! Scoundrel! Why have you come back? Darna is fighting to the death, yet you come back to tell me such useless news and try to persuade me to flee? I am the emperor of Aegis! Vatan is my home! Where do you want me to go? Maztica? Is that jungle, full of savages, a place for an emperor? How dare you say such things! This is betrayal! Plain and simple betrayal! Damn Kant! You’ve betrayed me, just like that damned Kant! Your family too!”
“Betrayal? You accuse me of betrayal?” O’Sullivan stood up from the ground, looking at the emperor in disbelief, at the man who had once been his childhood companion: “How can you compare me to scoundrels like Kant?”

His anger was further ignited by the emperor’s blows: “For the Empire of Agus, I’ve been in danger at all times and in every place, without hesitation—I even violated my great-grandfather’s decree to ‘never disturb Archmage Loom’ and went to the swamps myself to find him, seeking a way to defeat Singh and the Council. What did I get in return? You stripped me of my military rank and sent me abroad; to gain the help of the Red Robe Mage Order, I had to deal with the capricious Red Robe mentor Isabella. What did I get? Ignorance, no support at all; even to ally with those who might help us and win their trust, I had to hand over Atlas, the magical weapon given to our family by Archmage Loom, to them. What did I get? My father was taken away from the heavily guarded imperial prison under mysterious circumstances and died a violent death!”
“How much have I sacrificed for the empire? And now you claim that I and my family have betrayed you? For the honor of my O’Sullivan family, Stanley, I beg you to take back your words!”
“Honor? Hahaha! The Empire of Agus is on the verge of collapse—what use is honor to a tiny O’Sullivan family?” Stanley laughed maniacally.
He suddenly stopped laughing, his face filled with extreme cruelty: “Do you think I don’t know? You, and your father—do you think I’m unaware of your schemes? Your loyalty is based solely on your selfish desires to benefit your wretched family! You put on a show of loyalty when it suits you, but betray the royal family the moment it doesn’t. What do you want? To trick me into leaving Vatan City, then use me as a pawn to deceive the people of Agus and satisfy your lust for power?”
Crash! The crystal chandelier finally fell to the ground, shattering into pieces.
“Delusional fool!” Stanley roared, seemingly already unhinged: “I’ll execute you as a warning! No one can escape the battlefield—this is my battlefield! I’ll wait here for news of Darna’s victory!”
“Your Majesty!” Spencer rushed forward anxiously to stop the emperor, trying to halt his madness: “Count O’Sullivan and his family have always been loyal to Agus and to you, Your Majesty! The Count is right—let’s leave Vatan and plan carefully, Your Majesty! I implore you—”
Blood splattered onto the emperor. Spencer stared in disbelief at the emperor, then looked down at the terrible wound on his chest, from his right shoulder to his left hip.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs collapsed to the ground. Stanley held his sword in both hands, panting heavily. It seemed his swordsmanship training from childhood had come in handy in this night’s battle.
Then he raised his sword at O’Sullivan.
“All of you are traitors! One less means one less! You parasites, always trying to climb to the top at the first chance! Do you think I can’t stop the Council from taking Nei? Yes, I can’t, but I don’t even want to! How can I let a former count ruin today’s grand plans…”
O’Sullivan listened carefully to the emperor’s words while being forced back by the sword’s edge—his expression once again blank.

“For Agus! I sentence you to death!” The emperor pushed O’Sullivan to the door and thrust his sword at him. O’Sullivan seemed unable to dodge, merely staring blankly—
A figure suddenly appeared in front of O’Sullivan. It was an old man. The emperor’s sword pierced deep into his body, like a beam of light sinking into water. No one knew how Old Nauf, O’Sullivan’s longtime steward, had gotten in, nor why this old man possessed such agility and strength. He grabbed the emperor’s sword with both hands, refusing to let go no matter how hard Stanley pulled or struggled—his expression calm, as if feeling no pain.
O’Sullivan was stunned, then snapped back to reality.
“Bastards! All of you bastards! Someone—”
Stanley’s voice cut off abruptly.
He stared wide-eyed, his mouth open. His throat moved, and a bright red line appeared clearly on the neck of the Emperor of Agus Empire.
“It wasn’t me who betrayed you…” O’Sullivan looked at him as warm blood, forced out by pressure from the emperor’s body, splashed onto the count’s indifferent face. “It was you who betrayed me, Stanley.”
He had killed the emperor!
Everyone was shocked. The royal guards, who reacted too late, rushed forward to tear this traitor to pieces, but what met them were fleeting, almost invisible slashes of swordlight. Stanley’s carefully trained loyal soldiers were helpless against the ghostly count. O’Sullivan moved around the hall, using columns, nobles, and even the soldiers’ own bodies for cover and defense, each strike sending blood flying…
In just a short while, all the soldiers meant to control the situation were killed by him.
The remaining people stood frozen.
“Count O’Sullivan! We know you killed the emperor out of necessity! His Majesty had gone mad!” Judge Lucas was the first to muster the courage to step forward. “Now, please lead us! Give us orders!”
O’Sullivan stared at Lucas indifferently, unable to feel even disgust toward this high-ranking imperial official who had oppressed him for so long through the Council.
“Lead you?” He cast one last glance at the fallen Old Nauf, then turned away, seemingly lost. “Why? Where? What’s the point? It’s over…”
As the count’s hoarse voice faded, Lucas’s mansion began to shake violently—the nobles panicked, running and pushing each other frantically to get out.
The drastic changes caused by the Rise of the Seven Sins Tower also affected Moriel and Dagulas, who were engaged in mutual destruction. In fact, due to their earlier battle with Areisha and their efforts to survive the collapse of the earth, they had almost exhausted their magic and stored spells—now they were merely trading blows.
But for Dagulas, trading blows was already victory. She jumped back onto a thick iron pipe, wrapping her flame whip around it, her eyes filled with triumphant joy. “It’s useless! Can’t you feel it? The energy inside this cocoon will be drained soon! Give up! I am the winner!”
“It’s too early to talk about your victory!” Moriel also stabilized herself on the earthquake-like shaking cocoon, but her confidence wasn’t as strong as her words suggested.

Morrill’s innate keen sense told her that the steel cocoon beneath her feet was dying. Or rather, it had once been a full container filled with miraculous water that granted life to steel, but now Singh was wielding unprecedented spells to drain it mercilessly, siphoning every drop of power to fuel his enormous, almost unimaginable plans…
“We’re rising!” Dagulas shouted proudly. “What has Old Singh done? I really want to go out and see what kind of spectacle this is!”
The raging lightning storm had stopped, and the blue electric light that once filled the space had dimmed—now only occasional currents flowed along the pipes into the dark void.
Morrill took a small step to the side, and a cracking sound came from beneath her feet. She looked down and saw that she had broken a worm-like iron pipe. Rusty spots of various sizes appeared on the giant cocoon, resembling cloth soaked in water and left in a dark corner, mold spreading at an unimaginable speed.
Idiot. Morrill tried to convince herself that Forty-Seven inside was fine, but she had no reason to believe it. She didn’t know how to define her relationship with this strange construct. Perhaps from the moment she stepped into the ruined mage tower in the swamp, her fate was tied to Forty-Seven—not just as a mage’s master and her tool. His logical yet bizarre remarks, his reckless defiance of his master, his terrifying, ridiculous, and delightful appearance in the ratfolk’s den, and the vague memories she had upon waking from her coma after the temple adventure… All these things made enduring the days of torture inflicted by Isabessa one of her motivations—to find Forty-Seven, who had been thrown into the River of Darkness by Singh, even if it were just his remains…
Suddenly, in a fit of anger, Morrill threw her dagger violently. This action startled Dagulas, who was also worried about whether Forty-Seven trapped inside the rusty cocoon would be completely destroyed by Singh.
Ignoring Dagulas’ astonished gaze, Morrill stomped her foot and, for the first time in years, shed her disguise and vented her emotions: “You stubborn, self-righteous idiot! Now I don’t even care about your life! Figure out yourself how to get out of this damned thing!”
As soon as she spoke…
Like a blade piercing leather, or like a ship clad in iron breaking through ice on the water’s surface, five terrifying spikes pierced through the outer shell of the steel cocoon, extending between the two of them. The spikes continued rising, segment by segment, like the limbs of an insect—five fingers forming a steel monster’s hand. Soon, the wrist and part of the forearm also emerged from the cocoon. Between the strangely arranged steel plates was a complex network of metal tissues. The protective armor was as sharp as knives and axes. Just this arm section was almost as tall as Morrill herself. Perhaps drawn by or sensing this steel giant arm, intense blue lightning suddenly descended from the void, striking the sword-like spikes. Morrill and Dagulas rushed back, with blue-white flames shooting into the sky between them.