Chapter 132: Leaving Something Behind

Madness!

Looking at the King above, Mark could not help but take half a step back.

Was this truly the same timid, lascivious, and ridiculous King he had known? If the King had possessed such imposing authority in his younger years, he would never have lost vast swaths of territory, nor would he have allowed his vassal lords to rebel.

It had become a laughingstock among other nations: a monarch clutching the Royal Regalia, yet unable to control his own subjects.

Why? Why had the King become like this? Had he been controlled?

No, I must warn His Majesty!

"Your Majesty, are you not being too reckless?" Mark, pushing against the spiritual pressure emanating from the Sword of Dawn ahead, took a difficult step forward and stared directly at the King, showing no fear.

"Overly aggressive reforms will plunge the Kingdom into turmoil. The Kingdom of Dawn cannot withstand such upheaval. Although your body has been healed, you cannot afford to overexert the Sword of Dawn."

As the King himself had said, his time was running out; he had few years left. This was what Xuan Lu had told the King: though the illness was cured, his body was already withered, and he would last at most five years.

The blessing of the Sword of Dawn had already been bestowed upon the King and could not be used again, and they were powerless to find any treasure capable of bringing the dead back to life. To survive, the King now had to rely on crooked, heretical means, but the Sword of Dawn would never permit such behavior.

"What you are doing will trigger a backlash from the other nobles. They might even betray the Kingdom and defect to other nations. When that time comes, will you have the power to quell the rebellion?"

As a knight, he was not qualified to question what his sovereign did, but as a knight of this land, he had to step forward and tell the King what he was doing. He was inciting the greatest turmoil in the history of the Kingdom—a turmoil in which every noble would turn against the capital.

"If you are not careful, the entire Kingdom will be doomed. Please, Your Majesty, reconsider!" Mark knelt on one knee, his heavy armor clanking against the floor.

"This country needs to be broken to be rebuilt," the King stated.

"You will fail," Mark replied without reservation.

The King was clearly not himself now; he had to be awakened, even at the risk of losing his head. The two men stared at each other for a full minute in a silent confrontation between sovereign and subject.

"Mark," the King broke the silence first. "I am well aware that I will fail. To see this country reborn, we must wait for the next monarch."

Tearing down a house takes only a moment, but building one takes months, or even years.

A glimmer of joy flashed in Mark's eyes, and he hurriedly said, "Then why not leave it to the next successor? With the natural talent of Princesses Olina and Irene, they could surely unleash the full might of the Sword of Dawn."

The offspring of transcendents usually had good talent, but that was all it was—good. It could not guarantee they would reach the upper three tiers. That was a threshold like a chasm; though only a step away, it represented the difference between heaven and earth.

Just like the Royal House of Dawn: no matter how glorious it had once been, it had declined because it could no longer produce transcendents of the upper three tiers. This phenomenon was common among the great noble houses of the Kingdom. Perhaps because they were holed up in the remote Death Marshes, they had not produced outstanding powerhouses for a long time.

Since the defeat two hundred years ago, the Kingdom of Dawn had been on a downward slope; in recent years, the only one worth mentioning was Count Dana.

But things were different now. As if suppressed for too long, this generation of the Dawn royal family had suddenly erupted. Each of them possessed decent talent, and with the accumulation of massive resources, they could steadily reach the third tier, with even a glimpse of the fourth tier possible in their later years.

The most astonishing of them were Olina and Irene. Both were geniuses in the truest sense; as long as no accidents occurred, reaching the upper three tiers was a certainty.

"There is no time," the King shook his head and countered, "Do you think they would give Irene or Olina the time?"

Mark fell silent, momentarily unsure how to answer.

"They will not. That is why I must buy time for them and leave them something." The King’s eyelids drooped as he looked at the two-handed sword in his hand, which emitted a faint golden light. Deep within his clouded eyes, madness flickered in and out of existence. "I have lived enough, and you have all enjoyed enough. Rather than fading away slowly, it is better to stake everything on one final gamble."

Mark’s heart sank as he suddenly looked up at the King, who was bathed in brilliant golden light. At this moment, the King was so majestic, so powerful—this was a true King of Dawn, a monarch whose word was law.

Yet, in Mark’s eyes, a person stood behind the King: a black-haired man with a few shallow scars on his face and a calm demeanor. The man stood there quietly, his arm extending from behind the King, pointing toward an unknown distance.

The King was indeed being manipulated, just as he had been during the royal selection—manipulated by that man. At this moment, the King was conscious, yet he was bound, walking forward in the direction the man was pointing.

He could not persuade the King; no one could stop a man who was already as good as dead.

...

In the damp, dimly lit dungeon, nobles of all sizes were locked in their respective cells.

The noble lords were exhausted, their faces sallow, devoid of their usual haughtiness, their magnificent clothes stained by the dampness of the cells. The lords sat on the ground, eyes closed, expressions grim, clinging to their last shred of dignity. The noble ladies held their children, comforting them while wiping tears from the corners of their eyes from time to time. The young noble heirs looked on in terror, still unable to understand why they had been imprisoned. Soft weeping echoed through the dark cells from time to time.

Outside the cells, the Kingdom's knights, dressed in heavy armor, watched them with solemn expressions, preventing them from escaping by any means or sending out distress signals.

*Clack, clack, clack...*

Crisp footsteps approached from afar. The nobles in the cells instinctively looked up, and a glimmer of hope ignited in their eyes.

"Your Majesty the King!"

"Your Majesty, we are innocent!"

"Your Majesty, please spare us!"

Some fell to their knees, weeping bitterly before the gorgeously dressed old man outside the cells, even the lords who had moments ago claimed that a gentleman would rather die than be humiliated.

No one present knew what they had done wrong or why the King had arrested them. But this was not the time to think about that; they had to confess to whatever crimes were demanded and get out of there first. More and more people knelt on the ground, pleading.

The King surveyed the kneeling nobles and suddenly felt that they were no different from commoners.

"Bring the wine."

Upon hearing this, some looked confused, while others turned ashen.

The cells were opened by the kingdom's knights, and glass after glass of red wine was brought in and placed before the nobles.

"This is your final shred of dignity."

The cold voice echoed through the dungeon, and a chill wind crept into the tunnel, causing the candlelight on the walls to flicker incessantly.

...

At the base, within a simple experimental area constructed of thick concrete, inside a laboratory.

"Pah! Pah! Get away, don't come over!" The fairy spat repeatedly, looking at the white-clad devils around him with terror. "Stay away from me!"

These were ordinary humans, but for some reason, they felt incredibly dangerous to him, just like devils!

"Don't be afraid. We are civilized people who love peace; we won't do anything to you." Li Zhiyuan, wearing a protective suit, smiled gently behind his transparent visor.

Seeing such a well-intentioned smile, the little fairy's tense mood eased slightly.

Perhaps this human was a good person.