Chapter 220 --220
The words of the messenger hung in the dead air of the throne room, heavy and suffocating.
The Marus Kingdom has mobilized.
Standing beside the throne, Larus went completely rigid. It was a microscopic reaction—a slight tightening of his jaw, a barely perceptible tremor in his hands where they rested at his sides. But Heena noticed it immediately.
Damn it, Heena cursed violently inside her own head.
She had just wrapped up a flawless extortion. She had just terrified these treacherous nobles into bankrupting themselves to fill her treasury. She had systematically dismantled their little rebellion, proved that Larus was untouchable, and established herself as the undisputed apex predator of the Eternal Phoenix Empire. And now? Now her husband’s former kingdom decided to throw a military tantrum.
Timing, as they say, is everything. And the universe clearly had a terrible sense of humor.
This news was a lifeline for the aristocracy, and they knew it. The very same nobles who had been frantically scrambling toward the heavy oak doors, eager to escape and count whatever gold they had left, suddenly ground to a halt.
Slowly, they turned around.
Heena watched from the dais as the collective expression of the nobility morphed from sheer, unadulterated terror into something sickeningly opportunistic. The fear vanished, replaced by the distinct, ravenous gleam of starved hyenas spotting a particularly plump, unguarded sheep. Larus was a foreign prince, and his homeland had just mobilized against them. To these old political foxes, this wasn’t a national security crisis; it was a silver platter.
In a swift, synchronized motion that would have impressed a military drill sergeant, the entire sea of nobles threw themselves back onto their knees.
"YOUR MAJESTY!" they roared in unison.
The collective shout was so deafeningly loud that Heena literally had to raise a hand and plug one of her ears. The sound echoed off the high vaulted ceilings, vibrating right into her skull, which was already throbbing from the lingering effects of the undetectable poison she had deliberately consumed weeks ago.
"Damn it! I am not dead yet!" Heena gritted her teeth, her nonchalant facade slipping just enough to reveal pure, unfiltered irritation. "Keep your voices down before I have your vocal cords repossessed to pay off your new debts."
From the front of the pack, Duke Valorian—Adrian’s father and a man who desperately needed to learn when to stay down—raised his head. The smugness had returned to his face, poorly concealed beneath a mask of false, patriotic concern.
"Your Majesty, you have seen the truth of the matter!" Duke Valorian declared, his voice ringing with obnoxious righteousness. "This is exactly the reason why we are so fundamentally against the ruling of this foreign consort! His own kingdom marches against us! Now, for the safety of the empire, we formally request Your Majesty to reconsider your stance and strip him of his unearned authority!"
Heena stared at him. She really, truly considered whether she could get away with throwing one of her heavy gold armbands directly at his forehead.
"Wait," Heena said, raising a single finger. "Enough. Don’t you dare—"
"But Your Majesty, the security of the realm—"
"Shut up."
The two words were spoken with such casual, glacial finality that the Duke’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click.
Heena didn’t spare the nobles another glance. She turned her body entirely, focusing her attention on the tense, rigid man standing beside her throne. Larus was staring straight ahead, his blue eyes dark with conflict, the weight of his old world crashing violently into his new one.
Heena let out a soft breath, her expression melting from imperious wrath into something impossibly warm.
"Sweetheart," she said gently, completely ignoring the hundreds of outraged aristocrats watching them. "This is your former kingdom causing a scene. So, what should you do?"
Hearing that, Larus’s gaze snapped to hers. The tremor in his hands vanished, replaced by a sudden, razor-sharp clarity. The soft, diplomatic prince disappeared, and the brilliant, calculating survivor took his place.
"Your Majesty," Larus said, his voice carrying clearly across the silent hall. "Give me just two weeks. In two weeks, I will completely swallow this problem whole."
The court erupted.
The nobles, who had been commanded to shut up, collectively lost their minds.
"Of course not!" Marquess Halverton shouted from the back. "Your Majesty, you cannot give him the time! You cannot give him the authority!"
"Who knows what he would do?!" another lord wailed, clutching his chest. "He might commit treason! He might open the gates! He might support his family and hand our northern provinces over to the enemy!"
They were practically foaming at the mouth, spewing nonsense, their voices blending into a chaotic, irritating drone.
Heena literally muted their voices in her mind. She just tuned them out entirely, treating the highest-ranking peers of the realm like annoying background static.
System 427 floated nervously by her shoulder, his little golden lion ears pinned back. [Host, they are making a valid tactical point about conflicts of interest—]
I don’t care, Heena shot back mentally.
She looked exclusively at Larus, her dark eyes locking onto his blue ones. She didn’t see a traitor. She saw a strategic partner she had heavily invested in, a man who had held her empire together while she was in a coma, and someone who hated being used as a political pawn more than she did.
"Are you sure?" Heena asked him, her voice slicing through the ambient noise of the panicking nobility. "In two weeks, you can completely take care of this?"
Larus didn’t flinch. He didn’t hesitate. He looked at the woman who had handed him a white rose and true independence, and he nodded.
"Without a doubt, Your Majesty."
Heena studied his face for a fraction of a second. Then, she smiled—a bright, genuinely satisfied smile that made the nearby nobles instinctively recoil.
"Fine," Heena said, turning back to the court. "Do it."
The nobles shrieked in protest, but Heena had already stopped listening.
Honestly? In any other lifetime, across any of the other infinite worlds she had transmigrated through, Heena would have personally ridden to the northern border, drawn her sword, and hacked the problem to pieces herself. She was the Black Lotus. Violence was her native language.
But right now? Her body was incredibly weak. The lethal poison had ravaged this host’s internal meridians, and her head was currently pounding like a war drum.
And more importantly... she was just lazy.
Why on earth would she put on heavy, uncomfortable armor, ride a horse for two weeks, and sleep in a dirty military tent when she had a perfectly competent, brilliant husband willing to do the heavy lifting for her? If you don’t need to go to war, why would you go?
Delegation was the mark of a true sovereign, after all. And Heena had absolutely no problem with resting while Larus handled the garbage disposal.
The nobles opened their mouths to launch yet another wave of opposition, their faces turning a frantic shade of red, but Heena’s next words hit the room like a physical shockwave.
"If my consort cannot inhale this problem within two weeks," she announced, her voice dropping into a register of glacial, terrifying calm, "then I will personally lead the Golden Legions into this war myself."