Chapter 495 --495
As the first guard nervously drew his blade, Heena didn’t even flinch. She slowly reached into the folds of her wine-colored robe and pulled out the heavy, glowing jade token.
She held it up high, the Imperial crest catching the morning sunlight.
"I hold the official seal of the Royal Tutor, granted to me personally by His Majesty the Emperor and Her Majesty the Empress," Heena declared, her voice ringing with lethal authority. She swept her cold, fox-like gaze over the hesitating guards. "I have been granted full authority to discipline the Ninth Prince in the martial arts. Any man who draws a blade on me is actively defying the Emperor’s edict. And I promise you, before your head hits this courtyard, the Marcuset Vanguard will personally ensure your entire clan is wiped from the face of this empire."
The guards instantly froze. The horrific reputation of the Vanguard military was burned into the mind of every soldier in the capital. The sheer, suffocating pressure radiating from Heena made them realize she wasn’t bluffing.
In perfect unison, all twelve guards released their weapon hilts and immediately dropped to one knee, bowing their heads in submission to the jade token.
"You cowards!" the Ninth Prince screamed, kicking the nearest kneeling guard in the shoulder. "I am your prince! Kill her! I will have you all beheaded!"
"Are you finished?" Heena asked, sounding entirely bored.
The Prince whipped his head around, glaring at her with tears of furious humiliation pricking the corners of his eyes. "I am going to tell my Imperial Mother! She will have you completely flayed alive for this!"
Heena sighed, casually tucking the jade token back into her robes. She walked forward. The Prince tried to back away, but he tripped over his own lavish robes and stumbled. Before he could fall, Heena’s hand shot out, grabbing him roughly by the front of his collar. She hoisted him up so his face was mere inches from hers.
"Listen to me, you pathetic little brat," Heena whispered, her voice so terrifyingly calm it made the boy’s blood run cold. "Do you honestly think the Empress doesn’t know exactly who I am? She is the one who sent me here. She knows exactly how the Vanguard trains its soldiers. And if you go crying to her, she will only look at you with pity and tell you to obey your tutor."
The Prince’s eyes widened, the absolute certainty of his royal privilege beginning to fracture.
"You think you are powerful because you can beat a kneeling guard with a wooden stick?" Heena scoffed, dropping him in disgust. "You are weak. Your stance is garbage, your grip is a joke, and your temper is easily manipulated. If you were thrown onto a real battlefield, you wouldn’t survive three seconds. You are nothing but a pampered, useless liability."
The brutal honesty hit the boy like a physical blow. The sycophants in the palace had spent years inflating his ego, telling him his martial arts were unparalleled. No one had ever dared to call him garbage to his face.
"Pick it up," Heena ordered, pointing to the wooden training sword lying on the stone.
The Ninth Prince just stared at her, breathing heavily, his fists clenched in defiance.
Heena didn’t yell. She didn’t repeat herself. She simply placed her hand on the hilt of the real, steel sword resting at her waist. The chilling ’shing’ of the blade sliding an inch out of its scabbard echoed sharply in the silent courtyard.
The Prince swallowed hard. His arrogant defiance crumbled under the sheer, murderous intent radiating from her dark eyes. With trembling hands, the boy bent down and picked up the wooden sword.
"Good," Heena said, letting her steel blade slide back into place. "You are going to stand in a basic horse stance. You will swing that sword exactly one thousand times. If your form drops, the count starts over. If you complain, the count doubles. If you pass out... I will wake you up with a bucket of ice water and you will start again."
The Prince’s jaw dropped. "One thousand?! That—that is impossible! I will die!"
"Then die," Heena replied flatly, turning her back on him to walk toward a shaded stone pavilion at the edge of the courtyard. She gracefully took a seat at the table, pouring herself a cup of the hot tea a terrified maid had left behind.
She took a slow sip, letting the warmth settle the lingering nausea in her stomach, before looking back at the frozen, horrified boy.
"Swing," Heena commanded.
And for the first time in the history of the Imperial Palace, the unruly, tyrannical Ninth Prince obediently raised his sword and began to swing.
Floating right beside her at the pavilion table, the System’s digital lion avatar stared out at the trembling, sweating prince with wide, shocked eyes.
’[Wow, Host...]’ the System whispered through their mental link, completely blown away. ’[I honestly didn’t know you could teach so well. Did you actually undergo this exact same brutal training in one of your past military worlds?]’
Heena took a slow, relaxed sip of her tea, her expression completely blank. ’’Nah. They just think I’m some legendary, tactical genius.’’
The System blinked. ’[Wait. If you didn’t learn this from a past military life... then where did this horrific training routine come from?]’
’’Ah, that?’’ Heena thought back casually. ’’I saw it in a martial arts movie series in my original world. I just thought, hey, let’s see if an actual human being can survive doing it or not.’’
The System’s digital jaw dropped in absolute disbelief. ’[Host! He is an actual fourteen-year-old human being with real muscles, not a fictional movie character!]’
Heena shrugged her shoulders, entirely unbothered, and set her teacup down with a soft click. ’’Who cares? That little bastard dared to call me a bitch the moment I walked in. So I thought, let’s make him do some agonizing exercises so he can truly understand the limitations of his physical body.’’
The System frowned, looking back and forth between her and the struggling royal. ’[But a movie character would be doing push-ups. This is a horse stance.]’
Heena nodded smoothly, a wicked glint flashing in her fox-like eyes. ’’Exactly. The horse stance is just the warm-up. After he finishes his one thousand swings, I am going to make him do two hundred consecutive push-ups.’’
The System turned its head back to her, its holographic whiskers twitching. ’[...Can you even do two hundred consecutive push-ups, Host?]’
Heena leveled a stern, deadpan glare at the lion, looking at it as if it were the absolute biggest fool in the universe. ’’Of course not. Do you honestly think a beautiful, delicate lady like me needs to be doing push-ups?’’
The System stared at her for a long moment, completely speechless, before letting out a digitized sigh. ’[Host... I actually want to pray for that boy’s survival right now. You are going to break him.]’
Heena shrugged her shoulders again and casually picked up another pastry, taking a small bite to counter the bitter taste of her painkillers.
’’If he dies, he dies,’’ she communicated back with cold, detached pragmatism. ’’But if he manages to stay alive... well, then we might actually have something worth training.’’