Chapter 300 : Chapter 300
Chapter 300. Where Would Moran Go?
Elena sheathed her sword, her cold gaze fixed on the direction where the particles of light had vanished.
Aureus also turned his head, his eyes filled with intense scrutiny.
The strength those two masked figures had displayed just now was absolutely not at the Sixth Tier. Especially that man who used the sword. The pressure of that strike had made even Aureus, a Seventh-Tier guardian knight, feel his heart tremble.
“Princess,” Elena said, her voice as cold and clear as ever, though there was now a trace of inquiry within it, “those two just now... who were they?”
People who could clash head-on with Seventh-Tier powerhouses and possessed such strange methods... could not possibly be nameless figures.
When had the Astrelia royal family gained such hidden cards?
“Merely some of the royal family’s foundations,” Sylvia said calmly, using a catch-all answer to block everyone’s curiosity.
Yet that explanation made Elena and Aureus, who had guarded the Royal Capital for years and believed they understood the royal family thoroughly, feel even less calm.
They realized that the royal family they served was far deeper than they had imagined.
“All right, everyone.” Logaris clapped his hands and drew everyone’s attention back. “This place is not suitable for a long stay. We should return to the Royal Capital and deal with the aftermath.”
The glove inlaid with three gemstones on his right hand lit up once more, and vast spatial mana instantly enveloped everyone.
Buzz—!
A large-scale spatial teleportation was activated.
When everyone set foot on solid ground again, they had already returned to the ruined wasteland in the Black Iron District of the Royal Capital.
First Prince Dorg was sitting on a chair that had been temporarily brought over, waiting anxiously. When he saw the teleportation light flare and six figures appear at the same time, a trace of relief finally appeared on his sickly face.
But when he clearly saw the fatigue and sorry state that everyone could not hide, especially the Pope’s sacred robe, which had been corroded into tatters by Dragon Breath, his heart sank again.
“How... did it go?” he asked hoarsely.
Logaris did not answer. He merely waved his hand, and an invisible Soundproof Barrier instantly opened, enveloping everyone within.
“Moran escaped.”
Sylvia got straight to the point, and that single sentence made Dorg’s pupils abruptly contract.
“But there is something even more important that we must tell the three of you.”
Sylvia’s gaze slowly swept across the Pope, Elena, and Aureus.
An ominous premonition rose in the hearts of the three Seventh-Tier powerhouses at the same time.
Inside the temporarily established barrier, Sylvia, Dorg, and Logaris revealed the entire truth without holding anything back.
From Moran’s mental suggestion, to his deal with Grand Duke of Hell Kresis, to how he had plotted against the King and stolen the kingdom’s authority...
The Pope, Elena, and Aureus listened with fury surging in their hearts, though they could still barely maintain their composure.
After all, powerful ministers dominating the court had existed since ancient times.
However, when Logaris used a calm tone as though he were merely stating a fact and spoke the final sentence, the air inside the entire barrier instantly froze.
“...And Father-King, His Majesty Astrelia VI, already died long ago in a failed forbidden life-extension spell. The one currently sitting on the throne is nothing more than a puppet controlled by Moran through necromantic alchemy.”
Boom!
“What... did... you... say?”
The three Seventh-Tier powerhouses felt a chill surge straight from the soles of their feet to the tops of their heads.
The sovereign of a nation was actually a corpse being manipulated by someone!
And they, the so-called pillars of the kingdom, had unknowingly followed orders from a dead man for so long.
“Absurd!” Aureus growled. “I meet His Majesty every month. He clearly...”
“He clearly can speak, can think, and can even release pressure belonging to the Sixth Tier,” Logaris interrupted him.
“That should be Grand Duke of Hell Kresis’s unique bio-alchemy, combined with Moran’s mental suggestion and Secrecy power. What you saw was only what they wanted you to see.”
The Pope took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.
He recalled those inexplicable obsessions and arrogance in his Spiritual Sea that had been magnified without reason, and finally linked all the clues together.
“What a Prime Minister... What a Moran.” The Pope sneered.
Inside the barrier, silence fell like death.
As the truth was revealed, the atmosphere at the scene became incomparably subtle.
Everyone’s gazes moved involuntarily back and forth between Sylvia and Dorg.
The King was dead.
Then what about the throne?
These two heirs with the highest order of succession in the kingdom had been allies fighting together against a traitor to the state just a moment ago. Now, they had already become each other’s most direct competitors.
A silent war that would determine the kingdom’s future quietly began beneath everyone’s gaze.
“Cough, cough...”
In the end, it was Dorg’s violent cough that broke the suffocating silence.
He covered his mouth with a handkerchief. When he lowered it, there was a glaring smear of crimson on it.
“The most urgent matter is to stabilize the situation.” He looked at Sylvia, his gaze complicated.
“There is no need to discuss the throne for now. The most urgent matter is to properly handle the transfer of authority from Moran’s hands and investigate the plants and loopholes he left behind. Otherwise, the entire kingdom could very easily fall into chaos, leaving endless future troubles.”
Sylvia did not answer immediately.
She tilted her head slightly, and no emotion could be discerned in her silver-gray eyes beneath the dim light.
Two seconds later, she gave a slight nod to express agreement.
She understood very clearly in her heart—with an external enemy still present and Moran not yet dead, this was not the time to completely break with Dorg.
“To the outside, we will announce that Prime Minister Moran colluded with demons and intended to assassinate His Majesty, and that we joined forces to execute him on the spot.”
Sylvia’s voice was cold and decisive, swiftly setting the tone for the incident.
“The Royal Capital must be placed under martial law. All of Moran’s remaining followers must be purged.”
The Pope, Elena, and Aureus exchanged glances, and all saw helplessness and acknowledgment in one another’s eyes.
They needed time to digest this shocking calamity, and the kingdom needed even more time to prepare for the coming transfer of power.
The tacit understanding displayed by the two heirs made the three Seventh-Tier powerhouses secretly breathe a sigh of relief.
At least tonight, Astrelia would not erupt into civil war.
However, after that brief moment of relief, an even deeper chill quietly enveloped everyone inside the barrier.
“We absolutely cannot just let him run,” Aureus said with an extremely grave expression.
As the Guard Commander, he understood that man’s weight better than anyone.
“Moran was not merely the Prime Minister. He was effectively the second most powerful person in the kingdom! Over the past forty years, how many of Astrelia’s core secrets have passed through his hands? Border defenses, military deployments, fortress weaknesses, strategic reserves... all of it is in his head!”
Elena’s cold brows also furrowed tightly, and her voice was solemn.
“The things in his mind are more dangerous than ten fully staffed elite legions. Once he sells those as a pledge of allegiance to an enemy nation—”
She did not finish.
She did not need to. No one present failed to understand the weight of those words.
“Then, here comes the question.” Dean Barnabas tugged at his messy beard, breaking the oppressive atmosphere.
“Where would Moran go?”
He looked around at everyone. For the first time, there was no smile in those perpetually narrowed old eyes.
“A traitor hunted by the entirety of Astrelia, a monster who is heavily wounded and whose body is half-draconified—”
“Where else can he go?”