Chapter 481: Full of Gunpowder
Noon, local time.
The rainy season.
In Surt’s Stereoscopic City, the downpour gathered into a raging torrent within the drainage system, surging violently.
Even in the relatively enclosed room, the muffled roar of the rain outside could still be heard.
After the last of the attendees had entered, three standard three-man tactical squads dispatched by the Vengeful Angels Second Company stood guard in the entrance hallway. When the heavy, three-hundred-year-old doors closed, the closed-door meeting, held under the shadow of war, officially began.
No matter what excuses some of the backtracking Local Lords tried to find, or how their Guard Knights drew their swords in loud protest, all their vicious posturing and rebukes ultimately dissolved into the same silence when faced with the two Holy Fire Guards standing before the door like statues. Anxiously, they would return to their seats.
In times of war, the right to speak has always belonged to the strong.
The combined Guard Knights of these Local Lords could form half of a Holy Scripture-standard, thousand-man company, while there were fewer than ten Vengeful Angels presiding over the meeting.
Yet they still lacked the courage to resist.
Or rather, ten minutes earlier, a Knight Warlord from the world of Silesia had tried to back out. After failing to flee the venue, he ordered his five Guard Knights—including a captain with the strength of a One-star Earth Knight—to openly attack the guards in full view of everyone.
But they didn’t even make it to the main doors, let alone clash with the Vengeful Angels stationed outside or even in the hallway.
Even now,
The bloodstains splattered on the inside of the great doors had yet to dry.
The forces commanded by that Knight Warlord would be a formidable power that couldn’t be ignored on any world under the Imperial Administrative Region system. On a world like Cyrenaica, they could have easily overthrown a small nation and become a regional Overlord.
Unfortunately, for such a powerful local force, “tragic” was not a strong enough word to describe the state of their deaths.
Strictly speaking, the “battle” was over the instant it began.
Fifteen seconds.
The Guard Knights who charged the venue’s guards, along with the warlord himself, were all beheaded, their heads put on display.
CLANG—!
The crisp sound of a bronze bell rang out, signaling the start of the meeting.
In the deathly silent, massive hall, only the heavy footsteps of an Imperial Knight echoed on the steps leading to the stage, like the drumbeat of a death sentence.
A thousand pairs of eyes silently watched that formidable man of the Empire stride purposefully onto the stage.
Reinhardt stopped and removed his Full Coverage Helmet, revealing a battle-hardened face covered in scars—a testament to a life lived on the edge of death. As his gaze swept over the crowd, every Local Lord his eyes fell upon felt a jolt of terror, cold sweat pouring down their backs.
It was as if the one staring at them wasn’t an Imperial Knight, but some unspeakable, horrifying entity.
Even though Reinhardt had not used his Knight Power in the hall, the Destructive Suppression from a Domain Level Powerhouse was such that even the slightest hint of his aura was more than anyone below the stage could bear.
To the people below the stage, it felt as if the pressure had become tangible the moment the Lord of Vengeful ascended, crushing them from all sides until they could barely breathe.
After a full minute of silence, Reinhardt’s slightly hoarse voice echoed through the hall.
“I invited you all to the Governor’s Mansion of Surt for this meeting, and you should know why. But today, we are not here to discuss war and peace. We are here to discuss something else.”
Before this closed-door meeting, most of the rebel lords from Cyrenaica had guessed that the Vengeful Angels probably wouldn’t play by the book, but they assumed the main goal—negotiating for peace—would remain unchanged.
After all, they had money, men, and armies. Not even the Grand Governor had the power to turn on them so openly.
Thus, all the rebels who had ‘voluntarily’ attended this meeting were banking on the fact that the Vengeful Angels wouldn’t dare touch them and were instead aiming for peace talks.
But now, the opening words of the Lord of Vengeful were gradually making them realize that something was very wrong.
‘What does he mean, not discussing war and peace, but something else?’
‘Could there possibly be anything in the Imperial Administrative Region more important than quelling the internal rebellion in Cyrenaica? As they saw it, this matter should have taken priority even over the war on the Verne Front Line.’
‘After all, without their support, it was debatable whether this vast Imperial Administrative Region could even continue to function, let alone wage a war.’
If anyone else had started the meeting with such words, the hall would have long since erupted in laughter, mocking the host for overestimating their own importance.
But facing the Lord of Vengeful, even if they wanted to laugh, they had to keep their expressions tightly composed, no matter how strained they felt.
Many of the Local Lords exchanged glances. Some were already starting to wonder: ‘Could the Lord of Vengeful’s sudden change in topic mean he wants to win us over?’
They could think of no other possibility.
If that were the case, then they had even less reason to panic. In fact, some were already starting to consider the upcoming negotiations.
In this world, few could escape the lure of power. As they saw it, this rebellion would end with the Lord of Vengeful being just like everyone else: chasing the highest authority in the Administrative Region, seeking to stand above all others.
At this moment, the atmosphere in the hall was clearly much less tense than before.
A local warlord sitting near Reinhardt rudely interrupted him, speaking bluntly, “Not talking about war and peace? Are you trying to get our support to fill the vacant Governor position left by Claudius’s death?
If so, then I’ll be the first to declare my position.”
As he spoke, he completely ignored Reinhardt on the stage, rising to his feet and turning to the crowd behind him. In an outrageously arrogant move to steal the spotlight, he bellowed, “I am William, Knight General of Silesia!
Here and now, I support the Son of Vengeance succeeding Claudius for the title of Governor! Is there anyone among you who will stand with me?!”
His voice was so loud it even overshadowed Reinhardt’s presence, echoing endlessly through the vast hall.
Such is the game of politics—wondrous, sensitive, and utterly deadly.
On the surface, this Knight General who called himself William was proactively saying what he assumed Reinhardt ‘wanted’ to say, seemingly taking his side.
But in reality, by loudly and forcefully proposing his support for Reinhardt to take the title of Governor, his true goal was to seize this opportunity, hijack the meeting’s narrative, and invisibly push Reinhardt into a pathetic corner.
Though he feared the power of the Vengeful Angels, he was far from respectful.
‘For powerful local tyrants like him, long used to walking all over others, what the hell would an Imperial Knight like the Lord of Vengeful—who only knew how to kill—know about politics?’
‘As long as he could rally a group of supporters, wouldn’t Reinhardt be putty in his hands?’
His very proposal to support Reinhardt for the governorship was riddled with countless ulterior motives, the unspoken implication being that without his support, Reinhardt could never become Governor.