Chapter 103: Emperor Aethelgard (3)
The imperial banquet was a suffocating masquerade of painted smiles and poisoned wine. Adam slipped away from the grand ballroom, stepping out onto one of the sprawling, shadowed balconies of the palace. The freezing night air was a welcome relief from the oppressive terror inside.
But as Adam watched the cold, calculated ambition burning in Valerius’s golden eyes, a terrifying mystery settled heavily in his mind.
If this man already possessed everything... what did he plan to do next?
You do not build a weapon that can erase cities just to sit comfortably on a throne. You do not terrify the entire world just to keep the peace.
Valerius was preparing for something much, much bigger.
He leaned against the cold stone balustrade, staring out over the capital. But a quiet, rhythmic clicking drew his attention upward.
On the secluded observatory terrace directly above him, three figures stood bathed in the pale moonlight.
Adam pressed himself into the deep shadows of the alcove, holding his breath.
It was Emperor Valerius. Beside him stood the Prime Minister. The third man was completely clad in the pitch-black, featureless armor of the Corduil Elimination Force—the Empire’s most secretive and lethal black-ops division.
In the center of their terrace sat a massive, brass astrolabe. It was a complex, beautiful machine of interlocking rings and glowing gems, designed to track the movement of the cosmos.
Valerius reached out and traced a finger along the outermost brass ring.
"Look at them," Valerius murmured. His voice carried clearly in the dead of night. "The stars. For thousands of years, humanity has looked up and allowed those fixed, unblinking eyes to dictate our fates. We draw our magic from their alignments. We bow to the destiny they cast upon the earth."
"The celestial anchor is heavy, Your Majesty," the Prime Minister replied quietly. "The ancient texts say it is the absolute will of the divine."
Valerius laughed. It was a cold, hollow sound.
"The divine," the Emperor scoffed. He gripped the brass ring of the astrolabe and twisted it violently. The gears ground together with a harsh, metallic screech. "A stagnant board with archaic rules. But what if the board itself is redrawn? What if the tapestry of the night sky is torn down and rewoven by our own hands?"
"The Corduil Elimination Force has finished mapping the primary leylines, Your Majesty," the black-armored commander spoke. His voice was completely devoid of humanity. "The energy required to reach the firmament is beyond comprehension. But the weapon’s output is sufficient. We have the key."
"Good," Valerius whispered, looking up at the vast, glittering canopy of space. "Let the old gods rot in the dark. We will rearrange the heavens. We will hang our own stars."
Down in the shadows, Adam’s blood ran entirely cold.
The imagery, the sheer, unfathomable arrogance of the conversation, settled into his bones like ice. Valerius did not just want to conquer the world. He was looking at the night sky like it was an empty throne.
He wanted to reach up and become god.
***
Meanwhile, far away in the Grim Palace.
"Her name is Livia," I said, finally mentally assigning the quiet, platinum-blonde witch a name so I didn’t have to keep calling her ’the new girl’ in my head.
"My name is Livia," she agreed, nodding solemnly from across the wooden table.
Weiss was still rubbing her temples, nursing a cup of black coffee. "Fine. Livia. You barge into my house, beg me to come out of a three-hundred-year retirement, and tell me the Empire is going to start a war. Tell me something I don’t know."
Livia leaned forward, her large blue eyes reflecting the candlelight.
"The weapon they tested," Livia said, her voice dropping to a serious whisper. "The one they dropped on this very city before you moved it to the forest. It was not just a bomb, Your Majesty. It was a resonance test."
I frowned, crossing my arms. "A resonance test for what?"
"For the Ice Wall," Livia answered.
The room fell completely silent. The Ice Wall of the North was a legendary boundary. It was a massive, continent-spanning glacier that separated the known world from the absolute frozen wastelands.
"Our oldest seer," Livia continued, "The Dream of Night. She cast a prophecy three days ago. She did not just see it; she lived it. Her eyes bled. She saw the sky cracking like glass, and she saw the Ice Wall shattering from the inside out. The Empire is quietly moving the Corduil Elimination Force and the weapon to the extreme North as we speak."
"A seer witch?" Weiss scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. "They just drink hallucinogenic mushroom tea and stare at glowing rocks until they get a migraine. It’s not an exact science."
"She is never wrong, Queen," Livia insisted, her voice tight with desperation. "Whatever the Empire is trying to do, it starts at the Ice Wall. If that boundary falls, the monsters of the deep frost will flood the continent before the Empire’s true plan even begins."
I bit my lip. The memory of the blinding white light that had nearly wiped Serenia City off the map flashed in my mind. The Empire had that kind of firepower, and now they were pointing it at the structural integrity of the world.
The heavy wooden doors of the dining hall pushed open.
Nea walked in, dressed in her casual clothes, looking completely refreshed. Keith trailed behind her, carrying a stack of reports from the city’s new guard division.
Nea looked at the tense atmosphere in the room, then at me. Her charming eyes narrowed slightly.
"Why do you have that look on your face?" Nea asked.
"What look?" I asked.
"The look you get when you are about to do something incredibly dangerous and probably illegal," she pointed out smoothly. Keith nodded vigorously in agreement from behind her.
I looked at Weiss. The Witch Queen let out a long, heavy sigh and aggressively downed the rest of her coffee.
"Well," Weiss grumbled, slamming the cup down on the table. "I suppose I haven’t dissected anything from the Northern Wall"
I turned back to Nea and gave her a tired, completely unapologetic smile.
"Pack some warm clothes, Vice Captain," I told her. "We are taking a little vacation to the Ice Wall."