The Return Of The Exiled Villain

Gloria lifted her right hand.

She did not gather a grand spell, nor did she draw a sword.

She only closed her fingers into a fist. The air around her knuckles tightened, then went still, as if even the hall understood that mana was not what mattered here.

The old man's eyes shrank.

"Gloria! Stop this madness! I am your..."

She stepped in and punched.

It was one hit.

The sound was dull and heavy, like a drum being struck too hard.

THUDD!

Her fist landed on the old man's chest, right over the place where a Monarch's power should have sat like an iron wall.

BAAM!

That wall broke.

The old man flew off the dais.

His broom left his hand. The monarch-level weapon clattered across the marble and skidded to a stop near a fallen chair.

The old man's body smashed through the first row of banquet tables, then the second, then hit a pillar hard enough to leave a crack from floor to mid-height.

Dust fell from the ceiling.

"Blurrrghhh!!!"

Blood burst from his mouth in a thick spray.

He slid down the pillar and dropped to one knee.

His right arm hung wrong, and something in his chest had caved in.

The sleepy look was gone. What remained was shock, pain, and a kind of grief that old monsters rarely showed in public.

"You…" He coughed, and more blood came out.

"You dare cripple your own grandfather…"

Gloria lowered her fist. Her face did not change much.

"You pointed a weapon at me first."

"I am the protector of this kingdom!" the old man roared, though the roar broke in the middle.

"The late Emperor saved my life! I swore I would guard his line until my bones turned to ash! You struck the throne! You struck me! Traitor! Ungrateful traitor!"

Several nobles, still conscious enough to hear him, trembled.

To them, this old man was a legend... the one who single-handedly defeated a low noble.

And now that pillar was kneeling against a cracked pillar with his chest smashed in by a single punch from his granddaughter.

Gloria walked down the steps.

"You call me a traitor because I will not watch this country sell itself," she said.

"The current Emperor brought elves to buy a princess and vampires to drink royal blood. You still kneel to that...?"

"You know nothing of loyalty!" The old man's remaining good hand pressed against the floor. He tried to rise.

His legs shook and failed him.

"I endured humiliation for this kingdom. I swallowed pride for this kingdom. I buried friends for this kingdom. And you… you ruin it in one night for your own judgment!"

Gloria stopped in front of him.

"If the kingdom can only live by selling its children and its blood, then it is already ruined."

The old man's eyes went red.

"Demon girl… You have forgotten your roots. I should have broken your cultivation when you were young. I should have locked you in the ancestral hall. I treated you as family, and you repaid me with a crippled body!"

Gloria looked at his hanging arm, then at the blood on his lips.

"You can still talk. That means I held back."

The words made the old man's face twist harder.

"Held back? You call this holding back? My meridians are in chaos! My monarch foundation is cracked! Do you understand what you have done? Even if I heal, I will never return to my peak!"

"Good," Gloria said.

"Then you will not swing that broom at me again."

The old man lifted his head one last time.

"Gloria… from this day on, you are no granddaughter of mine. You are a traitor to the Crown. A traitor to the late Emperor's grace. A traitor to the kingdom I bled for!"

Gloria turned away from him.

"Call me whatever you want," she said.

"It will not put your bones back together."

She walked back toward the center of the hall.

Broken tables, fallen guards, and nobles still pressed to the floor watched her pass.

The Emperor remained on the dais, crownless, blood on his mouth. The old man stayed against the cracked pillar, breathing hard, no longer able to stop what came next.

Gloria stopped where the whole court could see her.

"Listen carefully."

She raised her voice.

"From this moment on, the students of Gloria Academy are no longer bound to serve this kingdom under my jurisdiction. I will not send them to die for a throne that sells its own blood. I will not force them to smile at alliances made over their lives. I will not hand them to the court because their parents sit in this hall."

A few noble heads jerked up.

"That includes the children of noble houses," Gloria continued.

"If they study under me, they are students first. Not tools or future offerings. Whether they were born in a duke's mansion or a common street, under my academy they have the right to refuse the Crown."

The Emperor's face twisted.

"You cannot declare that. Those students belong to their families, and their families swore loyalty towards me."

Gloria looked at him once.

"Their families can come and argue with me. You can too. We have all seen how that ends tonight."

Whispers tried to rise and died again. Parents in the hall were hearing their own children being cut loose from royal duty in public.

They all had different reactions, as some looked furious, and a few others actually looked very relieved.

Gloria did not stop.

"Gloria Academy will not march because the palace rings a bell. We will not bleed because the Emperor wants a prettier alliance. If a student wishes to serve this country, that is their choice. If they wish to leave it, that is also their choice. I will not sell them. I will not lend them. I will not kneel them in front of elves or vampires in my name."

She glanced toward the students who had come with the academies, then back to the throne.

"From today, they are free of that chain."

The old man let out a broken laugh from the pillar.

"You are tearing the kingdom apart…"

Gloria turned her head.

The laugh had not finished before she moved.

CRACK!

Her foot directly smashed into the old man's face.

Bone gave way under her heel. His head snapped to the side, then farther, twisting past the angle a living neck was meant to hold.

Blood burst from his mouth and nose.

His body jerked once against the pillar and went slack, still breathing, but only just.

One more ounce of force and the Peak Monarch who had stepped out of a broken necklace would have died on the banquet floor.

Gloria pulled her foot back.

The old man's head hung wrong. Air wheezed through what was left of his ruined face. He did not laugh again.

She turned to the rest of the court.

"Consider this as a warning."

Her killing intent came out with the words.

It was different from Gray's.

It was much stronger, causing everyone who was standing upright to press flat against the polished ground instantly.

No matter what rank they were, they all pressed against the ground.

The vampires suffered worst.

They were already flattened, and Gloria's intent drove them harder into the stone. The lead vampire's cheek scraped the floor.

One attendant's fingers cracked as they tried and failed to push up. Red eyes that had been excited a few minutes ago were wide now, stripped of amusement.

No one spoke.

Gloria stood over the silence she had made and let them understand it.

Gray watched from below the dais, then he looked at Seraph and gave her a small thumbs-up.

It seemed that he didn't need to do much today, as Gloria had paved the way for them.

Gray walked over to Seraph and Aurora.

"Let's get out of here," he said.

"There's nothing more to see. The Emperor has already been warned."

Seraph smiled, bright and unguarded in a hall still full of blood.

She nodded.

Aurora fell in behind them without argument.

For once she did not tease, did not linger to watch Gloria finish the wreckage.

She only glanced once at the twisted old man, once at the crownless Emperor, and then followed Gray toward the doors.

The court did not try to stop them.

They had all seen Gray's power, and now they were under an even more powerful pressure: Gloria's.

They walked out of the grand palace and stepped under the beautiful, starry night sky. Faint stars shimmered along a path, almost creating a gorgeous horse pattern.

The Pegasus Constellation, the winged horse from Greek mythology

To Gray, it was quite funny to see this since Pegasus symbolized "freedom". It was quite fitting after this banquet, since Seraph had officially gained freedom.

A happy ending, one would say.

However... his adventure would only start now.

'...I've already got enough strength now... It's time to visit the Underworld now.'

Gray looked deeply ahead.

Before trying to go to the upper planes, he'd need a little more strength, at least enough to defeat someone at the Peak Monarch Realm.

And so... for that, he's going to try to obtain one of the most powerful cheats in the entire novel.

The Sacred Demon Body.