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(247)
“Haha. Just give me a moment.”
Philios spoke with high-ranking administrators, experienced officers, and knights.
“Never, never.”
“This means that they will make us economically dependent.”
“It is fatal that a saint is born in the empire. The church may agree with it with both hands, so we must be even more vigilant.”
And he soon concluded that if he granted that rascal's request, the Kingdom of Doroisen could become the Duchy of Doroisen in his time.
'I can't ruin the country. I have to protect what my father left me so I can have the face to see him again.'
But if his demands were not met, the 6,000 elite soldiers might have been reduced to 600.
'If it goes on like this, the country will be ruined.'
Of course, if the knights and wizards of Doroisen put their all into it, they would certainly be able to kill even Valencianus.
But everyone knew.
Behind Valencianus was the divine emperor Jaerilis.
“… … ”
If we were not to see the Emperor who had usurped power by rebelling alone drop a meteorite on the Doroisen Palace, we had to end the talks here somehow.
Philios tried to realize that the throne he had been looking at for so long was now in his hands.
“First, bring Ezraz. I’ll have to give him what I can give him right away. I, too, am deeply angry at him.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
The knights bowed their heads and tried to stand up.
Then Philios asked, as if he was floating.
“Am I still the crown prince?”
Ensis reigned as king for over 200 years and was a symbol of the kingdom to the Doroisen people.
Even Philios himself could not picture himself sitting on the throne.
But the days of being able to live as you are told are over.
Now he had to live his life worrying only for himself.
The knights looked at each other for a moment, then declared.
The first was a knight carrying a spear with a crescent moon blade.
"majesty!"
“Your Majesty Philios!”
“I will follow your orders, Your Majesty!”
Knights armed with various weapons, such as asterisks, longswords, claymores, and curved swords, knelt and bowed their heads.
* * *
At the new king's command, the knights rushed out.
“Obey the king’s command!”
“If you resist, I will cut you down!”
“Raise both hands above your head and follow me!”
They rushed at the wizards who were stationed with their soldiers.
The soldiers who encountered the ominous atmosphere immediately split left and right to make their way, and the knights immediately captured Ezraz.
“Senior Magician. You must come with me.”
He had a tanned brown face, the characteristically Southern violet eyes, a black goatee, and carried a crooked wooden cane.
Although he had a beak-shaped nose, wrinkles, and many warts on his face, his smiling expression gave him a gentle look, and although he appeared to be in his 60s, he always looked lively.
The old wizard obediently put down his staff, raised both arms, and followed the knights.
“What kind of rudeness is this to the teacher?”
The wizards reflexively recoiled, but they too were already wavering.
It was not because of the swords the knights had drawn, but because of Ensis' rotting body.
'The blue crystal is Kuit Azgo, and the black marks are clearly erosion.'
'It's ridiculous to say that the Master didn't know that. Especially since he was also my attending physician.'
'Are you really an eroder? But the kingdom is full of priests? You even shook hands with him several times.'
Ezraz had been in the Kingdom of Doroisen for a long time, and had been trusted by the former king, Ensis, to become the chief magician of the royal palace, but he was originally a foreigner from the south.
And the Amirate of the Southern Continent was a country that openly worshipped the old.
The wizards looked at him with distrust, and Ezra followed the knights with a bitter smile.
“I’m sorry. Don’t worry. I’ll be able to explain everything soon.”
He followed the knights to Philios.
“Ezraz, the chief magician of the court, sees Prince Philios.”
One of the knights shouted.
“Call out Philios!”
Ezraz immediately lowered his head as if he was sorry, and Philios waved his hand as if he was satisfied.
Finally, he spoke in an even more somber voice.
“Archduke Valencian wants you.”
This was a measure taken to minimize the backlash from the wizards in the unlikely event that Ezraj was innocent.
* * *
Valencian sat alone at the conference table and waited for Philios to return.
The sun was setting behind Doroisen's camp, and the ground spiders were slowly creeping toward the basin.
The sky above the rocky mountain where Sereraji, Tentia, and Marcus were was already dark.
Blink, blink.
A light signal, probably sent by Sereraji, blinked several times.
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It meant 'no problem'.
A few servants came and set up braziers and torches around the conference room.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Your Highness.”
Philios returned with the magi and the old wizard.
“This is Ezraz, the chief magician of the court of the kingdom.”
Valencian looked the black-haired old man up and down.
“I am Ezraj, Your Highness the Grand Duke of Valencian. I heard that you wanted this body.”
Ezra bowed politely.
As expected, there was no sign of erosion.
Looking at their polite demeanor and formal robes, they looked much more normal than the madmen of the Imperial Magic Workshop or the Ivory Tower.
Perhaps the fragments of Az were actually used as a medicine to help Ensis, who was sinking into erosion.
“… … .”
Valencian guessed the intentions of Philios and Ezraz.
'It's more of a headache to come out like this politely. Yes. You, Philios, are also worried about what to do when he wasn't a thief. You can't send a person as talented as the chief magician of the court to the empire for free. The Church of Light can't just use its divine power to destroy him.'
He opened his mouth with a grin.
“It might hurt a little.”
'But I can do it!'
Valencianus drew on the power of the dragon and the spirits.
Saaaaah-!
His golden pupils glowed orange and split vertically again.
With a bang, dragon horns burst out from their temples, and fire spirits rose up and circled the conference room, creating a firestorm.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Kyahahahaha!
The storm had a radius of 500 meters, and only the area around the table where Valencian, Philios, the magistrates, and Ezra were present was untouched.
Once again the ground turned red and the barely surviving vegetation burst into flames, and the men on both sides drew their weapons in panic.
"majesty!"
The wizards of Philios summoned water giants, and the knights tried to leap into the flames.
“Valentine!”
Sereraji called out to him, and Tentia tried to run down the rock mountain again.
Philios looked with horror at the fiery storm that surrounded them.
It was as high as a castle wall, and the other side was not visible.
Valencianus cast it immediately and showed no sign of fatigue.
“Ezraz.”
The eyes, glowing with flame, stared at the two.
A tremendous fire energy oppressed their spirits.
“If you tell even one lie from now on, I will burn you to death.”
“Why are you threatening an old man who doesn’t have much time left to live?”
Valencian gave no verbal answer.
“Look. You lied. You’re an old man with not much time left to live. Oh, is that true?”
At his gesture, flames flew like snakes and covered Ezraj.
“I will burn you to death!”
Whoosh! Whoosh!
The robe burst into flames, the black beard instantly burst into flames, belching acrid smoke, and a foul smell spread through the walls of fire.
“Ugh!”
The old man winced and suppressed a scream, but he did not fight back.
The sight of him gritting his teeth and enduring the pain reminded me of a noble martyr.
“… … .”
And nothing happened.
Valencian's fire burned the old man's body, leaving not a trace of flesh behind.
All that remained were charred bones and a handful of ashes.
“What the heck is this!?!”
Philios was horrified, and Valencian just shrugged his shoulders and laughed shamelessly.
“Hmm. It seems he wasn’t a typical eroder. That’s too bad.”
* * *
Philios raised his hand to slap the cheek.
He was a diplomat and a court magician from another country who was burned to death.
Even if the opponent was an empire, I couldn't show weakness here.
Valencian smirked and trampled Ezra's bones.
“But it seems true that Ezra was a servant of the Erosion Cult.”
Crispy.
The broken bones were filled with blue crystals.
It was a fragment of Kuit Az.
Philios opened his mouth wide, and Valencian grinned and picked up the fragment.
“Az’s fragments have the power of sharing. When necessary, he would have used these fragments to borrow various magical and erosive powers. Wasn’t he unusually talented, even though he didn’t come from an ivory tower?”
He may have been kidnapped or threatened after becoming the chief magician of the court, but Valencianus did not mention that.
Because what mattered wasn't the truth.
Philios nodded with a bewildered expression, and Valencian raised his dominance and resonated the fragments.
As if that was a signal, a black aura began to seep out from between the bone fragments.
“Whoa!”
“Back off!”
The ordinary magistrates screamed, Philios surrounded them, and Valencian smiled coldly.
“Okay. Let me take a look at that pretty face.”
Dalgak, Dalgrak.
Ezra's bones reattached, and the skeletal figure stood up.
His body swelled as white skeletal armor grew over his small bones, and black feathers sprouted.
Valencian recalled the group that had attempted to steal relics from the monastery of Alzenversa.
'They serve the same old thing. There's a high probability that they belong to the same sect. It turns out that there is an organization that spans the entire continent.'
The jawbone was distorted, the beak was prominent, and black feathers wrapped around it like a robe.
Before I knew it, I had grown to be close to 4 meters tall.
Valencian smiled and tried to move the fire storm.
'There was a reason I killed you in front of here.'
It was clear that Philios would do anything to avoid accepting his terms.
The appearance of the Encroacher in such a situation would have been a good basis for sending heretic inquisitors from the Empire to Doroisen.
'Now, I'll just have to suffer a little and burn it to death. This is to show that even a powerful Dragon Blood Royal Family like me is a strong invader. And… why is the eastern sky brightening already?'
He glanced back and soon discovered a sun-like being lighting up the night sky with golden light.
“Valencian!”
The Divine Emperor Jaylilith was flying above the clouds, leaving a meteor-like trail.
The voice amplification magic was used so powerfully that it could be heard even in the sky above.
“Ensis! Where are you!”
Only then did Valencian realize that Ensis did not know that she was an encroacher.
'ah.'
The next moment the clouds parted and golden circles decorated the sky.
Sereraji looked at the scene from the top of the rock mountain, laughing in vain.
'Does that make sense? After all, he's not the type of person who would do that.'
Marcus also opened his eyes wide in shock.
“Your Majesty, Sereraji. Circle magic itself creates rings within the heart, and amplifies the power by colliding the rings. In other words, isn’t the key to how well you can control the recoil and how many rings you can create?”
“That’s right.”
“Then what circle should I call it? If you use verbs to create a ring outside the body, you can do something like that.”
“What’s the point of arguing? You can increase it as much as you want.”
Giant golden rings covered the sky like a net.
There seemed to be dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of them.
“So the power is doubled at each intersection of those rings?”
“That’s right. 6 circles is a little over 4,000 times… … .”
Sereraji couldn't bring himself to forget the words and looked at the circles stretching from the eastern sky to the western sky.
“We need to do something quickly. Before His Majesty turns this land into a lake.”
Ezra's bones, just as he was about to stand up, began to crumble again.
Valencian chuckled and fired a spear of fire into the sky.
Jaylilith saw the red trail and turned around to start coming down.
“Welcome, Your Majesty!”
Philios looked back and forth between Valencianus, who was surrounded by a storm of fire, and Jaerilis, who was landing, painting the night sky with gold.
“Haha, haha.”
It was a sight that made one lose all will to fight.
The twins' faces were filled with joy and relief, but the world he saw was dark.
Valencian thrust a quill at Philius.
“Okay. Sign here.”
Philios took the quill with a absent-minded gesture.
'God, why did you give these twins such powers?'
It was just miserable.
At that moment he noticed something strange.
A flash of thought crossed my mind.
'You're glad that your older brother, who is ahead of you in the line of succession, is alive?'
that.
'It is possible that the relationship between the Archduke of Mangnani and the Holy Emperor was much more intimate than we have realized.'
It was the possibility of a new venture.