Vol 3. Chapter 49: Divine Authority Will No Longer Favor You

Wh-where the hell did she just take him?

Vinny’s head spun. His mouth worked, mumbling who-knows-what—probably even he didn’t know.

Then the back of his head met something exquisitely soft; a cool, orchid-like fragrance slipped into his nose; a warm current was poured into his mouth; and he vaguely heard Isatia say something to him.

D-did the sky... get bright again?

Soon, with a sliver of recovery, Vinny squinted up against the glare and tried to sit. But he’d crashed too hard. Even with a curative potion poured down his throat, he wasn’t bouncing back that fast.

Because all the stimulant elixirs had gone to Isatia earlier, what she fed Vinny now was a curative potion. It steadily mended his injuries and improved his condition a little—but his stamina was still shot. He couldn’t straighten his back.

He could, however, see Isatia standing—facing off against the Marsmo Royal Guards who’d ringed them in and against Kantesius, King of Marsmo.

She... can stand?

Vinny blinked. A moment ago, even flexing an elbow had been a strain for Isatia. How was she on her feet now?

He quickly thought of the eagle-talon crown gem she’d had him fetch from the crown pendant and hand over. He didn’t see that uniquely shaped gem in her hand anymore.

So that was it? Her trump card, no doubt. As a Tyrel princess, of course she’d have something on her person.

But it looked like the gem was single-use—spent once and gone. And whatever the backlash was, it clearly wasn’t trivial. The way Isatia had delayed using it until the last possible second said enough; the thing wasn’t “single-use” simple—it almost certainly carried negative effects.

Fine. He still had mana left, but with his stamina burned out he was forced into the stands to spectate—leaving it all to Isatia.

How to put it—the tableau felt delicate: a once-dead King of Marsmo versus the future Empress of Tyrel. And since Isatia carried Carillian blood, round it up and you could call it King of Marsmo versus Emperor of Tyrelis.

The clash of two continental hegemons—old and new.

But—

For some reason, watching Isatia’s back, recalling her promise to send him home safe, Vinny felt an inexplicable unease.

He had a hunch the eagle-talon gem’s effect was anything but simple.

“I see. No wonder.” After holding Isatia’s gaze for a long moment, Kantesius shook his head and said that for no apparent reason.

“It’s an honor to meet so young a queen.”

Huh?

Vinny stared at Kantesius in shock. If he remembered right, Isatia had never told him she was an imperial princess. How did he know?

“I had my suspicions earlier. I can feel it from you—you’re a sovereign as well.” Kantesius regarded Isatia with absolute certainty. The contempt and toying amusement were gone from his eyes; what replaced them was a scrutinizing, measuring gaze.

“Interesting. To have developed so many fearsome spells—your realm must be martial-fortunate, a great power in its own right.” Kantesius tipped his chin slightly.

Locking eyes with her, he sensed in this black-haired girl—so much smaller than he—a noble aura and the quality only the innately high-born possess.

That violet gaze, cool and imperious—the look and leisure only a king carried. Whatever her outward appearance, he judged her a ruler over provinces, the same as he.

“So that’s why. No wonder I found your eyes interesting. We’re the same kind,” Kantesius laughed.

“The same kind?” Isatia lifted her gaze, flicked him a look, and said nothing.

Her meaning was plain in her eyes: a single passing glance, disinterested—dismissive.

“Oh? Are we not? You are the queen of a great nation, and I am king of Marsmo. Are we not the same kind?” Kantesius let the laughter die. “Only we can understand each other.”

“An ancient king lying in his tomb, I have, for the moment, learned enough about you from those parchments,” Isatia said with a glance at the dust-scuffed rolls on the ground. “But you may not know me—not at all.”

“There are three kinds of kings. One is middling. One’s life’s work raises the state to heights no other king can reach. And the last—his death benefits the nation more than his life ever did.”

“Plainly, you are the last.” Isatia enunciated each word.

“Oh?” Kantesius cocked a brow. “The young call me arrogant? I campaigned north and south in life, opened borders and expanded lands, conquered outsiders beyond count—yet in your mouth I’m only that last kind?”

“You never fulfilled a king’s duty. You only enjoyed a king’s rights. You waged war on all fronts and never learned to govern—only stuffed all captured outsiders and your own people impoverished by war into slavery.”

“In other words, you were no king. You were a barbarian with a pathological obsession with war and conquest, skilled at nothing but violence. That alone sowed the fatal root of Marsmo’s later demise.”

“Kantesius, your kingdom was built on the blood and tears of countless people. One day, burdened beyond repair, it would collapse for that very reason.” Isatia looked at him with long meaning. “In my eyes, you were no king—merely a barbarian who held power over killing.”

“Hah! Arrogance without end. I achieved eternity in death—was that not heaven’s approbation of my deeds?” Kantesius spread his arms.

“Behold! The blazing miracle! A miracle I forged for myself! I and my realm shall exist eternal through all ages, unlike your realms that add only a few strokes to history.”

“Those at the bottom of a well don’t know that the world outside has forgotten them,” Isatia said evenly. “They cannot even leave a few strokes in the histories—only through painstaking search can one scrape together a few traces.”

“Do you know how much time and effort it took to find the remnants of your civilization? I can’t even estimate whether what I gained justified the cost I burned to reach you.”

“Queen of a foreign realm, what are you saying?” Kantesius’s tone sank.

“Barbarian without order, you’ve no idea how your subjects hated you, how many families you ruined and cast out. You were never fit to be a king. By the law and rites of the Tyrel Empire, at best you’d be accounted the chief of a barbarian tribe. That’s about it.” Isatia stood straight with arms folded, the wind lifting her black hair.

Facing the pressure and presence Kantesius exuded, she did not flinch. Though their heights differed by so much, it was as if she stood taller than he.

“So, queen of a foreign realm, you mean to prove you’re stronger than I?” Kantesius sneered. “To say you and I are the same was to flatter you. Still mortal, how could you oppose me who has ascended to the divine?”

“This king now stands among the gods, possessed of an undying body. Even death cannot take me.”

“I do not fear death. Do you?” Kantesius shot back. “If I grant no mercy, death will take you and your retainer in an instant!”

“If you beg me now and swear to serve me henceforth, I can let you taste immortality as well.”

“Undying? Immortal?” Isatia’s lips curved. “No need. Only a craven with no courage to face reality—a do-nothing coward—would willingly remain a deathless husk, clinging and reeking, refusing to leave this world.”

“For transcendents, a few centuries are neither long nor short—just right for human beings. Enough. When the time comes and you refuse to go on clinging, only madmen and scoundrels steeped in obsession keep shambling. For such husks, what won’t they do to keep ‘living’?”

“Kept around, they only poison the world.”

“You speak with such righteous airs and look down on me—and yet you can do nothing against me, who has achieved eternity,” Kantesius said coldly.

“Your so-called eternity—this well-bottom world of self-deceiving dream?” Isatia laughed. “Shall I take it that all your pride comes not from your heart, but from the rights you were born into as a king, your magical aptitude, and this well-lid that lets you be ‘immortal’?”

“If you lost it, would you still be unafraid of death?” With that, Isatia closed her eyes. Centered on her, a deep-violet sphere flickering with thunder expanded in a rush, wrapping every Marsmo guard present—and Kantesius along with them.

It happened too fast. Most didn’t react at all.

Vinny did. He suddenly felt the space around him had changed in some subtle way, though he couldn’t say how. A glance around showed they were still in the arena of the Marsmo royal palace.

Looking back to Isatia, he saw a crown of Tyrel—violet-gold, set with gems of many colors—now upon her head. When she opened her eyes again, lightning seemed to flash in that beautiful gaze.

She looked every inch a newly enthroned empress—eyes surveying the world, bearing unearthly, every motion steeped in sovereign majesty.

But—utterly at odds with Kantesius.

“Oh? Your Spirit Soul?” Kantesius seemed to notice nothing amiss—only that the black-haired girl before him had conjured a crown in an unfamiliar style. “An interesting Spirit Soul. Quite pretty.”

In other words—flashy, useless.

“Dispose of them.” Isatia ignored him, lifted her chin, and spoke offhandedly.

“Hah? Hahahaha! Queen of a foreign realm, are you confused? This is my turf—my kingdom, my domain. Not your country. Barking orders out of habit—no one will hear you.” Kantesius mocked.

“Pat-pat-pat...” Just then, Kantesius faintly caught the rapid beat of footsteps from the palace corridors behind him.

“What now?” he said, annoyed. “Did this king not order every soldier to assemble here? Who hasn’t come?”

“I’ll see which maggots dare be late—then I’ll make them suffer.”

But as the surging noise from all directions drew near, Kantesius realized something was wrong.

No—why are there hoofbeats?

His realm scarcely fielded cavalry—mostly infantry and mages.

What was happening?

He turned—and at that instant, a host of knights on barded tall horses, clad in the armor of the Tyrel Empire, lances couched, thundered into the arena of the Marsmo royal palace from every side—like moving walls of steel.

The Marsmo guards, startled to realize these weren’t their own, tried to resist—and were skewered through and flung away.

Their gilded armor was paper before the Empire’s heavy cavalry lances. Many lances even bore enchantments; a stab meant instant carbonization.

These high-mounted knights didn’t come from one direction but flooded in on all sides, running lines through the Marsmo formation again and again until it shattered.

“What is this?!” Kantesius stared, shaken. This utterly foreign cavalry—armor and style—appearing here was beyond anything he’d imagined.

He recovered quickly.

No matter. His soldiers could revive. These were war-tried guards caught by a sudden strike. With infinite revival, any tactic was meaningless.

He waited.

No one—not a single guard—revived.

The face beneath the golden lion mask twisted.

“What have you done to my royal palace?!” Kantesius roared.

“Barbarian king, are you sure this is still your royal palace?” Isatia asked coolly. “Why don’t you step outside and see where you are.”

“W-what? If this isn’t my royal palace, what else could it be?” Kantesius hesitated.

He’d lived here in life. He knew every inch. This had to be his palace. It couldn’t be wrong.

“This is my royal palace. It cannot be wrong!”

“Is it?” Isatia’s gaze was indifferent. “Perhaps before. Now—it is a position taken and held by the Tyrel Empire, by the Lanteville family.”

“Go outside. You’ll find your realm is gone. Before you stands a sweep of unfamiliar architecture—Tyrel’s palaces and fortresses. And besides those, many foreign city-states like your palace—captured across generations by heads of the Lanteville family and emperors of Tyrel.” She explained it in an even tone.

“You—you—what is this?”

“Barbarian king, your palace has been constructed within my [Saint’s Favor]. Using your arena as the entry point, I opened [Saint’s Favor].” Isatia watched his scattered, unmoored movements.

“Don’t expect your soldiers to revive. This isn’t that Divine-Authority deep secret realm. From just now, you’ve all been drawn into my ‘domain.’”

“Divine Authority will no longer favor you.”