Vol 3. Chapter 50: Perennial Imperial Diadem

“This is no longer your kingdom.”

“Divine Authority will no longer favor you.” Isatia enunciated each word, as if every syllable struck stone.

“Then... where is this??” Kantesius finally noticed that this place truly wasn’t the same as the kingdom under his command.

On the surface it looked identical, yet in essence it was vastly different. The undying guards he had handpicked to take into the grave with him did not revive as they always had—did not rise intact to keep fighting—and that willful power he wielded at whim had vanished entirely.

Everything seemed to be slipping from his control.

“This is the empire forged by the Lanteville family with their whole hearts and lives. As for where the Lantevilles and the Tyrel Empire will go from here, each successive head of House Lanteville submitted an answer here and left their own works and traces.”

“This is where the Lanteville family ‘began,’ a place that makes the Lantevilles’ long, age-old, brilliant and resplendent history clearer at a glance than the cold lines of the Lanteville Family Chronicle.”

“In other words, this is the Lanteville main house.” When she finished speaking, after the armored ranks shattered the Marsmo guards, those heavy imperial knights on barded great horses came up to Isatia and closed around their imperial princess to shield her.

The knights seemed linked to Isatia in spirit. Some dismounted, came to Vinny, lifted him up, and escorted him toward safety.

“Uh, excuse me—who are you?” Vinny asked the knight supporting him.

The knight said nothing. Because of the fully enclosed metal helm, Vinny couldn’t see their face either.

But Vinny could tell these imperial knights seemed to hail from different eras.

Some wore armor shaped like suits from the Old Empire, even showing design lines inherited from the “Spear of Tyrelis,” while others were closer to the present day, with visibly different armor styles.

Without exception, they were knights loyal to the Lanteville family—knights loyal to the Tyrel Empire.

So just now...??

Vinny recalled the pale-violet sphere crackling with world-birthing lightning that spread from Isatia’s crown and seemed, in an instant, to wrap this place—and everyone here—inside it.

That... was that Isatia’s [Saint’s Favor]??

Vinny remembered the most crucial link in Isatia’s [Saint’s Favor]: [Construction].

It hit him. They weren’t inside the Marsmo Royal Palace at all—they were inside Isatia’s [Saint’s Favor]??

These imperial knights from different eras were built-in to Isatia’s [Saint’s Favor].

And as for the Marsmo people—including Kantesius—their “undying” trait came from the secret realm formed by the fused fragments of [Eternity] and [Continuance]. Once torn away from that deeply buried secret realm, their “undying” trait was stripped off them.

So earlier, by constructing an identical Marsmo Royal Palace as an entryway within her [Saint’s Favor] and synchronizing it to the palace in the buried secret realm, Isatia pulled everyone into her [Saint’s Favor]??

Vinny arrived at that possibility.

“This is the Lanteville family’s hereditary favor passed down to this day—the [Perennial Imperial Diadem].”

“Here, every building was founded by a head of House Lanteville. Layer upon layer of accumulation and transmission forged this metropolis of spatial seams.”

That was the last thing Vinny heard as the knights set him on a tall horse and rode him out of the arena.

So Isatia’s favor is called the [Perennial Imperial Diadem], huh??

As for having these knights take him away—Vinny understood. Isatia likely judged he’d get caught in the splash if he stayed and was shipping him out as a spent, status-less casualty.

The horse jounced beneath him. Vinny didn’t know how long had passed when the knights delivered him out of the Marsmo Royal Palace. As he stepped beyond the palace, black clouds rolled across the sky—an ominous squall about to break.

He looked again at the buildings around him—and couldn’t help widening his eyes.

From the relatively familiar Marsmo Royal Palace, he had emerged into a world of unfamiliar sights.

Well, not entirely unfamiliar. The Kingdom of Camella had once been part of the Old Tyrelis Empire. Though it branched down a different line of development, its architecture was still human in style.

Especially that soaring clock tower standing at the center of this ring of monumental architecture—he knew that silhouette.

Aesphyra had given him the background: the Old Tyrelis Empire had a habit—whenever they built or conquered a city-state, they would raise an immense clock tower of exquisite craft, stamped with distinct Old Empire character, at the city’s heart.

For example, the one before him now was an old-style clock tower in pure Old Empire fashion. It looked truly ancient, its surface latticed with cracks left by time. In many places it reeked of long disrepair—enough to make you worry it might collapse.

Not just the clock tower—the whole city was like that.

The moment he passed through the royal gates, Vinny felt he’d stepped into a lost city-state of the Old Tyrelis Empire sealed off from the world.

The ring-city was vast beyond belief. At its distant rim, he could faintly make out watchtowers climbing into mist like the sharp points of a crown.

He was starting to see why this [Saint’s Favor] was called the [Perennial Imperial Diadem]. Viewed from some high point well away from this colossal city, it would surely look like a sumptuous crown of brick and tile.

Towering buildings stood dense as a forest of bricks, most of them extremely old, their surfaces webbed with the patina and fissures of years.

Beyond that, the styles were strikingly strange.

For instance, not far from the Marsmo Royal Palace, Vinny saw a building that absolutely did not belong to the human style.

This wasn’t because Vinny was any good at history—it was simply that these styles were so far from human lines that even with Vinny’s limited store of knowledge he could tell at a glance they weren’t human work—more like that of certain demi-humans.

Vinny remembered that many demi-humans had been incorporated when the Old Tyrelis Empire unified the continent. After the Old Empire fell, the Tyrel Empire inherited most of its legacy and culture, and those demi-humans continued to live within the Tyrel Empire.

Like the Old Empire, the Tyrel Empire treats all subjects under its rule alike. Whether demi-human or human, all are regarded as imperial citizens—never as slaves of some dead state—and are given equal treatment.

Because of that, the demi-humans were resistant at first, but by the third or fourth generation, they largely recognized themselves as citizens of the Empire.

Vinny recalled what Isatia had told him before: to complete the [Perennial Imperial Diadem], you either understood a civilization thoroughly—or defeated and conquered it.

Looks like this was a structure constructed in the [Perennial Imperial Diadem] after defeating a demi-human civilization.

With that thought, feeling like he had grasped Isatia’s [Saint’s Favor] mechanics, Vinny looked out over the near and far, numberless clusters of buildings.

These masses of mingled styles were the monument-stones of successive Lanteville heads’ merit. Each head contributed several buildings over a lifetime, and in time the [Perennial Imperial Diadem] became a city of wild internal variety and absurd scale.

Buildings of every people under the sun.

That is the Lanteville family’s [Saint’s Favor]—the [Perennial Imperial Diadem].

Vinny even saw, in the distance, the inner-city walls and, behind them, the Tyrel Imperial Capital’s palace—though that, too, looked rather old.

Even the Tyrel imperial palace has been replicated one-to-one in here??

And what about these imperial knights??

Vinny looked at the heavy imperial knights who, after bringing him out, stood by in silence.

He even noticed a hole in the back of one knight’s armor—with a plush cat’s tail poking through.

There were even catfolk among these imperial knights—not all were human.

Then these imperial knights... could they be the loyal knights of successive Lanteville heads??

Vinny suddenly realized another issue. The road the knights had taken to bring him out seemed to be the same path he and Isatia had walked earlier. As for the roads they hadn’t walked—what were they like? He had no idea.

He wondered if those untraveled roads—unknown to Isatia—might be blank, still-unbuilt space??

If so, then this Marsmo Royal Palace constructed inside her [Saint’s Favor] would be an empty shell—its interior incomplete.

At that thought, unease pricked Vinny’s heart.

This counted as a forced construction, didn’t it? If so, won’t something go wrong??

“Aren’t you... going back to help your princess?” Having recovered a sliver of strength, Vinny couldn’t help asking the imperial knights around him.

The imperial knights glanced at Vinny, silent. And on the other side—within the arena of the Marsmo Royal Palace—

“Heh... hehe, I see.” Kantesius, who had pulled his guards to a corner of the arena to resist in desperation, suddenly let out a brittle laugh.

“See what?” Isatia folded her arms.

“I see it, foreign queen. You—and your ancestors—are exactly my kind of people.” Kantesius laughed. “Look at you. You revel in burying the living with you, yet you accuse others. Are you nobler than I??”

“Barbarian king, did you misunderstand something? The Lantevilles never held such a perverse habit.” Isatia said flatly. “Dead is dead. As people come into this world, so do they leave. What can’t be brought in birth or taken in death—why cling to it??”

“Don’t joke. If that’s not it, where did your soldiers come from?” Kantesius sneered, looking at his men still straining to shield him.

“To be honest, the heads of my family have all wondered why the knights utterly loyal to them appear in their [Saint’s Favor] after death,” Isatia said plainly.

“Stop deluding yourself! You must have used some means to bring your soldiers into your own eternal tomb, right?” Kantesius scoffed. “In the end, you and I are the same.”

“Look at it. My soldiers aren’t living beings, and neither are yours. I built myself an eternal mausoleum for after death, whereas you—before you’ve even reached your final years—heap a tomb of living men around yourselves.”

“It’s all the same. You’re even crueler than I am.” Kantesius mocked.

Isatia was unmoved.

“Want to know the difference between you and me?” Isatia raised her swan-white neck.

“Your soldiers—speaking strictly—are also your slaves. You put shackles on them. They cannot defy you. But if they possessed a higher degree of thought—if they could resist you—they would, without hesitation.”

“In the secret realm, you held your soldiers in contempt because you could not die. And now?” Isatia’s violet eyes fixed Kantesius with a question.

“Do you dare turn your back to these soldiers of yours?” Isatia asked. “Are we the same?”

“We, of course—” Kantesius suddenly fell silent.

Because he noticed it.

Isatia stood before her soldiers, directing their assault on the enemy. Her back was to her own men, entirely unafraid of being stabbed by the imperial knights who guarded her like a steadfast shield.

He was not the same.

Now he had fallen back to a corner, ordering his soldiers to die in his place, while he hid in the deepest angle, massing all his guards in front of him—no one at his back.

Why? Was he truly afraid his soldiers would stab him??

“Do you see the difference between us now?” Isatia met Kantesius’s eyes without a ripple of emotion.

“My soldiers were not won by burying the living. They fell in battle, became loyal spirits, and—still willing to defend the Lanteville household—appeared.”

“If they do not will it, they can depart at any time. I cannot fetter their freedom.”

“But these knights have not diminished by a single soul in a thousand years. Do you know why?” Isatia’s voice went chill. “Barbarian king, you were rude from the very first.”

“You insulted me, and you insulted the most trusted, most faithful subordinates of my ancestors.”

“By contrast, your soldiers are a pitiable lot—men without agency, kneaded at your whim. Even in death, their souls find no rest, still tormented and gripped by you, a demon.” Isatia looked into Kantesius; her lovely eyes seemed to pierce his soul.

“Behind me stand my ancestors, the capital of the nation they founded, and knights loyal to me without a second thought. And you—beginning to end—you have only yourself.”