Chapter 575: Oath

That night.

As what happened in the imperial conference spread among the nobles—so much so that even ordinary citizens had heard the odd tale of a father reporting his own son, clicking their tongues in amazement and treating it as a joke—an undercurrent had already begun to surge beneath this mighty city that still looked calm on the surface.

In the Empire’s thousand-year history, the rise and fall of a single marquis house might not even splash up much of a ripple.

But at this fork in history, this was enough to become a great wave that could push the Empire’s huge ship onto a different course.

What was more, the Dion family, which had been rooted in the Empire for a long time, was not some tiny ripple at all.

Beneath that seemingly calm surface, countless entanglements hid within—black, deep, terrifying whirlpools, and beyond each whirlpool, yet another.

“Why is it like this?!”

In the dimly lit hall, tier after tier of redwood long tables were arranged in an arc. The only bright light shone upon the massive white tiger in the very center.

This kind of layout could highlight the authority of the one in the center, and it could also make every person’s opinion clearly echo through the hall, expressing respect for every person... at least, respect on the surface.

But precisely because everyone could speak, when everyone wanted to speak at ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ the same time, this place became extremely noisy and chaotic.

“This isn’t what we agreed on before!”

“How could the Dion family expose such a huge gap? How could they get investigated?”

“If the Dion family really gets investigated, what are our families supposed to do? We all did those things together—no one’s clean. If we get dragged out along the way, none of us will survive!”

“Damn it! Hurry! Hurry! Send people to deal with that lowly illegitimate daughter of the Bugald family—absolutely cannot let her keep investigating!”

“People were already sent, but the ones we sent out were an assassination group that claims a one-hundred-percent success rate, and up to now there hasn’t been a single reply. It should be a failure!”

“Ah, trash! Trash! How could this happen! How could this happen?!”

Behind the long table, those well-dressed animals had long since lost their usual composure and elegance. They were already arguing endlessly with one another. If the ones attending this meeting were not puppets with no sense of pain, they would probably already be red-faced and throwing punches.

The current chaos was like... a real zoo.

The white tiger in the center tugged the corner of its mouth without the slightest smile, then suddenly slammed a fist down on the table in front of it.

“Enough. All of you, be quiet! Is now the time for you to argue back and forth?!”

“...”

The hall quickly went silent.

But not long after, a discordant voice sounded within the quiet.

“At this point, the chairman bears most of the responsibility, doesn’t he?”

“What did you say?”

The white tiger’s cold, sharp gaze swept over. The bloated hippopotamus shrank its neck under the tiger’s authority, but still mustered the courage to speak:

“The... the Dion family facing such a situation—isn’t it precisely because you, as the overall coordinator, left a flaw for them to exploit? You swore up and down before that you would lead all of us back to glory, but now, I haven’t seen any glory. All I see is a future of despair!”

“A future... of despair?”

The white tiger murmured, chewing over those two words, and couldn’t help letting out a cold laugh.

“I... did I say something wrong?”

The hippopotamus forced itself to stay calm.

“If the Dion family gets investigated, they’ll drag a huge area into it. Princess Celicia has clearly locked onto us. It’s not impossible for her to follow the vine and pull the whole Inner Council up by the roots. When that happens, even with your current identity, it probably won’t be very useful!”

“Besides, once the Inner Council is exposed under the sun, those things you did back then will no longer be coverable. When that happens, we’ll be finished. All finished! Chairman, didn’t you say that for this matter you had at least...”

“Shut up!”

The white tiger flew into a rage and smashed the tabletop in front of it to pieces with a single palm.

The hippopotamus was instantly terrified into curling itself into a ball, not daring to say another word.

“Finished? We’re finished just like that? You trash—do you think the other side grabbed the Dion family’s flaw, so everything is finished? Heh heh... it’s precisely because you have trash like this that you got played around in circles by a woman who only knows how to keep pretty boys!

So what if it’s the Dion family? It’s only one Dion family... only the Dion family, that’s right, it’s only, one, Dion family, that’s all! If the Dion family is gone, then so what, so what?!”

The white tiger’s chest rose and fell violently. Every time it spat out a word, it was as if it were about to bite its own teeth to pieces.

“The Dion family—fine, give them up if we have to. Sharp is useless anyway. For the entire Inner Council, losing the Dion family isn’t something that breaks bones and tendons. As for being dragged in... it won’t happen that fast. Precisely because the things entangled in the dark are too many, there is absolutely no way it gets traced to you so quickly!”

“The chairman is right.”

The robin perched in the position closest to the white tiger and looked around.

“The other side’s goal is to make us lose our footing. The more it’s like this, the less we can panic. Everyone—think carefully. What do you represent behind you? It’s not that easy to move against you.”

“Then... what should we do next?”

The “animals” looked at each other. In the end, it was someone who didn’t look that afraid of the white tiger’s pressure who stood up and asked:

“Our plan has been disrupted in the end. From the current situation, they definitely won’t obediently wait for us to smoothly take that position into our hands.”

“Since the plan has been disrupted...”

The white tiger tilted its head back in thought. Then, in this deathly silent atmosphere, it suddenly opened its eyes. A sinister, ferocious chill flashed within its pupils:

“Then we won’t follow the original plan. We’ll use a more direct method...”

“Your meaning is...”

As if understanding something, more than half the animals present turned pale.

“I mean exactly that.”

“But... isn’t it too risky?”

“At this point, is there any way that isn’t risky? Don’t forget—after we spent countless resources and obtained ‘this,’ what was it for?”

Within the radiance, the white tiger extended its hand, but it was not a savage tiger’s claw. It was a fair, youthful, human hand.

“This is our greatest weapon. We abandoned everything and bet it all—precisely for this. ...Everyone!”

The white tiger swept its hand wide. The radiance shining upon it spread outward, making the entire hall, for the first time, completely bright.

And when everyone turned to look, they discovered in astonishment that all around the hall stood statues—lifelike, imposing sculptures.

These sculptures resembled the ones in the imperial conference hall in the palace, but were even more realistic: scars across the skin, shattered armor, cracked swords... as if they could come alive again at any moment and step onto a battlefield of corpses and blood.

And behind these sculptures was the phantom silhouette of a colossal tree, golden and dazzling, its radiance blinding.

“A thousand years ago, our ancestors once followed the First King and swore an oath beneath a great golden tree to march to war and found this great nation. That is the origin of the Blood of Glory!”

“Yet over a thousand years, our glory was gradually forgotten, usurped, trampled underfoot by lowly ants. Most importantly— even the one sitting on that throne... that foolish emperor, betrayed us along with them!”

“They forgot glory, forgot the Blood of Glory, forgot that we are the true masters of this Empire! At the same time, they also forgot... why the Blood of Glory is powerful!”

“Therefore, they will inevitably pay the price for this forgetfulness and this contempt. And we, too, will in the end, beneath glory, set this nation right again—restore order from chaos—and return it to the track it should be on!”

“Since they won’t give it, then we will take it ourselves!”

The white tiger’s expression was solemn as it said:

“This is the oath the First King allowed us. No one can change it!”