Chapter 579: Coercion

Candlelight wavered.

Walls carved of white jade and gold. Lampstands inlaid with glazed crystal and gemstones. A cool, restrained luxury drifted like thin clouds through the air, making even the flickering flames look extraordinary.

Of course they were extraordinary—because what burned beneath those wicks was oil rendered from a deep-sea magic beast. Gale winds couldn’t snuff it. Sudden rain couldn’t drown it. It glowed warm and bright, carrying a faint fragrance. The same amount of that lamp oil could buy magic stones worth ten times as much.

Albert lifted his head.

Yet not a trace of candlelight reflected in his eyes. Instead, a deep darkness rolled at the bottom of his pupils.

“Open the door,” he said. “I want to see Aldrich.”

The corridor was empty and silent.

This was the palace. By common sense, even deep at night there should still be maids and guards moving about.

But at this moment, the night wind blew in from outside, bringing only a thread of ghostly chill.

Albert’s voice echoed down the corridor, carrying far, far away.

“Y-You... insolent.”

A low voice came from one of the towering “statues” standing guard outside the doors—

but it wasn’t a statue.

It was a knight in heavy armor.

The knight’s body was far larger than a normal man’s, and because he had stood guard here for so long, people often mistook him for a statue, or a golem animated by mechanisms inside.

Only a few knew the truth: these were Royal Knights tasked specifically with guarding the Emperor’s sleeping chamber. From the moment His Majesty took the throne, they had guarded this place. Perhaps the men inside the armor had been rotated. Perhaps not. But one thing was beyond dispute—

their loyalty was as unbreakable as stone, just like the rock-like shells they wore.

“To dare speak His Majesty’s honored name directly—disrespect... deserves death!”

One of the knights moved.

Armor scraped with a harsh screech. The huge body radiated the oppressive force of a golem. Albert, thin and frail, looked like nothing more than a weak insect before him.

Behind Albert, the expressionless maid took a step forward—

but Albert stopped her.

He looked at the axe-halberd raised high—sharp enough to cleave him in two with ease—and his gaze remained calm.

Humm—

The axe-halberd tore through the air with a thunder-like boom.

It fell, as if the next instant would show blood and flesh exploding across this quiet, noble place—

but it never happened.

The weapon froze abruptly, only a few centimeters from Albert’s forehead.

Albert’s eyes stayed as still as an ancient well. He watched a few strands of hair fall across his brow.

“By His Majesty’s order.”

The other knight raised his own axe-halberd as well, utterly unmoved by what had just occurred. His voice carried no emotion at all.

“You may enter.”

The door opened without a sound.

Only then did a faint, inexplicable curve finally appear at the corner of Albert’s mouth. He tilted his head slightly, slipped past the weapon and the knight, and walked into the imperial sleeping chamber—

a place he had, in truth, only visited for the third time.

The second time had been not long ago, and it was precisely after that visit that everything he had painstakingly planned—everything he had believed airtight—had taken a sudden, catastrophic turn.

It had even been...

cut out from under him by that woman, in one decisive move.

Forced into a corner, he had no choice but to stand here a third time in such a short span.

As for the first time he had come here...

that was long, long ago—measured in years.

Back then, sunlight had been blinding. The Emperor of the Empire had been high above, and with a single rise and fall of his gaze there had been thunder’s authority—enough to leave Albert shaken even now.

But now...

Albert glanced sideways.

Unlike the bright, lavish corridor, this chamber was dim. No magic stones were lit. No candles burned. The entire room was buried in shadow, illuminated only by the thin spill of light leaking in from the windows.

The scent of medicinal herbs was even stronger than last time. Two maids holding bowls of medicine bowed to Albert and hurried out.

Albert watched them for a moment, then finally stepped forward, pacing along the side of a large bed where the drapes swayed softly.

“I used to be very afraid of you,” he began, as calmly as if telling a story.

“You were the Emperor of this country—high above, holding the power of the realm in your hand.”

“But you didn’t just hold power. You were skilled at schemes, at the human heart. You supported the royal faction and suppressed the noble faction. In the decades since you ascended the throne, those great noble houses—supposedly the Empire’s foundation—fell, in the blink of an eye, to the point where they now had to fight for power against a bunch of lowborn trash.”

“And yet you maintained the balance between the two sides with exquisite skill. The factions fought and clawed at each other, but they were nothing more than pieces in your palm—tools you used to consolidate your rule.”

“Hereditary lands were gradually stripped away. Wealth accumulated over countless generations was stolen bit by bit and carved up by those lowborns. The nobles burned with hatred, but in front of you they could only wag their tails and bow their heads, begging for a scrap of mercy.”

“They feared you.”

“I feared you.”

“Countless people feared you.”

“They feared you so much that as long as you were still alive, many didn’t even dare move recklessly. To persuade those people, I had to spend more effort—hand out more benefits—split more profit.”

“But...”

Albert suddenly leaned forward, eyes wide, staring at the old man on the bed with delighted interest.

“Who could’ve imagined it?”

“That lofty Emperor. That great Aldrich III...”

“That he would actually—actually—be weakened to this extent!”

Thud.

Thud.

Two muffled impacts came from outside the door.

Then the faint smell of blood ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) mixed into the heavy medicinal stench.

The knights in thick armor watched coldly as the expressionless maid behind the Crown Prince killed the two palace maids—then licked the blood from her palm like a cat.

They did nothing.

Because no order had been given.

And on the bed, the old man—facing his eldest son—didn’t even sit up.

He lay beneath a gold-thread quilt. His eye sockets were sunken. Only a few days had passed, yet he looked far thinner than last time. Dark, blackish spots mottled his skin. A rotten, ancient aura seeped from him—death’s shadow seemed ready to fall over him at any moment.

Faced with Albert’s insolence and disrespect, he merely opened his cloudy eyes.

His voice was hoarse, like dry sand grinding endlessly against itself.

“But I... am not dead yet...”

“Hah... yes. You’re not dead. And originally, I planned to be patient and wait for you to die.”

Albert lowered his head.

“But who told you to have such a good daughter? She forced me to this point. She left me no choice but to do this.”

“Of course... I did still fear you, at first. But not long ago, I suddenly understood something.”

“...”

Aldrich seemed to finally focus his gaze on Albert.

“Yes.” Albert smiled. “It’s about you making the Pink Bear the regent.”

“What a brilliant move. With one light touch, you severed my plans and forced me to disguise myself and lie low again.”

Albert’s smile was gentle—like a dutiful son telling his father about something interesting that had happened lately.

“But from another angle...”

“Doesn’t that ‘brilliant move’ also expose you?”

“That you’re truly so weak now that you can’t fully control the situation anymore.”

“That’s why you let that ridiculous stupid bear help you stabilize the political scene.”

“Because you needed someone who could stand up for you without directly inflaming the conflict.”

“And that person wasn’t me, and it could never be me.”

“And it couldn’t be my famous, clever, sharp little sister either.”

“So it could only be Oranriel—someone with royal blood, whose reputation for idle debauchery is deeply rooted in people’s minds.”

“...”

“No answer. Looks like I was right.”

Albert lightly lifted Aldrich’s quilt.

He saw the old man’s hands hidden beneath—covered in cracked lines, making his limbs look like a porcelain piece on the verge of shattering. The fractures ran upward, all the way to his chest.

“How terrifying.”

“So this is the consequence of trying to force your way through the royal curse, isn’t it?”

“And you ended up like this because of it.”

Albert sighed with a kind of wonder. The emperor who had never been defeated by anyone would, in the end, die by his own arrogance.

Trying to fight that curse...

what sheer overestimation of oneself.

“So,” Aldrich’s eyes were cold, “you’re forcing the palace? A coup?”

“No.”

Albert bent down and answered softly:

“I’m going to... usurp the throne.”

“After all, isn’t that what the title of ‘eldest prince’ is for?”