Count, viscount, or even Duke, didn’t matter. Nothing of the sort ever mattered for Ludwig. He didn’t need the money or the power it ca with those titles. All he wanted was to continue beating the Usurpers for his goal to return back ho. After all, in terms of true richness, in his world he was far richer than a King of Lufondal.
He was about to speak his mind and be done with this ’ceremony.’
"Don’t say anything! Don’t interrupt. It’ll be a political nightmare if you do." The Knight King said. Even Alexander had an even paler expression on his face when he noticed Ludwig was about to open his mouth to disagree.
The Knight King’s ntal voice hit Ludwig like a hard shove. Not gentle advice, an urgent restraint. Ludwig felt the tension in his own jaw, the montary grind of teeth as he swallowed words that wanted to be spoken
His goal was singular, and it didn’t align neatly with the Empire’s neat little hierarchies. But that didn’t matter to the people in this room. They weren’t offering him what he wanted; they were offering him what they could use.
"However!" the Emperor said.
The word snapped the hall’s attention tighter, like a finger hook under the chin. The Emperor didn’t pause long, but the single word was enough to tell everyone that the "reward" was not finished, and that what ca next would be the real weight.
"Here it cos," the Knight King said.
Ludwig felt the warning like cold water poured down his spine. It wasn’t fear exactly. It was that survival-minded alertness that ca when the trap finally revealed its teeth.
"We have co to learn that you serve under Bastos Van Dijk. Your master, who like you is also valiantly fighting at the frontline of the country, defending against the invading armies of the dark.
We know, that he has abandoned his title of Marquis to serve the country. As for you, you’re too valuable to be put to use under any other noble." He looked at Ludwig this ti with eyes locked.
"Perhaps you’ll even bury them in the ground if they dare. We wouldn’t want that. Then, you shall be given the land of Bastos. Develop it for your own use." He turned to an old man in the hall, "King of Lamar. Co forward."
The old king’s steps were careful, not because he was weak but because every movent in that hall carried aning. He reached the front and lowered himself to one knee, the motion stiff with age and dignity, yet executed with the precision of soone who had spent a lifeti understanding when pride was a luxury.
The sound of a knee eting stone was small, but in the hush it felt loud.
Ludwig remained standing. And the contrast between them was imdiate, almost obscene in its clarity.
"Yes your imperial majesty."
For everyone in the hall, this was a clear hierarchy and display. A King was kneeling while a Viscount was standing facing the Emperor.
The symbolism was not subtle. It was the Empire showing itself to itself, reminding every noble present that rank was not what you claid but what the throne decided.
A King kneeling was not just obedience; it was humiliation weaponized as theater, a reminder that even crowns bend when the Imperial Crown speaks.
Ludwig could feel eyes on him from every direction, asuring, judging, reassessing. So nobles would resent him for being placed above a king in that mont. Others would fear him. Others would begin planning how to attach themselves to his rising position. Ludwig didn’t want any of that. He wanted to be invisible. The Empire was making him visible on purpose.
"The title of Viscount is rely a formality. It is by no an a title of rank. Viscount Ludwig Heart will from now on act independently and only receive orders from the Imperial Crown.
Do your best to assist in the restoration of the March of Bastos which has served as nothing but a growing cesspool of monsters."
The Emperor’s wording tightened the chain further. "rely a formality" stripped the title of its usual place in the noble ladder, which sounded like freedom but wasn’t. It ant Ludwig was being placed outside the normal hierarchy so no one could claim him.
"Act independently" was not permission. It was assignnt without supervision, and it ca paired with the most important part: only receiving orders from the Imperial Crown. Direct leash.
"I shall do as commanded."
The King of Lamar’s response was imdiate, obedient, clipped.
"I’ve already cleared it... Five years ago..."
The hall turned on him instantly, heads snapping toward him as though pulled by the sa string. Silence thickened, and for a mont the Emperor’s throne room felt like a trapdoor had opened under everyone’s feet.
Everyone in the hall turned to look at Ludwig who seed to not fully understand the consequences of interrupting the Emperor.
So looks were shocked. So were offended. So were hungry. Interrupting the Emperor in mid-decree was not common. It wasn’t even wise. Even if the content of Ludwig’s interruption was harmless, the act itself was a breach of the room’s ritual. Ludwig stood there, posture still controlled, but the shift in attention was undeniable. The Empire was a creature that fed on protocol, and Ludwig had just kicked one of its teeth
"What do you an cleared it?" the Emperor asked.
The Emperor’s question didn’t carry rage. It carried sharp interest, and control. He didn’t lash out. He didn’t punish imdiately. He asked, publicly, forcing Ludwig to explain in front of every noble who now had their ears turned into knives. The Emperor’s eyes stayed on Ludwig, assessing not only the content of the claim but the manner in which Ludwig would handle being questioned.
"I’ was forced to go the Bastos March back when I was rely a student in the Academy. Chased by people who considered a dark user." Ludwig said as he raised his hand up.
That movent drew a subtle ripple through the hall, guards shifting weight, nobles leaning back half an inch, eyes tightening as they tried to predict what Ludwig was about to do.
The room’s confusion was not loud. It was the kind that lived in widened eyes and stiff necks. Ludwig’s reputation already carried strangeness; he didn’t behave like a normal knight, didn’t value the usual things, didn’t respond to ceremony with the expected hunger.
"And funny thing is," Ludwig said, "I never expected those rats to be here. Kassandra, don’t let anyone fall." Ludwig said.
The phrase carried practical intent: he was warning his ally to prepare for impact, to stabilize, to keep people from being injured by whatever he was about to unleash.
Kassandra was also confused for a second, because she knew Ludwig always liked to do things in a flashy way. And now his open raised hand felt like it was expecting sothing...
And then it appeared in Ludwig’s hand, and her stomach sank with the imdiate recognition of what that ant.
[Nightbreaker] the mace that broke the face of an usurper.
The hall’s perception shifted, not because the mace glowed theatrically, not because so magical effect filled the air, but because the idea of Ludwig ard in the throne room changed what "safety" ant. The nobles felt it like a cold draft sliding under their collars: the realization that protocol could not protect them from a man who did not worship protocol.
Ludwig’s movent was brutally efficient. One hand. One grab The old king didn’t crumple; he was moved, launched through the air like a piece of furniture shoved aside to clear space.
The guards reacted on instinct, and that instinct was chaos, hands dropping weapons because steel would not stop a body from breaking if it hit wrong. They caught him in a clumsy tangle of arms and armor, the impact jarring, the old king’s breath likely punched out in a single harsh exhale.
The hall erupted into sharp gasps and half-ford shouts that died imdiately when people realized Ludwig had not aid to kill. Still, being thrown was being thrown. The violence of it didn’t need killing intent to be terrifying.
The Emperor’s expression tightened, eyes narrowing with the kind of focus that separates a ruler from a startled witness. He saw the details others missed: the controlled force, the absence of that particular pressure in the air that accompanies genuine intent to end a life. He recognized restraint, and that recognition mattered.
It told him Ludwig was not attacking the throne. He was doing sothing else.
Yet the other detail was just as loud: this was Nightbreaker. Ludwig held it with one hand as if it weighed nothing, and the hall’s fear deepened because it now had a physical anchor. This wasn’t rumor. This wasn’t reputation. This was visible proof.
"Ti to catch a couple rats!" Ludwig said and struck down at the floor.
The line ca out with a kind of grim, practical cheer, the voice of soone who had already decided what the next action was. No hesitation. No debate. Ludwig brought the mace down, and he didn’t swing wildly. He struck with purpose, aiming at the stone as if the floor were an enemy that needed to be broken open. The impact was violent, imdiate, the sound of stone giving way cracking through the hall like a thunderclap trapped indoors.
The polished stone didn’t rely crack; it collapsed inward, fractured slabs dropping into darkness as dust and fragnts exploded upward in a gritty cloud. The shock traveled through the hall’s floor, making ankles wobble and knees flex as people fought to keep their balance. The hole that opened was not a neat circle, it was a jagged wound in the throne room, wide enough for a person to look through, wide enough to understand that sothing had been concealed beneath their feet.
And just there, three people looked up.
They were revealed in the simplest, ugliest way possible: not through confession, not through investigation, but through the floor being ripped open above them. Three faces tilted upward into the sudden light, eyes widening as they realized the throne room was staring straight down at them. The angle made them look smaller, caught and pinned by gravity and exposure, yet the presence of three hidden people under the throne room did not read as small. It read as infestation. It read as treachery sitting beneath the Empire’s spine.
A woman with a blindfold on her eyes, and two n wearing black robes.
Beneath them, etched into the stone, was a gigantic circle of blood, thick, deliberate, patterned in a way that suggested intent rather than accident. The red was too dark, too dense, the lines too purposeful.
The hall’s fear shifted, not into panic but into sothing colder: the realization that whatever this was, it wasn’t random. It was planned beneath their feet, hidden under the Emperor’s seat, drawn close enough to the heart of power that the insult alone was poisonous.
Ludwig’s mouth spread wide.
It wasn’t a smile of joy. It wasn’t even humor. It was the expression of soone who had found what he’d been waiting to find, the kind of baring of teeth that cos when prey finally steps into the open.
The hall saw the expression and felt the temperature drop in the space between breaths. Because Ludwig looked satisfied, and Ludwig being satisfied in a throne room full of nobles and hidden blood circles ant soone was about to suffer.
Everyone in the hall only saw an attempt at the Emperor’s life, or maybe the nobles. Dark Mages who acted under the feet of the empire. An action that has been done before in Tulmud and almost cost everyone dearly. But to dare do it here? In the capital?
That was more than re bravery. That was an attempt at the throne.
However, there was one man who seed to be far too interested in the identity of these three people as he already recognized two of them.
"Ahhh, Sebas, and Evan. Hasn’t it been a while?" Ludwig laughed as he jumped down.
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