"...You may leave now. I'll send you the details through the Soul Society if we ever require your presence again."
His tone was calm, firm, and carried that unmistakable finality that made it clear the discussion was over.
"....!!!!" Helen's eyes opened very slowly painfully slowly- as though her mind was struggling to assemble the words she had just heard into sothing sensible. It was the reaction of soone who genuinely doubted her own
senses.
"Wait!!" Serafina jumped in front of her lady and waved frantically, her movents sharp and panicked. Then she spun around toward Caesar at almost unnatural speed. "Marshal- what are you saying?! Please, for the love of all that's holy, choose your words more carefully!"
Serafina's heart hamred like a wild storm beating against her ribs. No one understood the scale of her lady's pride better than she did.
"I say what I need to say," Caesar replied, utterly unbothered. "There's no need to embellish or decorate anything. No one is worth even a handful of seconds from my ti just so I can wrap my words in silk." He tilted his head slightly, expression unreadably calm as he continued, "A request was made. It was rejected. What do you expect? For to dance, bow, and apologize for refusing?"
"Marshal, this isn't like you at all-you've never spoken to with this tone before!" Serafina blurted out, her voice trembling with the fear that things were about to spin out of control.
"I speak depending on my mood," Caesar answered bluntly. "None of you will teach how to speak inside my own ho. If soone here is too delicate or overly sentintal, they can step outside and wait for updates like everyone else. This is a war hall, not a polite tea gathering"
He shook his head, then gestured loosely behind him toward Serafina. "And this is the last ti you storm into my hall like this. We discuss war strategies and the fate of the Empire here. This place is not ant for visitors or outsiders. Understood?"
"You...!!!" Serafina took a shaky step forward, her heartbeat almost painful.
Sothing about Marshal Caesar was off-deeply off. He had always treated her with a cold, distant professionalism, the way a superior treated an underling. But never with this jagged sharpness, this icy dominance. Today, he felt colder, prouder, heavier-almost like sothing within him had shifted. Grip.
Before Serafina could utter a single word, fingers tightened firmly around her wrist from behind.
She snapped her head back-only to find that it was her lady holding her. But Helen wasn't even looking at her; her gaze was locked entirely on Caesar's back. Her eyes were drilling into him with such violent intensity it felt as though she intended to carve a path straight through his spine.
Then, finally, Helen's lips parted. Her voice was low, chilling, strangely controlled. "...Have we t before?"
"Perhaps." Caesar allowed a slow, wide smile to stretch across his face-so wide that the curve of it was visible even from behind.
"Where did we et?" Helen's fingers loosened gradually from Serafina's wrist, moving with deliberate slowness.
"Does that matter?" Caesar leaned forward, moved another piece on the table, and spoke as if discussing sothing trivial. "The fate of the living is to eventually cross paths."
"Oh It matters. It matters more than you think." Helen stared at the back of Caesar's head with a burning, almost violent focus. Her eyes glowed with a light sharper than anything Serafina had ever seen from her. "Tell . Let understand. Let find a single reason -just one- to convince myself not to tear your head off right here and now."
"My lady!!" Serafina cried out, horrified.
"Shh." Helen raised a single finger toward Serafina without turning her head. Her aura exploded outward, shaking the hall as though the very walls feared her anger. "Not. Another. Word."
"Heh~" Caesar released a short, amused laugh. "You're thinking of attacking rely because I told you to leave and wait for a ssage? As expected... you truly haven't changed at all."
He tilted his head slightly again. "But be warned- if you attempt it, you won't walk out of here intact afterward."
"Tell that to soone who cares."
Power began swirling around Helen, thick and heavy, gathering around her like a storm preparing to descend.
She could already feel the four Nexus States tightening their grip around her from every angle, their pressure closing in like colossal invisible jaws. They had pushed far beyond the outer walls-no hesitation, no restraint-each of them had already drawn out two, sotis even three, fully-fledged planetary-grade armants. The sheer weight of their power was enough to make seasoned generals break into a cold sweat.
But none of that mattered. Not a single piece of it would be enough to halt her if she truly decided, here and now, to rip off that cockroach's head today. "Heheh... astonishing." Caesar shook his head slowly, almost in disappointnt. "Even after all these years under my command -years of you laying waste to whatever I point at, killing whover I brand with my mark like a perfectly trained beast- you still cling to that boundless stubbornness of yours. That endless reservoir of impatience. That bottomless void where your analytical ability should be."
He leaned back slightly. "What must a man do to make you understand that this arrogance of yours is pointless? That you don't deserve even a fraction of it?"
""
Helen's rage, which had been swelling to a monstrous, suffocating level,
suddenly collapsed in on itself. It died out all at once-like soone dumping a
roaring, thundering river onto a small candle fla.
Impatience...
Where... had she heard that accusation before?
Step.
Without even realizing it, Helen moved forward one step. Then she raised her leg instinctively for the next...
"I poured an absurd amount of Pearls into your hands," Caesar continued, his tone sharpening. "Amounts so massive that, if gathered together, would surpass half a billion pearls. Do you truly think you were worthy of all that? That this monstrous amount of Pearls-most of which you squandered extravagantly just to polish the conditions of your Empire was sothing you earned?" He clicked his tongue. "And after all that waste, after all that indulgence... you stand today with barely seven million left in the treasury beneath the Black Castle. Tell , Helen-do you really believe you worked for any of it?"
Step.
Caesar shook his head again, slower this ti. "...You are gravely mistaken if you believe the relationship between a superior and his subordinate places us on equal footing. Let offer you a very simple example: imagine I personally contacted Ghassan -the sa man who forced you and your people to lick dirt for thousands upon thousands of years- and handed him half a billion Pearls." He raised a brow. "Do you know what he would do? Not to ntion doing everything you did for , and far more. He would call 'Lord' and bark on
command."
Step.
"Tsk- forget Ghassan for a mont," Caesar added with a dismissive flick of his hand. "He's a fool in his own right for dragging that war against you for millennia- a whole ancient Empire locked in battle against a single woman that lacks the ability to command an army or build an Empire. He had countless options to annihilate you, yet he never dared risk himself or anyone dear to
him."
A faint smirk tugged at his lips. "Unfortunately, through that hesitation, he gifted you a broken, worthless pride-and a pathetic sense of entitlent that shouldn't exist. The man is hopeless."
"No, no-let's assu instead that the one receiving all this Pearls wasn't
Ghassan, but one of your siblings. Hillary, for example, or that other clown
Harry. Half a billion Pearls-do you know what they would do for in
return?"
He chuckled, a quiet, cutting sound. "I imagine the first would at least marry herself to for a fuuuull month. Hehe~ And the second? He would drag his
entire army here and offer it at my feet."
"..?!"
Serafina slapped both hands over her mouth, her eyes widening until it hurt, as
though she were watching her own doom unfold.
Helen, anwhile, froze only for the briefest heartbeat. Then she resud walking-step-her eyes igniting brighter, her aura swelling with wild, storm-like intensity.
She had not felt killing intent gather inside her this violently since the darkest
days of her past.
"...After that wretched event ended," Caesar began speaking again, his voice
trembling with a mix of rage and mory, "I knew-absolutely knew- that fate
would drag us together again. I kept thinking... imagining... wondering how our
reunion would be."
Helen's steps beca heavier, slower.
"Would we et as equals? Would I be still weaker, forced to swallow humiliation again? Or would I stand above you this ti... reveal to you your
insignificant truth... and make you taste the sa disgrace you forced on
that day?"
Helen reached Caesar's back. She lifted her hand, placed it on his shoulder -
BAA, her grip rciless, then spun him around with brutal force so he would
face her.
And there he was.
A young man -black stubble shadowing his jaw, eyeballs shifting between black
and white, dead eyes, hollow eyes- eyes she knew. Eyes she rembered. Eyes
that pierced through her skin, mind, and soul.
"...Helen Destra. Do you rember ?"
Crack
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