Half a month later, Henwell returns to Peace Haven.
In everyone else's eyes, Henwell has returned in triumph, with fa and rewards in hand.
But lissa, his wife, keenly notices the change in his mood.
lissa is a clever woman. If Henwell does not speak, she does not pry.
She simply fulfills her duty as his wife and gives Henwell a warm place where he can breathe.
A few days after returning to Peace Haven, Henwell has a grave built in the cetery district.
That day, many of Peace Haven's senior officials co one after another to pay their respects.
There is no na on the gravestone. Only a white butterfly is carved into it.
lissa accompanies Henwell to White Butterfly's grave and offers a bouquet of flowers.
After everyone else leaves, lissa looks at the pattern her husband carved with his own hands and asks softly.
"Henwell, tell her story."
Henwell pauses. "Her na was Michelle. Maybe that was only a false na. We all called her White Butterfly."
"She was the sa as , the sa as Chick and the others. She was sold to a Veil training camp. Later, we beca gladiators together and fought side by side..."
lissa sits down directly in front of the grave and pulls Henwell down with her. "Take your ti. Tell everything. We still have plenty of ti today..."
After listening to everything Henwell tells her, lissa gently strokes the gravestone and says warmly, "Miss White Butterfly, do not worry. I will take good care of Henwell from now on."
Tears fill lissa's eyes. She looks up at Henwell. "She suffered so much, but in the end, dying in your arms could be considered the fulfillnt of one of her wishes."
Henwell gently smooths back the hair the autumn wind has blown across lissa's face. "You are not angry?"
lissa shakes her head. "Why would I be angry? I cannot stop Miss White Butterfly from loving you, just as I cannot stop myself from loving you."
"Besides, I am your wife now. I should not beco jealous and petty, especially toward a poor lady who had such a bitter life and has now left this world."
"She gave up her life to protect my husband. I feel only gratitude toward her."
"Her fate was bitter. I think if you had not beco Arius's substitute and walked the Path of Honor, she might have ended up together with you."
Henwell laughs bitterly. "My dear, you have no idea how humiliating this trip was for ."
"From the mont I entered Billie, I beca a puppet in everyone else's hands."
"Like a clown, I thought I saw through the ga while every side quietly led by the strings."
"In the end, I got the Lord Iron Guards under my command killed. I got White Butterfly killed too."
lissa embraces Henwell and places his head on her lap. "Then tell . Who was powerful enough to toy with my husband like this?"
Looking up at the blue sky and enjoying the gentle pressure of lissa's fingers on his forehead, Henwell slowly recounts everything he experienced over the past few months.
No one knows how long passes before Henwell falls asleep just like that, lying on lissa's lap.
Dalton, Henwell's guard captain and the leader of the Lord Iron Guards, walks over softly and tries to help Henwell up.
lissa refuses with a shake of her head, so Dalton can only take off his cloak and cover the two of them with it, shielding them from the cooling autumn wind.
Only after night falls does Henwell wake from his deep sleep. He stretches and says to lissa, "Sorry. I do not know how I fell asleep."
lissa smiles and shakes her head. "It was just right. I have not relaxed like this in a long ti either. I even got to watch the falling leaves here."
As she speaks, lissa tries to stand, only to cry out softly and stumble a little.
Her thighs have clearly gone numb from Henwell using them as a pillow. Just as she is about to circulate her Fighting Spirit to restore the blood flow in her legs, Henwell reaches out, wraps an arm around her, carries her on his back, and walks toward the manor.
Once his mood settles, Henwell begins to review the entire incident.
First is the Western Federation. They knew sothing had gone wrong in Billie, but they had only discovered that Ulysses had ties to the Veil and might have been controlled by the Veil Organization.
Precisely because of that, they wanted to push Henwell in as a scapegoat and use five elite teams as bait.
They were prepared to sacrifice five elite teams so they could directly interfere in Billie Kingdom's political situation, and even take further control of the kingdom.
Unfortunately, none of it went as they hoped.
Second is the Veil Organization. They wanted to use this opportunity to draw the Western Federation into the ga, then take the chance to slaughter key combat forces from the Western Federation.
After that, they hoped to start a new continental war, preferably pushing Billie Kingdom onto the Western Federation's opposite side.
But Henwell ruined that plan as well. The Veil lost "soldiers" and "commanders," and Henwell even killed one of their High Priests.
Afterward, Henwell even led people to sweep through their important strongholds.
Last is the Marquess of Nothing. Constantly watched by the Veil, he used this opportunity to recover a asure of his strength through bloodline stripping.
Then he lured Henwell and the others into the castle to kill the king, so that he himself could beco the real Ulysses.
Henwell can already guess what his script was supposed to be.
It was nothing more than this: he was controlled, but he refused to give up, and in the end he thwarted the Veil's plan.
Then, wearing Ulysses' face, he would return to the palace with the kingdom's elites and assist the Western Federation in eradicating all of the Veil's strongholds in Billie.
He could continue being king. The one who died would only be a Veil impostor. Those wrong decisions would have nothing to do with Billie Kingdom, the royal family, or him.
Unfortunately, he miscalculated as well and was ultimately cut down by the furious Henwell.
Yet in the whole incident, the one who hid the deepest was the man pretending to be the king.
Henwell is more willing to call him King Ulysses. Compared with the Marquess of Nothing, that man was far more like a king.
Henwell is certain that if the Veil had not restrained him, he might even have been able to annex Vorry or Ogiro.
That man is the most formidable person Henwell has t since coming to this world.
He makes Henwell deeply realize one fact: even in this extraordinary world, human intelligence is still a force no one can afford to ignore.
Every side had formidable sches, but a single gap caused all of them to fail.
No one expected Henwell to have hidden his strength. Neither the church nor the Marquess of Nothing expected Henwell to co out alive.
The Veil expected it least of all. Henwell almost reversed the entire battlefield.
King Ulysses also never expected Henwell to be the greatest accident in the whole ga.
But Henwell has also paid the price for hiding his strength.
White Butterfly, who did not know the truth, staked her life on triggering the Veil's restriction because she wanted to warn Henwell.
In the end, that led to White Butterfly's death.
It can be said that every side involved paid a price.
Ulysses and the Marquess of Nothing paid with their lives. The church and the Veil paid with elite fighting forces.
Henwell lost White Butterfly, his companion, and Catherine lost both her birth father and her adoptive father.
In this brutal ga, there are no true losers.
And there are certainly no winners.
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