Chapter 42

“What on earth is going to happen?”

“No idea.”

Aneta replied to Tereza’s puzzled muttering while scanning the surroundings with her eyes. She aimed to predict what kind of event Russell had personally gone out of his way to forewarn.

The quickest and most accurate way was to identify any deviations from the norm.

Regardless of the importance of the matter, Russell wasn’t the type to proceed without any precautions.

There must be some trace of his preparation for this event somewhere in the hall. Proving her hunch right, her wandering gaze stopped at a certain spot.

It was a row of floral columns, standing not too far from the outer wall.

Appearing to be about waist-high, they were lined up with only a narrow gap left between them.

‘…Are they trying to block access to the wall?’

There was nothing special about the column itself. Thus, her attention shifted to the terrace, and as she raised her gaze, an unknown roar mercilessly struck her eardrums.

Boom!

The terrace door was smashed into disarray, and the wall collapsed simultaneously.

Amid the screams erupting from all around, Serce stood protectively in front of Aneta.

Unable to see ahead due to his broad back, Aneta took a step to the side.

Crushing the debris of the fallen wall were figures in black masks.

As the wind rushed in through the absence of the wall, a distinct smell of gunpowder wafted strongly.

“Protect His Majesty!”

It was then that the armored knights belatedly rushed in. While Louise at the forefront hurried towards the stage where the Emperor was, Aneta struggled to grasp the situation.

There was no need to assume that Russell had hired them to stage a fake attack.

Russell must have been forewarned of the impending situation and was using it to his advantage.

If so, who hired all these assassins?

‘Is this also Erez Bauter’s doing?’

No, no. Aneta immediately corrected her thoughts after observing Erez’s state. The vivid fear and astonishment on his frozen face couldn’t be an act.

Moreover, the Bauter family currently lacked the financial resources to hire so many assassins.

Even though she dismissed the suspicion towards Erez, Aneta couldn’t shake off a sense of unease.

If Erez wasn’t behind hiring them, what was Russell aiming for by allowing the attack?

The clue to the mystery was revealed when Carlos and Tereza tried to confront the group of assassins.

At that moment, the expression on the panic-stricken Erez suddenly changed, as if he had realized something. And the resolute expressions on the two people facing the assailants faltered.

“…My power isn’t manifesting.”

“It seems the same for me.”

“This has never happened before.”

Tereza muttered softly, and Serce, having confirmed through the power of his clone, spoke decisively. Carlos, standing on the platform, had a sword in his hand instead of his power, indicating his situation was no different.

‘This must be Erez Bauter’s ability.’

Indeed, Erez Bauter’s power hadn’t changed. Aneta felt boiling anger at Erez for using the glory of control to block the powers of the heads of families and then sneaking into a safe place for himself. A rough thought crossed her mind—if only she could leave a mark on his pretty face with a slap.

‘How thoughtless can he be? What does he think he’s doing in this situation?’

But Aneta couldn’t fulfill her desire to slap Erez. The reason was that her gaze met that of the crimson Emperor, who was looking down from the stage.

Russell, who had been observing Erez’s actions and expressions, noticed that Aneta had realized the same thing and shook his head as their eyes met.

Aneta understood that this meant she shouldn’t touch Erez.

Of course, she had no intention of opposing this. Aneta quickly regained her composure.

In the meantime, about a dozen assassins who had been targeting the emperor began to approach her group.

“I’ll handle this. You two, stay back and stay safe.”

“But they’re trained assassins, Tereza. It’s too dangerous to face them alone.”

“Don’t worry, Aneta. Do you think I, Tereza Lopelac, would fall to those guys?”

Tereza displayed her usual confident smile.

The quick-witted nobles noticed that Carlos and Tereza had withdrawn their glories, realizing there was a problem with their abilities.

Amidst the gasps and screams of the nobles, Tereza drew her sword and shouted.

“If you don’t want to die, stop staring blankly and pull yourselves together!”

True to her heroic spirit roaming the battlefield, Tereza stepped forward, as if to protect those behind her.

Charging like a swift beast, she was followed by two unfamiliar men who had been mingling among the terrified nobles.

They weren’t the only ones moving similarly. Aneta noticed a few others who seemed unusually alert, deducing that Russell had planted shadows among the nobles.

‘Of course. He wouldn’t just let things unfold without a plan.’

At least, it was fortunate that Tereza didn’t have to handle them alone.

Aneta felt her tense body gradually relax as she bit her lip.

Meanwhile, Carlos, standing like the last bastion behind the knights led by Louise, felt a deep sense of helplessness. He, like Aneta, had scanned the hall and made various speculations, but none of them had included the scenario of being unable to use his glory.

Even if he were separated from Aneta, as long as she was within his sight, he believed he could protect her. But the absence of his abilities, something he had taken for granted, shattered that confidence.

However, Carlos had no time to dwell on his shattered confidence and self-blame. Driven by the singular desire to quickly dispatch the assassins and ensure Aneta’s safety, Carlos gripped his sword tighter. His sharp eyes, like the talons of a bird of prey, grew even more menacing.

“Your Grace, we will handle this area.”

“No. I will help too.”

Louise, who had noticed him, tried to dissuade him while cutting down one of the assassins, but Carlos was not the type to retreat from his intentions. He plunged into the bloody battle, and what followed was inevitable.

Slashing horizontally and vertically, over and over again.

Facing trained assassins was no easy task. Carlos didn’t hesitate to cut down his opponents. He had lived fiercely, repeatedly taking from others rather than losing his own. For him, cutting down these invaders with malevolent intentions was no difficult feat.

How much time had passed?

Carlos, panting heavily, stepped back for a moment. As his chest rose and fell, he flicked the blood off his sword, staining the ground beneath him red.

With a cold, expressionless gaze, Carlos looked up to check on Aneta’s situation.

As Carlos observed Aneta, he felt a rush of anxiety about even a single strand of her hair being harmed. But the moment he took in her image, the laughter that escaped through his clenched teeth seemed entirely out of place.

There she was, with her back against the wall, cornered but not defeated. Aneta, in her signature fashion, had hurled a vase with all her might at the back of an assassin’s head, knocking him out cold and rescuing Serce. She wasn’t the kind of person to be easily protected; she was someone who took charge and saved others.

Admiringly, Louise, who was also wiping her sword clean of blood, commented, “She truly isn’t someone to be taken down easily.”

“Indeed,” Carlos replied.

Their brief, subjectless conversation ended with a mutual understanding, and both Carlos and Louise tightened their grip on their swords once more.

***

“Be careful. You might get seriously hurt,”

Serce warned with a mischievous grin, right after Aneta had dealt with the assassin threatening him. She, unaware of the conversation unfolding on the stage, simply dusted off her hands.

“I was worried he might not go down, but fortunately, he crumpled nicely,” she remarked.

“No matter how tough someone is, they can’t train their head to withstand a blow like that. I didn’t know you had such a knack for this,” Serce replied.

“It’s all about survival,” Aneta responded.

While she might not wield a sword, Aneta had long mastered the art of using her surroundings to her advantage. As the heir and head of the Adenauer family, she had faced numerous assassination attempts. Each brush with death had become a learning experience, a grim but necessary education in the art of staying alive in their world.

With a click of her tongue to dispel the bitterness lingering in her mouth, Aneta pulled a tablecloth from a nearby table and handed it to Serce.

“What’s this for?” he asked.

“Before they come to, strip them of anything useful and tie them up with this.”

“Listening to you, it almost feels like we’re the villains here,” Serce replied, shrugging with a sense of helpless amusement.

“We’re securing prisoners for interrogation. The others seem too preoccupied to bother with that. Some of them will survive, but they’ll be in no state to talk, and His Majesty prefers to get things done quickly,” Aneta explained.

Russell already had evidence in hand to capture those behind the attack, but the more evidence, the better. When Aneta mentioned this, Serce nodded in agreement.

“The more I see you, the more impressive you are.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

While Serce firmly tied up the unconscious assassin and searched his body, Aneta used a handkerchief to clean up the broken vase pieces scattered near the assassin. This was to prevent the assassin from having anything nearby that could cut through the fabric.

“But those guys seem to be targeting His Majesty and us in particular, don’t they?”

“I agree, it’s quite obvious what they’re up to.”

Serce’s opinion was reasonable, and Aneta agreed.

The assassins directed more attacks at Tereza than at Russell’s shadows, and those who slipped past the eyes of the shadows targeted Serce instead of the nearby nobles.

It was the same for Carlos. He received more attacks than Louise.

One thing was becoming clear – from the start, the targets were those possessing Glory.

‘Yes, the Glory. If it had given me the power to stand against Erez Bauter, how wonderful would that be?’

Aneta felt frustrated at the fact that she could do nothing, even though she knew the reason behind the chaos unfolding before her eyes.

She did not want to just stand by helplessly, nor did she wish to be protected by someone else.

‘If only I had power of my own.’

Aneta strongly longed for the existence of glory, which had been naturally excluded from her life.

At that moment, a strange voice was heard from somewhere.

[Do you desire power?]

The voice reverberating in her head was not human.

As if to prove it, the genderless voice echoed in her mind once more.

[If you wish for it, I can give it to you.]

The voice possessed an inexplicable allure that ensnared the senses.

Instinctively, Aneta found herself nodding, and her affirmation came without any conscious thought.

‘I want it.’