“Your, Your Majesty? Are you alright? Restrain her quickly!”

At Fel’s shout, the Imperial Knights moved in perfect unison. The small flowers blooming around were mercilessly trampled under their boots.

The Duchess was forced to her knees, and along with her, Amy and the servants were also restrained. 

The ducal family’s knights and maids who’d come to protect them, as well as the Astrot Empire’s knights, were so shocked by the Duchess’s actions that they couldn’t put up much resistance. 

Rosana couldn’t even bring herself to pull out the hair ornament embedded in Jade’s back and didn’t know what to do.

“Ja, Jade? Are you okay?”

Rosana frantically checked his complexion.

“I, I’m fine. Just a hairpin…”

He acted tough, saying he wouldn’t die from something like this. He lifted the corners of his mouth in a grin, but his condition was strange. Though he’d been stabbed in the back, it wasn’t a fatal wound. Yet sweat poured profusely from his face. His flushed cheeks were concerning.

When Rosana placed her hand on Jade’s face, it was so hot she could have gotten burned. And strangely, his lips seemed to be turning blue. Jade tried to act fine but soon clutched his chest.

His heartbeat pounded so clearly in his ears that it made its presence known. Under normal circumstances, it would have been an injury that was nothing, one that would heal with just some spit.

Malek rushed over frantically and supported him. Then he ordered someone to quickly bring the imperial physician. One of the knights rushed outside to fetch the doctor.

“Why… Duchess Arcadi?”

If there was any silver lining, it was that no one mentioned Rosana’s name. That made sense, as the pure white wedding dress made Rosana’s deathly pale face stand out even more.

“I apologize. I never imagined she’d attempt murder with a hair ornament… This is my oversight…”

Fel hastily knelt on one knee and offered words of apology. He couldn’t bring himself to raise his head, saying he had no excuse.

Jade couldn’t respond. The blood inside his body boiled up. It was an ordinary hair ornament with nothing wrong with it. Yet he couldn’t stand the feeling of stomach acid flowing back up. 

Something kept filling Jade’s throat with a gurgling sensation.

Jade swallowed the bile. It wasn’t an ordinary hair ornament.

“…It’s poison.”

Jade vomited dark red blood.

“Si, Sir Fel! Quickly, Jade…!”

Rosana’s pure white dress was stained with dark red blood.

Fel quickly removed his outer garment. Then he pressed around the wound area to prevent the poison from reaching the heart. Rosana watched with an anxious heart. It wasn’t a simple wound but poison. Jade breathed roughly, seemingly struggling.

“Sir Fel! We should transport Jade and show him to a physician!”

“The hairpin is still embedded. If we move his body carelessly and more poison seeps into his skin, it could be disastrous.”

“Then, pulling out the hairpin…!”

Fel quietly shook his head. There was a reason he wasn’t taking any particular measures.

“It’s better to leave it alone. After the previous incident, I inspected all items, and there were no vials containing poison. Moreover, there was no poison on that hairpin. There’s a high possibility that some mechanism is built into the hairpin. Touching it rashly is dangerous.”

Since there was a precedent of attempting on Rosana’s life, Jade had wanted thorough inspection. And the easiest way for a woman to kill someone was through poisoning. 

Since some people hid poison needles in hair ornaments, the hair ornament the Duchess held had also undergone thorough verification.

And then, someone sneered at Rosana, who’d lost her wits in panic and fear, saying it served her right.

“Rosana, it’s because of you. If you had met your end, everything could have ended happily!”

Even in a situation where she was restrained and could barely lift her head, the Duchess’s eyes glared at Rosana like they would devour her. Rosana clenched her fists. Her neatly trimmed nails dug into her palm flesh.

Rosana bit her lower lip mercilessly.

“Mother, why do you wish so much for my death…?”

“Because it’s fate.”

“So why is that!”

A noble shouted.

“This is tantamount to Astrot declaring war!”

“That’s right! To dare target the lives of His Majesty the Emperor and Her Majesty the Empress!”

Rosana couldn’t adapt to the chaotically unfolding situation. Jade was vomiting blood, and dark red blood flowed between his fingers.

Her surroundings were endlessly stained with blood.

The nobles rose up in arms. Even when Duke Helpe tried to calm them, they couldn’t properly hear his words, engulfed in fury.

Rosana buried her face in her palms. Should she not have invited them from the start? Should she have agreed when he tried to stop her? 

It felt like everything—Jade getting hurt, the wedding being ruined, even the spark of war being lit—all happened because of her greed.

Jade tightly embraced Rosana’s body, seemingly to comfort her as her breathing grew increasingly labored. Though he could barely support his own body, he soothed Rosana.

“You don’t need to listen to that.”

Her body was in his embrace, but her mind remained captive to the Duchess. She bit her lip hard to clear her head, which was about to be engulfed in anger. The red lipstick was wiped away, leaving teeth marks.

Rosana took several deep breaths.

And then an unbelievable change occurred. Because Rosana was in Jade’s embrace, she was the first to notice his change. Rosana called his name with a stunned expression.

“Jade…”

And soon after, his true nature was exposed to everyone.

Rosana’s lips parted blankly. Mother, was this the ending you wanted?

Jade breathed roughly as his body gradually swelled. Soon his clothes tore, and sharp claws capable of taking a life in one strike sprouted from his hands.

The rings they’d exchanged and worn couldn’t endure any longer as his body swelled, screaming before splitting in half with a ping and flying off.

“Grrrowl…”

Jade groaned, seemingly in pain from the transformation process. And that process was unfolding right before everyone’s eyes. Everyone held their breath and watched his change clearly.

Duke Helpe murmured quietly.

“How could this happen…”

The nobles couldn’t grasp the situation and stared at Jade in a uniformly dazed state.

Jade, struck by deadly poison, breathed intermittently like it would stop at any moment, and the monster blood inside him, sensing the threat to his life, boiled up and forcibly began the detoxification process inside his body.

Fel hastily tried to hide him, but the protruding fur, the elongated snout, the sharp claws, the already torn clothes—everything proved it all. It was far from enough to conceal.

The Imperial Knights surrounded the area in a circle like forming a fence. And they remained wary of him, not knowing when he might act unpredictably. Seeing the knights moving systematically and Malek nervously fumbling his words, the nobles showed their bewilderment.

“Su, surely… is, is that His Majesty?”

A noble, terrified at the sight of the monster, grabbed an Imperial Knight and asked. The knights brazenly lied with straight faces.

“Ahaha. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Are you saying you don’t see that form!”

However, the nobles who’d already seen Jade transform with their own eyes didn’t believe it easily. Malek thought through clever solutions to navigate the situation. But he knew it was already irreversible.

Hahaha, the Duchess laughed brightly.

“I knew the identity of the Emperor of Diovaha. There were numerous rumors. Particularly on nights when screams echoed through the imperial castle late at night, he’d issue a curfew to the servants and order them to wait without moving, right? I… thought there must be a reason. Isn’t the reason the Emperor was confined to the tower in his childhood the same?”

Her voice, once confident and commanding, held a captivating power over those who heard it. 

But then, her demeanor shifted; she softened, murmuring quietly with a benevolent smile and tone, as though her actions had been entirely for Rosana’s benefit.

“Rosana, I couldn’t let you marry such a monster. Look at people’s reactions. See how they look at him like he’s a horrific creature? You should be grateful to me.”

Just then, the nobles who heard the Duchess’s words began opening their mouths hesitantly, seemingly having their own suspicions.

“Come to think of it, the rumors of screams echoing started circulating after the current His Majesty began residing in the imperial castle.”

“Could it be that the reason for confining His Majesty in the tower was also… why, wasn’t there a rumor long ago about monsters appearing in the imperial castle?”

“The late king wasn’t originally that kind of person, so I found it strange…”

“Duke, do you know the truth? Weren’t you the one who freed His Majesty from the tower?”

“Th, that is…”

Jade breathed roughly.

Thump thump—

His heart pounded so loudly he could hear it in his ears, the surrounding stares, and the whispered words piercing his ears painfully. Everyone murmured that this couldn’t be happening.

Jade took in the sounds growing distantly faint. Multiple voices collided, making it impossible to distinguish exactly what was being said or to whom.

However, one voice stood out clearly—the voice of the person whose small hand rested on his. 

That gentle tone whispered endlessly, reassuring him that everything was okay. He could try to hide his emotions, but how much longer could this fragile tug-of-war last?

Jade raised his massive body. Standing on two legs, he spoke through his elongated snout. The voice was his.

“Yes. This is another form of mine.”

It was something he had hoped to delay for as long as possible. Yet, the clock’s minute hand had reached its final mark, and the last grain of sand in the overturned hourglass had fallen. 

It was something he would inevitably have to face. And so, he chose to accept it. Denying this reality was no longer an option.

“That’s why the empire fell to ruin. Because they kept such a monster as the emperor, it’s falling apart. The Diovaha Empire will disappear soon!”

The Duchess laughed cynically, and the nobles who heard Jade’s voice turned deathly pale.

“Such a monster is His Majesty? Can’t you hear other countries laughing at us?!”

“Ha… This is a dream. It must be.”

“What do we do!! Such a… monstrous form!”

Voices filled with panic and anger echoed around him, denying reality and labeling it horrific.  

The chaotic words and sentences pierced his ears like daggers. Jade clenched his fist, his claws extending instinctively.  

Memories of the people he had hurt, long buried in the recesses of his mind, resurfaced. The gazes he faced now were no different from those he had seen when he first transformed into a monster. The quiet murmurs of “monster” still rang in his ears.  

He remembered the fear and terror in their eyes. Even after proving his identity, they had all turned away, unwilling to accept him.  

Jade’s eyes darkened, his expression hardening into cold resolve.  

As he had expected, nothing had changed. There was no one who could truly accept him in this form.

‘It’s over.’

Jade raised his head high in despair. The radical ones were already shouting that they should deal with Jade in his beast form immediately.