Contrary to expectations, Kailos’s reaction to the declaration of war was remarkably calm. In fact, he appeared almost satisfied, as if he had received a gift he had been waiting a long time for.

“So that’s how he’s chosen to move. I suppose even he realized he had no cards left to play.”

“But…”

She, too, had never expected Alix to throw herself into the war quite so wholeheartedly. Although she had prepared herself for such a day for a long time, the thought of sending Kailos to the battlefield still made her heart sink.

Noticing her unease as she bit her lip, Kailos pulled Selonia into his arms and smiled faintly at her.

“Don’t worry, Selonia. This is exactly what I wanted.”

In war, victory itself became legitimacy. The world had no interest in the truth of the defeated. As long as they won, there would be no need for a prolonged struggle against the Grand Temple and the Emperor — they could crush them with a single decisive blow.

Kailos was certain he would win.

After all, he had fought Alix before.

When he told Selonia that doing so again would not be difficult — having already brought down the imperial palace and the Grand Temple — he meant every word.

Three days after the declaration of war—

Within that time, the combined forces of the Imperial Army and the Holy Knights had completed their preparations in the capital and begun their march north.

An endless procession of white cloaks and banners bearing the imperial crest stretched across the land. In comparison to the overwhelming advance of the Allied Army, which began with a large-scale offensive, the Northern Forces appeared to be hopelessly outmatched.

Yet from the very first clash, the outcome was clear.

The knights of the Grand Duke’s domain met the charge of the Holy Knights, brimming with borrowed divine power, without hesitation. Even when two or three imperial soldiers attacked at once, not a single Laharden knight flinched. They seemed to anticipate every tactic the allied army attempted, countering each one with effortless precision.

It was not merely a matter of strategy. The Imperial Army, softened by years of peace, and the Holy Knight Order, accustomed only to fighting weaker monsters in the eastern and western regions, were no match for the Laharden Knights, who had spent years subjugating brutal monsters in the north.

As the allied forces fell one by one, astonishingly, not a single casualty was reported among the northern army. As the war dragged on, the fighting ceased to resemble a battle at all, becoming closer to a massacre.

Defeat piled upon defeat and Alix grew desperate. In his haste, he ordered the formation of a mage corps — a hastily assembled unit bolstered by mana potions supplied by the Grand Temple.

When the Imperial Court Mages joined the *ssault, it briefly seemed as though the tide had turned.

But only for a moment.

At that precise moment, Kailos brought Elina forward.

She was the hidden daughter of Princess Arina, rumored to have died unjustly many years ago. The courageous princess had risked everything by revealing herself as a witch in order to restore her mother’s honor. Now, she stood alongside the Grand Duke to overthrow the Emperor and the Grand Temple — the very people who had deceived the Empire for generations.

The narrative that Selonia had crafted around Elina spread swiftly across the Empire through special bulletins.

With Elina at their head, the witches began to push back the attacks. The counteracting magic devised by Selonia nullified the spells cast by the mages, while the vast magic circles drawn by the witches unleashed defensive enchantments that enveloped only the northern forces, bolstering their strength and resolve.

The mages fell into despair.

The sheer disparity in the quantity and purity of the mana wielded by the witches was overwhelming. Had magic truly belonged to women from the beginning, passed down through the maternal line? As their long-held beliefs began to crumble, the mages’ morale collapsed day by day.

Initially, there was shock at seeing those who had once been branded as witches step onto the front lines. However, intoxicated by victory, the people soon began to cheer them on.

The balance of the war quickly shifted in the North’s favor. Unlike the imperial army, which burned villages as it retreated, Kailos imposed order on every territory he occupied and strictly forbade looting. Some imperial citizens even opened their gates of their own accord when they saw this contrast.

Victory was close at hand.

Throughout it all, Selonia did not remain idle. Although she never set foot on the battlefield, she worked tirelessly. She kept the ducal castle’s warehouses full to ensure that supplies never ran dry and distributed mana stones engraved with defensive magic from the mines freely.

Less than a month after the war began, the northern army reached the capital.

At this point, the capital’s nobles began to waver. If events continued as they were, the Grand Duke’s victory would be inevitable. As Kailos would never spare Emperor Alix, more and more people felt that it would be wiser to side with Princess Elina.

Among those who moved most swiftly in that shifting tide was Vanessa Bernac.

“Make a deal with me, Lady Brienne.”

As Kailos’s victory seemed inevitable, Selonia — who was only passing through the village of Shayen on her way to the capital — was taken aback when Vanessa suddenly appeared before her, looking disheveled.

“How did Lady Bernac even get here?”

“When both a house’s fate and a person’s life are at stake, is there anywhere one can’t go?”

With that, Vanessa took a seat opposite Selonia. Despite her proud words, she looked utterly exhausted from the journey to Shayen. Forgetting her usual rigid composure, she leaned heavily against the backrest and let out a long, weary sigh.

It was surprising enough that she had come in person rather than sending an emissary, but Selonia was even more taken aback when the contents of the bundle Vanessa had brought with her spilled out. One by one, the documents that Selonia had intended to search for once she reached the capital tumbled out in a disorderly heap.

“Evidence of corruption involving the Emperor and the Grand Temple. It also includes… my father’s and my brothers’ crimes.”

“When did you manage to gather all of this? And why would you—”

“Because I learned that that damned mana flows through me as well.”

Vanessa herself had never imagined that the evidence she had collected to protect herself from exploitation and disposability would be so useful.

Some might call it a betrayal of her house. However, she believed that it was the only way to save herself and her family. As long as at least one person bore the Bernac name, the House of Bernac would endure.

“The House of Bernac will support Princess Elina. In exchange, cast out my father and my brothers.”

Vanessa met Selonia’s gaze without flinching. Ideally, she would become a junior duke in her own right, but if that was not possible, she could still inherit the title through marriage. The important thing was to secure a position from which no one could ever harm her again.

Selonia studied Vanessa in silence for a long moment, then slowly nodded and extended her hand. The idea that the woman who had once seemed intent on destroying her completely would now become her greatest ally felt profoundly surreal.

Five days after the agreement with Vanessa was sealed, the Empire’s defeat became impossible to deny. The battle lines had completely collapsed, and the Holy Knight Order, now comprising only a handful of members, failed to secure even a retreat. They were taken prisoner on the spot.

Alix was dragged down to the imperial palace’s underground prison and imprisoned there. Her screams, which were more like animalistic howls, echoed day and night as she called out for Selonia and Kailos. They struck the cold stone walls, but reached no one.

It was Princess Consort Camella herself who welcomed Princess Elina as she entered the imperial palace. This was an agreement she had made with Kailos in advance to firmly establish Elina’s position. It was crucial that the princess’s return be seen as the restoration of rightful legitimacy, not as a conquest.

Meanwhile, Selonia led the Laharden knights to the Grand Temple.

The rusted iron doors slowly creaked open beneath them and, with the support of Selonia and the knights, women who had not seen daylight for years emerged one by one, stepping into the bright sunlight for the first time in a long while.

Their emaciated bodies and arms, riddled with needle scars, were irrefutable proof of what had happened, no matter how fiercely the Grand Temple tried to deny it. Those who witnessed the witches being led out gave vivid, harrowing accounts of the horrors that had taken place in the underground prison.

Even those who had deliberately looked away until now — desperate to avoid admitting that the Empire itself was rotten to its core — could no longer suppress their fury once the truth was revealed. When Selonia’s painstakingly gathered evidence was combined with the documents that Vanessa had recently brought, there was no room left for denial or excuses: the late Emperor had murdered his own family.

The late Emperor had murdered his own family. The current Emperor was fully aware of it all, yet he had turned a blind eye, choosing to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps. The imperial family and the Grand Temple had colluded in the assassination of the former Grand Duke. Documents proving the hereditary succession of the papacy were revealed, as was the truth that so-called divine power was merely mana.

Shocking revelations came to light day after day, and the Empire was overturned almost overnight.

Those who had once fervently believed in the gods now denounced Ardiel as evil and threw stones at the Grand Temple. In her previous life, the temple burned down as its pillars collapsed; this time, however, it fell differently. Once it was revealed that the ‘order’ people had believed in was built on lies, the Grand Temple was exposed as nothing more than a laboratory and a prison.

Amid the flood of revelations and the aftermath of war, the Empire remained in turmoil for a long time. The doors of the Grand Temple were sealed shut, and people stopped praying. Priests vanished from sight — some were arrested, while others fled beyond anyone’s reach.

When it was revealed that mage families — except for House Bernac — had relied on mana-extracting potions, even high-ranking nobles were silenced. The order that had once been justified in God’s name had completely collapsed, leaving behind a vast, hollow void that desperately needed to be filled.

It was at this time that Princess Elina appeared once more.

Hailed as the surviving princess, she stepped forward without hesitation and bowed her head to the people of the Empire. Princess Elina openly acknowledged the sins committed by the imperial family, making no excuses or attempts to evade responsibility. News of her sincerity spread through weekly and daily papers alike, reaching every corner of the land.

The sight of a blameless princess taking responsibility for her predecessors’ crimes evoked a powerful response. Voices rose in praise, declaring that the true imperial family had been reborn. The Grand Duke of Laharden and his beloved Selonia Brienne, who had stood steadfastly by her side throughout, were celebrated as heroes who had vanquished evil and restored justice.

Upon her ascension as Crown Princess, Elina decreed that the state name ‘Holy Empire’ should be officially abolished. An edict was proclaimed to dismantle the faith of Ardiel, and a decree was issued to recognize the independence of the Laharden Grand Duchy. Not a single dissenting voice rose against Elina’s decisions.

From that day forward, no power on this land dared to call itself God’s proxy.