Twilight Fort.
Emperor Mortis sat upon the throne. The fingers of one hand tapped the bone armrest sporadically, listening to the report of the person below.
The Empire's Chief Interrogator and Intelligence Officer, Mofrey, knelt respectfully on one knee below the seat, reporting the aftermath of the disaster: "...In the end, only Marquis Ravencrow and two of his personal guards successfully escaped the mist range. All three suffered severe mana backlash due to excessive spellcasting in the mist environment. Irreversible alienation features appeared in parts of their body tissues, accompanied by initial mana addiction symptoms. They are currently receiving treatment in the Tower of Silence."
The report finished, the royal hall fell into a dead silence. Only the "thump thump" sound of the Emperor's fingers tapping, so regular it made Mofrey's heart tighten.
After a long while, Emperor Mortis stopped tapping.
"That is to say," his voice wasn't loud, but clearly carried anger, "that bunch of maggots from the Hand of Passage just created a massive graveyard in Urbic Territory. Then, almost at the same time, someone completed a large-scale hidden ritual capable of tearing space, with an undeterminable final purpose, right under the Empire's intelligence network, local garrisons, and my very eyes?"
He stared coldly at his Empire's Chief Intelligence Officer in front of him, gaze like a blade, as if examining an incompetent tool.
Mofrey's head lowered a fraction more.
She could find reasons, many reasons.
For example, the loss rate of spies infiltrating the United Kingdom recently far exceeded the past, resulting in a shortage of manpower.
Or for example, to clear out the slimes within the borders, the Emperor had transferred away almost all the elite forces in the shadows.
But she didn't say anything.
Defending herself at this moment would only invite more punishment.
"It is this minister's dereliction of duty." She decisively carried all the responsibility on her shoulders. "Failing to detect and warn in advance, failing to effectively stop the ritual, internal control being lax. Please punish me, Your Majesty."
Mortis supported his forehead with one hand, not continuing that suffocating accountability, and asked instead: "Since Ravencrow escaped, did he bring out any valuable information?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," Mofrey responded immediately. "According to the Marquis's statement when conscious, at the time of the incident, Count Bona's behavior was extremely unusual: language chaotic, logic collapsed, and lacking reasonable cognition and motivation for his own actions. The Marquis judged him to be under a state of high-level mind control."
She paused slightly and continued to report: "Afterward, based on this, we investigated the surroundings of the Giant Beast Bone Field and have now confirmed that the neighboring Viscount Cormac, as well as several of his core staff and guard captains, all presented similar signs of mental abnormality. In the main keep and key areas of his territory, we secretly detected residual mental field phenomena."
"Mental field?!" Emperor Mortis's body leaned forward slightly; this term touched his sensitive nerves.
"Yes, Your Majesty. Synthesizing available clues, this space-tearing ritual was highly likely guided and arranged by the Holy Codex. It's just... when we discovered these, the Holy Codex itself was already no longer within the Empire's borders."
Mortis couldn't help but be annoyed. The Holy Codex was closely related to the Demon King. What he worried about most now was that this ritual was created by the Demon King after obtaining the Holy Codex.
The key was that this ritual was swallowed by mist right after activation. They only knew the ritual tore open a breach pouring out mist, but weren't clear if this was the purpose of the ritual or a side effect.
The unknown made this Emperor of the Empire extremely irritable inside.
Even though he almost exhausted all efforts to clear out those slime clusters within the Empire's borders, even though he took advantage of the storm of purging cult remnants to gather many originally scattered powers more firmly into his palm.
But at this moment, these achievements didn't bring him the slightest peace of mind.
His opponent now was not those Dukes with their own calculations, nor the increasingly declining Human Kingdom or Dwarves.
His opponent was the Demon King!
That Demon King who single-handedly founded the Empire!
The Demon King would definitely come to retake the Empire.
And he, Mortis Dracone, absolutely could not give up the supreme power and honor he currently held to revert to being that subordinate who needed to obey orders.
If he could endure the days of bowing to others, he wouldn't have personally killed that Vampire Archduke who treated him as a right-hand man back then and seized his power of blood.
Since the room for compromise never existed from the beginning, then it was a life-and-death struggle.
However, even acting with the power of the whole country, an invisible sense of oppression still followed him like a shadow, as if the opponent always walked in the shadows beyond his reach.
"Elinore, and Sigmund," the Emperor's voice carried anger, "the responsibility of pursuing the whereabouts of the Holy Codex was entrusted to those two originally. Now that the Holy Codex suspectedly appeared and caused a major disaster, what are they doing?"
Mofrey felt a burst of joy in her heart and organized her words: "Reporting to Your Majesty, according to the intelligence this subordinate has grasped, Duke Sigmund, after initially transferring a portion of manpower to Duchess Elinore, did not follow up deeply on matters related to the Holy Codex again. Recently, he has invested the vast majority of his energy and resources into the sales of Blood Jade Wine."
Her original intention was to use this to smear that young Duke who once embarrassed her, implying his dereliction of duty, indulging in pleasure and profiteering.
However, to her surprise, after the Emperor on the throne heard the description of Sigmund focusing on Blood Jade Wine, not only did he not reveal greater anger as expected, but the previously tense aura seemed to subtly ease a bit, a trace of conflict flashing in his eyes.
Mofrey, as a succubus, obviously hadn't fully realized what Blood Jade Wine actually represented to vampires. She still merely viewed it as another highly profitable luxury item, similar to the high-quality blood wine strictly controlled by Elinore in the past.
Seeing that His Majesty seemed to have no intention of pursuing Sigmund's dereliction of duty on this, she had to continue reporting: "As for Duchess Elinore, recently she seems to have placed all her focus on how to please that Mushroom Tribe member she obtained..."
"Please?" For a moment, Mortis thought he misheard, or his subordinate used the wrong word.
...
Elinore's territory, Night Lily Manor.
Several half-vampires symbiotic with mycelium were carefully serving No. 13 in the mycelium pile.
They knelt on the ground on one knee, carefully kneading the Puchi's short legs and tentacles.
Compared to those Mushroom Citizens in the Mushroom Fortress, these fit the title of Mushroom Servants much more.
"How is it? Still like it here?"
"Puchi~"
Elinore, not knowing she was about to be held accountable by the Emperor, walked in with a face full of smiles.
Her face was full of concern and gentleness, completely lacking the strictness and meanness she showed toward other subordinates in the past.
No other reason, because of this Puchi, her situation had improved!
When the first batch of demon Puchi Masters under her command arrived at the ports being increasingly rampantly harassed by Chisi, those monsters in the sea fled in panic.
Since then, as long as there were ports stationed by Puchis, they suffered no more attacks from those sea monsters.
Recently, she even tried to reopen maritime transport under the protection of Puchis, and the first batch of trial voyage ships had successfully completed a round-trip trade!
The only pity was that the Puchis came a bit too late; the ports on the human West Coast had already been abandoned, otherwise she could restore slave transport right now.
However, even so, she was happy enough.
And all this was thanks to this Mushroom Tribe member calling itself No. 13 before her eyes.
Of course, she also rarely generously rewarded that succubus who brought this Mushroom Tribe member back, arranging her as No. 13's personal follower.
Not here right now because they were all sent by No. 13 to supervise the construction of the Mushroom Tower.
That was one of the requests No. 13 made to her: to build a high tower in the center of those Blood Livestock Farms. No. 13 wanted to live there.
Although she didn't understand why this mushroom wanted to live in that kind of wretched place, maybe mushrooms' preferences were just like this?
To Elinore, compared to the benefits brought by No. 13, this could only be considered a small request, so naturally she agreed.
What she didn't know was that on a level she couldn't perceive, countless negative emotions were slowly gathering toward No. 13 here.
[Negative Energy Collection]
What other place could produce more negative emotions than a Blood Livestock Farm?
(End of Chapter)
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