Chapter 234: Draveon’s True Desire

"What I truly desire?"

Berlic leaned forward, planting both palms on the table as he turned his head toward Elias. His foggy purple eyes gleamed with an unsettling glint, and a wide smile stretched across his face.

"I desire the west!" he announced.

Elias watched him without showing any reaction.

"I desire to take down the Crimsons and put the Draveons in control of the west."

"And how would you do that?" Elias asked calmly.

A soft smile appeared on Berlic’s face, as though he were recalling a plan he had cherished for years.

"My cousin sister, Sansa, sacrificed herself and married the Crimson Duke so her son could become the next duke and slowly strengthen our clan."

Elias furrowed his brows. "How are you so sure Lucian would become the next duke?"

"He would!" Berlic slammed his fists onto the table, breaking the wood beneath into pieces.

His voice rose with sudden fury. "If not for your horrible, bastardly existence, Lucian would have been born much earlier, and my sister would have trapped that duke between her fingers like a dog to its master!"

Elias frowned. "What difference would a few years make?"

"We planned everything!" Berlic shouted, his fists tightening. "But your existence delayed it all!"

’So that is the real reason they hate me so much,’ Elias thought.

He had always known the Crimson Ducal Clan considered him an inconvenience, but he had never understood why his existence had drawn such deep resentment from the Draveons. Now, with Berlic speaking without restraint, the pieces were beginning to fall into place.

"What makes you believe the other heirs and their mothers would allow Lucian to become the next duke?" Elias asked.

Berlic laughed.

"It does not matter. None of them, except one, comes close to our clan!"

He straightened slightly, his expression turning contemptuous as he began listing the women who stood between his family and their ambitions.

"The second Lady, Hirnet Darkwid, comes from a viscountial family in the south. The third Lady, Wronica Mitestine, belongs to a marchional family in the capital, but all they have is gold. The fourth Lady, Bella Resdom, comes from a knighthood of orphans. She has no family to even stand against us."

Elias listened attentively. He had never learned much about the backgrounds of the five ladies, since he had been deliberately kept away from such matters.

"Are you saying the Head Lady is the biggest obstacle to your plan?" he asked, as she was the only one Berlic had not mentioned.

Berlic nodded.

"Palensia Crindlock is the most troublesome of them all."

Elias frowned. He had heard the family name Crindlock before, but he could not immediately recall where.

Berlic clenched his fists and growled, "That bitch is from the Crindlock family. The envoys of the Dracarian Royal Family!"

Elias’s eyes widened as the memory returned.

His maidservant had once told him about a commoner mage whom the fourth Dracarian king had fallen in love with. Her name was Grace Crindlock, and after that marriage, the Crindlock family had become the royal family’s envoys.

Now that he knew the Head Lady had once served as an envoy of the royal family, Elias could not help thinking about the king’s decree that had forced him to marry the three Cursed Flowers.

’Was she somehow involved in the decree itself?’ he wondered, frowning.

Before he could ask anything further, Berlic groaned and grabbed his head.

Elias turned toward him as the fog in Berlic’s eyes began to dissipate. The strange grin faded, and his expression twisted as awareness returned.

He blinked several times before glaring at Elias.

"You bastard! What did you do to me?!"

Berlic’s crimson smoke Aura surged through the hall, pressing against Elias as he rose from his chair.

"You must have thought I was just an Exalted swordsman, did you not?"

His hand moved toward the hilt of his sword, and a wide grin spread across his face.

"This place is going to be your gra—"

Before he could finish, Elias invoked his Aura.

Crimson energy burst from his body and spread across the hall, filling the space with a dense, solid pressure. It collided with Berlic’s smoke-like Aura and crushed it beneath its overwhelming force.

Berlic’s knees buckled.

His body sank toward the floor, and his eyes widened in disbelief as he struggled to resist the pressure bearing down on him.

"I-It cannot be!" he stammered. "How?!"

"You think so lowly of me that you did not even consider that I might be a Lord myself," Elias muttered as he stepped closer to the smiling serpent.

Berlic’s eyes trembled as he struggled to understand what was happening.

The talentless bastard who should have been groveling at his feet was standing tall before him, his Aura already reaching the absolute limit of solidification.

Elias clicked his tongue in pity.

"After feeling your Aura, I understood what kind of person you really are."

He grabbed Berlic by his curly hair and pulled his head back, forcing him to look up.

"You are no warrior, just a dreamer who relies on pawns and other people’s strength."

Berlic’s face twisted as Elias continued.

"The reason you still sit here instead of entering the rift, even though getting rid of it would make things easier for you... I finally understand."

Elias brought his head closer and whispered into his ear.

"You are scared. You fear the unnatural world inside the rifts. Your existence is so shallow that even after reaching the grandiose rank of a Lord, your Aura has not changed a bit. A frog in a well who believes he rules the seas."

Berlic’s expression twisted into utter fury.

"Y-You basta—"

Before he could finish, Elias coated his hand in Aura and slapped him across the face.

The crisp impact echoed throughout the hall.

Berlic stumbled sideways, his feet scraping against the floor as blood dripped from his ear and nose.

"W-What?"

"Bastard this, bastard that," Elias muttered, shaking his head. "Do you have no shame?"

Berlic glared at him, his crimson Aura flaring in a desperate attempt to push back against Elias’s pressure.

"You dare hit me?!" he stammered. "I am the chosen City Lord! Attacking me is going against the will of your clan!"

At first, he had not known Elias possessed such strength. But now that he did, Berlic was certain he could still kill him. He had done so before, and with enough schemes, he could make Elias the enemy of the entire west.

Elias laughed at Berlic’s sheer shamelessness. The same man who planned to bring down the Crimson Ducal Clan was now using it as a shield.

"How unfortunate," Elias mumbled.

Berlic grinned as he wiped the blood from his face.

"It is good that you are not a complete foo—"

Before he could finish, Elias turned around and pointed his thumb toward the black cape draped over his shoulders.

"I have already decided to leave the Crimson Ducal Clan."

Berlic froze.

His lips trembled as he stared at Elias, unable to comprehend what he had just heard.

"Y-You are a complete fool..."

Elias chuckled and said, "If that is what it takes to give my wives the love they deserve, I am more than fine to be a fool."

"Is that all?" Berlic frowned deeply. "You are doing all of this just for those three crippled bitc—"

Elias’s solid Aura slammed into Berlic like a hundred maces, forcing his knees to buckle.

"Ugh!" Berlic groaned and spat blood.

He forced his head up, and when his eyes met Elias’s, a shiver ran down his spine. For a moment, his heart seemed to forget how to beat.

"N-No! I did not mean to disrespect them!" he pleaded, tears streaming down his face.

Elias sighed and said, "All right. I will let you go if you tell me who made you the City Lord of Kilmir."

Berlic’s face brightened instantly. "Syrion! It was Syrion who informed me about everything."

Elias exhaled deeply and remarked inwardly, ’So it was indeed the eldest.’

"Now that you have answered me, you are free to go. I will count to ten, and if you do not leave Kilmir within that time, I will personally behead you."

Berlic’s body trembled as Aura surrounded him, forming a thin layer of crimson smoke.

"One..." Elias counted.

Berlic rushed toward the balcony and jumped down. The ground cratered beneath his feet as he sped away, his body turning into a crimson streak.

Elias watched him and chuckled, his expression growing cold.

"Ten," he muttered, then followed.

’I will have you killed for the disrespect you have shown me,’ Berlic engraved those words into his heart as he raced through the city toward the nearest western gate.

As he passed the citizens, they noticed something strange, but none could clearly see him. He was moving far too quickly for their eyes to follow.

At last, he neared the gates, and a wide, hopeful grin spread across his face.

"I am safe!" he shouted.