Chapter 346

While Anser was holed up in his base, secretly researching the Spirit Net, the royal family of Bral and the Lords of Waterdeep simultaneously issued announcements, almost as if they had coordinated it beforehand.

The royal family of Bral formally announced the death of the eldest prince. After strongly condemning the enemies lurking in the shadows, they declared that First Princess Veronica would immediately inherit the throne, becoming the first and only queen in the history of the Cozar royal family.

At the same time, Bral would join the Holrewen Federation established by Anser while retaining independent self-government.

The entire Rock of Bral erupted in an uproar. Many people were completely stunned by the news.

Everyone knew that today was supposed to be the new king's coronation. There was indeed a new monarch now, except the king had been replaced by a queen.

And Bral had joined a federation no one had ever even heard of!

Most of the guests who had come to attend the ceremony had yet to leave, and when they heard the news, they could barely keep their emotions in check.

They knew Anser had already explicitly rejected the marriage alliance, yet the Cozar royal family was still rushing to cozy up to him.

The Holrewen Federation hadn't even officially announced its own establishment yet, and they were already impatiently scrambling to become its newest member state.

So they were determined to latch onto him no matter what!

Quite a few people also resented Anser. Sure, he hadn't married into the royal family, but he'd swallowed Bral whole instead. That was even more outrageous than a marriage alliance.

As for all that talk of independent self-government, it was enough to hear the words and leave it at that. When a strong party and a weak party joined together, even if the stronger side had no such intentions, the weaker side would gradually begin acting in accordance with the stronger side's will.

History had long since proven that this was difficult to avoid.

The local nobles were even more uneasy. They instinctively assumed that the First Princess had already fallen under Anser's spell. If the queen attempted to change Bral's rules for survival and commerce, many nobles would go bankrupt or even face a reckoning.

Meanwhile, the Temples District was in a festive mood. Evan hid away in his room, grinning from ear to ear.

The Cozar royal family did not worship Selûne, and royal authority had often clashed with divine authority.

But Anser was different. He was a paladin of the Platinum Dragon God and naturally belonged to the same camp as the Church of Selûne. There were virtually no obstacles to cooperation between the two sides.

As for the common people, most of them applauded the news.

It wasn't that they particularly liked Anser. The Cozar royal family was simply deeply unpopular, and plenty of people would have been delighted to see them wiped out altogether.

Nothing beat watching the chaos when it wasn't your problem.

Anser had already possessed considerable fame and prestige. After this incident, there was hardly anyone who hadn't heard of him, and all manner of stories and rumors about his exploits spread from place to place like wildfire.

When Waterdeep's announcement arrived, it only poured fuel on the fire. His fame continued to snowball, while the announcement itself dumped a bucket of ice water over anyone harboring ulterior motives.

It chilled them to the bone, and every scheme promptly died before it could get started.

Waterdeep officially made House Cassalanter's crimes public, repeatedly naming Anser as both the one who had uncovered them and the one who had destroyed the evil behind them.

To save people, he had ridden a magical vessel from inside the city all the way to the estate beyond its walls, then, with a team of only five, fought his way through the notorious hidden stronghold of House Cassalanter.

At least two peak-level professionals, four high-level professionals, and nearly a hundred other professionals had died in the battle!

This wasn't some rumor spread by wandering bards. It was Waterdeep's official account.

Many people who had met Anser were left dazed. The man had still been smiling and chatting amiably with everyone that very morning. None of them had imagined that he had just pulled off something so enormous.

Evan, a Chosen, had already heard about it, but he hadn't known the details of what happened or the casualties involved. After reading the announcement, he too fell into a daze for a moment and remained silent for a long time.

"From this day forward, you will never be an unknown again. All of Faerûn will sing of your renown."

He gazed at the moon emerging on the horizon and murmured the words to himself.

Anser had slain black dragons, exterminated undead, fought liches, purged mind flayers, and single-handedly killed a Chosen... Although he'd gained some fame from those exploits, it had always felt rather insubstantial because there had been so few eyewitnesses.

People loved to exaggerate, and no one took a bard's songs entirely at face value.

But Waterdeep was different. The City of Splendors was the jewel of the Sword Coast and even all of Faerûn, with unparalleled prestige and credibility. There was no reason to doubt its official endorsement.

...

The moon hung above the treetops beneath a sparse scattering of stars.

In a bedroom at Fort Jacqueline, Anser and Iris lay on the bed in each other's arms, their gazes unfocused.

A smile played on Iris's lips as she immersed herself in the Spirit Net's novel features.

She, Bratt, and another twenty or thirty people had become test users of the Spirit Net. Their access ranged from Junior Member all the way to Supreme Member, allowing them to freely use every feature, with all the energy costs borne by the mythallar.

Anser had only told them it was his latest discovery and asked everyone to help explore its capabilities. He hadn't said anything more.

And everyone tacitly refrained from asking.

Someone initiated a group telepathic link. Once Iris accepted, square images instantly appeared in her mind, each centered on a familiar face.

Bratt sat beside a desk piled high with documents. Behind him stood a black stone wall, smooth as a mirror.

Kaleno, Salian, and Finn were crammed into a small room. Moonlight streamed through the window, beyond which lay a quiet collection of dilapidated wooden houses dotted with lights. It was probably Dawn Town.

Stoll was drinking. His room was spacious, and its decor made it obvious that he was in one of Fort Jacqueline's guest rooms.

Inside the Black Tower, Gwyneth swept her gaze across the images before finally settling on the man holding Iris in his arms.

A trace of loneliness flashed through her eyes. She turned away and, as if nothing had happened, began talking with her younger brother Kaleno about how things had been going lately.

There were simply too many people, and with everyone talking at once, the whole thing sounded like a chaotic mess.

Anser watched for a while before withdrawing. The results had basically met his expectations. There would be no problem charging people for this.

'Give it two days of testing, set the pricing, and it'll be ready for an official launch.'

Excitement surged through him.

The mythallar was his Artifact. The stronger the Spirit Net became, the stronger he became.

As long as he was within Holrewen, the stability of his Magic Power, its recovery rate, and his spellcasting speed would all increase severalfold. As long as his body and mind could withstand the strain, running out of Magic Power simply wasn't an issue.

Even being far away from the mythallar didn't matter. He could still draw upon the Spirit Net for his own use, easily sensing the flow of Magic Power and spell effects around him. No magical trap would be able to catch him off guard.

In battle, the mythallar could transmit Magic Power and psionic power to him and assist with his spellcasting, providing substantial improvements across the board.

Especially when it came to endurance. He was finally beginning to have the resources to burn through his power without restraint.

'The Weave really is power!'

Just as he was marveling at that, a Sending suddenly came through.

Liam: {Anser, judgment has been passed in the House Cassalanter case. Everyone involved has been sentenced to death. The soul of the mastermind, Lady Matilda, will be extracted and permanently imprisoned...}

{Thank you,} Anser replied calmly.

He was actually somewhat dissatisfied, but this was already as far as Waterdeep could go. By any standard, these were severe sentences.

House Cassalanter was effectively finished. There was no way it could recover its former strength within a century, but its lineage had survived, which meant there would always be another opportunity in the future.

{What about the islands in the Sea of Fallen Stars?} he asked.

Liam: {Those people weren't involved in stealing souls or making deals with the Hells, so... no action will be taken against them.}

Anser sighed softly. So this was the real open stratagem.

Fighting pirates and carving out territory in lawless lands genuinely wasn't illegal. The two plans had been pursued in parallel: if both succeeded, each would reinforce the other; if one failed, they could still preserve the gains from the other.

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