Chapter 693: The Blood-Proud Lion

After a long silence, Jonathan asks Arius, "What are you going to do with my wife and children?"

Arius replies, "I certainly will not kill them, though they will no longer be nobles."

"You spared my wife and children, so I will spare yours in return."

"They will live peaceful, ordinary lives. No matter what happens, they will not die."

Jonathan says, "It was not that I did not want to kill your wife and children. I could not kill them."

Arius nods. "I know. It is the same for me. I cannot kill your wife and children."

"It would stain my reputation."

"However, I will use them to draw out people who want to oppose me, or anyone I believe might oppose me."

"Collusion with the false king's descendants gives me the perfect excuse to cut down traitors."

"So rest easy. My sister-in-law and nephew will be extremely useful to me!"

Jonathan does not care. "That is fine. After you use them a few times, they will abandon their hopes and settle into ordinary lives."

"Whether you believe me or not, if I had been given a choice, I would never have wanted to become a prince. But I had no choice."

"Do you know the truth? I do not carry the royal bloodline. I am a pawn the Veil planted in Vorry's royal family."

"The real Jonathan was replaced when he was an infant. I am only a substitute, a pawn that could be detonated at any moment."

"Now do you understand why I had to rebel?"

"I had to protect myself. I had to protect my family."

"When a new king takes the throne, every direct descendant of the royal family must undergo a royal blood verification ceremony, whether or not that person is the one being crowned."

"What could I do once my identity was exposed in front of everyone? What choice would I have?"

"My family and everything I possess would turn to ashes!"

After listening to Jonathan's bitter confession, Arius sighs. "Brother, you grew up beside Father. How could you doubt your own bloodline so much?"

"How could you doubt Father's ability?"

"If there were truly a problem with your bloodline, believe me, Father would have discovered it."

Henwell adds, "Think about who Amir was."

"He forced Vorry through a complete transformation while trapped between several nations and became a monarch every surrounding country feared."

"Do you really believe a man like that could not even tell whether a child was his own?"

"Would he deserve the title of the Blood-Proud Lion if he were that incompetent?"

Jonathan goes rigid at those words. Henwell understands how he reached this point.

Jonathan began with the assumption that Amir saw him only as a whetstone and had never intended to groom him as an heir.

Later, after the Veil and the Church manipulated events, he began to doubt his own bloodline.

That was likely around the time of Henwell's wedding, when Jonathan approached Henwell to negotiate.

Henwell had not yet gained access to so much high-level intelligence. Back then, he thought Jonathan was merely a reckless fool driven mad by his desire for the throne.

Yet Jonathan cannot be blamed entirely for his foolishness. The Veil and the Western Federation acted together.

Across the entire continent, those capable of escaping a scheme jointly laid by those two factions can be counted on one hand.

Jonathan looks utterly defeated when he finally turns to Arius. "Thank you for explaining all this before I die."

"In return, I will give you a piece of intelligence."

"To win over the different factions, I promised them positions as electors, but it was only a delaying tactic."

"I only needed to keep them stable. In two years, after I gained control of the kingdom's elite forces, I would have triggered the disaster in the northern mountains ahead of schedule."

"A vast number of powerful enemies would have poured out of the mountains."

"I would have gathered the elite legions at Silver Peak City and let those enemies sweep away every other faction in the north."

"Then I would have slowly exterminated the enemy. By that point, the other factions would have been too badly weakened to compete with the royal family."

Henwell's heart tightens, and he exchanges a look with Arius.

"The Northern Mountain Raiders!"

Jonathan looks at them in surprise. "You know about them?"

Arius asks sternly, "What did you do?"

Jonathan replies, "They used royal blood, specifically our two elder brothers, Anthony and Christo."

"They sacrificed both of them, greatly weakening the Northern Mountain seal and causing the disaster to erupt several years early."

"I do not know the details. Once you are formally crowned, members of the Western Federation's Imperial Supervisory Office will brief you on the northern mountains."

Arius is silent for a long time. "What a goddamn mess."

Henwell frowns. "They didn't do this to help Jonathan eliminate his future opponents. It was a safeguard."

"If we won, they needed this crisis to tie us down and keep us from going after them."

Arius glares at Jonathan. "You deserve to die. You have no idea what is inside those mountains!"

"Those things cannot be described merely as 'powerful enemies.' One mistake, and all of Vorry will be destroyed!"

"Countless extraordinary beings will emerge from there, creatures born to kill and plunder. They will sweep across the entire kingdom."

Jonathan says, "That is no longer my concern. My time has come."

He takes out a small bottle of potion and drinks it in one swallow.

Neither Henwell nor Arius stops him. He deserves his fate.

The poison is vicious. Within half a minute, Henwell senses Jonathan's body beginning to shut down.

Jonathan slowly lowers himself into a seated position. His eyes lose focus as he murmurs, "In my next life, I never want to be a prince again..."

Two days later, Arius stands atop the walls of Cellarwine City and announces the end of the civil war.

Regardless of which side they fought for, the families of the dead and every disabled soldier will receive death and disability benefits from the kingdom.

Arius wants to punish the armies that followed Jonathan, but he cannot do so now.

First, he must stabilize the situation and prevent further trouble.

Second, too many people are involved. These are the elite forces the kingdom spent ten years of peace rebuilding. Holding all of them accountable would waste ten years of manpower and resources.

Such treason should be punished severely to discourage anyone from imitating it.

However, the Northern Mountain Raiders are now the greatest concern. Arius needs the kingdom's entire army intact, and he needs to make thorough preparations.

At the end of his speech, Arius says, "This conspiracy, driven by foreign interference, has cost us many friends and loved ones."

"My elder brothers are all dead, but fortunately, I still have one brother left."

"When everyone else abandoned me, he crossed a vast distance to save me."

"I heard that Jonathan offered him very generous terms."

"Now, I will prove that I am far more magnanimous than the false king!"

Arius draws a short blade across his palm, and blood immediately flows from the cut.

Then he grabs Henwell's hand and draws the blade across his palm. Nothing happens. The knife does not even break the skin.

Arius looks at Henwell. Henwell gives an embarrassed smile and releases his body's passive defenses.

Arius holds their joined hands aloft. Their blood mingles and glitters beneath the sunlight.

"I hereby declare that Henwell's territory will begin south of the Lika Mountains and extend east all the way to the border."

"The entire southern region of the kingdom, including Cloud Tree City and Liverpool, will be under Henwell's control. No one may interfere!"

"Our lord of Blood Hill will become the most powerful knight lord on the entire continent."

"And the lord of Blood Hill will lead Vorry toward one glorious achievement after another!"