Chapter 254: The Count’s Truth

Upon hearing that title, a murmur swept through the Council of Elders and the high nobility assembled in the hall.

The iron-masked figure raised his chained hands. With a click of the mechanical fasteners, he unlatched and removed the metal helm from his head.

The mask hit the marble floor with a heavy clatter.

Once exposed, it revealed a face of sculpted features, framed by a thick cascade of golden hair that gleamed like the midday sun. Seeing him, Prince Caelen felt his heart freeze in his chest.

Caelen knew full well that the auditor assigned to his expedition was a warrior of elite standing within the crown’s secret hierarchy, but he never could have guessed his true identity. By strict decree enforced by the monarch, Royal Auditors always traveled under specialized masks to conceal their true lineage and prevent political pressure or favoritism. Discovering that the warrior who had sacrificed his arm and burned through his vital mana to save his life was none other than the young Count Gideon left the crown prince thoroughly paralyzed in shock.

Count Gideon let out a sigh. The air in the throne room seemed to freeze as the entire nobility fixed their eyes upon him, awaiting his response.

Gideon was no fool. He knew full well that contradicting Prince Caelen and calling out his leadership in front of the court was a guarantee of gaining a mortal enemy. Yet concealing the reality would bring a fate worse: when the King discovered the true magnitude of the monsters inhabiting those forest depths and the abominations the tribe deployed in combat, withholding information would be branded as high treason. In this kingdom, high treason was paid with the extermination of an entire bloodline.

Prioritizing his lineage’s survival over the heir’s ego, Gideon chose to save his own life and deal with settling the score with the prince later.

"No, Your Majesty," declared Count Gideon, his voice firm and clear, echoing across the hall. "I do not share General-Adjutant Valerius’s account."

Prince Caelen turned pale, feeling the ground crumble beneath his feet.

"The intelligence reports provided to us were garbage," continued Gideon, keeping his eyes locked onto the monarch. "We did not face a primitive tribe of savages. The shaman leading that territory holds command over calamity-rank beasts, and his troops are equipped with magic weaponry and artillery of a destructive power we have never witnessed. The vanguard was not defeated due to tactical incompetence in the field; it was pulverized by a military force that exceeds our estimations."

A murmur erupted among the Council of Elders and the high nobility. Beatrix Le Croix curled her lips into a smirk, relishing the spectacle as she toyed with her whip.

The roar of murmurs died down as Beatrix took two steps forward, her leather boots creaking against the marble floor.

"Errors in intelligence, you say...?" purred Beatrix with sweetness.

The executioner turned her head and locked her golden eyes onto Varis, Prince Caelen’s advisor and right-hand man. The prince felt a stab of agony in his chest: Varis was not only his chief strategist, but the brain behind his finances and network of contacts. Losing him was equivalent to having half his life ripped away, yet Caelen couldn’t move a finger. He could only watch as Beatrix’s gaze fell upon his most trusted servant.

Varis began to tremble. The air around him turned to lead, and his legs gave out. He collapsed to his knees upon the noble dais before anyone could say a word.

Beatrix flicked two fingers of her left hand. Two of the Chief Executioner’s guards stepped forward in silence, grabbed Varis by the shoulders, and dragged him from his noble seat to the center of the hall, tossing him onto the marble beside the bloodied Valerius and Count Gideon.

"Well now... Count Gideon," continued Beatrix, pacing around the advisor while playing with the barbs of her whip. "Where was the intelligence of Advisor Varis mistaken?"

Gideon had loaded the bullet into the chamber; now there was nothing left to do but pull the trigger.

"First, the nature of their weaponry," stated Gideon in a sharp voice, locking his eyes on the trembling advisor. "In the reports provided by Varis, it was stated that the enemy utilized simple lead projectiles capable of penetrating leather, asserting that they lacked the power to so much as dent our magic silver armor."

The silence in the hall was absolute. Gideon paused before delivering the strike:

"That was a lie. The enemy possesses firearms with a penetrative power that shredded our infantry’s armor as if it were paper. Only the shields and heavy suits of our elite vanguards managed to withstand the impact... and barely so, as the force of each bullet was savage enough to shatter the bones beneath despite our magical protection."

Varis slouched his shoulders, breaking into a sweat on the marble floor as the King’s glare bore into the back of his neck.

"Second," continued the Count, raising his voice to echo throughout the hall, "Varis’s intelligence asserted that the enemy’s explosives could only be detonated by burying charges in the ground as fixed traps. This was false. They possess the capability to launch those explosive payloads at long distances with accuracy, and the magnitude of each blast is enough to blow the peak of a mountain to pieces."

Beatrix halted her pacing, smirking as the royal advisor’s face turned the color of wax.

Beatrix tilted her head, snapping the leather of her whip between her hands as she kept her gaze locked on the count.

"Anything else, Count Gideon?" purred Beatrix with a smirk on her lips. "I assume the advisor’s incompetence didn’t stop at their weaponry."

"The beasts," declared Gideon without hesitation, dropping the final blow. "Nor were we informed about the presence of beasts of such scale and power. The shaman has at his disposal a giant eagle at least fifty meters in size, an absolute black wolf capable of hiding within shadows at will, and a fifteen-meter bear capable of breathing destructive blasts of fire."

Count Gideon paused and clenched his remaining chained fist. He touched the stump of his severed arm, letting a shadow of pain cross his face for the first time as he recalled the slaughter at the camp.

"And lastly... a creature that resembles a small mountain cat. It moves at speed, as fast as I am. It is so lethal that my two fellow Auditors were decapitated by it before anyone present could react."

The entire hall fell into a silence. Varis collapsed against the marble floor, unable to utter a word, as the King’s gaze finalized his sentence.