"How have you been lately?"

"Fine."

"Your body’s alright, right?"

"I was drained dry... no, I just ran out of strength, that’s all. I’ll be fine after I rest a bit. But you, Your Lordship Father..."

"Haha, it’s just a small injury!"

After that brief awkwardness, father and son finally shifted to the kind of family talk that was less awkward.

Funal was also tactful. He dragged Donick—who still wanted to hang around like a third wheel—out of the room, leaving this pair of long-separated father and son some time alone.

"Is it really just a small injury?"

Muen looked at the man on the sickbed.

He was honored as the Lion King. He commanded the Empire’s most elite army. Before the demonfolk united, and before they colluded with the Kingdom, he had actually been the one pressing the demonfolk down and beating them.

And now this tough, hardened man couldn’t even get up to greet his son—for the time being, he simply couldn’t.

"Donick said you don’t even have medicine at all..."

"The wounds on my body aren’t something medicine can cure."

Lorne covered his chest and gave a bitter smile.

"That old thing from Magic Mountain—his molten lava crimson poison isn’t so easy to get rid of. It’s not enough to take this old life of mine, but it has kept me from moving freely for now. Those demonfolk bastard Grand Dukes probably planned this long ago. Even if they couldn’t really kill me, they wanted to make me unable to command the army for the time being."

"To hold you back, Your Lordship Father?"

"Yes. Hold me back. They understand that what truly blocks them isn’t me, the Lion King—it’s this fortress guarded by the Empire’s elites. Once they break through here, having a few more Lion Kings won’t change a thing."

Lorne let out a sigh.

In truth, before all of this happened, he hadn’t expected the demonfolk offensive to suddenly become so resolute and so united. They had originally been like loose sand—each Grand Duke’s troops fighting their own wars under their own banners. But this time, they had strangely gathered into one.

That was why he’d been caught completely off guard, and why the Empire’s army suffered heavy losses in that abnormal change.

"They... planned it long ago?"

Muen frowned.

Demonfolk who suddenly clenched into a fist were indeed ten times more frightening than before, but... why?

Was it really just because they’d seized this chance while the Kingdom stirred trouble?

Or was it...

"By the timeline, isn’t it too early? No... it’s meaningless to keep obsessing over whether it matches the original anymore. Just like Liya’s case—this so-called plot was already completely unrecognizable."

Muen gave up that meaningless line of thought.

Right now, the most urgent thing wasn’t why the demonfolk had united.

It was how this fortress could stand firm and never fall.

"Your Lordship Father, you said just now you were poisoned?"

"You could call it poison. That ghost thing from Magic Mountain dug it out of his own head."

"Then give me your hand for a moment."

"My hand?"

Lorne froze. "What are you trying to do, you brat?"

"Your Lordship Father isn’t some pretty girl—why are you getting all shy and coy about it?"

Muen was speechless. Taking advantage of the fact he’d recovered a bit of strength, he grabbed his father’s arm in one go.

Then he closed his eyes and tugged at that trace of deep darkness flowing in the depths of his mind.

"This is..."

Lorne’s mind tightened, because he felt a flame so cold it made even his soul feel chilled, swaying inside his body at this very moment.

And those molten lava crimson toxins clogging his meridians... were actually being swallowed—just a tiny bit—by that flame.

"Hngh."

Muen let out a muffled groan and released his grip. Immediately, a nosebleed flowed from his nostrils.

"As expected of a vicious poison left behind by a Grand Duke. I can’t resolve it all at once. Looks like I’ll have to spend a bit more time and take it slowly."

Muen panted, quickly regulating his breathing.

But at this moment, Lorne wasn’t happy about the poison in his body being diluted at all. Instead, he stared at Muen with a grave expression and said in a low voice,

"That kind of thing is very dangerous."

"I know."

"It feels like some kind of power from an Evil God."

"No."

Muen said seriously,

"The origin is a bit complicated, but this is completely, entirely my own power now. It no longer has any essential connection to any Evil God. About that, Your Lordship Father, please rest assured."

"Is that so..."

Lorne studied his son again, carefully.

He knew his son had suddenly become this outstanding, and that in this short year he must have gone through many things—but now it seemed what he’d experienced was even richer... and more dangerous than he’d imagined.

"I still think you shouldn’t walk this kind of crooked path."

Lorne snorted coldly.

"In the future, you’re going to inherit our old Campbell family’s legacy. You’re going to inherit my title as Lion King. You have no need to rely on this kind of ghost thing to become stronger!"

"Legacy..."

The corner of Muen’s mouth twitched.

"I remember that every generation of the Campbell family produces a Crowned One. Don’t tell me that’s because—"

"That’s right! It’s precisely our Campbell family’s ‘Blood Lion’ legacy!"

After the black flame swallowed a portion of the poison, Lorne also recovered a bit of mobility. He immediately sat up and took off his shirt.

...That was also a body tempered a thousand times. His bronze skin was covered in scars, and as Duke Campbell turned around, Muen saw it clearly—

The vivid blood-colored male lion carved into his father’s back!

The instant that blood lion appeared, Muen almost instinctively felt a tremor from his bloodline. At the same time, a thick lion’s roar echoed in his ears, making his heartbeat accelerate uncontrollably!

"Every generation’s Campbell family head has to inherit this legacy. It can’t make you become a top-tier powerhouse directly, but it can pave the road for you to reach the peak of power!"

As he said that, the pride on Lorne’s face was hard to hide, because this was the key to why the Campbell bloodline was thin, yet had remained strong for hundreds of years.

That was also why he hadn’t been too strict with Muen before. With the Campbell legacy here, even if Muen was a playboy, with the Campbell family’s resources it would still be enough to push him to the gates of becoming a Crowned One.

But if he could pull himself together on his own, that was even better. After all, this legacy decided the lower bound, but the upper bound still depended on him—

"Um..."

Muen suddenly raised his hand, trembling a little, and interrupted Lorne’s beautiful fantasy.

"F-Father... I think I can’t inherit that legacy anymore."

"What?"

Lorne didn’t understand.

"You’re of the Campbell bloodline. Why can’t you—"

"Because..."

Muen also turned around, took off his shirt, and showed the thing on his own back to his father.

It was also an exquisite scrollwork.

But it didn’t have the living ferocity and murderous vitality of the blood lion. Instead, it was filled with a delicate beauty that made you sigh in admiration.

Dense, countless lines of carefully engraved magic-power patterns—like grain fused into Muen’s skin—jumped with his heartbeat.

And at the center of those patterns were several alchemical cores like miniature suns. Three of them had already lit up in sequence...

Even if you didn’t understand this thing at all, as Duke Campbell, Lorne could still sense the indescribable profundity inside it.

"W-Wh-what?!"

But he was still furious—or rather, enraged.

"Unfilial son! How could you casually put something like this on your body?! This kind of thing—at a glance it’s obviously something some long-winded, extremely weak mage cooked up... you, you’ve done something that betrays the ancestors!"

Lorne beat his chest and stomped his feet, filled with grief and indignation.

He could accept his son being a playboy who only knew how to chase women.

But he couldn’t accept his son being led astray by those damned mages!

"I-is it really that serious...?" Muen shrank his neck.

"No! I can’t let you be ruined by this unreliable thing! Who did this for you? Tell me! After I finish this war, I’ll go back and settle accounts with him!"

Lorne was furious, but he couldn’t bear to vent his anger at his own son, so he could only dump all his rage onto that dog bastard who misled the kid.

"Teacher Mera."

"Who?"

"Meladomir."

Muen said, "My current teacher."

Lorne froze all at once, like he’d been splashed with a bucket of cold water. His lips worked as he muttered in a daze,

"Which Meladomir...?"

"Which other Meladomir would it be?"

Muen shrugged.

"The old loli who’s been sleeping under the academy for who knows how many years. I think there should only be one Meladomir in the whole world."

"...Oh. I-is that so."

Lorne silently lay back down again.

"It’s the legendary Archmage Meladomir. Then it’s not strange. Only that one could engrave something so profound, something so admirable, right?"

"She really is amazing."

Muen comforted him along with it.

"As for what these magic-power patterns really are, I can’t explain it to you for now, Your Lordship Father. But I can promise you this—this really is just a tiny bit more high-end than our family’s Blood Lion legacy."

"..."

After his good son’s “comfort,” Lorne closed his eyes, as if he’d fallen into deep reflection about life.

Muen also didn’t disturb him, because he had a feeling that disturbing him right now would be bad for his father in all kinds of ways.

So he only waited patiently.

After a while...

"Oh, right—the things that happened in Belrand before..."

As if nothing had happened, Lorne suddenly tossed the topic ten thousand miles away.

"Didn’t Your Lordship Father receive the intel?"

Muen’s cheek twitched as he answered.

"I did. I just still can’t quite believe it."

Lorne opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling with an extremely complicated expression. Even though he’d made many preparations for it, a lot of those things—so far away on the border—really were drastic changes that were hard to believe.

"I’ve had decades of friendship with His Majesty... His Majesty Aldrich. I never thought he’d leave so easily."

"His Majesty Aldrich didn’t ‘leave easily.’ He laid the road first, and only then did we get this result."

Muen said solemnly.

"The Inner Council lost. We won. And Celicia took up his will and became the Empress with true power in her hands. That’s also why the Empire didn’t carry out the originally more rational and more steady retreat strategy—the kind that would have made all efforts on the entire Abyss defense line completely meaningless."

"Is that so? Heh... His Majesty Aldrich, that old bastard, always thinks further than I do."

Lorne chuckled.

"So the Inner Council really got purged completely?"

"Yes. From top to bottom, the entire Belrand was basically washed clean. In the future, when the duke’s household hosts banquets again, it probably won’t be as lively as before."

Muen also joked along. When he spoke of it, he couldn’t help recalling some absurd old memories.

"I see... I fought those old bastards for twenty years. I never thought I wouldn’t even have to make a move, and they’d be gone just like that. It really makes you feel complicated."

Lorne smacked his lips and sighed.

"You could call it getting what they asked for—killing themselves with their own stupidity."

Muen shrugged.

If those great nobles who had entrenched themselves in the Empire for a thousand years weren’t so greedy, and knew when to advance and retreat, then whether it was the former Emperor Aldrich III or the current Celicia, it would actually have been hard to truly clear them out.

Because for a disease hidden inside the body, most of the time you can only see where the root is once it flares up—and only then do you have the resolve to scrape bone and remove poison.

"And what about home?"

Lorne asked again.

"It’s been too long since I went back. I don’t even know how things are now."

"What changes could there be at home? You and I basically never go back. It’s all kept up by the maids’ daily maintenance. But don’t worry—Your Lordship Father’s beloved good wine and garden will definitely be—"

"I mean my estates. Who said the duke’s residence? If I’m not dead, who would dare touch the duke’s residence?"

Lorne suddenly got worked up on the bed and turned his head to glare at his son.

"Don’t tell me you really sold them all! Those estates are generations of accumulation from our old Campbell family!"

"Ah... this."

Muen awkwardly scratched his cheek and said sheepishly,

"I did sell one or two or three... eight or nine of them or something, but don’t worry, Your Lordship Father. None of those estates were sold for nothing. At least in terms of profits, I’m still earning!"

"Of course I know you’re earning. Now you’re about to mix your way into becoming a prince—of course it’s a huge win... If you’d lost money, I—I..."

Lorne fumed for a long time, but in the end he still couldn’t bear to throw out any harsh threat.

If he’d been as strict with Muen as his title “Lion King” implied, then the earlier Muen Campbell wouldn’t have been spoiled into that playboy mess.

"But speaking of it, you brat really do have a bit of my style when I was young. You actually managed to take down Cel—no, managed to take down Her Majesty the Empress."

Lorne snorted, then flipped like turning a page. Stroking his beard, he said with satisfaction,

"A marriage contract on paper is ultimately pale for an imperial sovereign. Having real feelings is more reliable."

"It’s alright. Your son does have a bit of talent in that area."

Muen forced a smile out.

"You do have some talent, but... you’re still a little short. You should know I’ve always been faithful. In my heart there was only Your Ladyship Mother. But when I was young, there were still many confidantes who admired me."

Lorne stroked his beard and lifted his chin, swaying as he reminisced about his green youth.

"I-is that so...?"

Muen’s eyes drifted.

"As expected of Your Lordship Father—your personal charm really is outstanding. Your son admires you deeply."

"Hm? Your reaction..."

As a duke, Lorne was no fool. With one glance he could see Muen’s current state had something fishy. A sharp light flashed in [N O V E L I G H T] his eyes as he said,

"Don’t tell me you really have a lover outside behind Her Majesty the Empress’s back. I heard that when you were at the academy, you were pretty close with some senior—"

"Th-this..."

Muen wiped cold sweat.

"You could say we were a bit close. But... from so far away, Your Lordship Father even knows about that?"

"You think the Campbell intel network only serves you?"

The more he spoke, the more Lorne got worked up again.

"How can you be so ungrateful? Other women are one thing, but that’s Celicia! She’s the Empire’s Empress! Putting a hat on the Empire’s Empress—are you trying to make our Campbell family—"

"Please calm down, Your Lordship Father. Celicia knows about this too."

"Hah?"

Lorne—love saint—was instantly dumbfounded.

"Her Majesty... knows?"

"Yes. She knows."

Muen nodded seriously.

After all, they’d already done that together. There was no reason to keep pretending everyone didn’t know and bury their heads like ostriches.

"No way. From what I know of Her Majesty’s temperament, she’s someone who can’t tolerate sand in her eyes. She’d allow you to fool around?"

Lorne said in shock.

"Even if her feelings for you are deep enough that she can’t bear to do anything to you, are you sure she wouldn’t have those... those outside women... tossed straight into the river?"

"Well... I think Celicia definitely wants to."

Muen laughed even more awkwardly.

"She just can’t do it for now."

"..."

Lorne froze again.

This was already the who-knew-how-many-th time he’d frozen today.

But at the same time he froze, his thoughts had already begun to spin crazily.

After a long while, he finally understood what it meant for even the Empire’s Empress to be “unable to do it for now.”

"Sigh, son. If something really happens in the future, don’t say you’re related to my Campbell family."

Lorne patted Muen’s shoulder, his face full of grief as he said,

"Our Campbell family is lowly and insignificant. We can’t withstand a tsunami this horrifying..."