"Hss... haa..."

Stretching lazily, Muen stepped out of his room to greet another indolent dusk.

The sun had already sunk halfway below the horizon. Reflected through the cover of the clouds, the orange-yellow afterglow looked like the shy flush on a young girl’s cheeks.

Muen could not help feeling as though a lifetime had passed. Thinking about it carefully, it seemed he had not seen the sun in its full shape for several days now. Every night, war began. Every morning, he went to sleep. He would not wake until the sun was already slanting toward evening, and just like that, the finest hours of the day slipped away between closing and opening his eyes.

Still, he had seen quite a few genuinely blushing cheeks from actual girls, so it was not a loss.

"Man, no matter how you raise them, handling three at once is still kind of rough on the body."

Rubbing his aching lower back, Muen smiled through the pain. "Good thing I got even stronger, or I really wouldn’t have been able to keep up."

Liya’s Holy Light techniques were one thing. Muen was already used to that girl’s absurdly long endurance. But even Ariel, by the end of it, kept getting crushed under attacks from both sides until she started losing spectacularly every time. In the end she got so embarrassed she flew into a rage and directly used ancient magic to draw out her potential, instantly raising her combat power by three whole tiers. Who could take that?

Even though she still got made to lose spectacularly after drawing out her potential.

And with Liya’s childhood-friend attack buff in the mix, after several rounds of campaigning Muen had also discovered a few more of Ariel’s weak points... like how the more humiliated she felt, the more easily she would reach her peak with her little face all red. It was adorable.

So in last night’s triangle, the more he thought about it, the more it seemed An had been the best-behaved.

Of course, that was not to say An was harmless.

She was just more plain and unadorned.

She had neither Liya’s sacred, dazzling goddess power nor Ariel’s unfathomable ancient magic.

She was simply a pure juice-squeezer.

A plain, unadorned juice-squeezer. An emotionless juice-squeezer. Whether from above or below, every move she made relied solely on her own pure squeezing ability, never borrowing the aid of any outside force.

But precisely because she was so simple and direct, when the battle reached its final stage, the one who usually got what she wanted and ended up thoroughly filled was also her.

"Sigh. Once in a while is fine, but I can’t handle this every day. Time is gold, time is gold."

After delivering a rather melancholy sigh and solemnly emphasizing the importance of cherishing time, Muen immediately sprawled into a chair in utter decadence and, beneath the ever more beautiful sunset, watched the clouds drift and curl.

All those sculptures, fountains, and nameless works of art his father loved so much were still lying there in pieces, not yet repaired. But perhaps because the weather was so good at this moment, because the breeze was so warm, even those fragments somehow looked far more pleasing to the eye.

Surely, with such a beautiful outcome, even Father would not blame him too much.

Muen smiled faintly. In the little garden at the far end, Ariel and Liya were huddled together, chattering away about something. Every so often they would shoot a vicious glare in this direction with remarkable tacit understanding. It seemed that after last night’s frank honesty with one another, their relationship had already gone back to being the best of friends.

An, meanwhile, approached Muen silently with tea in hand.

"Young Master."

"Hm?"

"May I kill those two pests now?"

"No."

"Then just one."

"Not one either. And also, they are not pests."

"Not now, then what about tomorrow?"

"Not tomorrow either."

Muen paused. "Not ever."

"...Tch."

An clicked her tongue in displeasure, but in the end said nothing more. She set down the tea tray, walked behind Muen, and gently began massaging his temples.

Muen closed his eyes slightly and leaned back into An’s bosom, which, though not as ample as Liya’s, was still broad enough, and enjoyed this hard-won moment of leisure.

No Evil Gods, and no followers of Evil Gods.

No bad people, and no one stirring up trouble.

No incidents, and no sudden crises.

Everything was so beautiful.

"How peaceful..." Muen could not help sighing, as though all his worries had already faded away...

...

...

"How peaceful..."

The Empire.

The Notasia Frontline.

Ignoring the obstruction of a whole crowd of officers, even those threatening her with death, Celicia stood at the very highest point of the wall and looked down below.

Her voice was so flat and undisturbed that it seemed as though she were merely stating something entirely ordinary.

Yet deep within those cold eyes, cold enough to seem frozen, a ripple of puzzled thought spread like a tremor across an icy lake.

"They’re killing each other with all they’ve got outside the walls, and you call this peaceful? Have you been fighting so long you’ve finally rattled your brain loose?"

Those noisy officers and attendants had long since been driven away. This place should have been off-limits to everyone except Celicia. But as darkness stirred along the back side of the wall, a girl in a black dress appeared there as well.

She showed not the slightest respect due to the Empress of the Empire. Instead, her alluring eyes curved as she teased,

"Or is it that you’ve been emperor for so long you stopped caring whether the people below live or die?"

Celicia lowered her head slightly.

Beyond the wall, the sounds of slaughter shook the sky.

Across the vast battlefield, the armies of the Empire and the Kingdom were locked in combat.

These were elites from both sides, cavalry clad in armor. Taking advantage of the deepening dusk, both armies had coincidentally sent out elite forces to ambush the other. The result was that the two cavalry units met directly on the battlefield, and the attempted sneak attacks turned into a brutal head-on clash.

From Celicia’s vantage point, she could clearly see the two formations under different banners crash into one another and merge. Curses, hoofbeats, the clash of steel, the explosions of magic... who knew how much blood and fire burst forth into the night, only to vanish without a trace before the last light disappeared.

"You’re right. My brain is broken."

Celicia turned back expressionlessly. "If I were still normal, I should have thrown you into the vanguard on the first day so you’d stop waving yourself around in front of me and irritating me."

"Oh my, weren’t you the one who insisted on dragging me here?"

Anna patted her chest in feigned grievance. "Otherwise I’d be in Belrand right now, having the time of my life."

"I don’t want to know what your so-called good time entails, but here, you ought to show the proper respect due from a subject of the Empire."

Celicia’s face turned cold. "You should address me as Your Majesty."

"Really?"

Anna showed no fear at all under Celicia’s gaze. "Then how about we each call the other what suits us? I call you Your Majesty, and you call me... big sister?"

Crack... crack...

A biting chill erupted in an instant.

It seemed those two words had stirred up some shameful memory in Celicia. Before the last note of Anna’s voice had even fallen, a layer of ice had already frozen up to her feet.

But the flowing shadows blocked it, preventing it from advancing another step.

Celicia’s eyes darkened. No longer using Divine Favor, she instead began to mobilize that magnificent power amid the booming tremor in the air...

"Wait."

Anna’s brows lifted at once, and she quickly backed off with a pitiful look.

"Why go that far, Your Majesty? I was only joking. There’s no need to smash me with imperial authority."

"Hmph. Since you know I am your emperor, your Majesty, then you should also know that I am forever above you."

Celicia raised her chin slightly, the meaning behind the words unmistakable.

"All right, all right. I won’t call you big sister for now."

Anna slipped right back into a little devil’s wicked grin. "Anyway, sooner or later you’ll—"

Shing—

A flash of cold light stopped less than a centimeter from Anna’s throat.

Under the Empress’s increasingly severe stare, even the little devil finally put away her teasing expression.

"Go on, then, Your Majesty. What exactly did you mean by that just now?"

Anna let out a sigh, deeply troubled by work that did not fall within her responsibilities.

But no matter what, an official one rank above could crush you dead. This one was, after all, a Majesty. Outside of bed, at least in name, Anna still had to obey her.

"I meant it literally. The Kingdom’s side is too peaceful."

Celicia sheathed her sword. The sword at her waist was only a very ordinary one, but at this moment it already represented the royal blade that embodied the authority of the entire Empire.

"Peaceful to an unnatural degree."

"Peaceful?"

Stretching her neck, Anna looked toward the commotion beyond the walls. "You mean the part where the Kingdom used the cover of night to send a full five thousand elite cavalry and at least fifty accompanying mages to launch a surprise attack?"

"Yes. That is exactly what I mean by peaceful."

Celicia nodded. "Five thousand cavalry is nowhere near enough."

"I see..."

Anna stroked her smooth chin. "Who knew our Empress was actually such a war fanatic."

"..." 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Celicia shot Anna a cold glance. Knowing full well that Anna was deliberately trying to provoke her, she ignored it and continued,

"This peace is relative to their objective."

"Their objective?"

Anna ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) thought for a moment. "Break through our line and drive into the Empire’s interior?"

"Exactly. For the Kingdom, the most urgent matter is to break through our defenses, because only by breaking this place open and defeating us border defenders can the Kingdom’s army advance into that broad, open northern heartland of the Empire. Only then can they truly expand their gains and turn them into something tangible. Otherwise, the few strongholds they captured before are meaningless in the grand scheme of things."

Celicia tapped her fingers lightly against the weathered wall, her gaze following the battlefield below all the way into the darkness beyond.

In a war between great powers, there were in truth very, very few chances for some brilliant upset. Take tonight’s raid. Both sides were wary of the night. Both had top-tier experts hidden in the dark on guard. How could a mere five thousand cavalry possibly break through a wall personally held by the Empress of the Empire?

Did they take her for a child?

Of course not. The Kingdom was not stupid.

So in the end, this war would still come down to logistics, national strength, and foundations.

Earlier, in order to deal with the demonfolk launching an all-out offensive from the rear, the Empire had been forced to divert huge amounts of supplies and manpower. Fighting on two fronts, the Empire naturally could not hold back a prepared Kingdom that had come in fierce and surging.

That was why, even with Celicia personally arriving at the front to take command, even with powerhouses like the Swordbearers of the Silent Bureau transferred here as well... at the grand strategic level, the Empire still had no choice but to contract its line as much as possible and hold the defenses with everything it had, lest the Kingdom seize the momentum and wipe out the main force in one sweep.

The result was that the Imperial army had already abandoned six strongholds and withdrawn more than two hundred miles back from the border... If the war ended here, Celicia would probably go down in imperial history as a notorious fool of a ruler, because ever since the war five hundred years ago that had established the Empire’s prestige, the Empire had never looked this pathetic in front of the Kingdom.

But the war would not end here. Celicia knew it. Anna knew it. The officers knew it. Even the soldiers swallowing their anger knew it. Their retreat now was only so they could better clench their fist later.

So they could drag this out. They could endure. Time was on their side.

For the Kingdom, it was exactly the opposite.

They had come out in force with the strength of the whole nation, and the daily logistical cost of that million-man army was astronomical. Not to mention that the Kingdom itself clearly knew that if the Empire regained its footing, they would be the ones at a disadvantage.

So for a Kingdom pressed for time, this kind of raid, which had already happened who knew how many times before, felt far too childish.

"Will the Kingdom know about the upheaval in the Abyss?" Celicia suddenly asked.

"You mean the demonfolk suddenly disappearing?"

"Yes."

Celicia’s gaze flickered slightly.

Before leaving Belrand, she had promised Muen that she would end this war within half a year and then turn her forces toward the Abyss border to reinforce it.

Yet unexpectedly, the side that had already achieved total victory was the Abyss border, the one that had seemed far more difficult.

And when she thought of the certain yellow-haired man over there, none of it seemed quite so unbelievable after all.

"The Church’s official response is that they’re investigating and that a full explanation will be provided later. High-ranking figures from various powers are also sending people to the Abyss."

Anna thought about it. "But since the Abyss is closed off to information in the first place, it should still take some time before ordinary people learn about it."

"Which means the Kingdom’s upper ranks definitely know."

Celicia lowered her eyes.

In truth, this question of hers was mostly pointless.

Because if she knew of the upheaval among the demonfolk, then the Kingdom, which had only dared start this war by relying on cooperation with the demonfolk, would naturally know even earlier than anyone else.

But...

Dust billowed, hoofbeats thundered. After one fierce encounter, neither side’s cavalry had managed to claim victory. Leaving behind a field of corpses with no time to collect them, both forces withdrew.

Celicia watched the Kingdom’s army retreat into the distance and murmured softly,

"I am waiting for the strength the Empire split away to be reassembled, so I can seize an even greater victory than the one I originally anticipated. And you... what exactly are you waiting for?"