Chapter 570: Illusion |
Bazel was violently pressed into a chair by Ash; his entire frame of white bones cracked and scattered, yet he didn’t care. He only lifted his head to gaze up at the rows of Tribunal seats above.
The towering dome, the faceless Judges, the armed Guards, and the Banshee standing at his side.
Perhaps Bazel should have felt fear—but in that moment, he only felt dazed.
A familiar feeling. As he looked around at the Tribunal, memories began to surge within him.
Though he had undergone the baptism of the Sanctum of Forgetting, there were some things he could never forget.
Those fearful and envious gazes, the Empress’s bloodstained shoes, the sealed decree gripped in her hand, the covenant handed to Lina.
Bazel raised his head toward the Tribunal, his gaze sweeping over each figure—until he suddenly met eyes with a nobleman propping his head on one hand.
The Prince. Bazel recognized him. Yet the man’s indifferent gaze seemed strangely familiar.
Bazel sank into recollection.
What others spent their lives studying, he could master in little time. If he devoted himself to a craft, he would soon become an expert in it.
Everyone who saw him as a child, who spoke with him, would smile and praise him from the heart: “What a clever child.”
Then, once turned away, they would mutter under their breath—“A pity he’s a bastard.”
The tone of regret always sounded a little too deliberate, the hint of schadenfreude impossible to hide.
“Bastard.” It was the one thing he could never change, no matter how hard he tried.
Bloodline, surname, nobility, lowliness—these were the finest chisels of the world, carving a free soul into something humble.
He had once asked his mother about it, full of unwillingness, and in her look of sorrow and pain, his childhood memories abruptly ended.
Those were his happiest years—the only time he had ever been truly content.
Perhaps that was why he had always wanted to prove himself. He tried to reach out, to seize everything before him.
Admiration and praise soon turned into scolding and slander, yet Bazel stood firm amidst the storm. He mingled among the nobility with ease; those noble bloodlines and glorious surnames seemed nothing more than that.
Bazel relished this feeling—the joy of a bastard stepping upon the heads of others. He took pride in it.
Perhaps he would have lived his lowly and dull life that way forever.
But when did everything begin to change?
As the pages of memory turned, they stopped at a particular moment.
It, too, was in a courtroom.
In the first year of the Empress’s reign, Duke Sigmund attempted regicide within the court, and Isabella killed him on the spot. Several of his vassals were sentenced to hanging.
Yet Bazel knew that was not the truth.
That day in the courtroom, led by Sigmund, the nobles had joined hands to strike against the Empress, placing her in the defendant’s seat.
The Empire’s court had never judged an Empress before. The nobles, smug and self-congratulatory, acted as if they already held the young sovereign in their grasp.
Bazel had used some means to insert himself into this spectacle, seated upon the judging bench, lowering his gaze upon the crowned figure.
Just then, Isabella raised her head and looked around. Their eyes met for a brief moment—and Bazel froze.
In those red eyes, there was delight, excitement, greed, bloodlust—but not a trace of fear.
The rest of the memory drowned in chaos. The Empress strode through the courtroom, stepping through blood, her gleaming sword cleaving heads one after another.
When Bazel came to, she had already pinned him underfoot. Isabella tapped his cheek with the tip of her sword, leaving a crimson mark.
“Tell those fools—if they want to kill me, they can come and draw their own blades.”
Bazel gazed at her blood-soaked gown and, suddenly, it felt as if his world was shattering.
Beyond the nobles’ rules and their careful words, beyond their cultivated manners, there existed another kind of power—one that could truly decide everything.
It was so beautiful, so mesmerizing, that Bazel felt everything he had done before had been nothing but childish play.
Her Majesty left. Bazel watched her back, instinctively reaching out a hand toward it.
He never managed to forget that silhouette.
The vision blurred. The pages of memory turned swiftly once more. When Bazel lifted his head again, the Empress was tapping his shoulder with her sword.
“From this day forth, you are the Frontier Count. Your fief lies within the Canary Mountains. Go collect your seal of ennoblement later.” Isabella sheathed her sword and waved a hand. “Next.”
A young man knelt trembling before her, but Bazel didn’t pay attention—he only stared at the Empress in obsession.
“The Empress has been assassinated?!”
Bazel sprang from his armchair, trembling as he held the letter.
“Impossible… Impossible… Absolutely impossible!!!”
He rushed out the door.
During that time, the Winter Wolves Guard went mad, sweeping across the Northlands again and again, while the armies of the Three Grand Dukes hurriedly avoided their path.
The memories grew jumbled once more. When Bazel turned back, he found himself once again standing in his room. From the emptiness came a woman’s voice:
“So, have you decided?”
“What you said… is it true? The White-Bone Sanctum can really help me seize the entire continent?”
“Of course. We help you conquer the continent—you give us protection. A fair exchange.”
Bazel nodded, then suddenly asked, “I’ve heard that the relic can resurrect the dead?”
“Naturally. You’ve seen those buriers of the White Ravens—their undying nature comes from the White-Bone Sanctum. Do you have someone you wish to bring back?”
“No,” he said casually, “just asking. Let’s sign the covenant.”
Laughter drifted from the shadows behind him.
Bazel tried to close his eyes—but he no longer had flesh or blood. His memories were in complete disarray. Forcing his mind to focus, he found himself standing upon the Wasteland.
“Lord Bazel, if we continue the fight, the casualties will be terrible. That Transcendent called Nora is too strong!”
Bazel glared fiercely at the small figure wielding a chain mace, hatred rising within him without reason.
Why… why could she not die? She was but a mere burier—yet someone as brilliant and perfect as Her Majesty had to perish?
“Kill her! No matter what, kill her! Cut off her head!” he roared at the Soldiers beside him.
Lina’s lips curled faintly at the edge.
“Bazel, do you admit your crimes?”
The memories suddenly cleared. Bazel froze—he was still in the Tribunal, pinned to the chair.
Lifting his head, his eyes met the Prince’s once again.
Cold. Indifferent. As though looking at a stone by the roadside.