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Chapter 1495: Loyalty and Betrayal

Chapter 1494: The Austrian Revolution

In Schönbrunn Palace Square, Adorno’s chest pressed against the back of a stranger, while his own back felt the thin, bony shoulder of a young boy.

Nearly twenty thousand people were gathered here—a number he’d overheard from a group of officers talking near the palace gates.

The sheer scale of the crowd filled Adorno with a sense of power, a strength that gave him the courage to challenge destiny itself.

The people around him seemed to have exhausted their voices; a heavy silence fell over them. In the swarming square, this quietude was far more unsettling than any roar of anger.

Adorno looked up at the leaden-gray clouds in the sky, then toward the second-floor balcony of Schönbrunn Palace.

Four court guards stood there, but the figure he yearned to see was nowhere to be found.

In truth, every one of the twenty thousand people in the square was staring at that balcony.

They were twenty thousand souls waiting for a judgment, and simultaneously, twenty thousand people participating in one.

Finally, the door behind the balcony creaked open, but it was only that bloated official, Count Salazar, who stepped out.

"His Majesty has received your petition," the Court Superintendent’s shrill voice drifted across the square. "He will consider it seriously! Now go back! All of you, go home!"

He gestured dismissively toward the crowd below.

The palace gates opened a crack, and dozens of servants began coming out like a string of fish, carrying large baskets of bread.

Another ten or so maids grabbed loaves of bread, distributing them to the protesting crowd all in a fluster.

The bread was white, with a golden-brown crust. Adorno had never eaten bread like this before.

But he didn't reach for it. Most people stood like him, watching with cold, indifferent eyes.

Some did take the bread, only to hurl it violently onto the ground. They shouted toward the palace balcony, "Don't think you can just dismiss us! The killers must be punished!"

"Abolish the war tax, or we still won't be able to afford bread in the future!"

"That's right! And lower the poll tax!"

"Establish a parliament! Only that will solve our problems!"

Count Salazar muttered something under his breath and retreated dejectedly into the palace.

As dusk approached, women began using their aprons to carry bread, distributing it to those who still refused to leave the square.

Adorno slept that night on the cold stone floor of the square. By the time dawn broke the next day, over twenty-six thousand people had surrounded Schönbrunn Palace.

More people, having just heard the news, were still streaming in from all directions.

Just as Adorno was listening to several people nearby discuss how much longer it would take for the Emperor to make a decision, a commotion broke out among the protesters on the outer edge.

Adorno jumped up and strained to see. Squads of police were pouring out of several street corners simultaneously.

His pupils constricted instantly.

Those gray uniforms, those sidearms at their waists—they were exactly the same as the ones he had seen that night at the coffeehouse!

What he didn't know was that Count Pergen, the Vienna Secret Police Inspector General, had realized he had caused a disaster and was now trying desperately to fix it.

The police and secret police from all of Vienna and the surrounding towns had been mobilized. His hope was to disperse the protesters if possible; at the very least, he wanted the Emperor to see that the police were making an effort to maintain order.

Adorno suddenly pointed at the nearest group of police and roared with every ounce of strength in his body, "It's them! They're the ones who opened fire at the coffeehouse on Tile Street!"

The people around him instantly erupted in fury. "They're here to kill us!"

"Those damned murderers!"

"Don't be afraid! Fight them!"

"Yes! Let these devils see what we're made of!"

The shouts were like a sudden spark, spreading through the crowd with terrifying speed.

The memory of that cold touch from Karen's body the night before flashed through Adorno's mind, making him shudder. He pushed through the crowd with all his might, forcing his way toward the police lines just dozens of meters away.

He didn't know exactly what he intended to do; he just kept moving forward, as if this were his sole reason for existing.

When he was less than twenty meters from the front line of police, they began to raise their guns.

Just like they had outside the coffeehouse.

Adorno didn't flinch. Instead, he raised his wooden stick high and let out a howl that didn't even sound human—a sound he had never heard himself make before.

Echoes rose behind him. At first, it was a dozen voices, then quickly grew to a thousand, then tens of thousands. It was a roar like the Danube bursting its banks—deafening, overwhelming, and unstoppable.

The police didn't dare fire.

There were fewer than two thousand of them, facing thirty thousand enraged citizens.

The secret police began to turn and flee in terror. Some were knocked down by stones and then ruthlessly trampled underfoot.

Adorno pursued them for three entire blocks. His legs were shaking violently from adrenaline before he finally stopped, gasping for air.

"We won!" someone shouted.

Cheers immediately erupted from all sides.

Adorno watched the secret police as they fled in a bind, then turned back toward the palace that remained stubbornly silent. For a fleeting moment, he suddenly understood the meaning of the 'rights' Mr. Steffens had spoken of.

Just then, several men dressed as civil servants pointed toward the northeast and shouted, "I heard Mr. Steffens is being held in the dungeon! Let's go save him!"

"Yes! And the twenty people from the coffeehouse that day were also taken by the secret police. To the Hofburg!"

"We cannot let those who preach liberty lose their own! To the Hofburg!"

In an instant, the crowd surged toward the city center like a massive tidal wave. Adorno was right at the crest of that wave.

In reality, they didn't know that Steffens and the others weren't in the Hofburg—their 'rank' wasn't high enough to be held there.

But as the most terrifying place in the minds of the Viennese, the Hofburg dungeon had become the crowd’s subconscious target.

Meanwhile, in the northern outskirts of Vienna, Gagern looked at his fellow students gathered before the trees and shouted words of encouragement. "We will create a brand-new Austria, and for that, we are prepared to give everything!"

Over a thousand university students, armed with flintlock muskets, immediately followed with their own cries: "For liberty and equality!"

"Let the flames of revolution burn away the old order!"

"We shall defeat any minion of the tyrant!"

Indeed, in just a few short months, these Viennese students had organized a force of nearly two thousand and undergone considerable training.

After the coffeehouse incident, the Stieler Society and other liberal organizations had immediately decided to seize the opportunity of the massive Vienna riots to launch an uprising.

As for the weapons Lucas had procured through his French connections, they had been hidden away in various universities over a month ago and were quickly distributed to the Student Legion.

However, at noon today, a student from a high noble background revealed that the Emperor had already summoned the Moravian Legion to suppress them.

Gagern, the leader of the Student Legion, immediately decided to ambush the Emperor's army in the outskirts of the city.

Gagern checked his watch and turned to a nearby student leader. "Why hasn't Mr. Scheler arrived yet?"

As soon as the words left his mouth, a student on horseback galloped toward them, shouting at the top of his lungs, "Something's wrong! Mr. Scheler went to the enemy army's location all by himself!"