IDIBC Chapter 131

Coronation Ceremony (2)

The Emperor’s curse filled the Great Prayer Hall like a demon’s prayer, but in the end it left only an empty echo. As the surroundings grew chillingly cold, an even deeper madness appeared on the Emperor’s face.

“Do you think you can save your mother by holding Harriot’s life hostage? If so, you’re mistaken. To me, your mother’s life weighs far more heavily than my son’s life. So if both die, it’s no loss to me.”

Looking into the Emperor’s eyes, Ricardo let out a bitter laugh at the fact that everything he was saying was true.

“Rochester desires only one woman. Pathetically foolish. Because of that nauseating, terrible love, the Rochester line will finally come to an end.”

At the Emperor’s unending curse, Ricardo laughed loudly for the first time since entering the Great Prayer Hall. The Emperor, glaring at Ricardo, gave an order to the knights in a voice loud enough to pierce through the laughter.

“The moment my crown passes to Rochester’s head, sever that mother’s neck!”

Ricardo kept his gaze on the Emperor as he spoke to the Grand Priest.

“Recite the prayer, Lord Johannes. It must be the most earnest and sincere prayer you’ve ever offered in your life.”

And just then, the chamberlain of the Crown Prince’s Palace appeared carrying the imperial crown.

As the Grand Priest called upon God’s name in a trembling voice and began the prayer in the ancient language of the chosen ones, Stuart beckoned his chamberlain to approach.

The chamberlain holding the crown looked back and forth between the knights lined up on both sides. His legs trembling, unable to move from that spot, he soon steeled his resolve and walked toward the Crown Prince.

Though he didn’t know exactly what the situation was, the tide had clearly turned away from the Emperor. That much was certain.

Stuart found it difficult to fully grasp Ricardo’s intentions. If he had wanted to become Emperor today, he would have moved secretly to keep his mother safe.

His head was complicated, but Stuart pushed away his thoughts. Right now, as soon as this prayer ended, the crown had to be placed on Ricardo’s head. He focused only on that fact.

The Emperor glared sharply as the chamberlain walked quickly up to the platform. While the chamberlain placed the crown on the altar and disappeared, the Grand Priest’s prayer was racing toward its climax.

The Grand Priest passionately called upon God’s name repeatedly, then fell silent. A silence that made it hard to believe so many people were present blanketed the space.

“I will now conduct the coronation ceremony.”

The Grand Priest, unable to even open his eyes, devoted himself only to the duty given to him.

“As commanded by God, we seek to establish a new Emperor of the Dermeier Empire… I ask that all offer prayers to God with reverent hearts.”

Having finished speaking, the Grand Priest looked at the crown adorned with all manner of jewels on the purple carpet, then slowly lifted it.

“Now come forward and kneel before God.”

The Grand Priest called Ricardo in a trembling voice, but he didn’t move from his spot.

Even in that moment, the Emperor was staring at the key to the labyrinth dangling from Ricardo’s fingertips. The object he had longed for all his life was swinging within reach. Ricardo looked at the Emperor, who seemed to have had even his soul stolen away, with coldly indifferent eyes.

“Crown Prince.”

When Stuart turned his head at Ricardo’s call, Ricardo bent down and whispered in his ear.

“You’ll be comfortable. You won’t even need to kneel.”

Before Stuart could understand what Ricardo meant, he realized his body was being pushed forward. Soon he stood before the Emperor.

Then the hand holding the sword was grasped by Ricardo’s large hand, and force was applied to his arm.

Thud. The terrible sensation of piercing human flesh traveled up his arm to assault the back of his neck. Only then did Stuart realize he had stabbed his father’s abdomen with Schneider’s sacred sword.

Their eyes met.

His father’s eyes, which had always seemed so large, were filled with shock and fear. The Emperor, his mouth agape, looked back and forth between his pierced stomach and his son.

Before the unfamiliar sensation of stabbing a person’s body for the first time could even fade, a chain unfurled before Stuart’s eyes with a whoosh. Soon cold metal brushed against his neck, which had grown hot.

Having hung the key to the labyrinth around Stuart’s neck, Ricardo strode forward with large steps and snatched the crown from the Grand Priest. Then he pressed it onto Stuart’s head.

“Ricardo!”

Leaving behind the sound of Stuart calling his name, Ricardo faced the sanctuary and shouted.

“My oracle shall be fulfilled by Schneider, who will become the new Emperor.”

At that moment, as the Emperor fell backward, a tremendous roar filled the vast space. He gripped the sword embedded in his stomach and shouted to his knights.

“Wh-what are you doing? Hurry and behead that woman. Hurry!”

As the Demahen Knights who heard his order reorganized their formation, the Captain of the Imperial Guard immediately dropped his sword and knelt on the spot. The sound of the sword striking the marble floor rang out noisily.

At his action, the movement of the Demahen Knights stopped for a moment.

“I apologize, but I cannot follow that order. We, as the Imperial Guard, will only follow the orders of the new Emperor, Your Majesty.”

The Emperor’s tyranny had continued for quite some time. Though they had carried out the Emperor’s orders in the name of the Imperial Guard, it didn’t mean they all agreed with the Emperor’s will.

The knights of the Imperial Guard followed their captain one by one in dropping their swords. Between the clanging sounds of swords striking the floor, the Emperor’s scream-like orders continued.

Ricardo walked slowly toward the Emperor, then knelt on one knee beside the Emperor lying on the floor.

“It’s all over now, Your Majesty.”

He glared at Ricardo while breathing raggedly.

“I knew it would come to this someday. That’s why I wanted so desperately to kill you…”

“No, that’s not it, Your Majesty.”

He was clearly wrong.

If the Emperor hadn’t tried to kill Ricardo, if he hadn’t feared him for not possessing the map to the labyrinth, if he hadn’t tried to burn Lienne at the stake, everything would have been different.

But now it was all just useless speculation.

Instead of continuing, Ricardo pulled Schneider’s sword from the Emperor’s stomach. As blood gushed from his body, the Emperor let out a single scream.

After seeing his mother safely transferred to the Demahen Knights, Ricardo took the sword that had stabbed Schneider’s stomach and approached the sanctuary. At Ricardo’s grim reaper-like appearance, the Grand Priest screamed terrifyingly loud and fell on his backside.

Passing the Grand Priest, Ricardo looked for a moment at God’s veil, adorned only with light without any form.

Gazing at the empty air with indecipherable eyes, he gripped the sword’s handle with both hands and drove the sacred sword hard into the center of the sanctuary. The sanctuary of God, made of sacred relics that could never be broken, split open with a tremendous sound.

“Having fulfilled God’s command here and now and offered Schneider’s blood, my oracle is hereby broken.”

Complete nullification of the oracle. Ricardo declared to the invisible God that the one-sided contract with God had been completely broken.

Turning from the sanctuary, Ricardo stared at the one who had just killed his father and become the sun in the sky. He tried to read what emotions were entangled in Stuart’s eyes, but incredibly, there was nothing in his eyes.

Ricardo, unable to find a way to comfort the one who had just lost his father and become Emperor, passed him by.

As Ricardo descended from the platform, Paula ran toward him.

“Mother.”

She pulled her precariously standing son into an embrace. Paula’s heart broke at how fragile he looked, hard to believe this was someone who had just waged war with God.

“Ricardo.”

“Lienne… Lienne is in great pain.”

Though greatly shocked by the words that Lienne was in pain, Paula couldn’t ask anything and kept rubbing Ricardo’s broad back.

“Let’s go quickly. Let’s go to her quickly.”

“Mother, I’m afraid. What if God has already taken her because of what I’ve just done? That’s why I hesitated and hesitated again.”

“Yes, I know. I understand everything.”

“Even so, I couldn’t not do it. I couldn’t let the opportunity she gave by risking her own life go to waste.”

Paula likewise couldn’t understand the capricious will of God. For now, she couldn’t tell her son that everything would be all right.

She just held her son tighter.

“Let’s go home, my son.”

“…”

“Don’t be afraid. Just remember that you must go see Lienne as quickly as possible right now.”

Ricardo slowly separated himself from Paula. If Lienne woke up, as his mother said, she would look for him first. As he closed his eyes and nodded, Paula held her son’s hand.

“Let’s go. Not a moment’s delay.”

Led by his mother’s firm grip, Ricardo took heavy steps to meet his wife. The dawn of the Empire, where the Emperor had changed overnight, was no different from any other day.