Chapter 224

“Other than cooperation, the empire has no other choice.”

The Emperor's golden eyes gleamed with quiet authority as his gaze bore down on Ye Zheng. She met his stare without the slightest hesitation.

“You seem to know a great deal about the disaster that's about to befall the empire. I, on the other hand, know nothing.”

“If it's only on Sykes's level, then even a few more of them wouldn't pose any threat to me.”

The implication was unmistakable. As far as Ye Zheng was concerned, there was no reason to cooperate.

The Emperor let out a quiet chuckle. His gaze, fixed on Ye Zheng only a moment before, drifted into the distance as though he had been pulled into an old memory.

“Sykes… was far inferior to his true mother. Mercé, You and I are the only ones still alive who remember what happened back then. Why don't you tell this young Papess? Do you really want humanity to endure that kind of hell again?”

Ye Zheng suddenly pressed a hand against her burning chest. From the depths of her consciousness came a faint, icy laugh.

“Lady Mercé doesn't seem to have any desire to speak to you. Why don't you tell me directly? What makes you so certain the Demonic Dragon crisis will return within half a year?”

“Because Sykes is dead.”

The Emperor spoke in a cold, measured voice.

“…What exactly do you mean?”

Ye Zheng's tone had turned completely frigid.

The Emperor fell silent for a moment before speaking again, as though he had finally resolved to reveal the truth. What followed was a secret shocking enough to shake everything she knew.

“Sykes's true purpose was never to become my next ‘shell.’ I did not deceive Qin Tian. Sykes truly was ‘Hope,’ the hope of preventing the real Demonic Dragon from descending.”

“The Demonic Dragon has never truly died. Five hundred years after her death, she will resurrect, reborn within the body of a certain woman. At her call, the Demonic Dragon's scattered bones will awaken, and the world-ending catastrophe from five centuries ago will descend upon this world once more.”

“That is why I buried the Demonic Dragon's bones throughout the empire, sealing them inside the hardest heterogeneous stones. I then carried out countless experiments to create Sykes, using his body as a prison for her remains. As long as the scattered bones cannot reunite, even if she resurrects, her power will be greatly diminished.”

Ye Zheng cut him off.

“Why do you know the Demonic Dragon will resurrect?”

Mercé had made the prophecy of the world's end only after an unknown god revealed it to her, yet that god had never explained the reason behind it.

Aston XIV knew far too much. The more he spoke, the more suspicious Ye Zheng became of the role he had truly played five hundred years ago beyond merely being the emperor who led humanity in resisting the catastrophe.

“Because the Demonic Dragon, Margaret, was my wife. I was there when she died.”

The Emperor turned his gaze toward the window.

“Ye Zheng, you have no reason to doubt me. I'm the only one who knows what truly happened back then. Even if you refuse to believe me, no one else can offer you any answers.”

No. If Aston XIV had been present when the Demonic Dragon was slain, then there had to be one other person who had also witnessed everything that happened before her death.

The God of Hope. Hope, the village girl who possessed immense power and was revered as a deity.

According to the legends passed down across the ages, after the Demonic Dragon vanished, the God of Hope disappeared as well. Divine Revelation recorded that the deity had returned to her divine kingdom.

“Your Holiness, are you feeling unwell?” the Emperor suddenly asked.

Ye Zheng looked up at him, her five fingers tightening instinctively over her chest. Only then did she realize she had been clutching the burning spot there the entire time.

…It wasn't her body that was growing hot.

It was the fragment of remains concealed beneath her clothes.

Ye Zheng gave a slight nod, betraying nothing.

“Mm, I'm not feeling very well today.”

“In that case, let's end our conversation here. I've already told you everything I know. I trust you'll make the right choice, Your Holiness.”

The Emperor's voice settled back into its usual calmness, even carrying the faint warmth of an elder showing concern for a younger generation.

His gentle words drifted past her ears. Ye Zheng's pupils contracted almost imperceptibly as her attention fixed on his face. The fine lines at the corners of his eyes quivered ever so slightly, and he was blinking more often than usual.

He was suppressing a laugh.

Beneath the composed, dignified appearance of that handsome middle-aged man, the five-hundred-year-old monster was laughing.

The realization sent a cold shiver through her heart. For a brief moment, Ye Zheng's thoughts descended into turmoil. She could no longer distinguish how much of Aston XIV's story had been true.

Which of his words were real… and which were lies?

Or had he been toying with her from the very beginning?

Ye Zheng left the attic.

Resting a hand on the railing, she slowly made her way downstairs, sorting through the flood of new clues she had just uncovered.

According to the Emperor, the Demonic Dragon would gather every dragon bone before descending upon the empire once again. Sykes had existed to imprison the fragment of remains now hidden beneath her clothes and prevent Margaret's resurrection.

Yet Ye Zheng couldn't bring herself to trust his account, even if he was the only surviving witness to those events.

After all, the only other person who knew the truth behind the Demonic Dragon's death, the God of Hope, the girl named Hope, had most likely been killed by him.

That would explain the God of Hope's inexplicable disappearance. If he had truly murdered the God of Hope, then the chances that he had lied to her earlier were extremely high.

The greatest reason Ye Zheng found herself unable to believe him was that the Emperor himself was simply too strange.

His very existence was unsettling enough, but the personality he revealed, even if only by accident, was far too bizarre.

『Aston XIV, celebrated as a child prodigy from an early age, ascended the throne at thirteen, led the empire in its resistance against the Demonic Dragon at eighteen, and from that moment onward, his name was etched into history.』

Mercé’s voice echoed from the depths of her consciousness.

“At first, I admired him just as everyone else did. But the higher I climbed and the more I came into contact with him, the more I realized that he... occasionally behaves like a child.”

When Mercè described him as "like a child," there wasn't the slightest trace of fondness in her voice. Having once been a teacher, she spoke instead with a faint, unmistakable note of disgust.

Ye Zheng fell silent for a moment before murmuring, “Now that you mention it, I felt the same way.”

That sly smile he tried so carefully to conceal, yet accidentally revealed, was exactly like a child who'd successfully pulled off a prank, hiding behind an adult while flashing a smug, mischievous grin at the victim.

Ye Zheng rubbed her arms. Goosebumps threatened to rise across her skin.

In the past, she'd dealt effortlessly with enemies like Wen Jian, who delighted in hiding behind carefully crafted masks. In the world of noble ambition, power, and prestige, who wasn't like that? But the Emperor was the first person whose performance left her genuinely nauseated.

It was as though he didn't wear masks or play different roles for any particular purpose. He delighted in every identity he adopted, every mask he wore, sincerely relishing the act of deceiving the prey before him.

“Mercè, do you know anything else about what happened to the God of Hope?”

Mercè let out a quiet sigh. “Although I gave her a beautiful ending in the Divine Revelation, back when she disappeared, I was still nothing more than a healer with a modest reputation in the lower districts.”

A shadow settled between Ye Zheng's brows. Mercè had only risen to prominence after the Demonic Dragon vanished. By the time she established the church and uncovered the hidden truths behind the Demonic Dragon catastrophe, Aston XIV had already erased most of the evidence and covered his tracks.

Could it really be as he claimed, that he alone knew the truth of what had happened all those years ago?

The dull echo of footsteps came to an abrupt halt. Ye Zheng stopped halfway down the staircase and turned to look back toward the top.

If only he knew the truth, then she'd use whatever means necessary to force him to reveal everything.

The remains of the Demonic Dragon Empress still burned hot against her chest, like a cry of resentment that refused to fade.

【Mother of All Things】 could peel away his carefully crafted facade, tear out the soft bones beneath his hypocrisy, crush his mind, and drag the buried truth back into the light.

Ye Zheng turned around. Just as she stepped over the final stair, she sensed something and looked down the staircase.

Below, Bai Yi was leading Bai Muqing and Bai Mulin up the stairs.