Chapter 1568: Disappointment
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"Elinor, where have you been this time?!" Empress Renara shot up from her throne the moment she saw her sister enter, her voice sharp and trembling. "No one has seen you for three thousand years!!"
"Hehe~ I had a very deeeep cultivation session, sister~" Elinor spun gracefully, her movements light as if flaunting her form. "Do you notice? My cultivation has solidified and advancing, my blood has grown even more denser!"
Renara, who had begun stepping toward her, froze in place. Her expression darkened at once. "Your clothes... they’ve become far more revealing as well. And your aura... it’s grown unbearably foul!"
"Who cares about such things~" Elinor walked closer, patting her sister’s shoulder with casual familiarity. Her eyes were barely half-open, her lips painted deep with crimson. "I speak of power and blood density, and you still babble about aura? Hehe, as always, my elder sister... just a little foolish."
"..." Renara’s brows knitted tightly as she sat back on her throne, her voice heavier now. "I tried to reach you countless times. During your absence, the Twilight Spectrum Empire attacked us. I had to go out and defend personally." Her hands clenched into fists. "I realized then... the Emperor’s brother is far stronger than the reports claimed. I don’t know how he managed it, but I nearly died in that battle—had I not retreated swiftly, I wouldn’t be standing here!"
"Oh..." Elinor folded her arms, smiling faintly. "Yes, I heard about that battle. Wasn’t it because they were trying to abduct a number of girls from the academy on Dakik-4?" She sighed dismissively. "If you had just let them take the girls, none of this would’ve happened. They took them anyway, you were wounded, and the planet itself was lost."
"What are you saying, Elinor?!" Renara’s voice rose, filled with outrage. "How could I possibly receive a report that they were going after so many girls—girls who are supposed to be under my protection—and then do nothing?! That academy holds some of the most brilliant females of our bloodline! Even daughters of the elders are among them!"
Elinor tilted her head, shaking it slowly. "Three thousand years ago, didn’t I personally retrieve a number of females who had been abducted for a long time? I returned them safely to their families. And they came back with denser blood, stronger than before. You should have left these ones as well—I would’ve found a way to return them too."
"They came back broken!" Renara slammed her palm on the throne, her voice shaking with fury. "Scarred beyond repair, shattered in spirit—and half of them pregnant with children bearing the blood of the Blue Arctic Fox! The dignity of our empire, the honor of our bloodline itself, is being dragged deeper into the mud with every passing day!!"
"I’m telling you they came back stronger!" Elinor spat her words with disgust, her expression twisting as though about to retch. "Stronger, more fertile, able to bear even more talented children with the males of our race! And all this without us losing a single soul or a single planet. The Twilight Spectrum don’t even want our worlds—they only want the girls. I’m offering you a path of survival, even a path to strengthen our bloodline as a whole, and you still prattle about honor?!" She turned her head sharply, her lips curling. "If that’s how you think, just try not to destroy the empire in the near future!"
"I am trying to protect our people, to raise their heads high!" Renara’s voice broke into desperation, pleading. "Alinor, you must stay with me, you must help me resist this—otherwise our end is inevitable!"
"If a great war erupts, I’ll return and take part," Alinor replied coolly. Then, with a languid sway of her hips, she began strolling toward the gates. "But these scattered skirmishes? I don’t see the point. They have nothing to do with me, and I don’t approve of them. If you wish to continue this cat-and-mouse game with them, then play it alone."
"Elinor!!"
Renara rose from her throne and shouted with all her might, but her sister had already walked away.
"Alinooor!!"
Her cry echoed through the empty throne hall, unanswered.
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The Present—
"..........."
"Your Majesty?" Caesar snapped his fingers several times right in front of Renara’s unfocused eyes, his tone carrying both impatience and a flicker of concern. "Did you drift off to the Soul Society, or lose yourself in some trance?"
Poof.
Renara collapsed back onto her seat, her body folding as though every ounce of strength had been stolen from her legs. Her once-proud figure looked fragile, and her eyes... they were vacant, hazy, reddened, trembling at the edges with unshed tears that finally brimmed over.
"...?" Caesar’s brows drew together like thunderclouds, his composure faltering. He straightened in his chair, posture stiffening, and with a subtle movement he tilted his head just enough to sneak a glance at the report still clutched tightly in her pale hands.
Not a single page had been turned. The photographs and documents remained untouched. She had hardly read beyond a few scattered lines—if even that. So why had her demeanor shattered so completely? What exactly triggered such despair? Had she simply believed the information outright without hesitation?
The silence between them thickened like smoke. The atmosphere felt foreign, even suffocating, and the entire scene left Caesar unsettled. Still, he did not speak further; it was painfully obvious her thoughts were drifting far away, lost in a storm he could not see.
Nearly half an hour crawled by before Renara finally lowered her gaze, her hands shaking faintly as she forced herself to resume reading, each sentence taking her an eternity to process. Then at last, her broken voice escaped into the quiet chamber, hoarse and choked.
"How..." She struggled to breathe the word out, her arms trembling as she raised the file slightly. "How did you obtain information this precise... from within Planet Kraithorn, the very birthplace of the Twilight Spectrum’s ruling bloodline?"
"Hm." Caesar’s eyes narrowed, though a faint curl tugged at his lips. "At the very least, you didn’t cry out that the intelligence was fabricated. That alone tells me the surprise wasn’t quite as earth-shattering as I expected." His tone was calm but edged with amusement. Yet, noting the raw state she was in, he chose not to press further. Even a child could sense the cracks in her spirit. "Perhaps you’ve heard the name Shadow Swords? They happen to be rather... close allies of mine."
His grin widened with satisfaction. "Their Law of Darkness may hold little weight in domains crawling with Nexus States, but do not underestimate them—their reach extends farther than most can dream, their talents are razor sharp, and their leader... he commands a merged Law unlike anything else in existence."
Of course, all of that flowery explanation was simply his way of admitting the truth: the Shadow Swords had already infiltrated the heart of the Twilight Spectrum’s empire. They had bent several of its guards to their will—one of them an elder no less—and through them, funneled every crucial secret straight into Caesar’s grasp.
"Shadow Swords..." Renara repeated numbly, nodding a few times, her eyes blank, void of focus. "Yes..." She leaned forward until her elbows pressed into her knees, both hands rising to cradle her head as though it were too heavy to bear. "...Yes, I know the Shadow Swords."
"Your expression doesn’t scream shock," Caesar observed coolly, lifting one eyebrow with calculated precision. "It whispers disappointment. Tell me, did you already suspect the truth?"
"...I had whispers in my mind—doubts, suspicions, fragments of inner voices I buried again and again." Her words cracked, her tone a bitter confession. "They tried to warn me, and I silenced them. Perhaps I always knew where the path was leading, but I never possessed the will... never the strength to face the reality head-on."
With visible effort, Renara drew herself upright once more, forcing her shoulders back and her neck tall. The regal posture of an empress returned, though her face was pale and drained of all warmth, carved into an expressionless mask. "Very well. You’ve delivered your personal blow, dragged me into humiliation. Congratulations, Caesar. Now... can we return to discussing the terms of the agreement?"
"This was never personal," Caesar waved a hand dismissively, as if brushing dust from a table. "What some wayward woman does in her idle hours has no bearing on me." His eyes gleamed darkly. "I revealed it merely to show you the restraint it took for me not to unleash my armies, to crush your empire flat and erase it from existence."
"You contradict yourself," Renara forced the words through clenched teeth, swallowing the venom of his threat. Her voice trembled, but she fought to keep her poise. "You say it doesn’t matter to you, and in the same breath admit you nearly waged war over it?"
"And why wouldn’t I?" Caesar’s calm fractured, his brows slamming together with sudden fury. His voice thundered through the chamber. "That cursed woman leaked information... about my father!"