Chapter 225: Chapter-225

Another step forward.

“I’m not here to request anything from you. I’m not here to beg. I’m here to tell you exactly what will happen if this war continues.”

Larus’s eyes went cold—genuinely, terrifyingly cold.

“If this war happens, I promise you—I ’myself’ will enter the battlefield. And dear father, you haven’t forgotten, have you? Who my mother truly was?”

The King of Marus’s face went completely pale.

“You…” he started, but couldn’t finish the sentence.

Because that was the truth. The hidden truth that no one outside this room knew.

Larus’s birth mother had been a brilliant military strategist. A tactical genius. The woman who had actually won every major victory attributed to the King of Marus.

She had been his childhood friend. Some said his first love, though that was debatable given how he’d treated her.

What wasn’t debatable was that this bastard of a king had systematically stolen her credit. Every war she won, every brilliant strategy she devised, every territory she conquered—he put it all under his own name.

So no one in the world knew about the woman who truly ruled Marus’s military might.

Every so-called great victory, every tactical triumph that people attributed to the King—it had actually been accomplished by one of his lesser consorts, a woman he kept locked away and hidden because admitting her brilliance would shatter his own carefully constructed legend.

It was the shame of his life that he’d lost battles to a ’woman’. That he’d needed a ’woman’ to build his reputation.

And Larus, who had been trained by that same woman from childhood, possessed all of her strategic brilliance and combat skills—even if he’d played the role of decorative prince to survive court politics.

The King had only agreed to support this war for two reasons:

First, the profit he’d been promised by the nobles who instigated it.

Second, he’d heard that Empress Celeste had collapsed into a coma. He’d genuinely believed she would die, leaving the Empire vulnerable and leaderless.

As for the five consorts who might oppose him—he wasn’t worried. He knew their relationship with the Empress was strained at best. He’d calculated that everyone would be too busy fighting over succession to mount an effective defense.

The empire would be at its weakest.

Perfect timing for territorial expansion.

But who would have thought that damned woman would just… wake up? Completely recovered, as if the near-fatal poisoning had been merely an inconvenient nap?

Larus looked at his father with cold calculation and said conversationally:

“Right now, outside this throne room, there are seven guards waiting for me. That doesn’t seem like many, does it? But those seven were trained by Empress Celeste herself. They’re her primary personal guards. You can imagine how strong they are.”

He gestured around the empty throne room.

“Right now, in this court, only two people are present—you and me. Whatever happens between us, no one else knows. Your reputation, your carefully constructed image—it’s all still intact. ’If’ you want it to stay that way.”

The King’s face showed uncertainty and dawning fear as he asked hoarsely, “What do you want?”

Larus smiled pleasantly. “Come on, Father. Do you really think I’m such a terrible son that I would harm you?”

The King really wanted to retort—’yes, based on the past ten minutes, absolutely yes’—but he controlled himself and repeated: “What. Do. You. Want?”

Larus’s smile widened. “Sign an official apology letter to the Empress. Include 30,000 gold coins as reparations. And provide the names of everyone who instigated you into supporting this war.”

The King literally jumped to his feet. “Are you INSANE?! 30,000 gold is our ’entire treasury’!”

Larus looked at him with open scorn. “Right now, every major kingdom is paying the Empress gifts of gratitude for her recovery. The Dukes are paying 5,000 gold each. Even the smallest kingdoms are sending at least 1,000.”

He shrugged.

“And you’re complaining about 30,000? I’m giving you a ’discount’, Father. If you weren’t my father, I’d be demanding 300,000. You should be grateful.”

“How can you compare us to them?!” the King sputtered. “Those kingdoms are wealthy! They have resources we don’t! And who knows if they’re giving out of love or ’fear’—”

“Does it matter?” Larus interrupted. “The point is, they’re giving. And you—who actively supported aggression against the Empire—think you can get away with nothing?”

He leaned forward slightly.

“30,000 gold will empty your treasury, yes. But let me be clear about the alternative.”

His voice dropped to something dangerous.

“If I enter this battle—or if the Empress herself takes the field—you won’t just lose 30,000 gold. You’ll lose your ’head’. Because this time, Father, the Empress is genuinely angry.”

Larus straightened up.

“You remember what happened the last time she was truly angry and drew her sword in war, don’t you? An entire kingdom was completely destroyed. Not a single member of that royal family survived. The bloodline was ’ended’.”

The King visibly trembled.

Larus smiled cheerfully. “Well, I’ve said what I came to say. Now it’s up to you—death or survival. Choose wisely!”

With that, he turned and walked out, leaving his father collapsed on his throne, head in his hands.

What kind of choice was this?! Both options meant death!

If he gave the money and apologized, his treasury would be empty, his nobles would revolt, and he’d be politically destroyed.

If he refused, the Empire would crush them militarily, and he’d literally lose his head.

He was trapped.

And his own son had been the one to spring the trap.

—

Outside the throne room, Larus looked at the seven imperial guards waiting for him. They bowed immediately.

“Your Highness.”

Larus nodded, acknowledging them.

He had to admit—his wife knew exactly what she was doing, sending such formidable protection for him. These weren’t just elite soldiers; they were living weapons, each capable of taking down dozens of ordinary fighters.

As he started walking through the palace corridors, memories began flooding back.

How many times had he stood as a prince outside that same throne room, terrified to enter? Scared of his father’s disappointment, his anger, his casual cruelty?

But now, returning as Emperor Consort, everything had changed.

He felt no fear. No anxiety.

Instead, he realized the doors that had once seemed so heavy and imposing were actually quite easy to open.

As he walked through the palace grounds, he raised his hand and said to the guards, “Only one follow me. I’m just looking around.”

They nodded immediately. They wanted to protest—security protocols demanded more coverage—but they hadn’t forgotten whose husband he was. The Empress’s orders were absolute.

Larus wandered through the gardens, taking in the familiar-yet-foreign landscape of his childhood home.

Soon, he encountered a group of women—his stepmothers, or some of them at least.

There were so many he’d honestly lost count. Unlike Heena, who maintained a fixed number of carefully chosen consorts, his father collected women like trophies, discarding them just as easily.

“Oh my!” one of them exclaimed, a woman in her forties who looked barely thirty thanks to expensive beauty treatments. “Is that Prince Larus? Oh, I mean, ’Emperor’ Consort Larus!”

Right now, he is genuinely missing his wife.

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