Trap

Beside General George, a Holy Knight in an ordinary military uniform was fiddling with a small, exquisite hand crossbow. Its entire body gleamed a brilliant gold, sparkling with sacred radiance that naturally inspired the urge to kneel in worship.

But after looking at it for too long, that sense of holiness was swiftly replaced by viciousness.

Within that sacred golden glow seemed to lie mountains of corpses and seas of blood, grim white bones giving off a pungent stench of decay, while venomous roars rose and fell by one's ears—even after being enshrined in a church for nearly half a century, it had not changed the weapon's murderous nature.

This was the "dragon-slaying holy relic" Marshal Julian had promised him, compensation handed over to the English by the Ottomans during the Crimean War—the divine artifact of Rome's last Palaiologos Dynasty, the Dragon-Slaying Crossbow!

The Ottomans, who had once dominated the Mediterranean Sea at their height, marched on Vienna several times, and beaten the Habsburg emperors into fleeing their cities, had now fallen into decline. They could even trade away a divine artifact tied to their very lifeblood.

A smile curled General George's lips. Truly deserving of the title Sick Man of West Asia. Did they no longer expect their royal family to produce another emperor capable of taming a dragon?

Those ancient empires that had once stood at the height of glory were indeed rotten beyond saving. Greece had become a semi-colony of the Empire, Egypt had become the Empire's cotton plantation, and India was the brightest jewel in the Empire's crown. Only that eastern empire, relying on its ancient legacy, could still resist the Empire's warships and cannon fire—but forcing open its gates was only a matter of time.

Compared to the ever-rising Empire on which the sun never