Chapter 797

Candlelight flickered, casting twisted shadows across the canvas of the military tent like wandering ghosts from the battlefield.

Gabella commander Wowen Ruiz sat before a wooden table, his quill struggling across the parchment. His right hand was wrapped in a bloodstained bandage. During the hurried retreat after their defeat, Ruiz had fallen from his horse by accident, fracturing his right arm and scraping away a large patch of skin on his hand. Every stroke of the pen brought tearing pain.

But compared to the grief in his heart, the pain in his flesh was insignificant.

The ink in the bottle had already solidified, so he had to dissolve it with water. It reminded him of the dried blood on Ursula Plain. In the end, even that blood would be washed away by the rain, just like the lives of the soldiers under his command.

The coughs of the night watchmen came from outside the tent, accompanied by the faint neighing of War Horses in the distance. Wowen stopped writing and looked toward the family crest hanging inside the tent—the silver griffin spreading its wings as if about to take flight against a deep blue background.

But now, this symbol of glory seemed like the greatest mockery of all.

In the power struggle between the current Emperor Antonio and his brother Felix for the crown, the Ruiz family had once favored First Prince Felix Griffin.

But after that somewhat inscrutable palace rebellion ended, the Ruiz family quickly concluded that the dust had settled. Antonio Griffin would become the supreme ruler of the Gabella Empire, and Felix's remnants would never stir up any trouble again.

The Ruiz family soon pledged its loyalty to Antonio.

It was not just the Ruiz family. Many other families that had maintained ambiguous attitudes and had not