Make Him Die of Anger

The wind outside had grown stronger. It howled sharply and mournfully, like countless ghosts wailing in the night sky, or the dying cries of men on a distant battlefield.

The Grand Duke of Mainz could sense that Frederick's offhand words would lead to a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.

The flames in the fireplace seemed to sense the change in the atmosphere, too. They blazed more fiercely, and the firewood crackled more rapidly.

The Grand Duke of Mainz gazed at Frederick for a long time.

In that youthful face, he saw many complicated things: a will tempered like steel, an almost ruthless rationality, the courage to break every convention and shackle, and the detached weighing of the value of life that only came from someone who had truly held the power of life and death.

The Grand Duke of Mainz recalled the first time he had met Frederick.

What had impressed him most about Frederick that time was how he had built a Hot Air Balloon in such a short time.

For more than a decade, he and countless others had watched Frederick steadily shape his own territory into something like a Hot Air Balloon, lifting it to unprecedented heights.

Now, this young man was no longer content to manage his own domain. His gaze had turned to a broader political chessboard, and he was preparing to defend everything he had built and expand the order he envisioned in a more aggressive, more dangerous way.

The Grand Duke of Mainz couldn't help wondering if Frederick no longer thought only as the Grand Duke Wessen, but had begun to think, plan, and make his moves from the perspective of the Rhine Alliance's future leader.

The old man slowly drew a deep breath.

It carried the dust of old