Swearing Loyalty to My Dear

He had finally mastered all the weaknesses of the six Imperial Guards, and could skillfully slaughter every one of those heavenly demigods within the first two years.

Leaving behind only the one person worthy of trust.

Yet the facts proved that...

Rhine had still underestimated just how pure these Imperial Guards were...

And so.

He had been stabbed in the back again.

At that moment, the system spoke up.

[Warning!]

[However, the host's number of deaths has exceeded the maximum limit.]

[The system has automatically shut down.]

After saying that, the system fell completely silent.

Rhine fell silent.

A moment later, he sighed helplessly.

"So I've finally run out of chances. I figured my resurrection attempts were about used up."

The system's resurrection ability had a limited number of uses.

And now that the resurrection function had shut down, Rhine had finally returned to a state where being killed meant dying for real.

This life was his last chance.

Fine.

Then so be it.

Rhine stretched.

What he needed to do was the same as before.

Change his approach, give it everything he had, and clear this utterly rotten world.

Prince Rhine snapped his fingers.

"Someone, summon Thea Constance to see me."

Thea Constance

Thea Constance.

She was one of the Empire's seven Imperial Guards, and once the guard Rhine had relied on and trusted most.

The maid carried Rhine's order to the cathedral.

And all Rhine could do next was wait patiently.

According to the rules of the Hain Empire,

the Imperial Guards only answered the Emperor's summons at any time.

They possessed an extremely high degree of independence. Even if a Prince wished to meet one of them, it depended on their mood at the time.

Given Constance's personality, she would not refuse Rhine's invitation.

But he would still have to wait until she finished her work.

And while waiting for her,

Rhine could take the opportunity to think about his strategy for this life.

With the system dead, Rhine no longer had the chance to delete his save and restart the game.

What lay before him was his final opportunity.

After a thousand rebirths, Rhine had long since prepared thorough countermeasures for every enemy and every difficulty he would encounter in the future.

Yet the ones Rhine had never managed to win over were his own seven Imperial Guards.

The Imperial Guards were the foundation upon which the Hain Empire had been built, as well as the most powerful individuals on this land.

In this era,

aside from a very few exceptionally rare ancient mythical species, the only one capable of stopping a demigod on the battlefield was another demigod.

The bloodlines of the gods had never been severed on this land. Apart from the Hain Empire, other nations occasionally got lucky enough to recruit one or two demigods as well.

But the quality of those wild demigods naturally could not compare to the demigods bred and trained through official Hain Empire methods.

That was what gave the Hain Empire its unshakable, absolute military advantage.

However, even invincible war machines had their flaws.

The State Religion Cathedral's ascension rituals had been far too successful. The purity of demigod bloodlines had risen generation after generation, and now super monsters with more than ninety percent goddess blood had even appeared.

High-purity bloodlines brought greater combat power, but they also caused a problem.

A sense of identity.

The Imperial Guards no longer saw themselves as humans.

This was not a subjective notion, but the contempt for ants ingrained in the bloodlines of higher-dimensional beings.

They did not see themselves as human, and naturally would not be bound by human morality.

According to Rhine's research, in their minds, their relationship with humans could be compared to that between players and NPCs.

They could coexist happily with humans, but their nature prevented them from regarding humans as their own kind.

This was the fundamental reason why the demigod Imperial Guards pursued profit and treated the world like a game.

If he could make proper use of those demigods, Rhine could easily flatten the continent and achieve unification.

But conversely, if he mishandled things, those traitors had countless ways to kill Rhine from behind.

Probably... from his two hundredth rebirth onward,

Rhine had stopped harboring any illusions about those Imperial Guards.

After every rebirth, Rhine would spare no effort in eliminating those demigod Imperial Guards until only one remained.

Every demigod Imperial Guard was an officially certified product, born after the cathedral conducted a series of scientific and rigorous bloodline evaluations, selected the most suitable pair to reproduce, performed various magical rituals, and received the blessings of the gods.

But Thea Constance alone was different.

Her mother had been a prostitute in a small town on the Empire's frontier, while her father was an unknown demigod whose identity the Empire had yet to uncover.

As a result, the purity of her bloodline was very low, not even reaching zero percent at most.

The downside brought by her inferior bloodline was that, without cheats, Constance ranked near the bottom among the Imperial Guards in combat strength.

But the upside was,

the girl had a great deal of humanity and a clear sense of love and hate.

Rhine looked back on his first life. Back then, he had known nothing of the world's dangers, made far too many foolish mistakes, and wasted far too much time.

Nineteen precious years had been meaninglessly squandered on wine, women, and pleasure by that ignorant fool he had once been.

But,

his first self had still done one thing right.

That was passing through that frontier town during that winter and bringing Thea Constance out of that dark basement.

As long as he had Constance, Rhine could still put on a show even if he killed all six of the other Imperial Guards.

By his nine hundred and ninety-ninth rebirth, Rhine had practically cleared the world. He had only been one final step away from completing the last sacrificial ritual.

And yet...

right before that final step was completed,

Rhine had been stabbed in the back by Constance.

The piercing pain in his chest had yet to fade. Rhine could still vividly recall the sight of the girl tearfully apologizing as she resolutely drove her blade through his heart.

Thea Constance...

Rhine quietly murmured the name.

Then, a calm, emotionless voice suddenly rang out.

"Your Highness?"

Rhine raised his head and saw a beautiful white-haired demigod.

Her breathtaking face lacked any necessary expression. Like an exquisite doll, she gazed calmly at Rhine.

As a descendant of the gods, the white-haired woman before him was not beautiful in the conventional sense. She was simply the standard answer to the abstract concept of beauty itself.

She wore a plain, thin white dress beneath a hollowed silver armor crafted by elves. Before her icy blue eyes rested a pair of dragon crystal glasses—naturally, as a demigod, she was not nearsighted, but those glasses served another purpose.

Thea Constance.

She stood properly before Rhine, her voice without fluctuation. "Your Highness, you summoned me?"

Rhine said, "You came early. Have you finished praying?"

Constance replied, "No, but Hela has returned. She can take turns with me."

Rhine nodded.

Rhine watched Constance without speaking.

A moment later, he spoke in a low voice.

"Constance, I had a dream this morning."

Constance said, "Is that so?"

Rhine said, "Yes. It was a very, very long dream, perhaps ten thousand years long. In that dream, I was surrounded by enemies, and you were the only person I could rely on. You stayed by my side, walked with me toward victory, and died with me. In the end, after so much death and pain, we finally reached the end of the story."

Rhine smiled and gazed deeply at Constance. "We stood at the end of the world. We only needed to take one final step to give the story a perfect ending—and then guess what happened?"

Constance's expression seemed to change slightly, but she said nothing more and simply answered honestly.

"I do not know, Your Highness. Please tell me."

Rhine's expression suddenly darkened. "Then you killed me!"

Constance said, "..."

Rhine gritted his teeth. "You said, 'Your Majesty, I love you,' while twisting the knife to grind up my heart—you deranged little bitch!"

Constance said, "..."

For being cursed at so inexplicably, Constance did not seem angry.

She merely comforted him blandly. "Your Highness, it was only a dream. You need not take it seriously."

Of course. I can only treat it as a dream...

Rhine shrugged. "What's past is past. The important thing is that we look ahead, right?"

Constance said, "Yes, Your Highness."

Rhine said, "Then..."

Rhine looked at Constance. After several rounds of struggle and deliberation among the countless thoughts in his mind, Rhine finally... made up his mind.

Rhine said, "Constance, would you be willing to take a walk through the streets with me?"

Constance said, "I would be delighted. Where do you intend to go?"

Rhine smiled. "We are about to accomplish something good enough to change the world and bring happiness to everyone. And now, we must take the first step."

Rhine said, "Come with me, Constance."

With a firm gaze, Rhine headed toward the main gates of the Imperial Palace. "We're going to visit a brothel."

Constance said, "...?"

Constance was silent for a moment before helplessly following Rhine's steps.