"Your Majesty!"
The palace chamberlain dragged out his hoarse words as he hurried over to Chen King and delivered a secret report.
"Academician Reilo?"
Chen King's weathered face brightened at first, then grew slightly grave.
"He still came, after all."
Then he said in a low voice, "Hurry and invite him into the hall."
The palace chamberlain accepted the order and hurried away.
Beneath the High Tower's throne, three groups had gathered, representing the military, the Grand Royal Academician Committee, and the diplomatic envoys and temple apostles from other duchies.
As reserve forces for the second Sky Fortress, they would enter the battlefield at once if the fighting on the front lines took a turn.
"Everyone."
Chen King's voice was not loud.
Yet at that moment, he stood closer to the pinnacle of power than ever before.
It was all because, after the Grand Royal Family had abandoned its tacit understanding with the temples' protection, they now possessed a new means of external deterrence—beyond the methods of the Minister of Finance and Taxation: Radiation Weapons based on the Laws.
This was a new weapon of war, named a Law Weapon by the Grand Royal Academicians.
It had begun in private laboratories built by tens of thousands of noble scholars from the Grand Duchy in the desolate wilderness of Dubit Province. After more than a decade of secret research, the duchy had thrown its full support behind the project, and the result was a weapon of annihilation.
Its appearance had completely changed the balance of power in the duchies.
The thousand-year war between the Grand Duchy and the Xilan Duchy had shifted from a defensive struggle to an offensive. The Grand Natural Sciences Academy had been revered as a holy land of scholarship, sparking a craze for academies throughout the duchies.