Connection

Lord Theus slowly lowered his head in the armchair, while somewhere an unknown distance away, another shell opened its eyes.

The first thing Theus saw was the gaping hole in his chest. He had long since grown used to this wound that no longer bled, but after speaking with the prince, looking at the injury that had killed him filled him with a strange sense of melancholy.

"If it hadn't been for the Candlelight Society, if the Empress's people had been the ones to find me, I should have entered the upper ranks through my improved bearings. Maybe I'd be some level of civil official by now, perhaps even working under Alexei."

"Or perhaps I would have successfully organized the workers, established some underground organization, and caught Isabella's attention. Then perhaps the Empress wouldn't have had to stage that assassination."

"Unfortunately, there aren't so many what-ifs. The Candlelight Society forced me down this path step by step."

The prince wanted to go to war with the Candlelight Society, but even without the prince, Castel would eventually have fought the Church.

Theus's choice to focus on development was not because he rejected war; it was simply more cost-effective. As for what Theus himself thought—

Theus looked at the gaping hole in his chest, his gaze gradually turning cold.

A blood debt, of course, had to be repaid in blood.

After a long while, Theus looked down at his hands, then at the white mist around him, and took a deep breath.

"I should contact Miss Beatrice first. Before I knew it, she had become the ruler of the Empire and the Holy See—at least in name."

The last time he had seen Beatrice, she had only been a young girl who had just become a Transcendent, her face still full of