Craterus looked calm and composed.
"What you're really saying is... you've thought about abandoning the royal authority of Castrum Kremnos, about giving up leading your people, haven't you?"
Mydei retorted:
"Divine power is not the same as royal authority, and my people have more than one path forward—the path of [Strife]."
"Hmph, what kind of wordplay is that?" Craterus narrowed his eyes. "You know full well what situation the Xuan Feng people are in!"
"The Xuan Feng Lone Army who left their homeland with you, and their descendants... what has kept us going all this time is precisely the longing for past glory."
"If they were to learn that the crown prince, so revered by his people, has harbored thoughts of surrender... Mydeimos, how will you ever account to your departed mother?"
"Don't forget, she died of Olipon's poisonous scheme precisely for your sake—for the sake of reviving the glory of Xuan Feng!"
Mydei sighed and said in a deep voice:
"Since things have come to this... let me ask you, who killed my father?"
Craterus's gaze turned sharp. "Ha, are you insulting me, Mydeimos?"
"I am old, but I am not yet senile."
"Of course I remember that Olipon died at the hands of the Xuan Feng Lone Army's encirclement..."
"It was you, Mydeimos... You were the one who pierced his chest with a spear with your own hands."
Mydei crossed his arms. "But that was only the result."
"Have you still not seen the truth, my master?"
His tone gradually rose.
"What drove my parents and the entire Xuan Feng clan to a dead end was precisely the [Strife] you and I speak of, the pursuit of so-called glory, the echoing slogans of '[Better to die fighting than return in dishonor]...!' "
"These are the obsessions of every