Sangis was stunned for a moment. She opened her mouth, closed it and opened it again.
Silly? She quickly sorted out her words, and then spoke in as calm a voice as possible.
"Your Majesty, this is Weitestan, the heir of Governor Valerirus, a member of the former imperial royal family, and the fourteenth heir to the throne of Vagrian."
King Ghidorah The head in the middle nodded. "Oh."
Then the eyes of the three heads fell on the little red dragon that was still chirping.
Sangis stood nearby, looking at Weitestan's mouth that was still opening and closing, and what he was thinking about was - how many troublesome things are there to be dealt with today?
Weitestan was stunned for a moment.
His mouth was still open, maintaining the "I still have a lot to say" posture just now, but the voice had disappeared from his throat - it was not blocked by something, but a switch in his brain was flipped by that sentence, causing the command signal of the vocal cords to be interrupted during the transmission process.
He stood there with his wings half open and half closed, his tail still raised, and his chest still puffed out, but his momentum was already like a punctured balloon, deflating at a speed visible to the naked eye.
His mind was replaying the word just now - stupid.
It wasn't what he thought, it appeared directly in his mind, as if someone had gently placed a stone in his consciousness, causing ripples to echo in his mind.
The voice was not loud, the speed was not fast, and there was no emotion at all, but the condescending feeling that did not require any modification and made him instinctively want to retreat the moment he heard it made his legs weaker than the power of the seal he felt at the edge of Forbidden Land.
"What's so stupid? You said that!"
Weitestan's voice is lower than before. It's not that he doesn't want to be louder, it's that his vocal cords automatically lowered the volume when he said this sentence.
King Ghidorah is too lazy to pay attention to him.
The head on the left side moved slightly, and a bolt of lightning burst out from the lines, like a golden, roaring snake that had its reins loosened.
The speed of lightning was so fast that before Weitestan's visual nerves had time to transmit the image to his brain, his body had already reacted - not to hide, but to freeze.
Because before his brain issued the "hide" command, it issued the question "What is this?"
Zila.
There was no impact, no explosion, just the short, sharp, static sound that seemed to be amplified countless times when the electric current passed through flesh and blood.
At that moment, Weitestan's body seemed to have been slapped from the top of the head by an invisible giant hand, and he fell straight backwards.
His wings were still open, and he slapped the ground as he fell, raising a small cloud of dust.
White smoke was coming out of his body. It was not fire, but water vapor formed by the instantaneous evaporation of the layer of water on the surface of the scales after the electric shock.
White smoke rose from the gaps in his scales and drifted away in the afternoon sun.
Sangis's legs are a little soft.
It wasn't fear, it was the feeling of powerlessness that "something has happened and I can't do anything" spread from the soles of her feet to the top of her head.
She held on to a stone pillar next to her, slowly tightening her fingers on the rough stone surface, and her nails dug into the cracks of the stone. She watched Weitestan fall to the ground motionless, and saw that his chest was still rising and falling slightly - he was still alive.
Then I mentally rearranged today's schedule.
King Ghidorah turned his head and looked at Sangis. His three heads fell on her at the same time from three different angles.
"Call that who-what, that's his father." The telepathic voice was as calm as ever.
Sangis quickly calmed down, stood up from the stone pillar, put his hands back into the sleeves of his robe, and bowed slightly.
"Yes, Your Majesty. But Governor Valerirus is guarding Forbidden Land, I'm afraid--"
King Ghidorah glanced at the little red dragon still smoking on the ground. "Isn't this guy also a dragon? Take him over and let his father come back."
Sangis's eyes moved away from the three heads of King Ghidorah and landed on the charred little red dragon on the ground.
She looked at Weitestan's half-open and half-closed mouth, his neck that was still tilted to one side, and his tail that was still twitching slightly.
"As commanded."
"Also, Wok--tsk, what is that guy doing? He's not lost." King Ghidorah The head in the middle frowned slightly.
Voraksa has been out looking for Valeria for several days, but there is no news or any feedback. I don't know if I found it and are rushing back, or if I got into a fight with something inexplicable on the way.
King Ghidorah thought about it for a while, but was too lazy to think about it.
"Call the Lord Protector over and ask him to keep an eye on the area around the palace. If anyone with no eyesight comes in again, I will twist off his wings and eat them as roasted wings."
Sangis's expression did not change at all. "Yes." She mentally added the words "Guo Guogong" to the top of her to-do list.
King Ghidorah turned around and walked towards the main hall. His pace was neither fast nor slow, his tail trailed on the ground and the tip of his tail tapped lightly on the threshold before dragging in again.
The light inside the door was much darker than outside, and his golden scales seemed to be ignited at the junction of light and dark, emitting a warm, amber light.
Sangis stood on the platform and watched King Ghidorah's figure disappear into the shadows deep in the hall.
Sangis turned around.
Weitestan was still lying on the platform. The white smoke on his body had almost dispersed, and some fine, transparent tissue fluid began to leak out from the burnt black scales. This was the body's self-protection reaction after being burned by high temperature.
Sangis looked at the half-dead little red dragon, his chest still rising and falling weakly, and smelled the unpleasant smell of roasted protein mixed with sulfur in the air.
This is no longer a fucking minor trouble, this is a big trouble, the kind of trouble you get woken up in the middle of the night, told "something happened", and then find that the whole building is on fire, and you don't even have time to think about getting water or calling someone first.
What's going on? Where's the Wyvern? Where's the Imperial Army? How did he get in?
Sangis's face is ugly.
Her lips were pursed into a line, and the vertical lines between her eyebrows were so deep that they looked like they had been carved with a knife.
Where did Weitestan fly in from? What outposts and patrol routes did he pass along the way? Why didn't anyone stop him? Why didn't anyone come to report it?
Why is this information all blank to her? She will find out the answers to these questions one by one in the next few hours.
Now, she needs to handle this matter as soon as possible and give His Majesty an explanation. Those old people, those old people who are sitting in Senate, eating the salary of the empire, enjoying the privileges of the empire, but causing trouble for the new emperor at the critical moment when he ascends the throne.
They wanted to see the new emperor's jokes and how His Majesty Caesar would respond to a "reasonable" challenge as heir. Now they see it.
Weitestan was chopped into cokes by a bolt of lightning and sent away. The new emperor did not argue with him, did not give him a chance to explain, and did not follow any "reasonable" procedures.
They should be satisfied, Sangis took a deep breath.
Let Governor Valerirus come back first.
Otherwise, those old guys wouldn't listen to her at all, they would only listen to the red dragon.
Several huge wyverns flew from the animal pens on the side of the palace, their wings spread like a row of dark brown moving sails in the sun.
They landed slowly on the platform, their claws making tiny, sharp sounds on the stone slabs. Several trainers jumped off the backs of the wyverns and saluted Sangis.
Sangis raised his chin towards the smoking little red dragon on the ground.
"Send him to Forbidden Land and hand him over to Governor Valerirus. Tell the governor that your Majesty invites him to come back."
The animal trainers looked at each other and didn't ask any questions.
They put those thick ropes made of special materials around Weitestan's paws and neck, and tied the other ends of the ropes to the saddles of several wyverns.
The trainer gave a few short commands, and the wyvern flapped its wings at the same time, pulling the half-dead little red dragon up from the ground. His body swayed in the air, and his claws dragged on the ground for a while, and then rose.
Many wyverns carried a small red dragon on their backs, slowly lifted into the sky, and flew towards the east.
In a certain aristocratic building, a conference room.
The long table was large enough for ten people to sit side by side. The tabletop was covered with dark green velvet, and there were several maps and open documents spread out on it.
There were several candles stuck in the silver candlesticks, and the candlelight swayed gently in the breeze that squeezed in through the cracks in the window.
There is an oil painting hanging on the wall of the room, which is a portrait of Emperor Vagrian Empire.
There were not many people sitting around the round table, but everyone was a member of Senate, or a hereditary noble of the empire, or a local official with real power. The same expression was written on their faces - things were not going well.
"How is His Highness Witt doing now?" an old man with gray hair wearing dark blue robes asked.
"According to the information transmitted, he was burned and sent away by His Majesty Caesar."
Another person answered.
Silence.
"It seems that the new His Majesty is not easy to talk to."
They are members of Senate and several nobles with deep roots in the empire.
Their surnames account for nearly one-third of the seats in the empire Senate, and their families collectively own more land in the empire than several provinces combined.
Their private soldiers and wealth are enough to make any small border country weigh their weight when they hear their name.
"Did the Protector directly recognize the new emperor?" a voice came from the end of the long table.
The voice was a little hoarse, as if he hadn't drank water for a long time.
"Yes. They don't want to attend our council either."
Silence.
"Yesterday the Lord Protector went to see His Majesty Valerirus." Another person added.
"Then what?"
"Then the Lord Protector went to stop the approaching His Highnesses." The man paused here, raised his head and moved his gaze from a wood grain on the table to the face opposite.