Chapter Twenty-Seven: Emperor Maurice

The two Chief Paladin Knights, their hearts filled with grief and fury, finally fought their way through the hail of bullets to reach the front of the military formation. To say nothing of their other qualities, just the sight of these monsters still brimming with vitality after taking a direct volley of musket fire was enough to make the legs of ordinary soldiers go weak. Only the most elite troops could calmly reload and prepare for a second volley in the face of such terrors—and as it happened, the First Division of the Royal Guard was precisely the most elite force of the Morris Empire.

When the two monsters charged forward, the soldiers of the First Division coolly shifted formation, as if the threat before them was not two invulnerable beasts, but merely a pair of insignificant pests coming to meet their doom.

Soon after, the two Chief Paladin Knights watched with reluctance as the musket lines withdrew, and they collided headlong with three rows of impeccably aligned pikes!

Deploying a formation of extra-long pikes—meant for cavalry—to deal with just two men seemed like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly, yet the outcome was astonishing: a true contest of equals!

The pikes, several meters in length, were utterly incapable of slowing these superhuman monsters. With a single sweep of their swords imbued with battle aura, the front row of pikes snapped cleanly, and then, like knives slicing through flesh, they cut two neat breaches into the formation. After struggling through the thick ranks of pikes, the Chief Paladin Knights emerged once more into the sunlight, only to find themselves facing another impeccably arrayed Morris phalanx, several hundred men strong, with even a few three-pounder smoothbore cannons positioned between the formations!

Gazing upon the seemingly endless and ever-prepared First Division of the Royal Guard, the two Chief Paladin Knights could not help but reveal despair in their eyes. It was not for lack of effort or monstrous strength; they simply found themselves at the wrong place, facing thousands of elite troops head-on. If warriors of the Grand Knight level could defeat such elite armies in direct battle, what need would the world have for armies at all? The Church of Light would have long since unified all of Europa!

To ensure absolute security, the First Division of the Royal Guard had arranged no fewer than five such formations. The two monstrous Chief Paladin Knights managed to break through the second line, but their battle aura was utterly depleted, and they were reduced to mangled heaps of flesh by the massed musket volley of the third.

The commander of the First Division of the Royal Guard regarded the two bodies—once formidable Grand Knights, now barely recognizable—without a flicker of expression. After confirming that all assassins had been eliminated, he promptly issued orders to clear the battlefield and withdraw the troops to the palace. After all, Emperor Morris still resided there, and the more guards, the better!

The commander was unmoved by the loss: over 1,500 elite soldiers, including his personal guard company, had died to thwart a few dozen assassins. Forty versus 1,500—a ratio that seemed to spell disaster for the Morris Empire. Yet, if it meant eliminating two Chief Paladin Knights, the English Empire and the Frankonian Empire would gladly pay ten times the blood price for such a result. To kill monsters of Grand Knight strength who could roam the battlefield at will, any nation would sacrifice an entire division.

As the assassins of the Church of Light attacked the three disguised carriages, Sun Li watched the Emperor of Morris before him in surprise. Was the emperor not presiding over the parade? How did he have time to seek him out? Had Victoria already revealed his identity?

"Sir Sun Li, I presume, is the Grand Knight sent by Duke Norman of the English Empire to aid me? Though I abhor those monsters of the Church of Light, I hold warriors like yourself who possess such miraculous battle aura in high esteem. Thanks to the reminder from Duchess Victoria, perhaps I will not need to trouble you to act today," Emperor Morris said, smiling easily in the company of his guards, as if everything was under control. To turn his own birthday celebration into a blood-soaked battlefield, this emperor was indeed a man of extraordinary resolve.

No doubt, Emperor Morris believed that his 5,000 palace guards could ensure his absolute safety. The events to come would surely be dramatic.

Almost as if seeking to flatter Emperor Morris, a servant arrived to report that the disguised carriages had successfully lured out the assassins of the Church of Light. The First Division of the Royal Guard, well-prepared, had swiftly surrounded the entire district. Now, they awaited news to see how many Chief Paladin Knights' heads they would collect. Each of the five monsters of the Holy Knight Order killed would ease the emperor's burdens in his upcoming campaign to the west. Emperor Morris, supremely confident in his military command, feared only these five invulnerable monsters. Once the Holy Knight Order—a factory for such abominations—was eradicated, Emperor Morris firmly believed that his methods would allow him to unify the entire human world. The world belonged to iron-blooded armies, not to those who defied the laws of science.

Of course, perhaps Emperor Morris's personal combat prowess was ordinary, which made him both envious and resentful of the extraordinary Grand Knights. He believed himself to be the most brilliant genius in the world, excelling in politics, military, and economics, all managed with flawless precision. Indeed, the rise of the Morris Empire owed much to the wise leadership of this autocrat.

Yet he was forced to admit his inferiority in one respect: personal combat. How could such superhuman monsters exist in this world? It violated all scientific principles; they were mistakes of creation. The world should be rational and scientific, but those damned, inexplicably powerful Grand Knights with externalized battle aura made it abnormal.

Therefore, I—Emperor Morris, the great sovereign—must employ wisdom to restore this world to its proper course. Science must be its guiding theme, and all unscientific entities must be erased. In a world ruled by science, the great Emperor Morris would have no flaws; he would be the perfect ruler of this world. Such was the ideal at the heart of Emperor Morris.

Yes, Emperor Morris was a man of genius, but also madly ambitious. It is often said that every self-made hero is either a madman or a genius; the line separating the two is razor-thin. Success marks genius, failure marks madness. Clearly, Emperor Morris saw himself as a genius, and to become the most renowned genius of all ages, he was determined to eradicate every unreasonable existence from the world.

Sun Li gazed into the emperor's eyes—so sane yet so mad—and for the first time felt that killing this man was not merely for himself, but also a contribution to all the peoples of the world. This man was, without doubt, a madman.