Lord of the Truth

Chapter 1569: In secret!

”...That wretch leaked information about my father!” Caesar’s brows furrowed sharply, his voice booming. ”There is no crime greater than this!”

”What did you just say?!” Renara’s body trembled, her face pale with disbelief. ”That’s impossible! Elinor may have strayed from the right path, yes, but everything she did was to protect herself and to safeguard the Nine Paths Empire! She would never—she couldn’t—do something like this!”

”Are empires protected these days by spreading their legs?” Caesar let out a cold, mocking laugh.

”Choose your words carefully!” Renara snapped back fiercely. ”She did all of this to grow stronger, to stand by my side and shield the empire from its enemies! Maybe she sought to continue growing, to gain enough strength to influence their decisions, perhaps even to destroy them from within. Perhaps—”

”I’ve no patience for your speculations today.” Caesar cut her off with a curt raise of his hand. ”Whatever her motives, that is your bloodline to worry about, not mine.” His face darkened, the levity fading from his eyes. ”But her daring attempt to meddle with us, with my father, will not go unpunished.”

Renara steadied herself, swallowing hard before forcing out the words. ”...What exactly did she leak?”

”That’s a question for you.” Caesar pointed directly at her before leaning back, resting his arms on the throne’s armrests. ”After your quarrel with her, when she left planet Azakra, we received an official envoy from the Twilight Spectrum Empire. That envoy came to us with an offer to purchase the Merged Law of permanence Frost.”

”The Merged Law of Permanence Frost?!” Renara’s brows knitted in shock. The only ones who knew the true source of that merged law—aside from herself—were Elinor and the highest elders of the empire. She had been forced to tell them, since she had drained an enormous number of Pearls to purchase that very technique in the form of Stellar Scout Ships!

”Why are you so certain it was Elinor who leaked this?” Renara asked quickly, desperate.

”I cannot claim absolute certainty,” Caesar admitted with a short nod. ”We know who she met with and when. What we do not know is what was said in those meetings. Still... we have our suspicions.”

He continued, ”That day, when they brought the request to purchase the merged law, I feigned ignorance. I refused outright and ordered the envoy to leave. But instead, the man made a peculiar counter-offer...” Caesar leaned forward, his elbows pressing onto his knees, his eyes gleaming. ”He said he was willing to help us exact revenge on you, to replace you with someone else—someone far more understanding.”

”They offered to replace me?!” Renara’s beautiful features twisted in shock. ”But that’s impossible! No one in the entire empire could take my place except—” Her voice faltered, her words cut short. She lowered her gaze, lips trembling. ”...Except...”

”Except your sister, correct?” Caesar smiled knowingly. ”You know what? Let’s assume the best of her. Let us say it was not Elinor, but one of the Nine Hall Chiefs who leaked the secret.” At that, he flicked his wrist, and another file descended onto the table with a heavy thud. ”Inside, you’ll find a list of four hall chiefs. Three of them females. Every single one maintains ties to individuals in the Twilight Spectrum Empire. And by sheer coincidence, all four are either directly or indirectly in contact with Elinor. All of them know where she is and what she’s been doing.”

”No...” Renara whispered, her voice unsteady, her hands trembling as she snatched up the new file.

She skimmed through it quickly, and instead of rejecting its contents outright, her eyes only grew wider and wider with every page.

”Do you see it now?” Caesar’s smile deepened. ”Those four are the eldest in your Senate. For over a million years, not a single one of their planets has been attacked, for their territories are untouchable. Their families are the strongest, the wealthiest, the most influential—thanks to the superior beast blood coursing in their veins. It can be said that nearly all the elite units and most of the subordinate world cataclysms under your empire are descended from their lines.”

Crash.

Renara crushed the file in a sudden, furious motion, the papers folding and tearing beneath her trembling fingers before she flung the ruined stack onto the table where it landed with a slap. The sound echoed in the chamber like a verdict.

”...!!” Caesar’s jaw tightened; he almost raised his voice at her outburst, but checked himself at the last heartbeat when he saw a single tear escape Renara’s lashes and fall to the floor, tiny and undeniable. For a moment his expression softened—not from pity, but from the recognition that this wound ran deeper than politics.

”Are you telling me—” Renara’s words came out strangled, brittle with disbelief, ”—are you telling me my empire has been running a widespread prostitution in secret all these years?” Her voice cracked on the last phrase, the accusation half a roar, half a plea.

Caesar steepled his fingers, lowering them slowly as he delivered the truth with the cool precision of a man who had watched empires tilt for less. ”I’m not sure ’in secret’ is the right term here,” he replied carefully, each syllable measured. ”Your sister and those four hall-chiefs did not confine themselves to dealings with the Twilight Spectrum alone.” He enumerated the names almost casually, as if listing supplies. ”They made arrangements with the Empire of Night Beasts, the Asmandra Empire, the Milphon Empire in the Northern Starfield, and the—”

”Enough!!” Renara’s shout cut him off like a blade. The indignation in her voice was absolute. ”They were running this across the entire sector?!” Her hands clenched so tight her knuckles blanched—part fury, part the cold realization of what that scale implied.

”We cannot say the entire sector, no,” Caesar conceded with a shrug that felt like a dismissal of morals. ”But it is safe to say they cultivated intimate ties with every power carrying predator-beast blood—especially the fox and wolf clades. The benefits gained from some of those powers are cruder than those performed by the Twilight Spectrum, who themselves carry Blue Dusk Fox blood. Still, it seems to have become an addiction.”

His voice softened fractionally, not in sympathy but in observation. ”They discovered a short, cheap path to power. For many, the cost was negligible compared to the gain—so they tried it. Yet they remain cautious of you, Renara, as a mid-level Nexus State; thus they operate in limited channels. Each elder selects a handful of promising girls and sends them away quietly. At one point roughly eighty percent of their families had not tried this method—recent sieges changed that, and hundreds of girls were sent to various powers to accelerate strength gains. I estimate the number now sits around seventy percent.”

Renara buried her face in her hands, the weight of the revelation crushing. ”Please... no more on this subject,” she whispered, voice raw. ”I—”

”You failed in your role as Empress?” Caesar’s tone slipped into bitter analysis, a man who weighs outcomes like coin. He nodded slowly, almost pitying. ”If you judge success by honor and public dignity, then perhaps you have failed; the record looks bleak from that angle. But if you adopt your younger sister’s pragmatic view and widen these breeding programs, you could build a centennial empire in short order—and a millennial one thereafter.”

Renara’s head lifted, eyes blazing. With a motion that startled even those who had watched her for years, she slammed her palm down on the table so hard the wood trembled. ”I would rather see the empire and all its people perish!”