After five additional years— the year 440 after the Coronation— the Middle Sector, Unit 100.

Caesar narrowed his brows slightly. Inside a vast, dim, and hollow hall, no one was present but him and Leonid.

Caesar's gaze was fixed on one of the colossal walls, as if nothing else in existence was worthy of attention. Upon that wall a strange vision unfolded, shimmering like fragments of a forgotten epic. Among the figures moving inside that shimmering scene stood someone he recognized—Renara.

"You're saying this happened today?" Caesar asked, his voice low but firm, pointing toward the flowing vision before him.

"Correct. Just a few hours ago, to be exact," Leonid replied with a solemn nod. "The rituals and ceremonies are still ongoing even now."

Caesar exhaled slowly, his tone carrying the weight of restrained fury. "That girl… she has truly lost her mind."

~~~

Step. Step.

From the towering balcony of her imperial palace, Renara advanced forward with steady, deliberate strides. The air was thick, charged with a silence so sharp it could cut flesh. Only five others stood behind her on that balcony, their hands locked rigidly behind their backs, beads of sweat trickling despite the cool height of the palace winds. None dared utter a word.

Renara's attire today was not the lavish, wide-skirted royal gown she had always been draped in. Instead, it was dark, narrow, and stripped of its usual regal ornamentation. What made it even more dreadful was that it was soaked in blood. In her right hand she carried not a scepter, not a banner of her empire, but a severed head that dripped scarlet.

Her snow-white hair, flowing from beneath her crown, cascaded down her shoulders and back like a waterfall, providing the only contrast to the suffocating darkness of her dress. Yet even that purity could not soften the storm written on her face.

Her orange eyes blazed with hatred and contempt, her lips twisted, her teeth clenched as if she were moments away from devouring the world itself. This was no longer the serene princess of old—this was a predator crowned in iron.

She advanced with regal menace until she reached the very edge of the balcony. Below her stretched the grand courtyard of the palace, a garden vast enough to meet the horizon itself. But today it was no place of peace. It was filled with an ocean of soldiers, armored legions standing shoulder to shoulder, war machines gleaming with deadly purpose, and colossal battleships arrayed in formation. The air trembled with the silent tension of a hundred thousand blades awaiting command.

Renara's gaze swept over the silent masses below, sharp and merciless. Then, with deliberate slowness, she raised the severed head high until every soul in the courtyard could see it.

"Ahooh!"

"Ahooh!"

"Ahooh!"

The earth shook with the roar of millions of voices. Soldiers thrust their spears toward the heavens as if to pierce the firmament itself. Their shouts were primal, desperate, as if their very lives depended upon this cry. Blood rushed like fire through their veins, and even the sweat on their brows seemed to vanish, burned away by the searing heat of their frenzy.

"My soldiers! O soldiers of the great Nine Paths Empire!" Renara's voice thundered, resounding over the world.

"The reckoning has begun! We shall not halt until every throat that conspired against us is severed! We shall not rest until every power that trampled us in our darkest hour is annihilated! We shall not forgive even those who dared to cast upon us a glance of contempt!"

"Ahooh!" they roared.

"Hmph! Prepare yourselves!" Renara hurled the severed head aside, letting it thud against the marble floor. Then she slammed both her blood-stained hands against the balcony's stone rail, her voice rising like a storm.

"From this day forth—we shall reclaim everything that was once ours!"

"Ahooh! Ahooh! Ahooh!"

The roar of the legions shook the heavens.

~~~~~

"Heh~ what a pity." Caesar waved his hand lightly, and the grand vision faded into fragments of light until the chamber returned to its dark emptiness. His tone carried not rage nor admiration, only a quiet trace of disappointment. "I truly expected something greater from her than this display."

"Greater than this?" Leonid's eyes widened in disbelief. "She lured the Planetary Emperor of the Pink Bull Empire —one of the very powers that struck at the Nine Paths Empire and stole its worlds— into a flawless ambush. She chased him across three entire planets in a pursuit that became legend, cornered him in the void, and in the end severed his head. Tell me, Your Highness, when was the last time a Planetary Emperor, a sovereign at the Nexus State, fell in such humiliating fashion?"

"That head she raised," Leonid pressed, "was no nameless foe—it was the head of a Planetary Emperor who had mocked the Nine Paths Empire and stripped away its lands. No wonder the moment it appeared, morale blazed like fire in dry grass. I would swear on my soul that if the Empress had commanded them then, her soldiers would have leapt into hell itself with joy."

Caesar smiled faintly, though his eyes stayed cold. "You mistake me. I do not dismiss morale. It is the spine of war. Even in our armies we have divisions whose sole duty is to raise spirits, to fill hearts with fire. A soldier burning with belief can strike with the might of ten. Conviction turns men into weapons."

The smile died. He shook his head slowly. "But let us not fool ourselves. This is no fable sung by poets. Soldiers do not break their limits simply by shouting louder. Cries will not conjure weapons from the air. And those worn ships she parades will not suddenly transform into fleets worthy of a true empire."

Leonid's expression hardened. "Your Highness… are you implying…?"

"Think back," Caesar replied, tapping his chin. "Three decades ago, when she barely survived the snare laid by the three Nexus States of the Twilight Spectrum Empire, the world thought her story was over. Yet she crawled back to Azakra, broken and bloodied, to shield herself and nurse her wounds. Even then, survival alone could have been her crown. From that miracle she could have rebuilt legitimacy, forged a dynasty anew."

He leaned forward, voice darkening. "But then whispers spread—one of the three Nexus States had vanished, grievously wounded. The Twilight Spectumr Empire demanded answers from Renara about the Emperor's lost brother. From that moment the noose was set. And what did she do? Did she deny it? Did she shield her empire from that accusation?"

A low, sharp chuckle escaped him. "No. She turned the charge upon them. She demanded an explanation about the vanished of the Fourth Hall Mistress and her followers. She ignored the blame, and in doing so she accepted it. She wore it like a cloak and made it fuel. By embracing the shadow, she found momentum. She declared not ambition but a war of survival. And then she struck their worlds herself—burning, destroying, vanishing again into the void."

Leonid nodded grimly. "Yes. For years she carried the war alone. She moved from planet to planet, shattering each before slipping away. It was relentless, almost a mirror of the Iron Boar Emperor's terror against us."

"But in the end," Caesar said, his voice like steel, "what did it bring him, or her? That reckless style, that desperate clawing against greater foes… it is nothing more than the last refuge of a sovereign at death's door."

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