CHAPTER 173
What in the world was going on?
I had no doubt that Perasis, of all people, would adamantly oppose the Emperor's resurrection.
For her, reviving the Emperor was a terrible move that would render the will meaningless.
That was why I assumed Perasis would become an enemy and why I had even prepared the 3rd Prince as a countermeasure.

But for her to agree to the Emperor's resurrection now...
I couldn't fathom what she was thinking.

'What is she planning?'

Is she confident that she can become Emperor even if the Emperor is revived and the will becomes meaningless?
Or did she take a step back, judging that this is what's best for the Empire?
I know Perasis is someone who cares about the Empire.
But to build that kind of Empire, becoming the Emperor should have been her top priority.

Could it be that she believes the Emperor won't retract his words, and she's doing this to eliminate any chance of the 1st and 2nd Princes using Black Dawn as an excuse to make a comeback?
But that was far too risky of a move.
The 1st and 2nd Princes would pour all sorts of sweet talk and lies into the revived Emperor's ears.
There was no guarantee that the senile Emperor would make a sound judgment.

"Saint, aren't we going?"

At that moment, Perasis called out to me, snapping me out of my thoughts.
A smile was drawn on Perasis's lips. A first-time smile that seemed entirely devoid of ulterior motives. A smile Perasis would absolutely never genuinely make.

I had no idea what she was plotting.
But even so, I couldn't just throw away the chance to revive the Emperor.
For me, it didn't matter who became Emperor as long as the Empire stabilized.
If the Emperor was brought back through Resurrection Magic, the slander that he had been brainwashed during the war would disappear.
That was enough for me.

The path to seek an audience with the Emperor.
Though he was a corpse whose breath had long since stopped, he was still the Emperor.
There weren't many who could enter the audience chamber.
The knights stopped in their tracks, and soon the nobles stopped as well.
The only ones who ended up standing in the audience chamber were the Imperial Family and me.

To think I'd live to see the day I walk into the audience chamber side-by-side with the Imperial Family.
No objections came from the nobles.
Even they must have fully understood that the fate of the Empire rested on a single Transferee who possessed Resurrection Magic.

'How did my life end up like this?'

I only intended to buy time until Aranseol safely rescued the 3rd Prince, but my head was getting complicated.
But what could I do?
Since I've come this far, I have no choice but to draw my sword.

The doors to the audience chamber opened.
Led by the 1st Princess, we stepped inside, and I was greeted by a smell akin to an operating room.
A single bed was placed there.
An old man with his eyes closed, his arms neatly folded.

Emperor Pelaksis Gladion.
A figure who was once so full of vigor that he personally led charges in war, unable to escape death as the years passed.
Now, not a trace of that former vigor remained.
His beginnings might have been grand, but his death was not much different from that of an ordinary passerby you could see anywhere outside.

There were no signs of decay on the corpse.
It seemed holy magic had been applied to prevent his body from rotting.
Well, it had barely been a day anyway.
There was no way his corpse would have degraded.

"Now, Saint, we leave it to you."

At the 1st Prince Pelion's request, I walked up to the Emperor's corpse.
Dreivan was watching me intently with eyes full of various worries.
To them, they were probably just praying that the Emperor would come back to life and nullify the will.

Then how was the person who wanted the will to be upheld reacting?
I glanced over, and Perasis was looking at me with a completely unbothered expression.
She looked even more carefree than the 1st and 2nd Princes.
What in the world was she plotting?
There was no way to find out.

For now, the only option was to revive the Emperor.
I gathered my magic power and placed my hands on the Emperor's body.
Accordingly, a pure white light spread from my grasp, enveloping the Emperor.

How much time passed?
By the time the light seeping into the Emperor's body slowly faded...
My eyes began to widen.

"Is it done?"

Dreivan, seeing Resurrection Magic for the first time, threw a question.
He looked ready to bow his head at any moment, thinking the Emperor would rise soon.
However, that was pointless.

My head creaked as I turned toward Perasis.
She was looking back at me with a questioning face, as if she truly knew nothing.
As if asking what happened.
As if asking what went wrong.
Perasis's eyes were filled with doubt.

For a moment, it was so hypocritical that I almost let out a sigh of sheer disbelief.

"Resurrection Magic does not work on His Majesty."

Hearing that answer, Pelion and Dreivan's faces hardened.
Only Pelion quietly stared at the Emperor with a look that suggested he had guessed something.

"Saint, can you explain what is going on?"

Explain what's going on, huh.
There are only two cases where Resurrection Magic doesn't work.
One is when the target's lifespan has reached its absolute limit.
The second is when the target isn't actually dead but is still alive.

"His Majesty hasn't passed away."

At first, I thought of an Apostle.
If someone is revived as an Apostle, Resurrection Magic doesn't work.
However, resurrecting someone as an Apostle was Blody's authority.
With him dead, creating an Apostle of that caliber was impossible.
And the next thing that came to mind was a recent incident I had learned about.
An incident I absolutely did not want to speak out loud right now.

"What do you mean he hasn't passed away? Stop stalling and speak clearly."

As the impatient Dreivan urged me, I raised a hand and slowly wiped my face.

"Resurrection Magic does not work if the target is still alive somewhere."

"What?"

Hearing that answer, Dreivan asked back, unable to process it immediately.
Watching his panic, I slowly removed the hands I had placed on the Emperor.

"I mean exactly what I said. His Majesty the Emperor has not passed away. He is alive somewhere."

"What kind of nonsense is that? His Majesty is right here!"

He shouted at me to explain properly.
I understood his frustration.
But arguing with me was pointless.
Because if there was anyone here who knew the truth, it was only one person.

"Yes, my thoughts exactly. Did you know about this, Lady Perasis?"

The 1st Princess, Perasis Gladion.
The person who had foreseen the Emperor's death and even tried to use it to her advantage.
When I turned to her and asked the question, Perasis stared back at me quietly.
The myriad of meanings hidden behind that gaze.
I wasn't ignorant of what they meant, but I didn't avert my eyes.

"I see. I completely didn't expect this either."

A denial returned from Perasis.
Hearing that denial, an incredibly bitter taste filled my mouth.

The sacrifice for the vessel of Black Dawn's Artificial Transcendent.
Because this was the denial of a crazy woman who had offered up her own father to create that vessel.

Black Dawn and Perasis had joined hands.
And in the form I desired the least.
Perasis, to become the Emperor.
Black Dawn, to operate in Gladion under the Emperor's protection.
Their interests had aligned perfectly.

Of course, this was entirely my educated guess.
Perhaps the Emperor had some hidden scheme, or maybe Perasis had a different plan altogether.
But there is such a thing as intuition.
An intuition honed from crossing countless lines of death up until now.
My intuition and all the information I had gathered so far were pointing to that very fact.

"Where do you think His Majesty is alive?"

Pelion, the calmest among them, asked the question.
My eyes were still locked with Perasis's.
Perasis had wanted an era where Transferees could be freely employed in the Imperial Palace.
Even I hadn't expected those words to come back like this.

"Black Dawn."

If I brought this up right now, what kind of disadvantages would fall on me?
The moment I brought this truth to light, there was no telling what Perasis, the future Empress, would do to me.
However, even with Perasis standing right in front of me, I didn't hesitate.

"It might be their doing. In order to create an entity known as an Artificial Transcendent, they consumed his life force in this manner to use him as a vessel."

The Artificial Transcendent Project.
This must be information the Imperial Family wasn't ignorant of either.
Starting from what a group of lunatics Black Dawn was...
To the fact that they were dreaming an absurd, impossible dream.
And Perasis, too, would be well aware of it.

"Those bastards..."

Dreivan clenched both fists, his face flushed with rage.

"Strange."

On the other hand, Pelion, having heard my answer, turned to look at Perasis.

"What meaning is there for them to prevent His Majesty's resurrection?"

It was an attitude that clearly suspected Perasis.
However, Perasis didn't mind in the slightest and looked back at the Emperor.

"They might need the Emperor's bloodline. Everything those bastards do has always been full of incomprehensible nonsense anyway. Perhaps they were waiting for His Majesty's death from the very beginning."

Perasis let out a deep breath, acting as if she found it unforgivable.

"We shall immediately form a squad to hunt down those Black Dawn bastards."

"To dare lay their hands on His Majesty the Emperor after his passing... They are truly vicious bastards who can never be forgiven."

A shamelessly confident attitude.
In that moment, I realized why Perasis had been so relaxed even when Black Dawn was mentioned.
By being the first to declare Black Dawn—who had made a mockery of even the Emperor's death—as the enemy, she was trying to weaken the 1st and 2nd Princes' attempts to use Black Dawn to claim the Emperor's will was invalid.

I have absolutely no connection to Black Dawn. Look at them now, the atrocities they committed are absolutely unforgivable. I will punish them severely.

She had prepared this entire situation in advance just to put on this show.
Just as I had tried to use the fact that the Emperor had been a prisoner of Black Dawn in the past through his resurrection, she had already planned all the countermeasures to block it beforehand.
From the sudden death of the Emperor and the moment he left his will, to the fact that I would bring up Black Dawn.
Through our few encounters, she had built up a rapport, figured me out, and engineered everything up to this point.

A plan prepared to trample over the two disjointed factions and ascend as the Emperor while the 1st and 2nd Princes were left stamping their feet trying to catch the terrorist organization known as Black Dawn.
I felt a sudden chill run down my spine.
She would use any means, any scheme, stopping at nothing to become the Emperor.
There was not a shred of morality in it.

Perasis smiled.
A bizarre, terrifying smile.

I couldn't even open my mouth to describe that smile.