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Chapter 384: Bad News
Chapter 384: Bad News
Chapter 384: Bad News
Chapter 384: Bad News
( The Emperor Julien D Evanus’s POV )
The past two months had not been kind to the Emperor Julien D Evanus.
They were arguably the most turmoil-filled months of his life, as he had never been as sleep deprived and over-worked over the past few decades as he had been in the last two months.
Bad news just kept pouring from all sides, as every single region in his Empire faced some sort of problem.
The North had always been the main battlefront against the demons, it was a harsh winterland that was constantly at war against the demon king’s main forces.
However, the North was no longer the only Battlefront against the demons anymore as the East and West also saw demons making headway.
100 square kilometers of the Empire’s land had been overrun by demons so far on both sides and the war showed no signs of slowing down.
The demon problem was to stay and it would most likely be years before the Demon war reached its conclusion.
As things stood, it seemed like his people needed to learn how to live with the demons surrounding the Empire’s boundaries from the East and West, just like how they were used to the Demons surrounding the Empire from the North.However, Julien knew how morale breaking it was to have an enemy surround one’s land from three-sides, and hence although he knew that the demon war was not going to find a solution anytime soon, internally he prayed for a time when he could liberate his land from the demon problem.
However, while the North, East and West gave Julien significant headaches, none of them bothered him as much as the South did, where a rebellion was underway.
Currently, the Southern Duchy of the Empire had seen a coup being successful, as the rebels took over the ‘Milwaukee’ Viscounty in a single day.
The Empire’s information network seemed to have been caught off-guard, as nobody seemed to have anticipated this move.
Julien had no credible information on ‘The Uprising’ or who their leaders were or what was their ultimate goal.
According to the spies that infiltrated the Milwaukee Viscounty after the rebellion was successful, the goal of the Uprising seemed to be to liberate the Empire from the hands of the corrupt Emperor, who they painted as a tyrant and an evil man.
For Julien, this rebellion was more dangerous than the demon’s at his boundaries, as sentiments of rebellion did not take long to spread.
If the myriad different races followed suit and declared their rebellion against the Empire, then the Empire would most likely fragment into bits and pieces, as with the demons on their boundary and on-going internal rebellions, the Empire would not have the strength to hold everything together.
This was the worst case scenario that Julien was trying to desperately prevent day-in and day-out, as he went all-out in his attempts of diplomacy to ensure that the Elves and the Beastmen did not take this opportunity to rebel against the crown.
To make the situation even worse than it already was, it was during these tumultuous times that Julien received the report that Sir Cedric was dead.
Sir Cedric was a Master level assassin and for Julien his most important tool, as unlike the official Army Commander, whom he could not deploy for personal missions, Sir Cedric was his right hand and his sword who carried out his personal missions under the Empire’s banner.
His death was a big-blow to Julien as without their leader, the legendary Virex Corps were left almost toothless.
To make matters even worse, Sir Cedric had died not at the hands of demons or after killing the Demon Whisperer that he was sent to kill… but before he ever made it to the Eastern boundary, at the hands of an enemy that Julien had severely underestimated.
‘Dem Paltrow, I thought he would fade to the sidelines after losing his faction, but I was wrong…. Maybe I should not have pressed so far down the throat of a Champion’ Julien thought, as he regretted his decision to crackdown as hard as he did down the throat of the Assassin Alliance.
However, although he regretted it, he had no outlet for his emotions, as being the Emperor, there was no room for weakness in his demeanor.
No matter how bad the times got, he needed to absorb all the losses and continue as if nothing happened, as if he did not project strength, then the entire Empire would start to crumble.
“Bring me my pen and paper….. If Cedric is dead then there is but one that I can entrust the mission of killing the Demon Whisperer to…” Julien instructed his servant, who immediately brought him his royal pen, some ink and paper.
With a sullen face, Julien wrote a letter to Ben Faulkner, a notorious whom he was forced to pardon just a few months ago.
Never had Julien anticipated that he would be forced to ask Ben for help again in his life, however, with Cedric dead, only Ben Faulkner had the ability to take-down the Demon Whisperer, who was the number two national threat after the unknown leader of the rebellion.
Knowing Faulkner all too well, Julien knew that he would not act for his own benefit and that the key to Faulkner’s heart was through his disciple, and hence in his letter to the old man, Julien promised rewards not only for himself but also for his disciple ‘TheBoss’, who was currently a mere Baron in the Eastern Barony.
In addition to that, Julien also made a proposal to Ben to try and kill the Demon King if possible, and promised to grant him the title of the Empire’s Saint if he succeeded.
Alas, he knew that this was a long-shot and that Faulkner was never going to actually go after the Demon King.