Inside the Azure Fla Kingdom, the palace was designed in a way where at the center was the palace belonging to the king, with its surrounding being four different palaces.
Existing in four directions, the north one belonged to Princess Aleriana.
The west one, near it, belonged to Empress Dowagar, who was unexpectedly the sister of the present king.
Mostly, the marriages, even in aristocracy, were based on individual choices rather than family decisions.
Simply because if the individuals who were about to get married denied the fact, then they could simply choose another faction that would recognize their potential and value their demands.
This would often result in switching their family nas, making it a very big loss for the family mbers, as they could lose affiliation with that individual.
To put it simply, if a woman had enough potential to grow into a strong cultivator, then she had complete rights regarding her decisions about whom she wanted to marry.
In the case where she was forced by her family to marry soone she didn’t like, she could join other aristocratic families based on her qualifications and get adopted there.
So the overall value, even within the feudal system, was based on the rit of each individual, asured by their future growth potential rather than their birth.
However, this also ant that if one didn’t have any potential, they would be forced to marry whoever their family wanted.
This created a dual nature of how society operated, focusing on individual potentials rather than simple control by family heads.
Powerful families, aiming to secure their upcoming generations and na within society, would never openly go against an individual’s decision in such matters like marriage.
This was the sa for the Empress Dowager, whose story was a bit confusing.
Though she was adopted as a bride, she was cared for like a daughter, which is why she was referred to both as Dowager and the sister of the present king.
’The author must be drunk to write such a backstory.’ I thought about the Queen while making my way to that palace.
As I walked along the path, I passed through the large garden areas and halls bustling with individuals engaged in their businesses.
After already passing out of the Princess’s palace, I could not help but notice the increasing number of servants.
The soldiers were also, unlike in the Princess’s palace, increasing in numbers as I made my way toward the west palace.
Generally, dowagers are the widows of the past king rather than simply the sisters of the present king.
But in this case, this title belonged to a woman who had run away from her kingdom.
She was forced into a marriage contract with soone she didn’t like, and fled to her enemy kingdom.
Eventually, she offered a marriage proposal to that kingdom’s king, but he denied her—how could he marry a 12-year-old girl?
Given her potential, however, he adopted her as a daughter.
This led to a peculiar duality where, in the enemy kingdom, it was officially declared that she had married the king while nullifying any chances of them getting her back.
That would have been sa as declaring war against the whole Azure fla kingdom.
Unofficially, she had beco the daughter of the king.
So, outside the kingdom, everyone officially referred to her as Empress Dowager, while unofficially, the general populace saw her as the sister of the present king.
And she herself added ’Empress’ before ’Dowager’ rather than ’Queen’ or sothing, even when this was just one kingdom, not a group of kingdoms.
’It was at least sothing similar.’
Recalling this information would have been hard.
Yet, considering each person had a unique backstory, it was interesting enough to remain in my mind.
Perhaps it was due to all those frustrations of daily war I went through with my boss, which led to cherish good mories.
"Halt there Young master, I apologies but may I inquire about your identity?", ca forward a soldier who was casually a mont ago chatting with two others.
With his back propped on a tree, he approached the cobblestone path surrounded by a garden and open area, revealing a very vast space.
Enough for the palace’s tal gates in front of to be visible.
The four palaces were interlinked in a way where the path had been joined by the second side gates rather than the main gates in front.
This clearly ant that these guards were non-challenged and lesser in number compared to the main gate, as hardly anyone ever ca from the northern gate which linked with Princess Aleriana’s palace.
"Greetings, I am Kyle Arcutus, and I wish to respectfully invite the Dowager to my wedding celebration," I tried to be as polite as possible.
I didn’t want to undermine my status in front of a soldier, but I also knew that the mont I entered this whole palace ground belonging to that woman, I was already under her surveillance.
She was undoubtedly looking down on , observing all my actions and likely knowing my identity from the start.
In this kingdom, there are particularly two types of strong cultivators—one who were strong and known to the general people and did not hesitate to reveal themselves.
The second type remained hidden, training secretly without anyone knowing their full potential until the end.
And that woman in particular was of the second type who had hit a bottleneck a few years ago.
’She must be around 48-50?’ I thought, considering I could not recall the minute details; based on when she arrived in this kingdom, the present king was just one or two years younger than her.
This made guess that the queen would probably be around in her 50s.
But naturally, it didn’t even matter in a world where age is really just a number.
"What? An Arcutus? Wait, weren’t you about to marry that princess? Huh?"
Suddenly, a rather arrogant voice broke through my thoughts.
One of the soldiers, who had co while scratching his ears, looked at with a clear mocking gaze as if undermining the identity I had just revealed.
I remained static, observing his dress code, which, though it marked him as a soldier, had a very small emblem revealing his affiliation with the sa family I was from—the Arcutus family.
I didn’t need to understand the reason for his arrogant tone.
After all, he had most likely already recognized .
Given the status of an illegitimate prince, he surely knew my value with this body being not that of original Kyle.
He must have sensed my cultivation level was far smaller than his.
In his eyes, I had just lost all value that might have garnered so respect.
"Why are barking, dog? Didn’t your master teach you how to lick guest’s butts?"
Needing to regain so semblance of respect from this side character, I retaliated in a firm tone, my eyes tilting toward his face in an arrogant gesture to demonstrate what true arrogance looked like, mixed with the modern world’s divine language of provocation.
"What?! What you bastard just say to —"
Hearing my tone, he tried to retaliate, clearly angered as he stretched his hand toward .
But I interrupted, knowing that killing him would be simple as a flick.
Instead, I recognized that using this opportunity seed more valuable.
So, I exhaled with my head shaking and scoffed, "I see, even after everything, Queen chooses to play the role of a statue, proving my wife’s point about your deep-rooted inferiority complex about her mother quite true."
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