The Emperor Who Was Chapter 120 : Chapter 120

Chapter . 120

The Empress’s shout thundered through the vast audience hall.

The second prince opened his mouth, as if to say sothing. However, the Empress did not give him the chance. She turned at once to the Emperor and fell to both knees. For the first ti since the coronation.

The Empress whom people said was so conscious of mockery about her low birth that rely kissing the hand when petitioning would never be enough, and that like an empress of the ancient empire she even had rumors of receiving kisses upon her feet. The Empress who had never once done anything before others that might damage her dignity.

“Your Majesty, I am wronged! This is a vile sche that pretends to attack my elder brother, but in the end targets .”

Tears dripped down from the face of the Empress, still slender and beautiful despite having borne two sons.

“I have already borne the full brunt of accusations that I abused the young prince because of prejudice against stepmothers. Was I the only stepmother like that? In the past, when a prince born of a deceased empress died of illness, there was even an empress who fell under suspicion of poisoning, and her trusted attendant was executed! There were empresses whose maids were arrested or driven out because they were called conspirators! And so, when the prince disappeared, I was blad even more as if it were my fault, but I am no fool. I would sooner keep my head down than dig my own grave with my own hands.”

People were overwheld.

A thought began to spread that the Empress’s words had a point. If it were not true to so extent, no one could stand so boldly like that.

“Of course, I do not say I cannot understand the prince’s heart. I have been pointed at by people like Grimiati, accused of killing his birth mother, and because of the wounds in my heart I could not bear to draw close, so I kept my distance. How much must he have resented that, with a child’s heart.”

The Empress continued with a sorrowful face.

“He must have been unable to endure it because he hated . Every bad thing that happened to him must have felt like my fault. He must have wanted to take revenge on

for even his birth mother’s death, his stepmother, but!”

The Empress raised both hands toward the Emperor desperately.

“I can no longer endure it either. A child who commits such evil acts, filled with vengeance and resentnt, cannot be left as he is any longer. I have never once been called Mother by this child, but if even now I do not admonish this child’s wrongdoing as a mother, how much more depraved will he beco! If, as Your Majesty said, you love this child most, then you must guide him onto the proper path. If only for the sake of the late forr Empress as well!”

Only then did she turn back to Prince Leontes and speak with tear-soaked eyes.

“I forgive you, Leontes. You pitiful child who lost your mother.”

When had Prince Leontes ever begged for forgiveness?

That question rose in everyone’s mind.

Yet the faith of Traneha taught that forgiveness given before it is asked is more precious. If the Empress were truly innocent, would she really co forward to forgive a prince who had not even asked? That ant the Empress firmly believed in the prince’s wrong, in the prince’s corruption… but the prince was the victim.

“Disgusting.”

Then, in a silence that felt ready to shatter, a single word rang out. It was Maximilian. Co to think of it, he had been strangely quiet until now.

The First Prince’s words were accurate. Under normal circumstances, people would have agreed with him. Before they had been swayed by the Empress’s performance.

However, the Empress was crying, pitiable and beautiful, grieving over the loss of her nephew.

She had issued forgiveness according to the words of the God of Traneha before the prince even begged. And the First Prince openly insulted such an Empress……

It felt like too stark a contrast. Against the contempt plain on the First Prince’s face, the Empress’s tear-wet face offering forgiveness looked so noble it was almost sacred.

Even before this, people had not fully believed the Empress’s words. Many had suffered at her hands, and they knew how she treated Prince Leontes.

But in this situation, a rude remark unfit for the imperial presence backfired rather than winning sympathy.

And the Empress, who had risen like lightning, imdiately seized that flow of atmosphere that the arrogant First Prince had missed.

“I forgive you as well.”

Normally she would not have let such a First Prince off either, but this ti she stubbornly pushed the image of a pitiable stepmother being attacked by two stepsons. Rhiannon was second to none in sheer obstinacy.

“I swear on the dragon egg.”

At that mont, Prince Leontes’s clear voice rang out.

“What did you say? Is the dragon egg even yours? The dragon egg is not your possession, but clearly belongs to His Majesty the Emperor, and yet how dare you swear upon it!”

Rhiannon said, as if she could not believe it, placing a hand on her chest. Before the princes she had declared that the dragon egg was not the Emperor’s, but before the Emperor she made it clear it was his, seeking to win his favor.

“If what I say is not true, I swear that from this point on I have no rights to the dragon egg whatsoever.”

Then, the Emperor, who had been watching the fight between the son he claid to love so much and his wife with deep interest that did not match his usual expressionless face, finally opened his mouth.

“Are you sincere?”

“Yes.”

Prince Leontes’s voice was clear as he spoke, yet it trembled with rage. The prince felt fury no less than the Empress, but as he struggled even harder than she did not to spill his emotions before the imperial presence, sincerity rose from him. Sothing people could lean on amid this chaos.

“I accuse Duke Lauderdale, who dared attempt to murder , a prince of Armatia, before His Majesty the Emperor. If my words are false, I will not demand any right whatsoever to the egg of His Majesty the Emperor’s dragon, Ilaves.”

The prince’s blazing eyes, as he declared sothing so shocking, swept over the people. Everyone lowered their eyes.

“Your Majesty the Empress, if what you said is true, swear as I have sworn. If, as you claim, Duke Lauderdale is innocent, then even if I find the dragon egg, I will gladly hand it over to Desmond as an act of apology. However, if the duke is not innocent, then Desmond will never obtain the dragon egg. Everything depends on Your Majesty’s oath.”

Rhiannon glared at Leontes with eyes wide.

“…Why must I swear? In the end, your words contain a flaw. The dragon egg belongs to His Majesty the Emperor, so whoever finds it must offer it to His Majesty. And yet you try to mock His Majesty by saying you would give it to Desmond, words you do not even an? I will not be deceived by you, and I will not make a mistaken oath like yours!”

There was logic in Rhiannon’s words. She had precisely struck the hole in Leontes’s claim. With that, Rhiannon would avoid making an oath.

“What does that have to do with the duke’s innocence…….”

“Exactly. Whether the dragon egg goes to His Majesty the Emperor or to Prince Desmond, why does that an you will not swear about the duke’s innocence? If the condition is the problem, you could just set a different condition.”

But people murmured with dissatisfied faces. Only then did Rhiannon realize it. Leontes had deliberately hidden a flaw in his oath.

Even if she found it and clung to it, it would force her to reveal her intent to evade the oath, while also drawing the Emperor’s attention with a flaw that concerned the dragon egg.

“Prince Leontes, I will give you one last chance. If you withdraw your false accusation against Duke Lauderdale, then neither I nor Duke Lauderdale will further contest the honor damaged by it. I will also treat your oath as withdrawn.”

Rhiannon offered a negotiation. It was not a bad condition.

Leontes had dealt a heavy blow to the Empress’s faction, and the Empress’s faction would have to lower itself and bide its ti for a while.

For a wretch like him to have done this much, should he not stop being greedy, know his place, and withdraw?

…She might have been wrong. That she had acted rashly, as Benedict said……. But her instinct that she had to crush Leontes before he grew stronger was never wrong.

It was only that Leontes was already strong.

“I will never withdraw my accusation. My accusation is just, so Duke Lauderdale must pay the price for the cri of daring to attempt to assassinate a prince.”

However, Leontes committed the very mistake of a novice politician drunk on the success he had barely achieved, one who did not know when to retreat.

“If your accusation is not true, how will you repay the cri of falsely accusing my elder brother! Will you even stake your life!”

She could not stake the dragon egg. She had to block even the ntion of it so that Desmond’s claim to the egg would not waver.

“Yes. I will stake my life.”

“Oh dear. An Armatia prince staking his life. I spoke too harshly. In front of His Majesty the Emperor, do not say such a thing as a child.”

The Empress showed pity, displaying sympathy without filtering it. To others, it would look as if, even in the midst of fierce political struggle, the Empress had revealed humane compassion for the young prince.

But the prince, who when younger had been so starved for affection that he would have felt even such a ploy as gratitude, had at so point realized her true intent, that such words only shackled him further. Ashad of how he had been deceived, he grew even angrier.

“Even if you were not a child born of my womb, my heart aches terribly.”

That was all she had to provoke. Even if the prince had narrowly avoided the trap she set, the inferiority she had deeply implanted in him remained.

That inner truth, ingrained since childhood, was the greatest trap Rhiannon had laid for Leontes.

“If you cannot prove yourself before His Majesty the Emperor except with such words, then you should rather keep your mouth shut and stop acting rashly. Preserve the dignity of a prince.”

The most painful blunder victims make most often in situations like this.

Swept away by emotion, they eventually say fine, then let’s do it like this, let’s do it like that, and end up offering conditions themselves. It was a foolish act, even though it was not sothing that needed to be decided by a wager.

Even though the victim had no need to respond to the provocation, they fell for the urge to prove their grievance too much.

It looked fair and upright on the surface, but in truth it was yielding to the other side’s unreasonable demand and pushing oneself back into a disadvantageous position.

Leontes was finally caught by her last trap.

“I can also swear upon the Crystal of Truth held by Royal Father.”

A better outco than she had expected!

The Emperor’s crystal was a national treasure stained with imperial blood because of a tragedy long ago.

Of course, it was better than openly saying he would stake his life, and it still carried a weight equal to a life, so one could say the prince was trying, in his own way, after accepting the Empress’s rebuke.

‘But to swear upon that ominous national treasure.’

In his resentnt, the prince was losing his reason and stepping forward recklessly.

So that was that. Rhiannon suppressed her excitent and moved at once. As Empress, petitioning the Emperor.

“Since it has co to this, we must accept the prince’s desperate request. I too ask for the Crystal of Truth, Your Majesty! This concerns an insult toward the Empress and a matter related to the dragon egg. We must use the Crystal of Truth to determine whether the prince’s oath is true!”

Even though the Empress had not used the crystal to determine whether her own words were true.

People felt dissatisfaction, but the prince still did not bend from his reckless stance. It was frustrating for all who watched.

“Very well, Royal Father. I wish to show everyone clearly the truth of my oath.”

Lombroso IV nodded. Chancellor Cuaron sighed and obeyed the imperial command.

The Crystal of Truth possessed by the Emperor of Armatia was the largest crystal in the world. There had been so many disgraceful incidents surrounding it that it was usually kept under strict guard in the treasury, and almost no one had ever actually seen it.

“To see the Blood Crystal with my own eyes for the first ti……”

“It is truly blood-red. It is like a great ruby.”

“Is it truly a bloodstain?”