Lord of Winter: Beginning with Daily Intelligence - Chapter 730 - 408: Endgame
The final line of defense to the main entrance of the palace had been shattered by blood and fire.
On the rainy night, the stone steps were slippery, and the bodies of the fallen personal guards lay in disarray.
Only the last group of personal guards still tried to form a formation to block the blood-stained sword as the Second Prince Kaelin pressed forward step by step.
The captain of their personal guard, covered in wounds, with his armor shattered, held up his giant hammer and roared, “Your Highness! We’re defeated! Can you spare the Fourth Prince’s life?”
Kaelin did not answer.
He merely lifted his eyes, his gaze like a beast crawling out from a pile of corpses, with a bone-chilling coldness in the void.
The captain’s heart turned cold, but he still braced himself to swing his hammer forward.
Clinging to the last thread of hope, he yelled fiercely and smashed down his giant hammer.
“Ha—!” The hammer fell like thunder.
Yet Kaelin did not dodge.
He directly withstood this fatal blow with his fighting energy, and in the next moment, his heavy sword drew out a merciless arc of light.
“Puff—!”
The captain’s head soared into the sky, spinning down onto the stone steps.
Kaelin kicked away the headless corpse, his voice hoarse like sandpaper grinding against metal, “Where is Rhine? I want to strip him alive.”
“Boom!!”
The giant doors of the Imperial Hall burst open.
Outside the door, two figures stood in stark contrast.
Duke Raymond rode a tall horse, his armor shining, his cloak untouched by even a speck of dust.
He stepped aside, looking more like an elegant sightseer than someone participating in a coup in the royal capital.
On the other side, Kaelin was covered in blood, his armor shattered, blood dripping from his hands.
Stepping over fragmented corpses, he entered the Imperial Hall like a demon returning from hell.
In the vast Imperial Hall, sheepskin scrolls, documents with gold embossed crests, unfinished orders of the New Charter, Funding Allocation Orders, Troop Deployment Orders—
These were core policies that Rhine had meticulously planned and schemed for years before becoming Regent King, hoping to reshape the Empire’s order, his starting point for grand ambitions.
Now, like a broken dream, they were easily trampled by blood and iron hooves.
Several civil servants, terrified, soiled their pants, hiding under tables, shivering, not daring to make a sound.
Rhine stood alone before the Dragon Throne.
He was still wearing that pure white regency ceremonial dress, but in the midst of the blood-drenched scene, it looked extremely ironic, like a choir boy who had strayed into a slaughterhouse.
Seeing Kaelin approach, Rhine did not draw his sword.
He frantically grabbed the contracts, ledgers, and dossiers from the ground and hurled them at Kaelin’s face.
“Don’t come any closer!!” he shouted hysterically, “If I die, you are rebels! The Empire’s law will judge you! The civil servants will strike! The entire nation will come to a halt!!”
Like a drowning man clutching the last piece of wood, he used the law and interests he had always believed in to build his last line of defense.
But against blood and fighting energy, these voices were pathetically weak.
Raymond rode forward, the sound of hooves echoing in the empty Imperial Hall.
He looked down at Rhine, like gazing at a pathetic clown.
“Your Highness,” Raymond said lightly, “You are still too naive.
The words of civil servants are nothing compared to absolute strength.”
He leaned down to pick up the New Empire Charter embossed with the Empire’s crest.
With a single stroke of his sword, the thick Charter was casually sliced in half.
“As for the law…”
Raymond tossed the half-sheepskin piece carelessly, letting it fall at Rhine’s feet.
“It’s nothing but waste paper.”
The Second Prince Kaelin wasted no more words.
He threw down his blunted heavy sword, charging up the steps like a beast driven to despair.
At this moment, his vision held only blocks of red and black.
Rhine’s always composed face, now twisted in fear.
The contrast sent a wave of violent pleasure surging from deep in Kaelin’s chest.
So this brother who had cornered him was still only human in the face of fear.
“Bang!”
Rhine’s back slammed against the cold stone base of the Dragon Throne with a dull thud.
As he tried to get up, Kaelin’s iron arm was already clamped around his throat.
Rhine’s hands scratched wildly, his fingertips grating against the armguard with a screech, but failed even to spark a flicker.
His legs kicked wildly in the air, the soles slapping the tiles like a drowning man clawing at the void in his final despair.
Kaelin watched his struggle, the thrill in his chest finally released, the string tightened for years in his heart finally snapping…
Severed arm tormenting pain.
The numb gaze of old comrades when the border was cut off from supplies.
The old army generals, forced to their knees by civil audits, begging for mercy.
Kaelin needed no evidence. He had long understood: “Rhine wants me dead.”
This was not a sudden murder plot but a death by steps, from military authority being usurped, finances cut off, and pressure from the civil servants.
Finally achieving revenge today, tears fell down Kaelin’s blood and grime-covered cheeks.
Rhine’s face had turned a ghastly dark purple, bloodshot eyes still filled with confusion.
This wasn’t logical.
Why didn’t money work? Why did civilization lose to brute force?
“Why?” A final whisper croaked from his throat.
The crack.
The sharp sound of a throat bone shattering.
Rhine’s eyes instantly lost focus, and all his blueprints for reshaping the Empire collapsed along with his life.
His body crumpled like a soulless husk at the foot of the Dragon Throne.
The Empire’s “civilized faction,” dead at the feet of the symbol of royal power.
“Ah-ah-ah-ah!”
Kaelin released his grip, his screams echoed in the dome of the Imperial Hall, shuddering the souls of civil servants trembling behind pillars.
