Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 390 - 389: The Blood of the King

Gawain was not a hot-blooded young man, nor did he hold naive and simple ideas about the impending war—so even aware of the Oblivion Association’s actions, he did not harbor any passionate calls for peace.

Once he understood the cause and effect of the situation, Gawain realized that although this civil war was something the Oblivion Association anticipated, it was by no means something that such an evil-cult group could push forward single-handedly—it was the inevitable product of historical trends, much like the inevitable outbreak of war between Anzu and Typhon.

Francis II fell, killed by a high-rank bishop of the Oblivion Association, and orchestrated by his son, yet the old king did not merely fall at the hands of these two individuals; his death was the result of a power game and promotion by multiple forces.

Edmund needed him dead, not just to have a reason to spark a civil war, but also because the prince wanted to eliminate the royal family’s biggest ”compromiser” and use the king’s death to maximally arouse domestic aristocratic indignation, to gain the authority to raise an army in the shortest time;

The Duke of the East needed him dead because the duke’s allegiance was never to the king, but to Prince Edmund, or rather to a ”Moen Royal Family” that could return to the era of the First Dynasty;

The Typhon Emperor also needed him dead because Typhon needed Anzu to erupt into civil war. Gawain was almost certain that Typhon would quietly observe Anzu’s domestic war until this ancient kingdom completely disintegrated;

The northern Wilder Clan, Duchess Victoria Wilder, did she also need the king to die? Francis II was the most difficult king to control since the establishment of the Second Dynasty. Although this king seemed tolerant and compromising, beneath that tolerance was extreme resilience and cunning. Over the past forty years, he gradually broke free from the control of the Wilder Clan. Perhaps the Wilder Clan had long wanted to replace him with a more obedient king, like Wales Moen...

Many daggers were stabbed into Francis II, and the Oblivion Association only slightly pushed the king towards those daggers.

So Anzu’s second civil war, like the Anzu-Typhon war, was historically inevitable. However, unlike the latter which had been postponed, the former became a foregone conclusion the moment Francis II fell.

The blood of the king must be repaid with the blood of the entire kingdom; any plea, call, effort, or revelation of the truth was powerless. Even Gawain, as the ”ancient ancestor,” couldn’t make anyone listen at this point, and indeed, even if some did listen, they would pretend not to hear.

In the Shadow Testing Grounds, the personnel remaining there were still conducting some finishing work.

Tiel retracted her Sea Demon Form and summoned a large water ball, starting to slowly clean up the disgusting remnants left behind after Clement’s death, while Soldrin, with his Steel Cavalry Squadron members, began setting up lighting in various places in the Shadow Testing Grounds—these warriors had been through the mental shock brought by Tiel’s Sea Demon Form, each undergoing more than three SAN checks, now all with full SAN points, energized and full of fighting spirit, even their work efficiency was more than doubled...

Gawain, along with Amber, came to the center of the Shadow Testing Grounds, looking at the circular pit on the platform. Gawain pondered thoughtfully: ”So, at the corresponding location in the shadow realm, there is an unstable rift here. When someone activates the Ring of Shadow Seal in the real world, that unstable rift will open a space channel in the real world and summon the Shadow Inhabitants over?”

”That’s how I judge it,” Amber nodded. ”But that spatial rift is evidently very unstable. It’s manageable for the Shadow Inhabitants to pass through, but when people from the real world pass through, it will cause the channel to collapse rapidly.”