Chapter 701 --701

Chapter 701: Chapter-701

The pavilion erupted into absolute chaos. Ministers shouted, women screamed, and the aristocratic faction drew their ceremonial daggers, pointing them furiously at the woman standing alone on the jade stage.

But Heena did not flinch. She did not step back.

She slowly raised her hand, lifting two fingers into the air.

CLANG.

The massive, towering cedar doors of the Grand Pavilion slammed shut with a force that shook the ceiling dust loose. The heavy iron locking beams fell into place with a deafening, metallic crash, sealing the entire court inside.

Before the Assistant Prime Minister could scream for the palace guards, the shadows of the pavilion came alive.

From the high wooden rafters, from behind the silk tapestries, and from the blind spots of the towering pillars, one hundred elite Vanguard Shadow Guards dropped into the hall in perfect, terrifying unison. They wore no armor, only form-fitting black cloth that absorbed the lantern light. They moved in absolute, chilling silence.

Within three seconds, a perimeter of black steel was drawn around the jade stage. Vanguard blades were pressed directly against the throats of the Assistant Prime Minister, the Minister of the Right, Lord Lu, and every single high-ranking aristocrat who had dared to stand.

The screaming stopped instantly. The silence that fell over the pavilion was paralyzing, broken only by the whimpers of the terrified maids huddled against the walls.

"What is the meaning of this?!" the Empress demanded, her serene mask finally shattering into pieces. She stood up from her golden throne, her chest heaving, the Phoenix Crown trembling on her head. She turned to the Emperor, her eyes wide with manufactured panic. "Your Majesty! She has brought armed assassins into the inner sanctum! Call the Imperial Guard! Have her executed!"

The Emperor did not move.

He remained seated upon his golden throne, casually swirling the wine in his white jade cup. He looked at his panicked, desperate wife, the woman he had loved and worshipped for twenty years.

"The Imperial Guard will not answer you tonight, My Empress," the Emperor said. His voice was no longer warm. It was an echoing, hollow abyss that froze the blood in the veins of everyone who heard it. "I gave the Vanguard Marquisate absolute, unrestricted command of the palace gates for this evening."

The Empress stumbled back, her face draining of all color. "You... what?"

"Read the parchment in the box, Empress," Heena commanded, her voice slicing through the tense, heavy air. She let her hand drop to her side, her fingers finally brushing the leather hilt hidden beneath her crimson skirt. "Read it aloud to your loyal court."

The Empress stared at the ebony box, her hands shaking violently. She did not reach for the parchment.

"Since Her Majesty is suddenly illiterate, I will summarize," Heena announced, turning slowly to face the terrified, hostage court. The Vitality Booster made her voice project with devastating, terrifying clarity. "That parchment is a confession. It outlines the exact network of imperial spies planted in this palace, the embezzlement of the eastern granaries, and the systematic assassination of twenty-four imperial concubines. It also details how the Assistant Prime Minister—" she gestured to the man currently sweating with a Vanguard blade at his neck "—rose to power entirely through the Empress’s illegal funneling of the national treasury."

"Lies!" the Assistant Prime Minister choked out, a thin line of blood welling where the shadow guard’s blade bit into his skin. "This is a Vanguard coup! Your Majesty, she is trying to usurp the throne!"

"I don’t want the throne," Heena laughed, a dark, cold, merciless sound. "I just want to clean it."

She turned her eyes back to the Empress, who was now trembling so violently she had to grip the armrest of her throne to remain standing.

"But the most fascinating piece of evidence is not in that box," Heena said softly, the lethal calm in her tone far more terrifying than any shout. "The most fascinating piece of evidence is currently resting inside His Majesty’s robes, directly over his heart. Written by a dead physician named Lu. About a child... that never belonged to the Emperor to begin with."

The Empress let out a ragged, suffocated gasp. Her legs gave out completely, and she collapsed back into the golden throne, the magnificent Phoenix Crown sliding askew on her head.

The court was paralyzed. The sheer, apocalyptic magnitude of the accusation hit them like a physical shockwave. No one dared to breathe. No one dared to look at the Emperor.

The Emperor slowly set his jade cup down. He stood up from his throne. The silence in the room was so absolute that the soft rustle of his yellow dragon robes sounded like tearing flesh. He did not look at the Assistant Prime Minister. He did not look at the trembling court. He looked only at the woman sitting beside him.

"Twenty years," the Emperor whispered, his voice carrying the weight of a dying star. "You watched me mourn a ghost for twenty years, while you poisoned my court and slaughtered my bloodline."

"My lord... My Emperor, please," the Empress wept, genuine, unadulterated terror finally breaking through her elegant facade. She reached out, grasping desperately at the hem of his golden robes. "It is a Vanguard lie! It is a forgery! You must believe me!"

The Emperor looked down at her hands. Slowly, deliberately, he reached into his robes and pulled out the blood-stained lambskin. He let it drop from his fingers. It fluttered down, landing perfectly on the Empress’s lap.

The Empress stared at the dried blood of Physician Lu, and the last shred of her defense evaporated. She began to sob uncontrollably, a pathetic, wretched sound that echoed through the grand pavilion.

The Emperor closed his eyes. When he opened them a second later, they were completely dead.

He turned his gaze away from the throne, looking down at Heena standing in the center of the jade stage. The apex predator of the empire gave a single, slow, definitive nod.

"Madam Vanguard," the Emperor commanded, his voice cold, hollow, and absolute. "Clean my court."

Heena smiled. It was a beautiful, devastating, blood-soaked smile.

She reached down, grabbed the hem of her crimson silk skirt, and tore the slit open. In one fluid, blindingly fast motion, she drew the custom leather-wrapped sword from her thigh. The steel sang a sharp, lethal note as it cleared the scabbard.

She didn’t shout a battle cry. She didn’t offer a grand monologue.

"Kill them all," Heena ordered.

The Vanguard Shadow Guards moved. The blades fell. The Empress’s birthday banquet drowned in blood.

But when the blades actually fell, it was not the Vanguard Marquisate that shed the most blood.

​Heena was a warlord, a transmigrator who had survived countless timelines, and above all, she was a terrifyingly pragmatic tactician. Did the Emperor truly think she was crazy enough to reveal the absolute, sprawling might of her intelligence network right in front of his eyes?

If she had deployed even ten percent of the true Vanguard shadow forces tonight, the Imperial Palace would have been painted red before the banquet even started. But to empty her entire purse of coins on the table in front of a notoriously paranoid, power-hungry monarch would be sheer stupidity. It would only prove that the Vanguard family was a weapon too dangerous to be left intact.