Chapter 702 --702

Chapter 702: Chapter-702

So, she hadn’t brought a hundred Vanguard elites. She had only brought a handful—just enough highly trained veterans to secure the absolute highest-value targets like the Assistant Prime Minister and seal the massive cedar doors.

The vast majority of the black-clad assassins who had dropped from the rafters, the ones currently tearing through the ranks of the corrupt aristocratic nobility like wolves through a flock of sheep... were the Emperor’s own shadow guards.

The Emperor had always possessed his own hidden blades. He had always known the court was rotting from the inside out. He simply hadn’t possessed the undeniable, explosive justification to slaughter half his civil court without plunging the empire into a devastating rebellion. Heena hadn’t just given him the spark; she had built the pyre, tied the victims to the stakes, and handed him the torch.

When the Emperor had given that single, hollow nod, he wasn’t just giving Heena permission to kill. He was unleashing his own royal hounds.

The Grand Pavilion instantly descended into a beautifully orchestrated, macabre nightmare.

The Emperor’s shadows moved with ruthless, mechanical efficiency. There was no grand clash of armies, no honorable duels. The corrupt ministers who had just been toasting to a thousand years of prosperity found their throats cleanly slit before they could even draw their ceremonial daggers. The extravagant mahogany tables were violently overturned, acting as flimsy wooden shields that were easily bypassed by the imperial assassins.

Blood sprayed across the polished jade stage, splattering against the delicate porcelain plates and mingling with the spilled plum wine. The towering red coral phoenix—the Assistant Prime Minister’s arrogant, priceless gift—was shattered into pieces as a dying lord crashed into it, sending chunks of red sea coral skittering across the floor like severed bones.

Heena stood perfectly still in the center of the carnage, her leather-wrapped short sword resting lightly in her grip.

The Class-S Vitality Booster was humming in her veins, making every scream, every clash of steel, and every spray of blood hyper-vivid. But she did not waste a single ounce of her borrowed life force chasing down terrified bureaucrats. She let the Emperor’s guards do the heavy, exhausting labor of the purge.

She only moved when necessary.

A desperate, heavily armored general from the Minister of the Right’s faction managed to parry an imperial shadow’s strike. Realizing the Emperor was untouchable upon the dais, the general turned his bloodshot, furious eyes toward Heena—the architect of their destruction. Roaring in absolute rage, he charged the jade stage, raising a heavy broadsword to cleave her in two.

Heena didn’t even blink.

She pivoted on her heel, the crimson silk of her skirt snapping through the air. With a burst of terrifying, unnatural speed, she ducked beneath the heavy, clumsy arc of his broadsword. She stepped directly inside his guard, and with a smooth, effortless flick of her wrist, drove her short sword up through the unprotected gap beneath his jaw.

The general’s roar turned into a wet, suffocated gurgle. Heena ripped the blade free and elegantly stepped to the side, letting his massive, armored body crash onto the jade stage at her feet. She flicked her wrist once, the blood sliding easily off the dark steel of her blade.

Up on the dais, the Empress was completely broken.

She sat slumped in the golden throne, the magnificent Phoenix Crown finally slipping from her head and clattering onto the floorboards, its flawless white pearls scattering away into the pools of blood. She was forced to watch as her entire dynasty—her carefully cultivated network of aristocratic power, her loyal ministers, her hidden spies—was violently, systematically butchered by the very husband she thought she had perfectly manipulated.

The Emperor did not look away from the slaughter. He sat upon his throne, his face an impenetrable mask of freezing, imperial authority, watching his own shadows purge the cancer from his empire.

"You see, Your Majesty," Heena called out over the dying screams of the court, her voice calm, melodic, and terrifyingly clear. She stepped over the dead general, her dark eyes locking onto the weeping Empress. "You believed you were the chess master because you controlled the pawns. But you forgot the most fundamental rule of the board."

Heena raised her sword, pointing the blood-stained tip directly at the Empress’s heart.

"The board itself belongs to the Emperor. And when you poison the wood, the Emperor does not hesitate to burn it to ash."

The pathetic, wretched sobbing of the Empress abruptly stopped.

For a single, heavy heartbeat, the dais was dead silent. Then, from behind the silk sleeves covering her face, a low, grating sound echoed over the screams of the dying court. It wasn’t a cry of despair. It was a laugh.

The laugh grew louder, twisting into a manic, venomous cackle that raised the hairs on the back of the head eunuch’s neck. The Empress slowly lowered her hands. The benevolent, weeping mother of the empire was completely gone. Her face was twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated malice, her eyes wide and burning with a cornered, feral madness.

"You think you have won?" the Empress hissed, her voice shedding all its regal warmth, exposing the ruthless mastermind beneath. She stared at the Emperor with absolute, freezing hatred. "You think you can just snap your fingers and erase twenty years of my roots? I built this empire while you sat on that throne playing the righteous sovereign!"

Before the Emperor could even issue a command, the Empress’s hand shot into the heavy layers of her imperial yellow robes.

"Kill them!" she shrieked, her voice tearing through the pavilion.

The thirty beautiful, ribbon-draped dancers who had been cowering on the jade stage suddenly moved in perfect, lethal synchronization. They weren’t just entertainers; they were the Empress’s personal, hidden blood-guard. From beneath the flowing sleeves of their costumes, they drew thin, serrated blades. In a blinding flurry of motion, they turned on the Emperor’s shadow guards, instantly plunging the center of the hall into a chaotic, secondary bloodbath.

On the dais, the Empress drew a jagged, black-metal stiletto from her robes. The blade dripped with a sickly green venom.

She didn’t lunge at Heena. She lunged directly at the Emperor.

She was incredibly fast, driven by the sheer, explosive adrenaline of a tyrant watching her dynasty burn. The Emperor, sitting mere feet away, did not even flinch, his cold eyes watching the poisoned blade arc toward his throat.

But the Empress never reached him.

A blur of black and crimson silk intercepted her. Fueled by the god-like overdrive of the Class-S Vitality Booster, Heena cleared the distance from the jade stage to the imperial dais in a fraction of a second. She materialized between the golden thrones, raising her leather-wrapped short sword.

CLANG!

Sparks flew violently as Heena’s steel collided with the Empress’s poisoned stiletto. The force of the impact sent a shockwave up Heena’s arm, but the stimulant coursing through her veins made her physical strength terrifying. She didn’t budge an inch.

"You impudent, dying bitch!" the Empress screamed, her perfectly painted face contorting into a demonic snarl. She pressed her weight against the locked blades, trying to force the venomous tip toward Heena’s face. "I should have had your mother poison you in the cradle!"

"You tried," Heena whispered back, her dark eyes entirely completely hollow, reflecting the blazing lanterns. "And you failed."