Chapter 713 --713

Chapter 713: Chapter-713

Heena’s silk slippers glided over the smooth stones, the soft shhh-shhh of the fabric the only sound disturbing the heavy silence.

She walked past the training grounds, where the scent of old iron and oiled leather lingered in the humid night air. She walked past the ancestral hall, its massive wooden doors shut tight, guarding the tablets of generations of warlords who had bled out on foreign soil.

With every step, the invisible timer ticking down in her chest grew louder.

The Class-S Vitality Booster was tearing through the very last reserves of her life force. The sharp, warning needle of pain in her left temple had blossomed into a steady, rhythmic throb. The god-like clarity of her vision was beginning to fracture at the edges, the world occasionally swimming into a soft, hazy blur before she forced it back into focus.

She was running on fumes, but the Vanguard Palace offered a strange, comforting embrace. For a transmigrator who had spent her entire existence in this world fighting, plotting, and wearing the heavy mask of a tyrant, the cold, empty beauty of this fortress was the perfect place to finally drop the facade.

Heena reached the innermost courtyard, a wide, open expanse of polished black stone bathed directly in the silver light of the moon. In the center sat a single, low wooden table, completely bare.

She slowly walked to the center of the courtyard, the heavy crimson silk of her skirt trailing over the dark stone. She sank down onto the ground, sitting gracefully, resting her hands in her lap.

The silence pressed in around her. The Shadow Knights watched from the distant archways, immovable and silent.

Heena looked up at the pale moon hanging in the night sky. The blood in her veins was beginning to cool. The agonizing, beautiful end was finally here.

Heena did not remain seated in the courtyard for long. The cold stone was peaceful, but she had one final, absolute duty to fulfill before the clock ran out.

She turned her head toward the nearest archway, where a towering Shadow Knight stood perfectly still in the darkness.

"Come," Heena commanded, her voice cutting through the heavy silence. "I want to go to the ancestral hall."

The Shadow Knight paused. For a fraction of a second, the ancient, armored guardian seemed to evaluate her. Then, without a single word, the knight gave a slow, deep nod and turned, stepping into the shadows to guide her deeper into the fortress.

As they approached the massive, iron-bound wooden doors of the ancestral hall, the atmosphere drastically shifted. It was no longer just the quiet isolation of the Vanguard Palace. The air grew impossibly heavy, thick with a crushing, invisible pressure.

"Host..." the System whimpered, its digital voice trembling violently in her mind. "Host, what is this place? I can’t... my interface is glitching. I feel like I’m being crushed."

The System was young. It lacked the vast, cosmic experience of older administrative AI, and it certainly lacked Heena’s veteran exposure to the terrifying anomalies of the universe. It didn’t understand the sheer, suffocating weight pressing down on them.

But Heena knew exactly what it was.

It was the overwhelming, concentrated power of the Vanguard spirits. It was a literal, localized divine power anchored to this very ground—a martial domain forged by generations of warlords who had defended the empire with such absolute, unyielding conviction that their residual willpower had essentially sanctified the earth.

This ancestral hall was a supreme, supernatural dead zone.

If the Empress had ever managed to set foot inside this palace, the sheer density of this martial aura would have violently rejected her. The anomaly—the ’reborn’ cheat she relied on—would have been forcibly exorcised and destroyed by the ancient Vanguards before she could even comprehend what was happening.

But the Empress was not the only anomaly in the world.

As Heena placed her hand on the heavy wooden doors and pushed them open, the divine ward of the ancestral hall instantly recognized her for what she was: a foreign soul. A transmigrator occupying a stolen vessel.

The backlash was immediate and brutal.

A wave of spiritual pressure slammed into Heena’s chest like a physical battering ram. She violently lurched forward, her hands flying to her mouth as she coughed up a thick, dark mouthful of blood. The crimson splatter hit the pristine, polished floorboards of the hall. The Class-S Vitality Booster, already on the verge of collapsing, fiercely fought against the spiritual rejection, sending agonizing spikes of pain rocketing through her skull.

"Host!" the System cried out in panic.

Heena wiped the blood from her pale lips, her hand trembling violently. She didn’t retreat. She forced her spine straight, gritted her teeth, and took a step forward into the sacred hall.

The room was vast, dark, and lit only by rows of eternal white candles. At the very back of the hall stood the grand wooden altar.

Resting upon it were exactly five wooden tablets. Each tablet was carved with a name, and notably, no two surnames were the same. The Vanguard title was not a monarchy passed down strictly through a single bloodline; it was a mantle of supreme military merit, earned only by the absolute apex predator of a generation.

Heena walked slowly toward the altar, every step a grueling battle against the crushing aura of the dead Vanguards. When she finally reached the base of the shrine, she didn’t stand tall. She let the heavy crimson silk of her skirt pool around her and sank to her knees in front of the ancestors.

"You know who I am," Heena spoke aloud, her voice raspy but entirely devoid of fear. She looked up at the five tablets. "And you know I do not belong to this world. Why I came here is a different matter entirely."

She reached into the inner lining of her black silk top. From the same hidden pocket where she had kept the Prime Minister’s ledger, she pulled out a small, flawlessly carved wooden tablet.

She reached up and gently placed it onto the altar, pushing it into the space right beside the five grand ancestors.

Engraved into the fresh wood in elegant, forceful calligraphy were the words:

Seera Vanguard. Daughter of the Marquisate Family. True Heir of the General Marquisate.

Heena rested her hands on her lap, looking up at the newly placed tablet. It was the name of the original girl—the sickly, tragic soul whose body Heena was currently wearing. The girl who had been murdered, manipulated, and erased in over a dozen lifetimes by the Empress, until her dying grievance had been so powerful it had shattered the boundaries of the universe and summoned a warlord to exact her revenge.

"Come," Heena whispered to the empty, heavy air of the hall, speaking directly to the five ancestral spirits.

She bowed her head, a gesture of profound, genuine respect that she had not offered to the Emperor himself.

"She did not do anything in this lifetime," Heena said softly, the blood dripping slowly from her chin onto her collarbone. "I took her place before she could. I fought her wars. I spilled her enemies’ blood. But I do not need to tell you that. You guys who are here, watching over this earth... you already know what she went through in the timelines before this. You know what she suffered."

Heena looked back up at the five grand tablets, her dark eyes reflecting the flickering candlelight.

"You already know what she is," Heena declared, her voice echoing with absolute, unshakeable conviction. "And who she is not. She never betrayed this empire. She never sold your legacy. Accept her."