Silence descended as if even time had died.
“…What?”
Ilaref muttered with narrowed brows.
For an ordinary citizen of the Empire, merely naming the Emperor was a crime worthy of execution. Yet, it was only natural that he reacted when she confessed to regretting her inability to kill the Emperor.
“A sinner should not recklessly speak with an open mouth.”
However, O-hwangnyeo straightened her posture instead.
Various people looked down at her. Death loomed under her chin, but she didn’t care.
In fact, it was a statement made because she was prepared for death. There was nothing else for her to concern herself with.
O-hwangnyeo took a slow deep breath.
In other words, it meant she still had more to say.
“What I also find sinful is that the blood of the Emperor flows in my body. It’s so shameful that I can’t stand it.”
She spoke those words matter-of-factly, shocking everyone.
While people worried that divine punishment might fall from the heavens, the Emperor remained silent.
“Let me repeat what I intended to say through the Jeolmajjang.”
O-hwangnyeo began to speak calmly.
“The Imperial Family has manipulated countless events behind the facade of visible peace, one of which is ‘balance’. They worked solely for the Imperial Family yet received no reward.”
Ilaref did not stop her words.
Instead, he addressed the audience.
“The Emperor is so magnanimous that he recognizes all gathered here as jurors from now on. If the sinner’s words seem strange, feel free to raise questions.”
Immediately, the audience erupted.
“…They blasphemed the Emperor!”
“How can I trust the words of one who insults even my father!”
Religion may exist, but the Emperor was exalted above even gods in the Empire.
All peace in the Empire was attributed to the Emperor. However, having denied the Emperor’s existence first, O-hwangnyeo now appeared only as a sinner.
O-hwangnyeo closed her eyes and uttered one more sentence.
“…I will not utter a single lie in this place.”
“The existence itself is a contradiction. You are already a heap of lies!”
“Bite your tongue right now!”
Receiving the uproar from the citizens completely stung. To calm her heart, O-hwangnyeo placed her hands over her chest.
“…Yes! I am a sinner!”
O-hwangnyeo’s large confession.
Rather than refuting, she acknowledged her own sins. Silence fell in an instant.
O-hwangnyeo gasped for breath momentarily.
Not because she was out of breath.
Instead, it felt surprisingly light.
“If calling this building of peace from corpses without blood or tears like the Emperor is called justice…. Then I am undoubtedly a sinner. However.”
O-hwangnyeo spat those words.
“I loved one of those consumed corpses.”
A story she couldn’t tell anyone.
Sincerity.
But a thought embedded in her mind she had never erased, nor had she ever lost that feeling.
“…That’s all. Is that a crime?”
“Are you saying you’re blinded by wicked emotions and tried to sell out the Empire?”
“What is this, are you just making up an excuse for treason?”
People no longer listened to O-hwangnyeo’s words.
It was unclear what the Emperor thought as he watched O-hwangnyeo. He merely maintained silence.
Finally, O-hwangnyeo did what none had dared in this place.
She raised her head high and looked at the Emperor.
“….”
At an immense height, the Emperor sat. The helmet reflected the bright sunlight, obscuring his figure, but O-hwangnyeo gazed at that spot intently.
“…Father, did I ask for too much?”
She only wished for an answer.
“I requested only as much reward as the effort he put in. Yet, nothing…. You ultimately gave me nothing. So I tried to take care of it. Is this… a crime?”
“A sinner must not call the Emperor in such a way!”
Ilaref shouted, veins popping on his forehead.
The audience felt the same.
O-hwangnyeo, who regretted not being able to kill the Emperor, suddenly used the title ‘father’. Anger immediately clouded their faces.
But O-hwangnyeo did not back down.
On her once lifeless face, there was now immense fury. As she let each word out, she realized vividly just how many reasons she had to be angry.
“Do not call him that? Then how should I address him?”
“Any title other than His Majesty the Emperor is forbidden.”
“…Who exactly is the Emperor? You might as well kill me!”
O-hwangnyeo’s rising voice was considered nothing but madness by the audience.
How unreasonable.
Instead, the sinner was raising her voice. The anger on the jurors’ faces thickened.
Some occasionally glanced at the Emperor, but…
─….
The Emperor said nothing, took no action.
As if he didn’t exist in this world. Chiefly alone.
“Were you planning to use me as a pawn until you kill me? Well done. If I show I am such a heinous criminal, isn’t that good for you? The Empire will once again be at peace!”
“…Has she lost her sanity?”
Ilaref adjusted his glasses and clenched his teeth. The Emperor’s own limbs could hardly contain his rage.
“Verd─!”
O-hwangnyeo shouted.
The people didn’t even understand what she was shouting. For obvious reasons, no one knew the Emperor’s name.
O-hwangnyeo shouted until her throat was hoarse.
“Do you have the qualifications to be Emperor?”
Gulp—the sound of everyone collectively swallowing could be heard.
It was as if, amidst a great commotion, everyone had forgotten how to speak in that instant. An instinctual fear that the very space might collapse settled over them.
In that silence, O-hwangnyeo spoke.
“…If you do, then kill me. Right now.”
“It seems the sinner has been allowed too much freedom of speech.”
Ilaref clicked his tongue repeatedly.
“A sinner tried to defend herself by fabricating lies until the end. This means she looks down on the jurors. Moreover, since she even blasphemed the Emperor, there’s no need to deliberate further…”
He spread his arms wide.
“I ask the jurors. Guilty or not guilty? Those who claim guilty can stand, those who claim not guilty must sit and maintain their positions.”
Shhhhh
Immediately, heads in the audience began to rise. Nobody was left out.
“…The illusion surrounding O-hwangnyeo has shattered.”
“How could such a profane being be born from a nearly perfect Imperial Family? The Emperor must be suffering greatly…”
“The time I spent praying was a waste. It would be better if she just died.”
Ilaref extended his mana waves outward.
With that level of power, it wasn’t difficult to discern how many of the seated people stood and how many remained seated.
“…Unanimous. Death penalty.”
He muttered with charge in his mana.
It wasn’t a lie. Everyone supported O-hwangnyeo’s death.
“Following the will of His Majesty the Emperor, and respecting the will of all the citizens, we shall now execute the death penalty!”
Bang!
With a heavy sound resonating through the earth, someone stepped forward in front of O-hwangnyeo.
A man clad in full armor. Yet, everyone instinctively understood. A man whose existence felt completely different as if he had been chiseled from another world stood there.
The Emperor of the Empire, Verd.
“The death penalty shall be carried out directly by His Majesty the Emperor!”
Confusion spread across the faces of the audience.
While they had assumed O-hwangnyeo would die, they never expected the Emperor to execute her personally.
But even before they could shake off their shock.
A voice resonated.
─From now on, the sinner may act however she pleases.
─You are already dead.
It was the voice of the Emperor. It meant that no matter what the opponent did from the moment they arrived here, it would never be regarded as ‘resistance.’ It declared that her existence was bound by an inevitable fate.
Ilaref joined in and shouted.
“Does anyone side with the sinner’s outcry? Feel free to join!”
But naturally, there was no one.
Even before the majesty of the Emperor, no one could resist. It would be easier to lift the sky with a palm.
The Emperor turned his back on the sun.
His enormous shadow engulfed O-hwangnyeo.
“…”
O-hwangnyeo quietly closed her eyes.
Although allowed to act, she must not do anything. It was a stepping stone to showcase the Emperor’s power. If she rashly intervened, only the Emperor’s fame would grow. She did not wish to do him a favor, even in death.
After all, didn’t she come here thinking she would die anyway?
Just.
Even at the end.
‘If the Jeolmajjang plan had succeeded, would it have been different.’
A lingering regret embedded in her heart.
Crack.
A bizarre sound echoed then.
Crack.
Crack…
Crack—
“What? All of a sudden.”
“…It’s cold.”
Cold. Someone’s murmuring.
That statement was correct.
Crack crack crack—
Suddenly, the entire audience in the execution ground began to freeze. Faster than a fire spreading through the forest.
“Ah!”
“Whoa!”
As the ground froze from below, the citizens began to slip and sit down.
But the ice that froze was whispering.
Now the real beginning has come.
Ka-dak-dak-dak—
The soles of the seated jurors started to freeze to the ground, forbidding them from ever standing again.
Crack! Crack!
An entity appeared on the smooth ice, walking as if on grass to the point no one could stand on it.
While it was surprising that such a thing occurred, people were even more astonished at where its steps were headed.
The Emperor.
He was walking towards the Emperor.
“…?”
O-hwangnyeo’s eyes widened at the familiarity she felt on the ice.
It was no wonder.
Only one person could handle such ice, and that one person was now striding toward her and the Emperor in plain sight.
“…Unanimous. Not guilty.”
It was Ezekiel’s single statement.
He was willing to become O-hwangnyeo’s outcry.
Even if the mountain he had to overcome was the Emperor, somehow.
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