"She's what?" Perplexed as to what he'd just been told, the emperor cast a gaze of astoundment down on one of his messengers.
His eyes downcast, the armored messenger kept his head hung low as the very sight of the emperor was enough to chill him to the bone. Trying to retreat his worries, he gulped down before slowly lifting his gaze back up to his master.
"M-My lord…Miss Nabe Bloodfiend has fallen ill in her bed this morning. The weirdest part of the incident was that nobody saw her coming back to her domicile that night." The messenger's words made the emperor doubt his own ears for once in his life.
Putting up a deep frown, he shot pure scorn at the shaky messenger. Never in his life had he heard about a devil turning ill, much less being bedridden because of it. He wasn't the only one sharing that sentiment, however, even the messenger seemed bothered by the news he was delivering.
"Get out of my sight," Bottling up his emotions, the emperor let the man go.
The days have been kind to the ruler, and it has begun to reflect in his body and demeanor. Even as he watched the messenger leave the throne room, his mind was clouded with meek thoughts with no answers to his questions in sight. And as if that wasn't enough, his memory had also begun to fail him.
"First Michael, now Nabe, how many generals am I going to lose to whoever's doing this?" Confident that it couldn't be Haruki, the emperor only had one other suspect in mind.
'Why would you do all this? Just let me shower this world with eternal life, and-'
"You know why I did what I did…Atlas," the sweet voice of a lover fell onto the emperor's ears.
The echo of her voice alone turned his scorn into a smile. He knew she'd been listening, like she always did, yet having not heard from her for so long it was just one of those things that had escaped his degrading memory.
"Omnipresent as always," he said, letting out a chuckle.
On the other end, however, there was no response, which in turn made the emperor wash off the smile from his face.
"What did you do to Nabe?" He threw the question in the air, and if one were to peek into the throne room they'd be inclined to believe that the emperor had gone mad.
"I put her to sleep so that she could not steal my puppet," for a moment, the emperor was perplexed as to why Asmodia would give him that answer since it also provided him with Haruki's location, but then she added. "I'll do the same to anyone else who tries to bare a single fang against him, so save your soldier, at least until a month's time."
"And what then? You already know I'll chase him down once the month's over so why give me a deadline?" Understandably, the emperor was suspicious of her demands, but there was also something more that he was more curious about.
'Did Nabe really try to steal command of Haruki from her? That stupid devil.' The very thought seemed moronic to him, especially when one considered how the true master of the subject was perhaps the strongest of all demon lords.
"After that," breaking his chain of thoughts Asmodia spoke again. "You're free to kill him, I only needed my children to spread throughout the masses, and as you already know he's already done that."
'Still, why would you want him dead if he's so useful to you? What about recovering the army that you lost in our battle in Scorchen Gaia?' Too many questions were floating inside the emperor's head, and knowing he would once again be denied an asked if he decided to voice them, he tried to change the topic into something else entirely.
"Why help me?" he asked, his voice bleeding hurt.
For a spell of time, he got not a single word of reply, however, right as he was about to give up, Asmodia finally told him exactly what he'd wanted to hear.
"I loved you, and seeing you suffer by his action despite knowing that he can't evolve into the monster he was meant to be without breaking out of the shell of comfort…Is all just so terribly horrific," waning away at those few words, the emperor felt Asmodia's presence leave his throne room.
Laying in silence on top of his throne, he felt himself drifting to the memories of the past that he'd desperately held onto. For they were the reason for his conquest, for his desire to unite the world under one flag, and if he were to lose sight of them altogether, then nothing will matter no matter how noble the sacrifices that were made to achieve the end result.
'I can't let you take over this world, it wasn't your calling and will never be.' Getting off the chair, he walked down the steps to the throne and made his way toward the exit. 'The world must unite under me, and then only will it know eternal life and peace.'
The path of the tyrant had plagued even the otherwise wise emperor. To him, much like Haruki's vision for the future, so long as he could be the one sitting atop the world as its ruler, the world itself will conform to his beliefs. But at least the emperor had a much more noble cause than the self-obsessed demon.
'I can't lose you again, nor do I want anyone else to lose their beloved!' Determined to make his dream of a world filled with eternal life a reality, the emperor marched forward to intensify his assault at the Scorchen Gia and Feral lands.
"Ready a carriage to the southern borders," upon noticing the very first pair of guards waiting outside his throne room, he quickly gave them the first order towards the acceleration of his conquest.
The guards were understandably shocked by the sudden request, but they didn't have any authority to question the emperor and thus simply decided to comply with whatever he had to say.
"Get Michael off the western front too, and tell Razor that I want his army ready to overthrow the undead warlock in under a month!" The emperor exclaimed in a deathly serious tone.
"In a month?!" Instinctively the guards were both shocked, but upon noticing the scornful look on the emperor's face, they bowed in apology before rushing off to get everything ready.
Standing alone in the corridor, the emperor wanted nothing more than to advance further with his plan before a month's time passed. While not at all intimidated by Haruki, he didn't want him to underestimate him either especially when he'd caused so much trouble for him.
'First I'll take care of Almuld, and then that sneaky rat of a demon so Asmodia would finally give up trying to oppose me and join me in my conquest!' Hoping for a time when he could finally reunite with her, the emperor couldn't wait for the month to be over so he could sever the strings to which Asmodia had Haruki attached.
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