Swear Fealty To Me, My Subjects!

The woman who was sleeping peacefully was Rayne's mother, the Empress of the Haines Empire.

As the mother who gave birth to an Imperial Guard, the Empress possessed the most noble bloodline of the goddess in the entire Empire apart from the Imperial Guards.

Time had not left a mark on her after 20 years of rule. From her appearance alone, she could be considered as sisters with Constance.

Rayne had always had a good impression of his Queen Mother.

It was not only because she was the mother who raised Rayne.

More than that, it was out of Rayne's admiration for her.

Be it in terms of bloodline or ability, Rayne acknowledged her as a qualified Empress.

Under her lead, although the Haines Empire did not head for the next stage of prosperity, the development in the past dozens of years was stable and peaceful. She was gentle and restrained towards outsiders and maintained a benevolent administration from the beginning to the end.

The Imperial Guards got along well with her and were as close as sisters.

She was a loyal follower and had always been dutiful. In the place of her god, she used peaceful methods to maintain the order of the mortal world.

.

Unfortunately...

This Empress would die in less than two years.

What was about to kill the Empress was not the lung disease that was officially declared.

It was a curse.

It was a curse set up by hundreds of top-tier mages in the mortal world.

The dominance of the Haines Empire undoubtedly made it the public enemy of the entire mortal world.

Worship, reverence, fear, hatred… the name of Haines was imprinted in the hearts of all mortal civilizations with different colors.

There were countless people and groups that were hostile towards the Haines Empire.

As the benchmark of the Empire, the Empress of Haines attracted most of the malice.

In this high fantasy world, assassination through curses was extremely common. Naturally, the corresponding countermeasures had long been perfected.

That day, mages from all over the mortal world joined forces to cast a curse that penetrated the protection of the goddess's bloodline, causing the Empress to nearly die on the spot.

However, on that very day, by analyzing the curse on the Empress, the Empire quickly made a list of the curse casters.

The Empire did not show any mercy towards this assassination attempt on the Empress.

The Imperial Guards were sent out. Through teleportation, they killed more than a hundred top mages that were scattered all over the mortal world overnight. Not only that, in order to warn the countries of the mortal world, the Imperial Guards even took revenge on the countries where the mages were located one by one.

A city-destroying forbidden curse for every curse caster.

It was a catastrophe.

At the same time, it was also the largest and bloodiest invasion by the Haines Empire during the reign of the Empress.

After a night, the Haines Empire announced that the curse of the Empress had been dispelled and the matter calmed down.

However, that was not the case.

Initially, the Imperial Guards wanted to dispel the curse roughly by killing the curse casters.

They almost succeeded.

However, when they were chasing after the last mage, they met with a match.

There was a demigod among the curse casters.

It was an elf demigod.

When the Imperial Guards arrived before him, he seemed to have been waiting for a long time.

Thereafter, in front of the Imperial Guards, he calmly activated the forbidden curse spell that he had long prepared and disintegrated his existence, fusing it into the ground forever.

Although he destroyed himself, he would exist forever.

He would become an indestructible anchor and curse the Empire's crystal throne forever until the world was destroyed.

From then on, all Emperors of the Haines Empire would have to endure his endless malice.

Although his life was withered and his bloodline was drained, Leta's rage would never extinguish until the sinful blood of the Crystal Goddess was completely severed from the mortal world.

After the Empress died, Rayne would inherit the curse.

After Rayne's passing, the next Emperor of Haines would still be cursed.

Now, the Empress who had been tortured by the curse for many years had to spend half her time every day undergoing spell healing by the demigod Imperial Guards.

One day, that very same curse would also come to Rayne.

"Help me inform Her Majesty that I'm going out."

"I understand,"

Rayne's conversation with Constance was still brief as ever. After explaining everything, he left.

…

After leaving the chamber, Rayne called out Hela's name.

Immediately after, a dimensional rift opened up. Hela, who had been waiting for a long time, smiled and appeared before Rayne.

"Shall we set off now?"

"That's right."

"So, our destination is…?"

"Leta."

"Elves' territory?"

"That's right."

"We can only teleport to the borders then." 𝐛𝗲𝐝𝗻𝗼𝘃𝐞𝗹．𝗻𝐞𝘁

"Yes."

"Is this your first time teleporting, Your Highness?"

"Not really."

"That will be easy then. Come, Your Highness, please hold my hand and don't let go."

Space was torn apart once more. Hela held Rayne's hand gently and led him into the dark crack.