Chapter 425
Chapter 425
Chapter 425
'William Jiemens. Right, that guy was still here.'
After being captured by Zeke, William was being held under the Black Knight Order under the pretext of protection.
While other imperial soldiers were released from prisoner status after agreeing with Julius's intentions, William was still under surveillance.
Carus seemed to have visited William Jiemens to verify the story about the Jiemens family and heard various additional details.
"Did William Jiemens talk willingly?"
Carus nodded.
"Given the situation, he seemed to think he had no choice. He ended up speaking quite in detail later on."
Zeke pondered Carus's words briefly.
'As the heir, William Jiemens would know quite a bit about the Jiemens family's secrets.'
Zeke decided he needed to learn more from William about Ramon Jiemens's objectives, his connection to the Abyss, and information about baptism.
He rose from his seat.
"I need to meet William Jiemens briefly."
Carus was startled by his words.
"At this hour? You're not planning to torture him, are you?"
"...What do you take me for? I just have questions about the Jiemens family. More importantly, have you gotten closer with Prince Leo?"
Carus sighed and shook his head.
"I wasn't close with Leo when we were in the empire either. He would only swing his sword all day and never played. I invited him to parties a few times but only got scolded, so I stopped contacting him after that."
Zeke gave Carus a look of disapproval.
"Why don't you try swinging a sword like Prince Leo? Sitting around drinking will ruin your health."
"LA LA LA! I can't hear you!"
CLICKING his tongue and shaking his head, Zeke left Carus, who was avoiding the lecture, in the room and headed to where William Jiemens was.
Though effectively a prisoner, he was being provided with a guest room and quality meals under the pretext of protection.
Knights were guarding the room where William Jiemens was staying.
The knights saluted Zeke with disciplined posture.
He acknowledged their salute and entered the room.
Inside, William Jiemens was sitting at a desk, writing something intently.
Zeke spoke while looking at William Jiemens.
"It's quite late, but you seem very busy."
"One can't easily fall asleep when unwanted visitors might barge in at any time."
William Jiemens spoke in a cold voice without turning to look at Zeke.
Soon, William Jiemens put down his pen and turned to glare at Zeke.
"Why are you here, Zeke Draker? Have you come to interrogate me again?"
"It would be a lie to say no."
Zeke pulled up a chair and approached William Jiemens.
Face to face, Zeke spoke to William.
"Do you know how the situation in Rom is unfolding?"
William didn't answer Zeke's question.
He said to William.
"I heard about the Jiemens family from Carus. It was quite impressive. At least I can tell the Jiemens family members are diligent. Busy plotting various schemes."
William just glared at Zeke without saying anything. Zeke opened his mouth again while looking at William.
"What I want to know is what Ramon Jiemens is trying to do with the dead Abel."
Abel had clearly died by Zeke's hand.
And bringing back the dead is impossible with any magic or miracle.
This means Ramon Jiemens must be using Abel's dead body to make it appear as if he's alive.
After silently listening to Zeke's words, William slowly spoke.
"I've told everything I know."
"That's for me to judge, not you."
Suddenly, a strong pressure emanated from Zeke's body.
Having absorbed Caligula's power, Zeke was gradually developing the qualities of a powerful king.
Blood King Caligula who had placed all people under his feet and dominated their souls.
Though not such a cruel tyrant, his naturally exuding pressure was difficult to handle even for the Jiemens heir.
‘UGH.’
William unconsciously avoided Zeke's gaze and trembled.
Zeke spoke while looking at William.
"Such resistance is meaningless, William. You will never be able to refuse my words."
William tried to resist Zeke's majesty somehow, but felt increasingly overwhelmed.
Then at some point, Zeke used the power of the Three-Eyed Sight on William.
WOOONG!
As the blood eye rose on his forehead, William's pupils turned red.
Since his soul was already captured by Zeke's majesty, William immediately succumbed to the power of the Three-Eyed Sight.
Zeke asked William.
"What is Ramon Jiemens trying to do with Abel's dead body?"
William's mouth quivered.
When he tried to speak, his mouth wouldn't move as if something was blocking it.
Zeke, who was quietly watching this, realized that William's body also had a seal placed on it.
'They even placed a seal on the family heir?'
Zeke clicked his tongue at Jiemens' cruel methods.
The power of the Third Eye was to suppress the spirit and make it follow his words.
If he tried to forcefully extract more answers from William, who was restricted by the seal, it could lead to death as a backlash.
Zeke withdrew the power of the Third Eye and slowly approached William.
'I wonder if it's okay to use Dragon's Wisdom twice in one day.'
Although he had doubts, there was no other choice, so Zeke grabbed William's head and activated the Dragon's Wisdom skill.
WOOOONG!
Using the Sage's Eye, Zeke selected and checked only the necessary data related to William.
It was about Ramon Jiemens, Abel, the Abyss, and the Baptism.
Unexpectedly, there wasn't much information that William knew about them, as the selected data itself was scarce.
Even regarding the Baptism, he only knew about transplanting the dragon's heart into Abel.
'Does even William not know what Ramon is trying to do using Abel's body?'
But then.
ZZZZZZT!
Suddenly, the data Zeke was looking at started breaking apart and changing into strange symbols.
'What is this?'
He had viewed karma data using the Sage's Eye many times before, but this had never happened.
Soon, the strange symbols from the broken text began to cluster together and form a shape.
ZZZZZZT!
The shape couldn't maintain its form properly and approached Zeke while flickering like a shadow.
Zeke carefully observed the shadow's actions while watching this bizarre scene.
At some point, the shadow opened its mouth and said something to Zeke.
『??????????????????????』
However, Zeke couldn't understand anything the shadow was shouting.
The flickering became more frequent, and soon the shadow form completely dispersed.
At the same time, the Dragon's Wisdom skill was canceled, and Zeke returned to normal.
'What did I just see?'
When Zeke, who was momentarily dazed, looked down, William was slumped over with unfocused eyes.
Zeke hurriedly checked William's condition.
His breathing and pulse were normal, but he wasn't regaining consciousness.
Zeke examined William's condition closely with the Third Eye and soon frowned.
It seemed that when the seal placed on William broke, it dealt a heavy blow to his mind, causing him to lose his sanity.
Ramon Jiemens had placed such a cruel seal even on his own heir.
'Ramon Jiemens. You cruel bastard.'
Zeke suspected that the shadow he just saw might have been the manifestation of the secret that Jiemens' seal was protecting.
He first called a healer to move William Jiemens to the infirmary.
The healer, judging that treatment was impossible within the mansion, moved him to Heli's city hospital.
Although Zeke, who received all these reports, ordered them to focus on treatment, he knew realistically there was no way to restore William Jiemens' mind.
It was essentially no different from brain death.
'This doesn't feel very good.'
Zeke returned to his room and lay down on the bed.
Although he hadn't directly destroyed William Jiemens' mind, he felt somewhat responsible since his influence wasn't entirely absent.
But soon he regained his composure.
'The situation is unfortunate, but there's no need to sympathize with William Jiemens. After all, this was all caused by the Jiemens bunch.'
Although he hadn't expected to gain much information from William's memories in the first place, it was inevitable to feel unsettled when things turned out this way.
He could only truly feel how cruel the Jiemens were.
Of course, that didn't mean he gained nothing at all.
Zeke recalled the words left by the shadow form.
'System, can you interpret that language from earlier?'
The system responded to Zeke's words.
[Searching for data related to the language.]
[Found similar language families but failed to interpret the language due to insufficient data.]
"What language family is it similar to?"
[Found traces of what appears to be a similar language family in some of the murals and reliefs at the ruins of Jiemens Apollion.]
"At the ruins of Jiemens Apollion?"
The ruins of Jiemens Apollion were the fortress where Gaia's soul was imprisoned.
'If it were the language of the demon realm, the system would have interpreted it. Strange.'
Zeke decided to summon the Hermit of Stories, as he had several things to ask.
He took out his mirror and sent a signal to the Hermit of Stories.
However, there was no response from the other side of the mirror.
"Strange. Last time they told me to answer quickly... I wonder if something happened."
Though he grumbled, given that monsters were rampaging across the continent, the High Table member Hermit of Stories might have been urgently summoned.
Zeke decided to postpone contacting the Hermit of Stories and get some sleep first.
Although Zeke usually only slept about three hours a day, fatigue was setting in as he hadn't slept for almost a week.
He soon fell asleep on the bed.
After sleeping for some hours, someone knocked on Zeke's door and hurriedly entered.
"My lord!"
It was Felix.
Zeke got up from his bed at Felix's voice.
"Entering without waiting for a response. What is it, Felix?"
"My lord, well... an envoy from the Empire has arrived."
Felix, who hesitated briefly as if realizing his mistake, quickly continued. Hearing Felix's words, Zeke frowned and jumped up from his spot.
"An envoy from the Empire?"
"He identified himself as the Knight Commander of the Twin palace, one of the Empire's 13 legions."
Zeke's eyebrow twitched.
The Twin palace was one of the legions that followed Azmund Varios, the Knight Commander of the Crab palace.
'The Knight Commander of the Twin Palace... that guy? Castro Pollock.'
The Pollock family was an ancient noble house of the Empire.
And Castro Pollock, despite coming from such an imperial noble family, uniquely had graduated from Valhalla.
Perhaps because of this, he was evaluated externally as a new generation knight with flexible thinking, possessing both intellect and skill.
However, Zeke, who had fought in the Continental War in his previous life, knew Castro Pollock's true nature.
'He was an extreme purist.'
Castro Pollock didn't acknowledge non-human races, considering them inferior beings who should be ruled by humans.
Therefore, during the Continental War, while he showed considerable benevolence to human prisoners, he committed terrible acts against prisoners of other races without hesitation.
He also considered the northern continent, where many non-human races gathered, to be very unclean.
So he committed atrocities like indiscriminately firing magic or setting fire to villages of other races, claiming to purify the northern continent.
Having directly witnessed Castro's madness at the time, Zeke wasn't particularly pleased about his visit.
'I don't know why he's here, but I suppose I should meet him first.'
Zeke got ready and headed to the reception room where Castro Pollock was waiting.
As soon as he entered, Castro, with his soft blonde hair, blue eyes, and white skin - typical imperial features - spread his arms and greeted him warmly.
"Knight of Salvation, Sir Zeke Draker! It's truly a pleasure to meet you. I am Castro Pollock, leading the Twin Palace Knights."
It was such a friendly greeting that someone who didn't know better might mistake Castro and Zeke for allies of the same faction.
Zeke gave a light greeting and sat down.
As soon as he sat, he spoke directly to Castro.
"What brings you here, Sir Castro?"
At Zeke's stiff tone, Castro showed a slightly disappointed expression before quickly smiling and saying.
"Haha, there's no need to be so wary of me. I'm here to help you, after all."
He spoke kindly, then suddenly changed his smiling face and spoke to Zeke in a low voice.
"Sir Zeke, you must not go to Rom right now. This is a trap set by Azmund Varios."