Chapter 76
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 76
Chapter Title: Perfect Domination
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The ministers screamed and staggered backward.
The banquet hall transformed in an instant from a glamorous party venue into a blood-soaked execution ground.
Surrounded by a forest of blades on all sides, Senior Eunuch Su couldn't move a muscle. Yet his eyes remained unbroken. He sensed his death approaching, but he had no intention of submitting.
"Ha, hahaha...!"
Senior Eunuch Su let out a hollow laugh.
"So you finally reveal your true colors, Cheonwi! Do you think killing me will cover up your crimes!"
Cheonwi didn't deem it worth responding. He simply picked up a pair of silver chopsticks from the table.
He spun them deftly between his fingers, balancing them perfectly.
"Senior Eunuch Su. That's far too cliché for a last word."
"Th-this... Heaven is watching! Do you think your reign over the world will last forever! Someday, you will surely face divine punishment!"
Even encircled, Senior Eunuch Su bellowed with veins bulging in his neck. His voice was little more than a curse.
Cheonwi lightly raised the hand gripping the chopsticks.
A cruel smile curled at his lips.
"Heaven is far away, but my chopsticks are right here."
Cheonwi's wrist snapped forward like a whip.
The silver chopsticks caught the light as they flashed through the air like lightning.
"You treacherous...!"
It was the moment Senior Eunuch Su tried to spit out his final death cry.
Pfiuut-!
With the sound of the chopsticks slicing through the air, the curse about to erupt from his mouth was forcibly sealed with a metallic crunch.
Crack! Crack-crack!
A gruesome rupturing sound devoured his death cry.
"You traitorous shii—gurk!!"
Senior Eunuch Su's eyes bulged as if they might pop out. His mouth gaped open in a grotesque twist, unable to even scream.
The two silver chopsticks that had left Cheonwi's fingertips.
They were no mere eating utensils.
One grazed his upper lip and gums before embedding deep into the roof of his mouth. The other pinned down the root of his tongue and pierced straight through his lower jaw.
Perfectly crossed in an X shape.
They locked his oral structure in place like a muzzle forced into a beast's jaws.
"Grrgh... mmph! Grrk...!"
Senior Eunuch Su couldn't close his mouth, nor could he open it wider. He collapsed to his knees right there, blood-mingled saliva dribbling from the corners of his lips.
His tongue was pinned, preventing speech, and his jaw joint was fixed, swallowing even his screams. All he could manage were beastly groans of agony.
It had all happened in a flash.
The banquet hall fell into a silence like ice water had been dumped over it.
The ministers, who had been cowed by Senior Eunuch Su's momentum just moments ago, were now paralyzed with terror, not even daring to breathe.
Sealing a man's mouth with chopsticks. Regardless of martial prowess, such an idea couldn't come from a human mind.
It was the devil's handiwork.
And then there were those terrifying shadows who had dropped from the ceiling, wielding fearsome martial arts. This was undeniable proof that Cheonwi hadn't merely deceived the imperial family with schemes.
Yet the very man who had wrought this horror brushed off his empty hands with an expression of utter boredom.
"Ah, ruining the mood."
Cheonwi grumbled as he picked up a fresh pair of chopsticks from the table.
"There's always some idiot who has to raise their voice on a good day. Ruining the taste of the liquor."
He speared a piece of sliced meat with the chopsticks and popped it into his mouth. He chewed so casually that onlookers began losing their grip on reality.
Cheonwi's gaze shifted to another eunuch huddled on the floor, trembling.
It was Jo Palace Eunuch, who ranked just below Senior Eunuch Su and had been observing the situation.
"What are you doing, Jo?"
"Y-yes? Gr-Grand General... no, Lord Cheonwi!"
Jo Palace Eunuch jolted in fright and flattened himself to the ground.
Cheonwi jerked his chin toward the suffering Senior Eunuch Su.
"Turn off that noisy 'radio' over there. It's broken and full of static—hard on the ears."
"R-radio...?"
Jo Palace Eunuch didn't understand the unfamiliar word, but he grasped its meaning from the context all too clearly.
If he didn't remove the old man right now, his own mouth would be next.
Shaking like a leaf, Jo Palace Eunuch yelled at the surrounding soldiers.
"Wh-what are you waiting for! Drag him out! Right now!"
"Understood!"
The soldiers rushed forward and seized Senior Eunuch Su's arms.
"Mmph! Gmmph! Urrrgh!"
Senior Eunuch Su thrashed desperately. His eyes poured resentment and curses toward Cheonwi.
But with the chopsticks jammed in his mouth, he couldn't utter a word. He could only bubble bloody froth.
The scraping sound of Senior Eunuch Su's heels dragging across the floor echoed mournfully as he was hauled away.
Cheonwi didn't spare him a single glance until he vanished from sight. He simply savored another well-cooked piece of meat.
"Mmm, they boil their meat just right here."
Even after Senior Eunuch Su was gone, the banquet hall's atmosphere remained oppressively heavy.
No one dared speak. Before the power that had turned one of the imperial court's highest elders into a vegetable with a single pair of chopsticks, the ministers realized their lives were no more substantial than a fly's.
Clink.
Cheonwi set his liquor cup down on the table.
At that light sound alone, the ministers' shoulders twitched upward.
Cheonwi chuckled at the sight.
"Why are you all acting like this? You look like you're at a funeral."
He slowly scanned the room. Whenever his gaze met theirs, the ministers hastily bowed their heads.
"I didn't even kill anyone with chopsticks. I just shut his mouth because he was too noisy. That's my way of teaching 'etiquette' to those who forget their manners."
Cheonwi's lips twisted coldly.
"You don't need a lesson in keeping your mouths shut too, do you?"
"N-no, of course not!"
"We're simply in awe of your divine skills, my lord!"
The ministers waved their hands frantically, sweat pouring down their faces.
Cheonwi nodded in satisfaction, then turned his eyes to the musicians frozen in the corner.
"Music."
His fingers flicked lightly in the air.
"From the top."
The conductor hurriedly swung his baton. The halted music resumed filling the banquet hall.
It was lively and upbeat, but to the listeners, it sounded like a funeral dirge. The musicians' hands trembled, and the dancers' smiles twisted like spasms.
But they couldn't stop. The fear that those silver chopsticks might target their hearts if they did kept them going.
Cheonwi called out to the heroines guarding his side.
"Come on, everyone, drink up. Why are you all sitting there like dummies, ruining the liquor?"
As Cheonwi raised his cup high, Oh Grand Counsellor, who had been watching closely, shot to his feet.
"Ha, hahaha! As expected of your divine martial arts, my lord! Sealing a mouth with chopsticks—what else could you call the supreme under heaven!"
Oh Grand Counsellor wiped his streaming sweat with his sleeve and forced a grin.
"Come on, everyone, what are you doing! His lordship is livening things up! Drink! Play the music louder!"
"Y-yes! Long live Regent Cheonwi!"
"The sun of the empire!"
The ministers drank to survive.
They couldn't tell if the liquor went down their throats or up their noses. Stumbling, they rose to dance.
It wasn't a dance born of loyalty.
It was a desperate struggle for survival, driven by the fear of being branded traitors if they didn't.
A bizarre banquet mingled with madness and terror.
Cheonwi leisurely savored the chaos, tilting his cup.
At that moment, Yeonhwa, who had been pouring his liquor beside him, spoke softly.
"What a temper."
She refilled his cup with fragrant clear liquor, her red lips moving.
"Why not just kill him? That old man's only going to be a nuisance if you let him live."
There wasn't a shred of pity in Yeonhwa's voice. If anything, she seemed regretful for not finishing him off.
It was a cruelty hard to believe came from the empress's refined face.
Cheonwi chuckled and wrapped his arm around Yeonhwa's waist.
"Where's the fun in killing him?"
He whispered into her ear.
"Pain is a privilege only the living can feel. If he dies, it's over for him, right? I can't stand seeing my enemies at peace. They have to live, feeling their own powerlessness with every breath—suffering to the bone."
Cheonwi's eyes gleamed like a serpent's.
"That's true hell."
Yeonhwa gazed into his eyes for a moment, then smiled seductively and nestled into his embrace.
"As expected... you're a bad man, Cheonwi. That's why you drive me crazy."
"No one's going home tonight. Let's enjoy the empire's night until this barrel runs dry."
At Cheonwi's declaration, the ministers raised their cups with despairing faces.
As the night deepened, the banquet hall was dyed red with madness and drunkenness.
The ministers, bereft of reason, bellowed and danced wildly, while liquor bottles and food scraps littered the floor.
Five minutes to total chaos. No, it was already chaos.
But at the center of that pandemonium, only Cheonwi remained coldly sober.
He leaned casually against the jade throne, overlooking the wreckage of the banquet.
The emperor was absent.
Yet the empire turned perfectly under Cheonwi's grasp. The handling of Senior Eunuch Su today was like a ritual proclaiming that fact to all under heaven.
'This should wrap up the internal cleanup.'
The imperial court's most irksome elder faction. Their linchpin, the former head of the eunuch bureau, had crumbled.
Now, there were no 'internal enemies' left bold enough to challenge Cheonwi's authority. The civil officials, led by Oh Grand Counsellor, were already kowtowing on their own, and the military was under Cheolhyeol and Tira's control.
Perfect domination.
Cheonwi flicked his fingers.
A shadow hidden in the darkness slipped silently behind the throne.
It was the platoon leader of Dark Heaven, the organization under Cheonwi's command.
"You called for me, my lord."
The shadow bowed low.
Cheonwi kept his gaze on the dancing ministers as he asked softly.
"How's the border situation?"
With the inside secured, it was time to turn outward.
Cheonwi wasn't the type to be satisfied with mere power. He was preparing to devour the entire world.
"As planned."
The shadow reported.
"The delegation from the Great Qin Empire in the western regions has just arrived near the empire's border gate."
"Great Qin, huh."
Cheonwi's eyes narrowed.
The Great Qin Empire. The colossal power dominating the western edge of the continent.
A superpower standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the eastern empire.
"Composition?"
"Unusually... the escort force consists entirely of women."
"Women?"
"Yes. They're the imperial White Silver Knight Order, directly under Great Qin's royal family. The delegation is led by Great Qin's Second Imperial Princess, 'Leona'."
Curiosity sparkled in Cheonwi's eyes.
Knight maidens clad in white silver armor, and a haughty princess.
A combination that stirred any man's fantasies.
"Quite... an intriguing lineup."
Cheonwi licked the liquor from his lips and smiled.
He had just finished the bloody internal purge and was growing bored. Perfect timing—delicious new toys were walking right into his lap.
"They'll reach the imperial palace in a few days."
"Yes. I've already arranged for the gate guards to grant passage."
"Good."
Cheonwi rose to his feet.
His massive shadow enveloped the banquet hall.
"Time to prepare a welcome. Give them a grand reception."
His smile was less a welcome than that of a predator spotting fresh prey.
Cheonwi, who had pacified the empire's inner sanctum with a bloodbath.
Now his gaze turned beyond the gates, toward the Great Qin delegation led by golden-haired knight maidens and the imperious princess.
The eastern tyrant and the western knights.
The ripples from that encounter were sure to shake the empire once more.
Cheonwi stared out the window toward the distant gate shrouded in darkness.
As if he could already see the shimmering wave of golden hair approaching.