Chapter 936 (1/2)

Chapter 936: Close Combat

Translator: TransN Editor: TransN

“What did you say?” The King of Dawn pushed away the dancer in his arms as he suddenly stood up.

The dancer, a beautiful woman with nothing more than a pink silk scarf wrapped around her half-covered body, fell to the ground. Though she was hurt badly, she did not dare to voice out her pain.

The rest of the servants, performers, and jugglers also lowered their heads in panic. The entire palace abruptly became silent.

“Your Majesty…” The Secretary of State gulped and said, “Your Prime Minister has rebelled.”

“Are you sure he has truly rebelled and isn’t just supporting those idiots on the outside?” Appen didn’t know whether it was him who had misheard his minister or it was the fault of his staff blowing the news out of proportion.

Of course, he knew about the plans of those traitorous nobles—everyone who had returned alive from Hermes had witnessed the destruction of the king’s personal knightage as well as his miserable escape. It would have been naive of him to expect them to remain loyal to the royal family.

Some amount of rebellion was only to be expected. Gathering support and forming alliances with the three major families in the royal capital would clearly be their first choice. Appen had long been wary about this, but he believed that, going by the characters of the three old veterans, they would most likely play by the rules and lie low behind closed doors. After all, the king’s city was still in his hands, and any act of defiance was tantamount to suicide.

He did not expect that the first to cause a problem would be the Quinn family.

The collision with the smaller lords had already violated Appen’s bottom line. Perhaps the old earl just wanted to leave a way out for himself or make a stand… But no matter what the reason was, punishment was absolutely inevitable for such an impertinent act. For example Otto Luoxi—Appen had already shown mercy by not killing his childhood friend on the spot.

But… what does ‘rebelling’ mean?

Earl Quinn is still in the City of Glow, and he has neither subjects nor soldiers here. Does he want to rebel with just his dozen or so guards alone? That would be ridiculous. How would he be able to rebel?

“The earl did contact the other nobles, but not in secret. He issued an invitation!” The minister wiped the sweat from his forehead and said, “And he publicly invited all the nobles to his mansion to persuade them to support the Quinn family!”

Appen was stunned and almost unable to understand the news he had heard.

This move could indeed be perceived as a rebellion, but the way he did it was incredible!

Instead of asking for help from the nobles, he’s asking them to support the Quinn family—does Horford really know what he’s doing?

He had already become a dangerous vessel that could sink any time. How could he still think about getting the support of the nobility? This act was undoubtedly going to turn both sides into bitter enemies, and there was no way Moya could ever tolerate such a grave act of provocation. The sheer stupidity of the situation would only make those nobles look down on him.

But still, was the Prime Minister such an arrogant person in the past?

Appen brooded silently for a long time before finally saying, “Pass my orders down. Commander Duke Bachov is to lead the patrol team to the earl’s residence, arrest Horford Quinn, and bring him in front of me.” “Everyone else in his residence is to be temporarily locked up in custody. If anyone opposes him, he may kill them on the spot! I would like to see how the earl is going to explain this.”

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

After this news, he was no longer in the mood for seeking pleasure. He dismissed everyone in the hall and sat paralyzed on the throne.

He didn’t really want to drown himself in pleasure, but once the surroundings became quiet his ears would echo once again with the roar of the sky thunder.

The war that ended more than a month ago had left a deep impression on him that he could never forget.

No… it was not a war, but a one-sided massacre.

His troops had no strength to fight back.

Whether it was the knights or the serfs, it made no difference when they were faced with the attack from Graycastle.

After he got back to the king’s city, Appen found that he no longer had the courage to confront Roland—the failure on the battlefield caused him even more heartache than the death of his father.

What made things even worse was the fact he knew that the Moya family had effectively lost the entire Kingdom of Dawn. What was the fate of offending a powerful neighbor? There was no doubt that, sooner or later, the other party would annex the country that he inherited from his father, and there was nothing he could do about it!

When he ascended the throne, he was full of ambition and was bent on governing this kingdom well. He wanted the citizens to live a stable life, and no longer have to worry about witches, demonic beasts, or other foreign threats. But just a year after he took over, and he was already completely disillusioned and had lost interest in political affairs and commerce. He was just waiting for the enemy’s army to attack and leave him hanging on the city wall.