The Genius Mage Was Reincarnated Into A Swordsman Family - Chapter 339

Capítulo 339: Audience with the Dying God

The immense obsidian doors of the Throne Room—each slab carved with runes that hummed with a dormant, terrifying power—swung inward with a sound like grinding glaciers. The sound did not echo; it simply filled the space, absorbing all lesser noises.

Klaus stepped across the threshold, and the doors silently closed behind him, sealing him in a vast, overwhelming silence.

The Throne Room was not designed for comfort or beauty; it was a physical manifestation of absolute, cold power. The air was frigid, thin with compressed mana, making every breath an effort. The walls were sheer black marble, polished to a mirror shine, reflecting the single, monumental figure seated at the far end of the hall.

There, elevated on a dais of pure, crystalline blue ice that never melted, Roman Lionhart — the Ice Monarch — sat upon his golden lion throne.

The Emperor was dressed in his full regalia—a heavy, silver-threaded cloak that seemed woven from moonlight and frost, covering armor that pulsed with a faint, chilling blue light. His crown, a jagged circlet of white gold and diamonds, seemed almost insignificant compared to the sheer power radiating from the man.

But it was his face that captured Klaus’s attention.

Roman Lionhart’s features, usually carved into an expression of remote, unyielding arrogance, were subtly altered. The fine lines around his eyes were deeper, and his posture, while still regal, carried a faint, almost imperceptible weight, as if the massive cloak of the Empire was crushing his shoulders.

Klaus did not hesitate. He opened all five eyes of the Ten Eyes Mantra at once, an act of supreme mental concentration that allowed him to see beyond the physical and perceive the energy that governed the universe.

The world dissolved into a shimmering canvas of mana, but the figure of the Emperor remained shockingly distinct.

What he saw confirmed his worst fears, and validated his mother’s shrewdness.

The Emperor’s mana core was a maelstrom. It was not the stable, perfectly balanced wellspring of an achieved Sovereign; it was a churning, volatile abyss of power, still desperately trying to settle after a catastrophic, forced evolution. Immense, horrifyingly potent energy surged and cracked, like a newborn star struggling for equilibrium. The mana was too dense, too hostile, too alien to be fully contained by a human vessel.

So you truly are dying.

The thought was clinical, devoid of affection or malice, simply a cold acceptance of a profound truth. He could now perceive the faint, flickering boundary of the Emperor’s life force—a luminous string that stretched far beyond any normal human, yet one that was visibly fraying, constantly being burned away by the monstrous power it attempted to contain. Roman had purchased an exponential increase in power with an exponential cost to his own existence.

Klaus stood in the center of the vast, echoing hall, his gaze locked on the Emperor, without bowing or speaking. The silence was absolute, a testing ground where milliseconds felt like minutes.

Roman’s inhuman, glowing blue eyes narrowed slightly. These eyes, the mirror of Klaus’s own, were the color of glacial ice, and currently held the unblinking focus of an apex predator.

“You return quickly, Klaus,” Roman’s voice finally broke the stillness. It resonated, amplified by the Throne Room’s acoustics, devoid of warmth, curiosity, or surprise. “I expected you to be preparing for your journey. What is it that requires my attention?”

Klaus held his silence for another agonizing moment, letting the pressure build. He met the cold blue gaze of the Emperor, and for a fleeting instant, he felt something akin to regret. Was it sadness for the man who was both his grandfather and the Emperor? He quickly suppressed the emotion. Sentimentality was a weapon in this room.

He lowered his head slightly, not in subservience, but respect for the title, and then spoke, his voice clear and steady in the enormous space.

“My official mission is to secure the loyalty of the Ice Palace, My Lord,” Klaus began, his posture unwavering. “But what I do not see in the official decree is the true task. Am I to simply verify their allegiance, or am I being sent to initiate the plan I proposed—the alliance with the Raikra Empire?”

Roman’s piercing eyes narrowed further, the glacial blue light seeming to intensify. “You are ambitious, Klaus. You seek to elevate a simple diplomatic verification into a game of continental politics.”

“I seek to prevent a continental war, My Lord,” Klaus countered without hesitation, his defiance perfectly masked by military clarity. “To do that, I must know the full extent of my authority. If the Ice Palace’s allegiance is secure, and if I am to approach the Beast Emperor, I cannot go as the disgraced grandson of the Annex. I need leverage. I need more than the word of a man whose father you disowned.”

The Emperor stared at him for what felt like an eternity, the silence stretching taut until it felt like it might snap. Roman Lionhart was attempting to crush him with sheer presence, but Klaus, having fused with the Icarus fragment, remained unyielding.

Then, a low, chilling sound escaped the Emperor—a sound that could be interpreted as a chuckle, though it contained no human mirth.

“You believe I am dying, don’t you?” Roman’s voice was a flat statement of fact. “That is what prompted your return. You believe I am desperate, and you are here to extract concessions.”

Klaus offered no denial. He had already laid his cards on the table by standing there, demanding more. His silence was the loudest confirmation.

Roman shifted slightly on his golden throne. The raw power emanating from him pulsed, a sudden, cold wave that washed over Klaus, a subtle warning.

“If you are successful in securing the guarantees of the Ice Palace,” Roman finally said, the implication heavy with unspoken danger, “then you may use your ingenuity to approach the Raikra Empire. You will have full discretionary authority in the negotiation, and you will speak with my voice and my authority.”

This was the power Klaus had returned for. He was now, unofficially, the Emperor’s personal representative for the most delicate, deadly negotiation on the continent.

“But know this, Klaus,” Roman continued, his voice dropping to a near-whisper that was somehow more threatening than a shout. “If you fail to secure that alliance—if your failure leads to the Beast Emperor becoming an enemy of the Rikxia Empire—I will not hesitate to execute you for treason. Your power will not save you from me. Do you understand the terms, Grandson?”

“I understand the terms, My Lord,” Klaus said, accepting the brutal contract. His heart rate remained perfectly steady; he had already calculated this risk. “I will not fail. I will return with the Beast Emperor’s allegiance.”

He executed a sharp, formal bow, ready to turn and depart with the authority he had seized. But as he straightened, a second thought, one that had been lingering since his abduction, returned. This was a necessary risk, a demand for information that could decide the coming war.

“There was something else,” Klaus continued, his gaze drifting over the Emperor’s shoulder as if recalling a minor detail.

Roman, already dismissing him in his mind, snapped his attention back. “Speak,” he said, the single word an impatient command.

“I want your permission to talk with a prisoner.”

Roman raised an eyebrow, the first sign of genuine surprise Klaus had witnessed. “A prisoner? Which one are you referring to?”

“The High Priest of the Icarus Cult.”

A flash of raw, unfiltered shock passed across Roman’s icy eyes before he masked it. The incident involving the cult’s attack and Klaus’s abduction was the Emperor’s deepest, most public humiliation.

“Why?” Roman demanded, the word cutting the air.

“In case the continental war does still happen, we might need his assistance,” Klaus replied, his tone pragmatic.

“Assistance? From a cultist who orchestrated an attack on the Imperial family? What kind of assistance could a captive terrorist possibly offer?”

Klaus met the Emperor’s fury with cold logic. “They were able to infiltrate the Main Estate and abduct me, despite the countless security measures present in this estate. That feat is staggering, My Lord. I believe it indicates two things: either they had access to a hidden, ancient passage within the estate, or they had a spy operating at the very heart of our ranks, or perhaps both.”

Roman’s jaw visibly tightened at the reminder of his failure. The shame of that incident was a raw wound.

“And what does the state of my security have to do with the coming war?” Roman asked, still trying to find the connection.

“If the Icarus Cult were capable of infiltrating and compromising what I believe is one of the most secure sovereign capitals on the continent—the heart of the Rikxia Empire—it is highly probable they have similar, deeply embedded mechanisms in place within the other monarch nations as well,” Klaus explained, connecting the dots of covert warfare. “Their spy network, or their hidden access points, could be our most valuable asset in understanding the true vulnerabilities of the eastern kingdoms, the Western Kingdoms, and even the Raikra Empire. The High Priest is the key to that knowledge.”

Roman’s eyes narrowed, a slow, dawning realization finally taking hold. Klaus was absolutely right. If the cult could sow such chaos in the Emperor’s backyard, they were a continental-level threat, and their intelligence network, however dark, was invaluable.

“Melo,” Roman spoke, not raising his voice, yet the sound instantly summoned the figure from the shadows.

A man, clad in the deep purple and silver uniform of the Emperor’s personal guard, materialized instantly on Roman’s right side, as if he had always been there, invisible and silent. It was Melo, the Emperor’s Shadow.

“My Lord,” Melo acknowledged, his head lowered.

“Bring him to the high priest’s cell,” Roman commanded, his voice returning to its normal, chilling resonance.

Melo did not reply, merely giving a single, precise nod. He took one step, his movement already transitioning into the silent, gliding walk that would take him from the Throne Room to the dungeons.

Klaus executed a second, sharp bow. “I thank you, My Lord. I shall return with the alliance.”

He turned, the heavy cloak swirling briefly around him, and began the long walk back toward the obsidian doors. He walked with the Emperor’s shadow, Melo, the weight of the immense authority he had just claimed settling upon him. The diplomatic mission was no longer merely a mission; it was a desperate gamble for the fate of the entire continent, starting with a conversation in a dark, forgotten prison cell.

With a final, chilling glance back at the solitary figure on the Throne, the dying god of ice, Klaus followed Melo out of the hall.

Power Ranking Weekly #50

Dec 10, 23:00 – Dec 31, 22:00

Mass release 20 chapters