CH 23

"Are you smiling?"

"I always have a smiling face, Your Highness. It's been 6 years, so it's easy to forget. That's what time is after all."

When Sarah smiled once again, the First Prince's hand added more strength to the sword. A little more blood leaked from her throat.

'What would the Duke be thinking?'

It was not intended to deprive the First Prince of the right to succession to the throne, so it was too much of a burden for the Duke of Ambrosia to deal with him now. The problem was that this kind of accident happened with the First Prince when the timing was not right. However, Sarah's worries did not last long.

'If all you need is just a reason, I can make one. Ambrosia will be able to play with that small cause to the fullest.'

She decided to stimulate the First Prince's weaknesses even harder.

"I hope you don't provoke me anymore, Sarah Millen."

"Patience is one of the monarch's virtues. Your Highness' virtue is barely……"

Sarah carefully looked up and down at the First Prince, then shook her head sadly.

"Haiz……"

The eyes of the First Prince turned to the sight of Sarah clicking her tongue as if it was genuinely regrettable.

"I'll kill you!"

The First Prince raised his arm holding the sword to the top of his head. The tip of the sword was pointing at Claude, not Sarah. If he cut off the flesh of that little boy that Sarah had been holding dearly from before, he would know.

Is that woman's distorted face still beautiful? Will she still be able to smile in front of him? 

With that in mind, the First Prince swung his sword without hesitation.

'That crazy man!'

Sarah raised her mana to protect Claude. Recently, she felt that her body was losing strength little by little because she had been using her mana too much.

"......!"

At that time, the blade, which was just around the corner, stopped like a lie.

"What, what is this!"

The First Prince was embarrassed by the sword that did not move no matter how much force he applied, and now he held the handle with both hands and used all of his strength. However, the blade stopped in the air and remained motionless as if it were stuck in a stone. The tip of the knife was just shaking lightly as if this was all the power of the First Prince. Only then did the embarrassed First Prince find the blade was engulfed in a fog that looked black and muddy. He hurriedly looked back.

"Duke of Ambrosia…...!"

Behind him, Duke Ethan Ambrosia stood with a face of no warmth. The black fog surrounding the blade of the First Prince was spewing out of Ethan. The black fog, which slowly hovered around Ethan, wriggled as if it were preparing to attack the First Prince at any moment.

"Ha, haha, hahahaha!"

The First Prince smiled grotesquely with gleaming eyes.

"It really was this. It was a headache to figure out how the hell did Jim Wood come back as a retarded, but now I know…..."

From a long time ago, the First Prince felt like he was going crazy because the Ambrosia family was annoying. From the previous Duke of Ambrosia, to whom he was compared in all cases, to Ethan Ambrosia, who was considered to be superior.

The only Duke in the Empire was the one who he must be most vigilant if he took over the throne. On the outside, the Duke seemed to take a step back and be loyal to the Emperor as if he was not very interested in power, but he was never deceived. Who didn't know that all nobles were helplessly swayed by how the Duke of Ambrosia set the table?

'Anyway, are you just ignoring me, who is a member of the royal family, on the subject of a duke? I will pluck out those arrogant eyes and chew them up!'

He knew early on that it would be easier than breathing to overthrow the current Emperor and seize the throne if he could grasp Ethan Ambrosia's weakness. So the First Prince worked hard for a very long time to capture the weakness of Duke Ambrosia. He was convinced when the subordinate sent as a spy to the Ambrosia dukedom returned as an idiot without any achievements. There was something in Ambrosia.

"It was true that you were cursed. I was not wrong! Ahahahahaha!"

The Ambrosia family was cursed.

It was one of the oldest rumors in the history of the Crombell Empire. He who ascended to the Duke position in Ambrosia was cursed that no one could love him. It was said that if you were next to the Duke of Ambrosia, you would slowly wither and die. That was why all the Duchess of Ambrosia went crazy or died early. No one believed it, but it was a rumor that spread throughout the Crombell Empire, like a legend that had been handed down for a very long time.

"You hide such a filthy power with that noble face, Ethan Ambrosia."

The First Prince smiled with his eyes shining with joy. No nobles knew that Ethan Ambrosia had such power. Who would have dared to think like that!

"I finally figured it out, it's me who found it! I've found the dirty curse you guys have been hiding for hundreds of thousands of years! Hahaha!"

"......"

"Because you're such a monster, that kid must be a monster too! It's a cursed bloodline, so he's born by killing his mother, right?"

Claude's body trembled at the scornful sneer that chilled over his head. He couldn't see anything because Sarah blindfolded him with all her might, but even the young Claude knew what was going on.

"Don't listen, Young Master Claude."

As his little body trembled more intensely, Sarah held the child tightly in her arms, drawing up her mana, and covering his ears.  However, even if Sarah did not cover Claude's ears, the First Prince's words could not continue.

"Kugh ugh!"

The black fog that erupted from Ethan's fingertips quickly wrapped around the First Prince's neck. The fear of being strangled and twisted at the hands of an intangible monster swept over the First Prince.

"......!"

The First Prince hastily tried to remove the black fog that was strangling his neck with his hand, but it was in vain. It was not as real as a rope, so the hand of the First Prince passed through the fog and brushed through the air. He gradually gasped and scratched his neck with his hand, but he could only scratch his neck.

"You, how dare you! I'm from the royal family! How dare you touch the body of the royal family……!"

Slowly, the First Prince's body floated into the air. When the heavy weight of the body was added, the pain that felt like his body was going to be torn apart came. The First Prince's face turned bright red. He tried to wield the sword in his hand, but there was no power.

"Ha……"

Ethan Ambrosia let out a long breath, sweeping up his messy hair from the run. This was the first time he had freely drawn out and used the power of Ambrosia, which was running wild inside him. As he unleashed the power he had constantly suppressed and restrained, a tremendous pleasure was swirling within him.

"This is how it feels."

The corners of Ethan's trembling lips curled up softly. With his powers at his disposal, the endless possibilities this held made him thirsty again. He sensed that this was the most terrible pleasure that Ambrosia's power had.

"Don't come, don't come here! Heuk…...!" 

Perhaps because of his instinctive fear, the struggle of the First Prince became even more intense.

'Should I kill him?'

Ethan could feel the sweet murderous intent seeping through his cold, sunken head. Reason and impulse were fiercely opposed and urged him. He estimated how much power he needed to use to easily break that thick neck of the First Prince. It was just a very, very small power. It was so small that it felt easier than pressing the ant with his finger.

"Aaaah!!"

Ethan lifted the First Prince up higher and then threw him to the ground. The strong impact caused a great shock inside his body, so blood gushed out of the First Prince's mouth.

"The First Prince tends to run his mouth off."

Listening to Ethan's chilling words, the First Prince tried to control his trembling body instinctively. Even the Duke of Ambrosia could not directly harm Caesar de Crombell, the First Prince of the Crombell Empire. What the Duke of Ambrosia had done to him up until now was enough to be called treason.

In addition, the substance of this cursed power of Ambrosia has not been revealed. This evil energy was probably safe to call it black magic. No matter how incapable the First Prince was, it was enough to play around with this fact. However, Ethan laughed at him as if he had read the thoughts of the First Prince.

"You think you'll be able to survive."

Yes. In this Imperial Palace, no human being could harm the First Prince. Even if it were, they would face terrible Imperial punishment. It was the only lifeline he had.

"Isn't it strange?"

"Wh, what......"

"While the First Prince of the Empire is being humiliated like this. What are the Imperial knights in the Imperial Palace doing?"

At Ethan's words, the First Prince knew the true nature of the sense of incongruity that was constantly ringing the alarm in his head. The life-breathing Duke of Ambrosia was using a power he had neither heard nor seen without hesitation. The Imperial knights who could react to this level of magic or murder in an instant……, there were none.

"If Your Highness dies here and leaves no corpse, who will know."