"It seems I've arrived at a rather interesting time... May I know why my daughter is embracing a man I don't recognize?" The sovereign voice made everyone tremble, ev Velryna and Ethan, but Dante? He stared back without flinching.
Th, he descded the stairs and everyone kneeled. "Welcome, Your Majesty the Sun of the Empire!" They said in unison, but Dante and Velryna remained standing, with no inttion of bowing, let alone to someone like him.
Emperor Adam advanced toward the two, his imposing presce filling the space a. His eyes, shining with the intsity of fire, held anger, fixated on Dante, who simply observed the sce, showing no reaction. With a voice that echoed like thunder in the skies, he uttered words that reverberated throughout the hall: "Kneel."
However, in front of the Emperor, nothing happed. Velryna, unsteady, almost succumbed, but was supported by Dante, whose gaze never left Adam's petrating eyes for a single momt. "I ordered you to kneel," Adam repeated, but his words were like drops lost in a tumultuous ocean.
While everyone a yielded to the g, ev the strongest among them, Dante remained motionless, merely watching the sce unfold.
Amidst the silce that veloped the hall, Dante, holding Velryna firmly, gtly placed her on the g. "I will handle this. Should have done it from the beginning," he murmured, his voice lad with long-suppressed anger. He was truly furious.
Looking at Adam with a calmness that contrasted with the storm raging within him, Dante uttered words that reverberated as a challge to the heavs themselves: "You are weak." It was evidt to Dante that he was weaking, Adam was not the same imposing man he had known from afar in Kryoris; in fact, he was just a shell of that man.
With a strong motion, Dante rolled up the sleeves of his attire, his muscles tsing in preparation for what might follow. His gaze, now fiercer than ever, locked onto the Emperor's eyes.
"Kneel," he demanded, his words echoing as a direct challge to destiny itself.
No one believed what was about to unfold, not ev Velryna. This wasn't the plan! She looked desperately at Dante, who didn't ev glance at her, just remained focused on Adam.
"Well, how dare you!" Ethan said quickly, but his tire body lost strgth and he fell to the g like a sack of potatoes. Dante did that. He looked at Ethan's limp figure and said again, "I am speaking to the Emperor, not to your spoiled child." The words reverberated throughout the hall, and Dante glanced back at Adam.
"Your weakness is choosing such scum as your successor, instead of a dect woman like Velryna," Dante said, and the Emperor felt, for the first time, what it was like to be beath someone.
He felt Dante's strgth with just one movemt. The invisible pressure made his legs slightly wobble, but he didn't back down; instead, he merely grinned, and soon...
*Clep* *Clep* *Clep*
"Hahahahaha," he laughed loudly, something Velryna and Ethan had never se, their father laughing so determinedly, and Dante arched his eyebrows, looking confused at Adam's reaction.
"Oh, and who is this by your side?" The Emperor asked as he observed Nafiri's beauty, she looked at him after bowing. "I am Nafiri Nefertari, the co-leader of the guild." She said, almost having a heart attack, ev her lovely smile seemed scary speaking in this way.
"I see, How did you meet my daughter?" He questioned and Dante couldn't help but laugh slowly as he remembered how he met her.
"I was lost hahaha," he spoke and Velryna remembered the day she met Ziriel in the forest and how she almost killed all his soldiers. She laughed lightly.
'It seems it's true, since the little girl is laughing,' Adam concluded and continued his questions. "So, what do you like about her?" He asked.
"FATHER!" Velryna shouted quickly, she was clearly embarrassed but Dante continued. "Well, she's too lovely, she looks like a warrior but she's just a shy little girl," he said and Velryna was almost falling to the g with embarrassmt.
"Hahahaha yes, my daughter is lovely," Adam said and Velryna, embarrassed, remembered her father, wh she was younger.
Sces began to pass and she quickly looked into Adam's eyes and she felt her heart tight for some reason, she was going to say something but.
"Your Majesty, the Moon of the Empire. Empress Aldria Smith has arrived!" The trumpets and the announcer sounded and the woman arrived descding the stairs.
With a grace that defied darkness itself, her hair as black as night flowed like a cascade down to the height of her knees, shrouding them in mysterious shadows. Dressed in black, with no adornmts of other colors to rival the darkness that veloped her, she rose like a fall angel, a vision of lugubrious and sublime beauty.
She was like a work of art of the highest caliber, a divine creation imbued with a beauty that transcded the limits of the mundane. Perfect in her solitude.
Ev Dante, who was faithful to his, was slightly becoming interested in this woman, so mysterious and so igmatic that it made him question where she came from, what her goals were,
her achievemts, who she was.
She stared at him, Dante didn't look away for a second, he just saw her but received something unexpected.
*BONK!*
His foot received one of the greatest pressures of his life as he held back from screaming, Velryna's high heel almost pierced his foot, she used so much force.
'DAMN IT!!!!' He shouted inwardly keeping the crooked smile to the left, while looking at Velryna saying mtally 'I'm faithful!' and she replied 'Faithful my ass, you damn womanizer!'