Chapter 61: A Dragon’s Price
For the first time, a crack appeared in the perfect smile on Augustus’s face—a smile painstakingly carved by a thousand years of breeding and supreme authority.
A crack of visible stillness.
Deep within his ice-blue eyes, a storm seemed to be gathering.
But it was not anger. It was something colder, sharper—a reassessment, like an old hunter who had spent half his life lying in wait on the northern snowfields, suddenly reevaluating prey he had thought long since trapped, only to see it bare savage dragon horns instead.
The air in the main hall seemed to be sucked dry in an instant by an invisible giant hand.
The fire in the brazier leaped and flickered, its shifting light thrown across the walls.
The savage magical beast trophies mounted there seemed to come alive at that moment, silently mocking this reckless game being played with death.
Barrett felt as though an icy hand had seized his heart in a death grip. Each beat seemed ready to force his blood up through his throat.
Every pore on his body screamed. Cold sweat soaked through the coarse linen lining beneath his armor in an instant, clinging to his skin like a second layer of frozen flesh.
At that moment, only one thought remained in his mind: run.
But with the atmosphere as it was, if he dared open his mouth now, he would truly be tired of living.
“Interesting.”
After a long while, Augustus slowly spoke those two words.
His voice was quiet, but filled with a curious amusement.
He leaned back once more against that lord’s seat crafted from massive timber and black iron, his posture lazy, as though the oppressive force that had nearly frozen everyone’s souls solid a moment ago had been nothing but an illusion.
The pressure receded like a falling tide, but everyone knew that beneath the surface, the undercurrent was strong enough to swallow everything whole.
“Very interesting.”
He picked up the coarse clay bowl again. The rim was rough, marred by flaws from firing, utterly at odds with his red robe embroidered with intricate golden thread.
This time, he tilted his head back and drained the bowl of low-grade ale with its straw-like tang in a single swallow.
His Adam’s apple rolled. The motion was rough, yet carried a kind of elegance that made one’s heart tighten.
THUD!
The clay bowl was set heavily upon the oak table with a dull sound.
“Lord Valerius.”
He spoke again, his voice returned to that level, ceremonial calm.
“Since becoming an inquisitor, you are the first… noble sir to dare quote a price to the Church.”
He deliberately stretched the words noble sir, as though savoring some private joke.
Caesar sneered inwardly.
Courage?
No. This was not courage.
To him—a transmigrator from an age of information overload—this was nothing more than the most basic logic of a business negotiation: refuse empty promises, establish clear valuation, show your cards openly.
Did they think he was some starry-eyed fool desperate for investment?
Did they think a blank check that could be torn up at any moment—a viscount’s title—plus a pile of vague future promises would be enough to complete a hostile acquisition, make him and his brothers serve as cannon fodder, and fight for free?
Dream on.
That sort of manipulation was something he had already outgrown in his previous life.
“Courage is an ornament that only the weak need to wear when standing before the strong.”
Caesar returned to his seat, relaxed and at ease, as though the man who had overturned the negotiation table moments ago had never been him at all.
“I am only stating a fact.”
“On this god-forsaken land, my value must be exchanged for equal terms.”
“This is business, Lord Inquisitor. And here… it is the only rule.”
His tone was calm, yet when he said only, there was a trace of emphasis, as though he were using the tip of a dagger to carve his own boundary line into the sand table.
“Very well. Rules.”
Augustus’s fingers began to tap lightly against the rough wooden table.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The sound was unhurried, almost rhythmic, as though he were calculating some complex formula.
Or counting down the final moments of Caesar’s life.
“Then, in order to show the Church’s sincerity as an ally, you may begin by naming your price.”
With that, he smoothly kicked the question back, a mysterious smile lingering at the corner of his lips.
A neat retreat to advance.
Caesar understood at once.
This old fox wanted to see his hand. He wanted to know just how large Caesar’s appetite truly was.
If he asked for too little, he would seem small-minded and easy to handle.
If he asked for too much, he would reveal his ambition and provoke Augustus’s suspicion—or even a direct rupture.
It was a trap.
But Caesar looked as though he had expected the question all along. He leaned forward slightly, yet his gaze went past Augustus and landed on the silent, iron-tower figure behind him.
That man had remained like a lifeless statue from beginning to end.
But Caesar knew that beneath that statue was a volcano on the verge of going cold.
“I do not need gold. Nor do I need grain.”
Caesar’s voice was not loud, but it struck every ear in the hall like a steel spike.
“I want one thing.”
“One thing which, to the Church, may be no more than a dust-covered parchment scroll buried in the library of some remote monastery.”
“But to this loyal subordinate of mine…”
His gaze locked firmly onto Roland.
“It would mean rebirth.”
Roland’s mountain-like body jolted violently!
At that moment, Caesar’s voice came down like a hammer weighing ten thousand pounds, each word crashing like thunder.
“The complete advancement technique… from Grand Knight to Earth Knight.”
Boom.
In an instant, it felt as though the temperature in the main hall had been sucked away entirely, plunging it into freezing stillness.
Even the flames in the brazier seemed to shrink by half, crackling out pitiful little cries as their light dimmed.
Roland jerked his scarred, weathered face upward!
In those once-still eyes, waves a hundred feet high began to crash!
His breathing turned heavy at once, like an ancient bellows being hauled with all its might.
Even the large, callused, scar-covered hands gripping his sword hilt began to tremble.
Earth Knight.
Those four words were the dream he had chased all his life, yet had never even touched the threshold of.
Those four words were the ultimate horizon countless imperial knights exhausted their lifeblood pursuing, only to glimpse in their dying dreams.
Those four words were the only key that could transform flesh and blood into a walking mountain—into a being that breathed with the mountains and pulsed with the earth itself.
That was the final hidden spark in what remained of Roland the Skullcrusher’s life—a spark left over after being abandoned by his former lord and toyed with by fate, one he had never dared show to anyone.
And now, before the Church’s inquisitor, his new lord was trying to pluck the sun from the heavens for him.
The smile on Augustus’s face vanished completely.
His ice-blue eyes locked onto Caesar. The look in them was no longer one of scrutiny. It was the look one gave a lunatic who dared urinate inside a divine temple—a blasphemer beyond reason.
“Lord Valerius.”
His voice was as cold as the eternal black ice of Everwinter Harbor in the northern reaches.
“Do you understand what you are asking for?”
“The advancement technique of an Earth Knight is the foundation upon which the four great ducal houses of the Empire, the sacred imperial family, and the Church of Light itself continue to exist!”
“It is the cornerstone of authority!”
Augustus slowly shook his head, open mockery dripping from his tone, like an elder chastising an ignorant child who had dared reach out and try to grasp the sun.
“It is not a sack of gold, nor a cart of grain. It is a strategic core secret.”
“It is forbidden knowledge that can never be allowed to leak beyond its circle. Do you understand? Forbidden.”
“And you think you, newly crowned ‘King of the Wasteland’…”
A sneering curve rose at his lips.
“…are qualified to lay your hands upon such authority?”
Caesar smiled.
There was not the slightest embarrassment in it at having been exposed. On the contrary, there was a cold note of understanding in it.
“I have no intention of laying hands on it.”
His tone remained terrifyingly calm, as though he were speaking of some amusing anecdote that had nothing to do with him.
“I was merely testing the sincerity of my ally.”
He leaned forward, hands clasped on the table, his gaze like a blade stabbing straight into Augustus’s soul.
“If you are unwilling to part even with a single technique, then what meaning is there in this so-called cooperation?”
“After my men bleed dry for you at the front, will you then turn around and ‘purify’ both me and this city under charges like consorting with the undead or harboring heresy?”
“With all due respect, Lord Inquisitor…”
A curve of extreme ridicule touched Caesar’s lips, sharp as a dagger.
“Has the Church done that sort of thing only a few times in three hundred years of Purification Wars?”
“How dare you!”
A shout exploded like thunder out of nowhere!
Behind Augustus, one of the Silent Guards, who had stood motionless like a statue until now, suddenly took a step forward. The ancient knight’s sword at his waist came half an inch out of its sheath with a sharp rasp!
The sound of steel against the scabbard was not that of metal. It was a shrill scream.
A killing intent, cold as ice and mixed with the stench of blood and sulfur, instantly solidified into something almost tangible, like a venomous serpent fixing itself on Caesar’s throat.
But in the next instant, he froze.
Because a mountain had appeared before him.
Roland’s massive, mountain-like body had already thrown itself in front of Caesar.
He did not draw his sword. He simply stared at the guard with eyes blazing with rage, resolve, and fanatical fervor.
The Battle Energy of a Grand Knight erupted from him without reserve!
This was no longer the passive defense he had shown earlier when facing Augustus.
This was a furious offensive.
Like a sleeping lion whose reverse scale had just been touched, ready to tear every threat before him to pieces!
Hum—
Invisible sparks seemed to explode violently in the air.
Even the space between the two men appeared to warp beneath the ferocious collision of their energies.
“Stand down.”
Augustus spoke lightly.
His voice was not loud, yet it carried an authority that could not be resisted.
The killing intent of the Silent Guard vanished in an instant, as though it had never existed.
He gave Roland a long, deep look, then slid the sword back into its sheath and retreated without a sound, once more becoming a statue devoid of emotion.
The hall fell again into a silence so deep it could drive men mad.
“Lord Valerius, I cannot agree to your demand.”
Augustus’s voice was absolute, leaving no room whatsoever.
“Unless…”
He looked at Caesar, and in those ice-blue eyes, the most primal fangs of the predator finally showed themselves.
“You are willing, in the name of House Valerius, to swear before the Father God and pledge loyalty to the Church, becoming a Holy-Blessed Noble of the Church.”
“In that case, as one of the Church’s own, you would naturally be qualified to receive higher ‘grace’ bestowed by the Father God.”
At last, the dagger was laid bare.
This—this was his true purpose in coming tonight.
Cooperation? Alliance? Empty words.
What he wanted was total annexation and control.
Either Caesar became a dog chained by the Church to the Wailing Wastes, guarding its gate and biting whomever it pointed him toward—
Or everything fell apart, and he waited to be crushed into dust between the undead on one side and the Church on the other.
Caesar laughed.
He even laughed aloud, the sound especially abrupt in the silent hall.
He waved a hand, signaling for Roland to step back.
Though the old knight’s face was full of unwillingness, he still obeyed without fail and retreated behind Caesar once more, though his hawk-like eyes remained locked onto every man opposite him.
“It seems the Church’s sincerity ends here.”
A trace of just the right amount of disappointment and disillusionment settled over Caesar’s face, the expression of a man who had come in good faith only to see the cruel truth revealed.
“In that case…”
As if abandoning the unrealistic fantasy entirely, he switched in an instant into the face of a shrewd merchant and rubbed his hands together.
“Then let us discuss something practical.”
“I no longer want the Earth Knight technique.”
In that moment, he played to perfection the role of a young lord whose earlier outburst had been born of impulse, naïveté, and the helplessness of finally being forced to retreat.
He pointed beyond the castle walls, toward the vast camp lying silent under the night sky.
“My city now holds nearly three thousand men who desperately want to live.”
“They are loyal. They do not fear death.”
“But most of them were, until recently, little more than peasants and refugees holding pitchforks and firewood knives.”
“I need techniques to turn them into real warriors.”
Caesar looked at Augustus and spread his hands, making it seem like the humblest request in the world.
“I need two complete techniques—one from Squire Knight to full Knight, and one from full Knight to Grand Knight.”
“That request is not excessive, is it?”