Life in the Imperial palace 5

It had been two weeks since the search for the culprit behind the Empress' guard captain's murderer started. The city had been on lockdown ever since but the search yielded no results. In fact, the people in charge didn't have any leads, to begin with, so they could only comb through the palace and the city, hoping to stumble upon something.

Sadly for them, Madelein had left no traces within the palace and had not even set a foot outside, so after two weeks of searching in vain, the search was called off and the lockdown was lifted. The fact that nothing was found had left the Empress fuming. How she wished she could directly point at the bastard prince and announce to the world that he was behind this.

During these two weeks, Enki had spent most of his time working or accompanying Adelinetta. The two of them had gotten quite close. Adelinetta was very easygoing with a bright and open personality which attracted Enki. He was used to people hiding their true self behind a mask so the princess was truly a breath of fresh air. Unlike some cold and expressionless aide that shall remain unnamed.

Today Enki and Adelinetta were taking a walk through the Rose Garden. As its name suggests, it was a garden filled with roses of different colors. Enki's favorite one was the pink rose. Pink had been his mother's favorite color and when he was a child she used to take him and Elise with her to admire the pink roses.

Snapping out of his thoughts Enki could see Adelinetta happily waltzing through the garden, admiring the roses with a faint smile upon her face.

The two of them spent a few more hours together before Enki had to go back to his office to finish some of the reports.

It was already late in the evening when he got back to his office. Stepping inside, Madelein's cold and expressionless face greeted him.

'I wonder if her face is paralyzed.' Enki thought while walking over to his desk. He had never seen Madelein's face even twitch in the slightest.

Looking over the reports on his desk Enki noticed one that caught his eye. Someone had tried to sneak into the Supreme Commander's mansion. The culprit had tried to climb over the walls surrounding the mansion and had been caught before he even managed to hit the ground.

'What moronic bastard is stupid enough to actually try and sneak in there with the Barca family's Elders keeping guard? And in broad daylight at that.' Enki thought in wonder while shaking his head.

The Barca family practiced monogamy, unlike most of the nobles, and usually only had one or two children each generation, and only the heir which traditionally was a son, would inherit the title of duke while the other ones had to renounce all rights of succession and were removed from the family tree. This was done in order to prevent any infighting within the family.

As a military family, the Barca's respected the strong, and only the strongest and most talented child of the Duke was fit to inherit the ducal house. This was also done in order to ensure that the title of "Supreme Commander" would be inherited alongside the ducal house. The selection of an heir was done when all of the children had reached the age of ten, and the Elders could accurately judge their talent in cultivation.

While the Empire appreciated talent in leadership and tactics, it put heavy emphasis on individual strength. The Commanders were required to at least have silver core cultivation. The Colonels that couldn't reach this requirement, would never receive a promotion during the rest of their lives no matter how talented leaders they were. The rank of High Commander on the other hand put emphasis on leadership abilities. So while the position of Commander required brawn over brain, the exact opposite was true for the High Commanders that ultimately were responsible for the different Imperial armies.

The role of Supreme Commander required both, but ultimately as the Empire's Sword, strength was more important. The Empire only granted the title to the strongest High Commander of their generation.

So talent in cultivation was a must for the Barca successor. No matter how slow and moronic the heir, the Barca Elders had always managed to ram in the necessary military knowledge that they would need. One example would be the great-great-grandfather of Darius, Graham Barca. Ever since he reached the rank of Commander and was in charge of over ten thousand men, he had to constantly rely on his advisors to make the strategies and let them have command over the army. But still, he alone could easily turn the tide of the war with his pure strength. He had once simply marched through a battlefield to the enemy's command center and massacred everyone in there, throwing the enemy army into utter chaos.

Of course, the Barca family wasn't cruel enough to just throw out the children that weren't selected as heirs. Instead, these children were groomed to be future Elders. They would be in charge of protecting their territories while the head of the house was away on a campaign. These Elders were also the ones who groomed the next successor. In fear of the head being impartial towards a favorite child, he had no say in who would inherit his position.

These Elders were also the ones who recruited and taught the family's own troops. These troops patrolled their territories and guarded their mansion, and some of them would go along with a group of Elders with the Supreme Commander on the campaigns, to ensure his safety. As of now, the Barca family had 150 Elder's, 100 of them at cyan core rank, making them a match for any of the Colonels within the army, and 50 Elders were at the silver-core rank, surpassing the number of silver core ranks that all ten of the Imperial Armies had combined.

Of course within the Empire, there were hundreds of people with silver-core cultivation, but most of them were scattered around, employed by the different noble houses because they paid a lot better than the army and Imperial family and the Warriors would have more freedom. On average each noble house had one or two silver-core Warriors in their service. The Imperial family had around twenty, with ten silver-core Warriors guarding the palace at all times.

Darius Barca was at the white core rank, being one of the five people within the Empire to have reached that level. The other four were Duke Lapius, the commander of the Holy Church's Templar Knights, the Imperial Guard Commander who was responsible for the Emperor's safety, and High Commander Andremes who was in charge of Imperial Army Primigenia, the army Mago was in.

Out of all the Elders in the Barca family, at least 20 silver-core ranked Warriors, as well as a few dozen of cyan-core, ranked Elders, were always present at the mansion. So as stated before, it was truly the pinnacle of stupidity to try and sneak into the Supreme Commander's mansion.

Which was exactly what second prince Darren had attempted to do. Now he was locked inside the dungeons within the Supreme Commander's mansion.

He had screamed and shouted for half a day for the guards outside to let him out and demanded to see Violettina until his voice became hoarse and he could barely manage to get out a peep. He couldn't fathom how these lowly guards dared to lock him up here.

He was just trying to see his beloved woman. How dare they get in his way?

Darren von Imvidra was a proud and arrogant person. Being the son of the Empress and the Emperor, ever since he was a kid the people around him had been fawning over him, singing praises at every little thing he did. He easily got everything he wanted.

This had made him think that he was truly exceptional and that everything he did was naturally correct. No one had ever admonished him or tried to correct him so this belief started to slowly take root deeper and deeper as he grew up. His deeds became more brutal and ruthless and still, the people beside him only praised him.

Once when he was fifteen and had forced himself upon a young and beautiful commoner, a brown-nosing noble that had been with him had simply said "Ah, what a lucky girl, to receive the affections of a prince". This incident had been the final tipping point. After this, Darren acted without any reservations or restraints. He simply did anything he wanted or felt like doing.

News of his deeds reached the ears of the Emperor but he simply didn't care. The worse Darren's reputation was, the easier it was for him to deny him the right of succession which should have been his birthright. It was traditional for the first son of the Empress to inherit the throne. The Emperor also prevented any of the news from reaching the Empress. Had she known what her sweet son was truly like, she would have surely tried to make him change his ways and prevent his actions.

When Darren turned eighteen his grandfather, Duke Lapius, came from the southern territories to visit the capital. Upon arriving the Duke instantly heard the horrible news of the monstrous second prince. He had been truly shocked. According to the letters he regularly got from his daughter, Darren was supposed to be a bright and kind young adult, much like he had been when the Duke had seen him eight years ago. Not the raping ruthless monster the public made him out to be.

The Duke had quickly investigated the rumors and was truly baffled when the investigations proved them to be true. While the Duke was not the best among men and had done plenty of questionable deeds during his life, he still believed in the principle of "noblesse oblige". He would never stand if a noble, let alone his own grandson, abused his authority and power to oppress the people he was supposed to lead and whose lives he was supposed to improve.

While Duke Lapius schemed against other nobles and was ambitious, and wished for his family members to become part of the Imperial family and for his grandson to inherit the seat of the Emperor, he would not harm the innocent citizens. That was his bottom line.

He had immediately confronted Darren about his deeds and the young man had seemed totally confused, he couldn't understand what he did wrong. In his eyes, his actions were only natural.

The Duke pondered long and hard if he should tell his daughter what her son was truly like. But in the end, the old man couldn't do it. He couldn't bear to break his daughter's heart so he decided that ignorance was bliss, and kept her in the dark.

But he did take Darren with him to the southern territories, hoping to re-educate the young man and make him correct his ways.

At the same time, Enki and Mago left for the Sacred Academy.

During the first year of Darren's stay in the south, he showed little to no signs of improving. He simply tried to hide his behavior from the Duke, committing atrocities behind his back but got always caught and punished. This made Darren start to hate this grandfather of his. This old man had suddenly come and interrupted his lavish and fun lifestyle, which caused Darren to resent him.

The Duke was a sharp man and naturally noticed the growing hatred within his grandson, but he thought it was a small price to pay if he could make Darren truly change. Like this, another year nearly passed, and one day Darren suddenly did show signs of improving. This had made the Duke overjoyed.

What he didn't realize at first was that Darren still saw the commoners as his personal playthings, but had found a new way to play with them. He found out that with his status and a little bit of flattery, the commoners practically worshiped him. Almost all the women he approached with this new, kinder method, readily invited him in, letting him ravage them to his heart's content. There were exceptions of course, but it didn't bother Darren, for he fully was enjoying this newfound way of doing things.

Now Darren became more open-minded about the Duke's teachings and started to pay attention to everything he taught.

Two more years passed by and Darren became proficient in manipulating people.

While the Duke did catch on to this, after considering it for a while, he let it be. It was a huge improvement to what Darren had previously been doing and after several years the Duke knew that Darren's behavior was too deeply rooted for him to ever completely change.

And finally, after staying for four years in the south, Darren returned to the capital.

Upon returning he passed by a marketplace, where he saw what could only be described as a goddess. The young woman had gorgeous black hair and emerald-green eyes that sparkled in the sun. Her slender figure and slightly tilted eyes made her look extremely seductive, like a vixen.

"Who is she?", had Darren asked from a guard that was escorting him, not tearing his eyes away from the girl for even a second.

"Judging by the looks of the guards around her, she seems to be the daughter of the Supreme Commander, Violettina Barca.", the guard replied.

"Violettina Barca...", Darren muttered with an excited gleam in his eyes.

Thus his obsession with Mago's sister began.