C16 The Imperators Tears The Blood Of The Nobles

My death squad immediately turned away, giving me my dignity.

Lupa whined softly, nudging me with her massive head, but I barely noticed.

Because the truth was finally hitting me. The moment I killed that man, the moment I condemned, dozens, hundreds of Innocents to death, for f*cks sake I didn't even know the exact number.

Something in me had died as well. There was no turning back. There was no undoing this.

I had just crossed a line I could never return from. I wiped my mouth, my fingers trembling, but I forced myself to stand tall once more and started walking again.

The grand marble corridors of the palace were eerily silent. The gold trimmed walls, once the symbol of imperial order, now felt suffocatingly empty.

The air was thick with the scent of burning torches, the faint traces of blood still lingering from the night's execution.

The weight of my footsteps echoed across the halls, each step heavier than the last. Lupa padded silently beside me, her golden eyes watching me closely, sensing the storm within me.

My death squad flanked me at a respectful distance, their boots clicking in perfect rhythm, their rifles secured, their expressions unreadable behind their helmets.

I navigated through the halls with no particular direction in mind, until my body took me where I knew I belonged.

The Emperor's Quarters. Or rather. My quarters, passed down from the first Imperator. I pushed open the grand double doors, stepping inside. The scent of aged oak, burning wood, and expensive incense filled the air.

The room was massive, adorned with towering golden pillars, an ancient woven carpet stretching from the entrance to the great stone fireplace, where a fire crackled warmly.

The Imperial Standard, a black Iron Fenrir coiling around a crimson banner, hung above the massive four poster bed, a bed that once belonged to my grandfather.

But no longer. I was Imperator now. This was my birthright. And yet I felt nothing. I walked toward the fireplace, the heat licking my armor, illuminating my expression in a faint, golden glow.

I sat down on a deep leather chair covered In furrs, resting my elbows on my knees, staring into the fire. And for a while. I just thought. The silence was heavy. Too heavy. Then, I snapped.

"Bring me wine."

My voice was hoarse. The nearest paratrooper immediately turned on his heel, heading toward the wine cellar.

Minutes later, a bottle of aged black Ducatum wine was placed before me on the wooden coffee table.

I uncorked it with bare hands, raising the bottle to my lips, drinking deeply. The burn of alcohol spread through my throat, warm and sharp, but it wasn't enough.

One bottle turned into two. Two turned into three. Three into four.

The world around me began to blur, the sharp edges of reality becoming distant, muted, meaningless.

I exhaled, rubbing my face, feeling the alcohol numb the storm inside me, if only slightly. Was this… how he felt? Then the MC sat In a bar drowning himself In alchohol, feeling the weight of the world crushing him?

Did he feel his humanity slipping with each decision? Did he feel the guilt, the monstrous weight of knowing that his hands were forever stained with blood of Innocents?

Did he, too, hate himself as he became the very monster I wrote him to be? I let out a bitter chuckle, shaking my head.

"Of course, he did,"

I muttered. Because I wrote him that way. Because I, In my stupid arrogance thinking myself a g*d of my own book to which some extent I was, created him, crafted his suffering, his torment, his descent into madness.

And now, I was living it. Was this the so called karma? If It was then she was one nasty b*tch. A knock at the door.

Before I could even acknowledge it, the door swung open. A few palace maids entered, carrying more bottles of wine on a silver tray, their footsteps light, their heads slightly bowed as they approached.

They moved gracefully, setting the bottles on the ancient coffee table, their delicate hands careful not to make a sound.

But I was no longer thinking. I was no longer processing. I grabbed the nearest maid's wrist, pulling her onto my lap with zero hesitation.

"Ah!"

She yelped, startled, but her protest barely lasted a second before my mouth was on hers. I invaded her lips, my tongue claiming her with reckless abandon. At first, she tensed, her body stiff, uncertain.

But it didn't take long. Not even a few seconds before her hesitation melted away.

Her soft hands moved to my armor's leather locks, fumbling with the buckles, undoing them one by one with her delicate fingers.

My mind was hazy. My body moved on instinct, craving anything that could distract me from the horror inside my own head.

One maid became two. Two became three.

A second one knelt beside me, her fingers tracing over my chest, her breath warm against my skin as she pressed soft kisses along my jaw.

The third ran delicate hands through my white hair, her lips murmuring sweet nothings in my ear, whispering honeyed words of praise and devotion.

And for a while, I let myself drown in it. The warmth of their bodies. The press of their lips. The taste of wine and perfume. I let myself forget.

Forget the blood on my hands. Forget the dead men screaming in my mind. Forget the guilt, the shame, the weight of the throne.

Because tonight. Tonight, I was not the Imperator. I was just a man, lost in the haze of wine and flesh, desperately searching for an escape.

Even if I knew. There was none. There never was. And there never would be.

...

The night sky over Nova Roma was eerily silent.

No bustling markets, no drunken noble laughter, no carriages clattering against stone streets. Just silence. And then, the sound of trucks.

Engines hummed in the darkness, rolling in tight formation, carrying the soldiers of the Imperator's will.

Black, red and white clad paratroopers, thousands of cold blooded warriors moved with terrifying precision across the Imperium's heartland, their orders absolute and their purpose clear. Tonight, the Imperial Family would ceased to exist.

The first wave of operations targeted the weak. The barons. The viscounts. The small time nobles whose titles carried prestige but little real power.

Most of them were already awake when the paratroopers arrived. Not because they expected a purge, but because word had spread. Something was happening in Nova Roma and It wasnt good.

And when they heard the rumble of trucks, the distant sounds of weapons safeties clicking off, they knew.

The first estate, a modest villa belonging to Baron Lucius Von Death, was surrounded within seconds.

A contubernium of paratroopers jumped out of the truck, their weapons raised but not aimed. The gates swung open before they even reached them.

The baron himself, a frail, aging man in a simple nightgown, stood with his wife and three children, their expressions a mixture of fear and reluctant acceptance. He stepped forward and bowed deeply.

"I renounce my family name, surrender my lands, my title, and my wealth to the Imperator. May he reign eternal."

No resistance. No struggle. The tesserarius of the paratrooper unit aka their commander, a grim faced man no older than eighteen, nodded and gestured to the acompaying cerberus soldiers.

"Escort them to the capital. Strip them of everything. Because they surendered wilingly leave them enough to live out the rest of their lives comfortably as commoners."

The commander of the cerberus contubernium armed only with bolt action rifles nodded, then barked to his soldiers to take away and load the trembling baron, and his family into the truck.

Similar scenes played out across the Imperium's smaller noble estates. The weak and the pragmatic surrendered.

They were rounded up, processed, and stripped of everything except for the bare minimum needed to live out the rest of their lives as commoners before being released Into the streets of Nova Roma, their titles erased.

By 1:30 AM, over sixty Von Death dynasties branch noble houses had vanished. No blood spilled. No executions. But that peaceful surrender would not last.

The Eastern Province had long been known for its resentment of the central government. Here, the earls and marquises viewed themselves not as servants to the Emperors, but as rulers of their own domains.

When the paratroopers arrived in force, they were met with armed guards, hastily assembled defenses, and panicked Imperial dynasties branch noble families.

At Marquis Vittorio Von Deaths estate, the first shots of the night were fired. The marquis had mobilized his house guards, nearly two hundred men, armed with bolt action rifles and submachineguns.

They had set up barricades near the main gates, desperate to keep the inevitable at bay. The paratroopers, however, were not vegetarians. From the darkness, silencers coughed. Followed by the whistling sounds of 60 mm mortar shells.