"Your Excellency, Archduke Fay Onan was assassinated in the theater this afternoon."

"I know." Joseph Lune sat in his chair, answered lightly, reached out and rubbed his temples, paused before raising his head and looking at the young bachelor with a happy face: "You seem to be happy?" ”

"Lord Marquis......"

The young bachelor's expression froze, his lips twitched, and he didn't know how to answer.

It stands to reason that the master of his own house should be quite happy when Archduke Fay Onan was assassinated, and the Marquis of Joseph could take back all the power that belonged to him.

The Lune family behind Joseph Lune is one of the oldest and most prominent families in the Central, with a history dating back to the "Bear King" Lothar Lune, a figure from the Second Age's Northern Migration, who defeated the Orc coalition in the Valley Jedi, and then joined other human leaders to establish the city-state of the Middle and the city of Vegia.

For thousands of years, the House of Rune had been the lords of the city-state of Vegia and its surrounding areas, and it was not until twenty-five years ago that the previous king of Vegia was killed and devoured by the ancient red dragon "Queen" Aksuye in a campaign against dragons.

"A young child cannot govern a city-state." These are the exact words of the head of Thashanmu.

There was nothing wrong with this sentence at the time, but it was not until much later that people understood the deep meaning of this, on the surface, Joseph Lune was still able to inherit his father's dukedom, fiefdom, army and all taxes, but in fact, except for the dukedom, all the affairs of the city-state of Virginia were handled by Fionan as the governor, and after a period of time, under the double suppression of the head of Tashanmu and the Duke of Fa Onan, the power of the Lune family was gradually eroded, and its influence was gradually reduced.

Fifteen years ago, after Fay Onan took full control of the situation in Vigia, Tashanmu found a random excuse to directly attack Joseph's dukedom and reduce the Duke of Joseph to a second-class marquis, which shocked the entire trading city-state at the time, and since then, the famous House of Lune has been completely knocked out of the dust.

From this origin, Joseph Lune's hatred for Duke Fay Onan and the head of Tashanmu can be imagined, but what is puzzling to the scholar is that the Marquis of Joseph did not show the slightest pleasure about the death of Fay Onan, but seemed to be a little ...... Vexation?

Joseph pondered for a moment, rubbed his face, looked up and asked, "What about the murderer?" Did you catch it? ”

"I've been caught by the guards." The young bachelor couldn't read his mind and didn't dare to say anything: "But that guy refused to explain who he was and who instructed him, and committed suicide an hour ago." ”

"It was a planned murder and no one had seen him before?"

The bachelor shook his head: "I asked the people in the patrol, and they all said that they had never seen it, it was a fresh face, and the identity of this person was still being investigated and verified." ”

"Take me to see the killer." Joseph stood up.

So the bachelor led him, with a group of attendants and guards, to a fortified camp in the governor's palace, where the killer had committed suicide before he could be taken into the dungeon after being captured, and the soldiers in charge of the capture knew that they could not escape the blame, and they were terrified for a while, and did not know what to do with it, so they could only park the body here for the time being.

The deceased was locked in a dark room, his hands and feet still shackled, his hair was disheveled but his face was calm, and the priest said that he had suffered a curse beforehand, and seemed to have already realized that he was going to die.

"You go out first, and I'll be alone for a while." Joseph said.

"My lord, this ......" the soldier commander hesitated a little.

"What, worried about the resurrection of the undead, I was killed by a dead man?" Joseph glared at him.

People didn't dare to say any more, so they retreated in turn, covered the door, and in the gloomy prison room, there was only a lonely and cold candle flame and a vague breath of negative energy.

Marquis Joseph tilted his head slightly and closed his eyes.

The next moment, the faint negative energy that overflowed from the corpse swelled like wildfire in the wind, and in the blink of an eye, the entire room was filled, and the cheers circled around Joseph, and then rushed towards the corpse, cruising among the corpses.

In the middle of the ring, Joseph reopened his eyes, the negative energy disappeared without a trace, he let out a long breath, and sneered: "The Duke of Virginia, the elemental master Fei Onan, was assassinated by an ordinary person, and he couldn't even enter the kingdom of God after his death, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I'm afraid I wouldn't have believed it." ”

After saying that, he fell silent, clenched his fists, and looked at the corpse fixedly, and it continued like this for a few minutes, until a few drops of red blood flowed from his hands.

The green tendons on his hands were exposed, and he actually pierced his palms with his nails!

"Damn."

Joseph suddenly scolded fiercely, his voice colder than the winter wind: "Fifteen years, a whole fifteen years, you don't know how many things I have done, vassals, territories, armies and popularity, I could have recaptured Vegia smoothly and steadily, I am already the master of Veguia, but, Fay Onan, you actually killed him directly!" All the previous efforts are gone, and the previous efforts are all gone! ”

"What is Fei Onan, I can kill him at any time, but kill one Fei Onan, and the second Fei Onan, the third Fei Onan, it took me fifteen years to make Tashanmu let his guard down, how can you do this? How can you do that!? ”

Marquis Joseph's hand trembled, and the words squeezed out between his teeth: "Blackwing Empire—"

Using the ability to see the light of day, Joseph knew that this assassination was the work of the Blackwing Empire, and that the killer had taken some kind of special drug before the operation, so as to come to Fei Onan's side and kill people through repeated tests, such a thing is currently only available in the Northlands.

However, Tashanmu, the ruler of the trading city-state, would not believe these words, and as soon as Fei Onan died, he became the direct beneficiary and the biggest target of suspicion, and he was bound to be investigated. Joseph Lune knew very well that there was no secret in the world that would never be made public, and whether Fay Onan killed him or not, as long as Tashanmu began to investigate in this direction, there would always be some clues about what he had done in the past fifteen years.

What made Marquis Joseph wonder was whether the Black Wing Empire's assassination plan was aimed at Fei Onan, who was against them everywhere, or was he deliberately persecuted by knowing his inside story?

The former would have made Joseph lament the breadth of the Northern Empire's influence, while the latter would have caused Joseph to feel deep fear.

Of course, in any case, he has been driven to a dead end.

"I can't help it." Joseph sighed, his face slowly returned to normal peace and quiet, he shook his hand, let the wound and blood stains on his palm gradually disappear, and then removed the soundproofing magic of the room, and slowly left the confinement room.

Returning to his mansion, Joseph Lune waved off his attendants, stepped into the secret passages of the mansion, walked through the long, dark corridors, and said to the dark viper in the corner: "As soon as Fay Onan is dead, we will have no way out, and we will no longer have to hide and lurk." ”

His face turned cold: "Inform the vassals to mobilize the army and raid Kohor tomorrow night, without Jon Arthur's old bastard, I will see the bear flag of the Lune family planted at the head of Kohor City the day after tomorrow." ”

This is not difficult, the king of Kohor, the legendary sword saint Jon Arthur, was killed in the attack on the Northlands, the elite troops of the city-state of Kohor were lost, and now the city-state of Norda is presided over by a woman, and there is not much resistance left, and there is a huge disparity between it and Vegia.

However, the viper in the shadows did not understand the deep meaning of this move: "Attacking Kohor will not be of any real benefit to us. ”

"It's not good, but it has to be done. Cut off the way out and show determination. The Marquis of Joseph said, "Didn't they always want to meddle in the trading city-states, and we forced them to put everything in the open." I don't believe that they're going to ignore Virginia. ”

"Understood." The serpent said yes, and it was hidden in the darkness.

"The war is about to begin." Joseph Lune stared at the dense black mist, and the flames rose in his eyes: "I didn't expect me to start the prelude." If in another thirty years, I can successfully master the ten major city-states, and maybe there will be a chance to compete for hegemony, but now ......"

Black Dragon Codex