Imperial capital. Royal Chambers.

Two days had passed since the nightmarish night, and Luke's men had already taken control of the situation. The officials who had shivered in the bloody night of the imperial capital were now puffing out their chests one by one, and their faces showed a look of pride, as if he had put down the rebellion with his own hands.

Due to the martyrdom of the ruler of the empire, Fernando XIII, these officials had to elect another king to succeed to the throne. Obviously, this is related to the interests of various factions and families, so these officials of the empire have been arguing in the royal chamber for 2 whole days, and still no result has been reached.

Among the original triumvirate of the empire, the imperial minister of state Chad rebelled and has now become a prisoner, while the military governor Orlando went to Thor's fortress, and just 2 days was not enough to pass on the news, only the imperial finance minister Luke, who had been removed, sat quietly in the corner of the council chamber.

None of the incumbent Imperial officials paid attention to Luke, in their eyes, Luke was just an outdated guy, who would care about him? And Luke's real subordinates didn't appear here at all, and now everything is in ruins, after the Chad forces have been completely eradicated, there are too many vacancies left, and every one of Luke's subordinates is busy, although there is no personal appointment from His Majesty the Emperor, but who cares about those Luke's subordinates? The entire imperial capital is already in Luke's hands, and after those boring officials elect a puppet, wouldn't it be the same to slowly sign the appointment and dismissal order?

On the contrary, Luke himself had nothing to do, just a person holding a glass of excellent Bordeaux, sitting there and tasting it slowly, and looking indifferently at these officials who kept arguing.

More than 100 officials sat in the royal chamber, where the original owner, Fernando XIII, had only been dead for two days, and no one had ever asked about it, and even his funeral was handled by Luke. These officials have completely lost their aristocratic demeanor, and they are arguing about the next king, because the young Fernando XIII has no direct heirs, so according to the provisions of the Royal Succession Law, basically the nobles with Fernando's royal blood have the right to inherit the king in theory.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" shouted a white-haired official, "according to the provisions of the Royal Succession Law, it should be Henikos Fernando who should inherit the throne, although the old Hennikos is a little older, he is the cousin of His Majesty Fernando XII, and he is the oldest and most prestigious in our royal family!"

"Haha, what a joke, Henikos is 79 years old this year, do you want our empire to continue to change kings next year?" an official in his thirties retorted loudly: "I think that the monarch of a huge empire should have the wisdom of an old man and the vigor of a young man, and at the same time have a healthy body. ”

"Yes, yes!" said several people about the same age as the official slapped the table.

"So I think," shouted the 30-something official, "Birmingham-Fernando is the most qualified to be our next monarch, he is very knowledgeable, he is fluent in four languages, and most importantly, he is only 43 years old, which is the time when a man is at his most energetic!"

"That's right, we're all in favor of Birmingham!" the same few officials were building momentum for their faction candidates.

"Don't mess around, everyone, please listen to me!" shouted a young man of eighteen or nineteen years old in a somewhat childish voice, "Doesn't the future of the empire belong to us young people? ”

"Die, Hubble is only 7 years old this year, why don't you let a kid who is still peeing his pants take care of us!"

"Damn, you old thing, how dare you say such a thing? Have you forgotten that insulting His Majesty is a great crime?"

"May the God of Light strip you of your glory! Who said Hubble was king?"

"Everyone, everyone"

"Ah, you dare to touch me, you have tarnished the dignity of the nobles!"

"What if I touch you, you fat-headed, big-eared idiot, why don't you die?"

"Don't make noise, don't make noise!"

"You'll have the guts to touch me again! Damn pigs, if my servants were here, I'd let them knock the muddy heads!"

"Brothers, defend our King of Birmingham to the death!"

Luke gently shook the crystal glass in his hand, letting the bright red Bordeaux wine sway in the glass, and he looked at the noisy officials in front of him with a sneering look on his face.

A man dressed as a servant walked in quickly, he quickly scanned the royal chamber with his eyes, and immediately saw where Luke was, and then quickly handed Luke a document in his hand, and Luke gently opened it, listing the gains of his men that night.

At that time, Chad's rebellion was not premeditated at all, it was completely after the assassination of Fernando XIII by the Assassins, and he was forced to raise troops to protect himself, of course, those who knew about this matter were either Chad's men had been killed, or Luke's men would definitely be tight-lipped.

Because in that night, Chad urgently mobilized more than 40,000 troops, which is almost one-fifth of the army left behind in the imperial capital, plus more than 2,000 people from the chambers of commerce and mercenary groups under his and his wife's name, and indeed firmly controlled the situation in the palace and its surroundings at the beginning.

However, when Catherine persuaded Luke to make a move, the situation took a turn for the worse, Luke's men were far less than Chad's, but most of Chad's subordinates were reserve legions, not as good as the entire elite legion in Luke's hands, which he controlled according to the generals he supported, not to mention that there were thousands of holy knights as the backbone, Chad's men were not opponents at all, and they basically collapsed at the touch of a button, and the Grand Magister de Silva saw that things were not good, and he didn't know where to flee with less than 20 people.

When the situation was decided, Luke deliberately made a hole in the defense line besieging the palace, allowing Chad's rout to flee into the rich quarter, and the nobles who were desperately trying to scrape the poor were hit hard that night. The routs of Chad's men rushed into the mansion where the nobles were and began to loot on a large scale, and when they were almost done, Luke's army rushed in to fight, and in the chaos, no one knew whose hands those nobles died, anyway, almost all the looted nobles' mansions were ignited, and the fire soon spread, lighting up half of the sky.

Anyway, the commoners of the imperial capital live on the outer edge of the city, and more people live in farms and manors outside the city, and Luke has long been dissatisfied with these nobles who don't care about the empire and only value their own lives, so he just used this incident to hit them hard.

When dawn came, when the restless citizens walked out of their homes, they could only see the bright red blood flowing from the sewers of the imperial capital, and that night full of fear made the residents of Fernando, who had been away from the war for 200 years, taste death once again.

Luke flipped through the information in his hand a few times, and after preliminary sorting, the wealth he collected that night was converted into more than 490 million gold coins, which is almost the total tax revenue of the empire in 7 years, and more importantly, those dead nobles controlled at least more than forty percent of the land near the imperial capital, as long as it took some time to sort out those lands and distribute them to those commoners, Luke believed that he would win the hearts and minds of the people.

Luke carefully folded the document and put it in his pocket, placing the crystal cup aside before standing up slowly. In the council chamber, the officials were still arguing loudly, and the scene was becoming more and more chaotic, and these officials were trying to get the best interest, but they didn't know that the person who could really decide the next king here was leisurely drinking wine on the sidelines.

Luke suddenly remembered Catherine, who had moved into the dormitory after the rebellion that night and never came out, as if the future of the empire had nothing to do with her, and no one cared about a woman with a dead husband, only the knight Trainee Christina was still close to her.

In Luke's heart, in fact, Catherine is more qualified to be the king, just by virtue of Catherine's performance that night, these desperately arguing officials in front of her are completely like waste, but unfortunately according to the "Royal Succession Law" , Catherine, as the empress of Fernando XIII, her succession to the throne is too far, if she really wants to inherit the throne, she must at least kill the 57 nobles with Fernando blood who live in the imperial capital, and she has to go to Seabreeze City and other places to kill the remaining 46 royal descendants whose fiefs are not near the imperial capital.

Luke shook his head and slowly paced out with his hands behind his back. He, Luke, doesn't have the blood of the royal family, and he can't talk too much about inheritance, and the province has become the target of public criticism. Anyway, whoever sits on that throne doesn't have to act according to Luke's wishes in the end, so what difference does it make to Luke who will be the emperor?

"Wait until you quarrel slowly!" Luke said in his heart, "every day you quarrel, my power grows a little stronger, and my control over this empire becomes a little stronger, and it is better that you quarrel endlessly, and you can't choose this king, so that I don't even need to ask the puppet in name." ”

In the South Tarren Prairie, 10 Holy Knights galloped desperately north, they were ordered by Empress Catherine to pass on what was happening in the imperial capital to General Orlando.

The sound of horses' hooves frightened the cattle and sheep grazing on the side, and the originally neat herd of cattle and sheep began to become chaotic. A herdsman grazing on horseback stared deeply at the departed holy knight, and suddenly swung his whip and slammed it on the horse under his crotch. The steed let out a long neigh, spread its hooves, and ran toward the hazy camp in the distance.

Half a day later, more than 20 herders flew out of the camp, divided into four groups, ran out in different directions, and soon disappeared into the distance.