When Nahwu returo the elven kingdom, she was taken aback by the bustling atmosphere. Apparently, there was a Great Assembly happening in the pace, and she had no idea about it.

  "A Great Assembly? Does that mean all the races in the world are having a meeting right now?" she questioned her servant.

  The elf maid nodded in response. "Yes, the topic is the unfair accusation against the Holiness’ human husband, Caliburn Pendragon."

  Nahwu's expression darkened. "Who did you say?"

  Making her way down the corridor to find her sister, Nahwu was shocked to see all the gifts she had brought back from Inkia thrown out of the room.

  "What's happening here?" she demao know.

  The elven servants froze, bowing nervously as her sister, Princess Shorof, emerged coughing.

  "Sister..." Nahwu's evident in her voice.

  Shorof shook her head. "The Holiness ordered these items to be removed from my possession, fearing they could tain suspicious devices lio the accusations against her husband."

  Nahwu was bewildered. "But why? I got these gifts for you, how could they be...?"

  "Naha, Inkia has accused the Holiness' husband of a serious crime. She suspects these items could be hiding something," Shorof expined.

  Nahwu was at a loss for words, feeling hurt and offehat her thoughtful gifts were now being beled as potential spy tools.

  “This… this is absurd!” Nahwu excimed angrily.

  She turned away a, seemingly i on barging into the Great Assembly. Shorof called her rying her best to stop her, but she couldn’t with her weak body. Nahwu pushed through.

  However, as she listeo the meeting and learhat Caliburn Pendragon wasn’t in the wrong, she was admittedly shocked. But her shock was short-lived.

  Despite the fact that the two ed creatures were criminals, ae him having to eat them due to his illness while still being a literal child, he was still a monster in her eyes.

  “Mother, don’t be tricked! This man—! This tyrant, he killed his father to seize the throne and also killed his rebelling brother!”

  Nahwu's arrival ectacle in itself, as she had stealthily eavesdropped on the meeting from behind the cealed doors, abs every word with a mixture of indignation and disapproval.

  With an air of palpable anger and accusation, she cast her pierg gaze upon the assembly, her eyes abze with a fervor that matched the iy of her entrance.

  The good-natured atmosphere that had enveloped the room upon Nahwu's arrival seemed to wither under her disapproving scrutiny, as if her mere presence had the power to sour the mood.

  Her expression, full of disdain and hostility, painted a vivid picture of her displeasure at the geniality that had been flourishing before her arrival.

  With a wicked gleam in her eyes, Nahwu sneered, “Assessing a person's character is a plex task. Yet, when evidence tradicts the narrative, even the most oblivious dis! His past is steeped in viliny; disproving one accusation alone ot absolve him of his sins!”

  After her passioirade, Nahwu suddenly realized that the room was filled with apathetic faces, devoid of i or sympathy.

  her the elven representatives, including her mother and the five revered elders, nor the other assembly members, all exuding an air of seasoned wisdom, dispyed aion to her outburst.

  Perplexed by the ck of response, Nahwu eventually noticed another peculiar detail: from her vantage point at the entrance of the assembly hall, she couldn't see the accused man's face. He stood beside the Holiness’ seat, embrag her shoulders and head with his face looking down.

  As Nahwu barged in through the imposing double doors, the same entrance Burn had used, she could only dis the man's t silhouette and his impeccably trimmed white hair, stark against the shadows obsg his face. It almost felt unreal.

  His face was pletely dark—

  The harsh lighting from the gss ceiling in the hall was certainly strong, but not strong enough to shroud his features entirely from view.

  And it was then, within his embrace, that she beheld the face of the Holiness: a chilling sight, with her radiant blue eyes set in a visage cloaked in the same darkness—an utterly terrifying sight.

  Man rose, and every single person ihe hall immediately felt sick to their stomachs.

  The trees trembled.

  “O God, five me. This mortal hath been pt,” Man whispered, but everyone heard her in their middle ears. Her whispers echoed like silk a, but it was the kind of gentlehat would choke them to death.

  Her words slithered into their very cores. Her whispers dripped with a unique smooth cruelty.

  “I will correct this stray mb back to her humble path, the path thou blessed for every creature with souls thou whispered into.”

  She advahe wooden table in front of her disied as she walked slowly and deliberately forward, clearing her path, as if no atoms or particles in this world dared to block her steps. As if the very fabric of reality itself dared not impede her progress.

  Now, Burn had known Man quite well. She had three kinds of emotional outbursts. The first was her crazy problem-solvihods and insane perspectives. The sed was wrath. This was the one on dispy right at this moment.

  And third—

  “Man, I did kill my father. you listen to me?”

  The third kind was the scariest.

  Man stopped, her face turning to Burn, eyes moist and full of grieva was the look that could i him with pain, even more devastating than the ripping of his own soul to curse the time.

  “You asked me oo expin myself. You asked me to defend my perspective. I’ll do it now.”

  After spending so much time being the victim of Man’s memory-extrag magic, he was able to detect the flow of mana she used to invade his mind.

  But this time, she didn’t actually use the spell on him.

  She got mad even before knowing the truth from him. She got mad for him, blindly trusting that he didn’t it the sin. She didn’t read his mind… yet she trusted him.

  "I killed my father to stop his suffering," Burn fessed. "He might have looked like a mighty knight on the surface... but something was corrupting his soul."

  Burn’s face darkened. “The symptoms were the same as Princess Shorof's, the current first elf princess's, illness.”