Chapter 40: The End of the Banquet
From the balconies and the shadowed alcoves, the Venator Order fired one-shot rifles. Bullets tore through the grand ballroom, shattering crystal goblets, splintering the polished wooden tables, and piercing the silk garments of those foolish enough to draw their ceremonial blades. The air instantly filled with the acrid, choking scent of sulfur and iron.
"Drop your weapons!"
Pressing down on the room with his Rank 7 aura, Vice-Captain Leontar roared.
The nobility of the Leo Principality had grown fat, lazy, and utterly complacent over centuries of unchecked privilege. They were cowards. Once the first wave of half a dozen armed resisters was gunned down, their bodies collapsing into pools of their own blood, the rest of the grand ballroom descended into absolute submission.
Swords clattered to the floor. Proud lords, who only hours ago had boasted of their invincible bloodlines, threw themselves to their knees, weeping and begging for mercy.
"Bind them," I ordered, stepping down the grand staircase.
The Venator assassins bound the wrists of every lord, baron, and count in the room.
The pale-faced Marquis Orientis was forced to his knees by two heavily armored Venators, his golden silk doublet torn and stained with spilled wine, his eyes wide with uncomprehending madness.
"You are a monster!" he shouted, thrashing against his restraints as I stopped in front of him.
"You cannot do this! The other nations will see you as a tyrant! My wife... my vassals... they will raise the East against you!"
"Your vassals will do nothing of the sort," I replied, gesturing toward his trembling daughter, Octavia, and the other heirs who were being separated from their fathers and herded toward the side exits.
"Do not touch my daughter!"
"They will not be harmed."
"The heirs and the eldest daughters of every noble house in this room are to be placed under strict house arrest within the inner palace walls. They will be heavily guarded, fed, and treated well."
"They are now hostages of the Crown."
I saw the realization dawn on the faces of the kneeling lords—the cruelty of my strategy. According to the ancient traditions of the Principality, only the heads of noble houses, accompanied by their heirs and eldest daughters, were allowed to attend state celebrations. Their wives, husbands, and younger children had been left behind to manage the estates and territories.
Without the head of the house to give orders, without the heir to claim succession, and without the eldest daughter to forge political alliances through marriage, the noble estates in the provinces were effectively paralyzed. If the wives or secondary vassals back home even thought of raising an army or resisting, it would mean the immediate execution of their entire direct bloodline held captive in the capital.
"Take Marquis Orientis to the deepest cell in the dungeon," I ordered.
"He will face public execution as a warning to anyone who thinks of selling my nation to the Federation."
"How about the rest, Your Highness?" Leontar asked.
"Strip them of their finery and lock them in the holding cells."
"The Nightwatch will conduct a thorough background check on every single one of them. If the investigations prove they were directly involved in the Marquis's treason, the illegal slave trade, or the rampant corruption that starved our people, they will join Orientis on the execution block. The rest will be dealt with in due time."
The Eastern Faction and their corrupt sympathizers were dragged out of the grand ballroom. I looked down at the blood spattered across the cuffs of my midnight-blue coat. I didn't bother to wipe it off. It was a necessary stain.
I turned and walked toward the grand balcony that overlooked the main square of the capital.
Outside, the early hours of August 16th were approaching. The eastern horizon filled with purple light from the rising sun, signaling the coming dawn. Below, tens of thousands of commoners, merchants, and refugees were gathered in the massive plaza, celebrating the final night of my birthday festival—drinking, singing, and dancing, entirely unaware of the massacre that had just rewritten the history of their nation behind the palace doors.
I pushed open the heavy glass doors and stepped out onto the balcony.
The sudden appearance of the Crown Prince sent a ripple through the massive crowd. The music slowly died down. The cheering faded into a hushed, reverent silence. Hundreds of thousands of eyes looked up at me, illuminated by the warm glow of the paper lanterns strung across the city.
Soon, they noticed the blood on my clothes.
A gasp echoed through the front ranks of the crowd. They stared with surprised expressions.
I channeled my mana, applying a subtle wind spell to project my voice so that it would reach every corner of the capital city.
"Citizens of the Leo Principality,"
"For generations, you have been told that your worth is measured by the blood in your veins. You have been told that you were born to toil, to suffer, and to bleed, so that a select few could drink vintage wine in grand halls."
"Tonight, I intercepted a plot orchestrated by Marquis Orientis and the Eastern Faction. They intended to sell this capital—to sell you—into slavery in exchange for personal wealth and power."
An angry, shocked murmur rippled through the sea of people.
"But they will not. Because as of this hour, the parasites who have fed on this nation for centuries have been excised! The traitors are in chains, and their reign of extortion is over!"
I stood tall, letting the cool morning breeze catch the heavy fabric of my coat.
"Today is my twentieth nameday. And with it, the era of the regency ends. From this dawn forward, I officially assume the role and the absolute authority of the Grand Prince of Leo!"
The crowd held its breath, sensing that the world was shifting beneath their feet.
"As my first decree as your Grand Prince, I hereby declare the end of hereditary rule, stripping the nobility of their power that oppressed the common people."
"From this day forward, I abolish the status system in its entirety."
"There are no lords. There are no serfs. There are no slaves. The Royal Family shall remain the sole nobility of this land. Every other man, woman, and child—whether human, beastkin, elf, or dwarf—is a free citizen of the Crown, equal under the law!"
A tremor ran through the crowd. I could see men weeping. I could see former slaves falling to their knees, clutching their faces in disbelief.
"I am instituting the Imperial Civil Service Examination. It will be open to everyone, regardless of race or origin. If you have the intellect, if you have the drive, you can take the exam and earn a place in the government! You can become a magistrate, a tax collector, a minister! The future of the Principality belongs to those who are willing to build it!"
"We will build a nation not on the privilege of birth, but on the merit of your minds and the strength of your hands!"
The city erupted. Deafening applause—like a physical shockwave of pure, unadulterated jubilation. Men roared, women screamed their praises, and the air filled with the ecstatic cries of a people who had just been handed back their humanity.
I stood on the balcony, looking down at the roaring sea of my people as the first rays of the morning sun crested the horizon, casting golden light over the capital. They were mine. I had claimed their absolute loyalty with freedom.
After letting them celebrate for several long minutes, I stepped back inside. I still had to deal with the ten percent—the useful administrators I had safely sequestered in the West Wing.
I walked through the corridors of the palace, flanked by a squad of Venator guards, until I reached the secure conference room.
I pushed the doors open.
Inside, Viscountess Linnea, Sir Kaelen, and the handful of other competent lords and minor barons stood up immediately. When they saw the blood splattered across my clothes, the color drained from their faces. Nobility rarely saw real blood in their lifetime. My appearance—and the guards—horrified them.
"Sit."
They sat down rigidly, their eyes darting nervously to the armed Venators standing by the door. Count Bellica Lauranto and Chief Engineer Thorgar remained standing at my side. I took my seat at the head of the mahogany table.
"Let me be perfectly clear about what has transpired over the last two hours."
"Marquis Orientis and the corrupt remnants of the nobility have been arrested for high treason. The hereditary nobility system of the Leo Principality has been officially and permanently abolished. The status system is gone."
"Your Highness... what does this mean for us? You told us we were selected because we had utility."
"And you do, Sir Kaelen. Which is why you are sitting in this room instead of rotting in a dungeon cell. But make no mistake—you are no longer nobles. You hold no hereditary titles. You own no serfs. The governing of the territories you previously claimed as your ancestral right now belongs entirely to the State."
A murmur of shock rippled through the group.
"However," I continued, "a nation cannot run on decrees alone. It requires administrators and bureaucrats. I am restructuring the entire governance of this country, and I am assigning you your new roles."
I looked at Viscountess Linnea.
"Those of you with exceptional administrative and governmental skills, I am appointing directly to the Central Government here in the capital. You will serve as directors and ministers under Count Lauranto."
I shifted my gaze to the others.
"The rest of you will be folded into the new provincial bureaucracy. You will be appointed as Governor-Generals for the provinces, Governors for the major cities, and Mayors for the towns. Even the village elders across the nation will be officially recognized as bureaucrats of the Crown."
"We are to be... civil servants?" an older baron asked, the concept entirely foreign to his aristocratic mind.
"You are to be employees of the State."
"And as employees, you will be compensated. Every single appointed official, from the Governor-Generals down to the village elders, will be provided a generous, standardized monthly salary paid in the new paper currency of the Royal Bank."
I needed them to work efficiently, which meant I couldn't strip them of absolutely everything without breeding deep resentment.
"Furthermore, while the land and the titles revert to the Crown, you will be permitted to keep your current accumulated personal wealth. Your gold, your investments, your personal estates—they remain yours. You will not be left destitute."
A collective sigh of relief washed over the table.
One of the minor lords from the south, a man who had grown wealthy through the textile trade, frowned slightly.
"Grand Prince... while I am grateful for my life, to strip us of our ancestral titles... it is a harsh blow to our legacy."
"You are welcome to disagree with my methods. You are welcome to reject my offer, walk out those doors, and join Marquis Orientis in the holding cells to face the executioner's block tomorrow afternoon."
The lord went pale and immediately looked down at the table, his protest dying in his throat.
"I thought as much."
Nothing was more fearsome than death. They would take the deal, accept the salary, and manage my cities exactly as I commanded.
"Now, onto the matter of the Eastern territories."
I unrolled a large map of the Principality across the table and pointed to the vast, rugged hills previously controlled by Orientis and his conspirators.
"With the Marquis and his cronies facing execution, and their heirs held hostage in the capital, the East is currently without leadership."
"I am releasing the eldest daughters of the convicted Eastern lords. They will be sent back to their respective estates. They will return with you as a hostage. Use them well."
I looked at Viscountess Linnea and Sir Kaelen.
"I am temporarily assigning you, and several other loyalists from the neighboring provinces, to assume the roles of Provincial Guardians over these territories until the first wave of civil service administrators graduates from the exams."
"What are our orders regarding the Eastern estates, Grand Prince?" Linnea asked.
"You will be given detachments of the Royal Army and the Venator Order."
"You will ride into the East and enforce the new decrees. You will officially strip the remaining family members of their aristocratic status. You will seize all physical assets, treasuries, and armories belonging to the traitorous houses and transfer them to the Royal Bank."
"If the wives, uncles, or household guards of the traitors attempt to resist the seizure of their assets... you are ordered to kill them on sight. There will be no negotiations. There will be no second chances."
"It shall be done, Grand Prince," Sir Kaelen said, standing up and bowing deeply, pressing his fist to his heart.
One by one, the newly appointed bureaucrats of the Leo Principality stood and bowed to their sovereign.
The era of fractured noble alliances and petty fiefdoms was over.
I had centralized the power, modernized the economy, and weaponized the loyalty of the common people.
The Leo Principality was no longer a fractured, decaying medieval state.
It was a unified, centralized machine of war and industry.
I was ready for the next step.
(Continue....)