Chapter 144
The Emperor’s face grew paler and paler until it turned completely white. Only then did the physician pull the needle out.
“Will this be enough?”
“It’s plenty.”
Cressida spoke as she exhaled, watching the physician wipe the sweat from his brow. Her gaze was fixed on the gleaming golden vial. With a faint smile, she said,
“We must draw out the dead blood if we want the toxins in His Majesty’s body to leave him. But the process is terribly finicky. Had it not been for your assistance, it would have been difficult to perform.”
Cressida pulled a heavy pouch of coins from inside her sleeve. She handed the pouch filled with gold coins to the physician and murmured,
“I’ll count on you from here on as well.”
“It is an honor, Your Majesty!”
Beaming, the physician accepted the Empress’s gold. As she watched him tuck the pouch into his medical bag, Cressida spoke again.
“I told you last time too. Be careful about what you say, and be careful again. If word of this reaches the Noble Council or anyone else, you will face trouble. They will easily mistake it for sorcery being performed on the Emperor.”
“Thank you for worrying about me, Your Majesty the Empress.”
“You are a loyal servant working for the Imperial Family. Of course I must be concerned.”
At Cressida’s reply, the physician’s eyes sparkled. Brimming with emotion at her praise, he said,
“I will devote myself in loyalty, Your Majesty!”
Cressida smiled with her eyes. She had acquired the Emperor’s blood with almost ridiculous ease, and joy shimmered in her gaze.
The claim that bloodletting would treat the Emperor’s illness was a blatant lie. His illness had nothing to do with his blood. A trained physician could not possibly be unaware of that. Yet the man willingly acted according to Cressida’s will.
The reason was simple. Money. There was nothing money could not buy. Money controlled everything, even a person’s life.
Cressida had studied pharmacology in her youth for the same reason. The Berti Barony, her family home, was noble only in name. To keep herself fed, she had plucked herbs from the mountains and sold the medicines she made.
Fools believed she had used her beauty and looks to captivate the Emperor, and that she had used that opportunity to climb to the Empress’s throne.
But they were wrong. Cressida became Empress thanks to her exceptional skill in concocting medicine.
To enter the palace, and then to rise to the highest position, Cressida had created countless d***s. Medicines that dulled a person’s reason. Medicines that weakened their limbs. And poisons.
Cressida had clouded the Emperor’s mind to seduce him. She had weakened his limbs so he would take to his sickbed. And she had killed the former Empress.
‘I was a little clumsy back then.’
Holding the golden vial she had received from the physician, Cressida reminisced pleasantly. Her steps were light as she returned to her chambers.
The former Empress, Cressida’s friend and Euclid’s mother, had been gentle-natured. So gentle that even when her friend seduced her husband and offered her poison, she never became angry or suspicious.
The poison Cressida fed her had been her masterpiece. Colorless, scentless, leaving no trace.
At the time, she had not yet mastered pharmacology, so she had needed the help of an imperial physician. Of course, she had compensated him well. He was granted the honor of being buried in the Empress’s Palace.
Humming softly, Cressida entered the hidden room inside her chambers. A space that functioned as her private laboratory. She inhaled deeply.
The fumes produced by the brewing medicines filled the air. The stench was nauseating enough to make most people retch, yet Cressida smiled with deep satisfaction.
It meant the extraction of divine power from blood was proceeding smoothly.
Now only the final step remained. She needed to add the Emperor’s fresh blood. Cressida opened the vial and poured the red liquid into the mixture. Her eyes flashed with lunacy as she watched the Emperor’s blood blend with the brewing medicine.
When someone consumed this d**g, the Emperor’s divine power would temporarily become hers. And then she would be able to open Maws.
Cressida would produce endless amounts of this medicine. She would open Maws without end and bring hell upon the world.
Until Euclid, drunk on his heroism, exhausted himself killing monsters and erasing Maws, and finally died from it.
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