What Became of the Tyrant After the Pregnant Empress Left - Chapter 227

“Strike me down, and the Empire will tremble. Do you have any idea how many affairs of state rest upon my oversight, Your Majesty?”

Jebiken’s mind had gone coldly clear—and with that clarity came utter disbelief. Ungrateful wretch. There are limits to betrayal. He was the one who’d dragged Cain Jenut from nothingness to power. How could he be discarded so easily?

“I was the one who made you Emperor. I was the one who kept Uzephia from crumbling when you lost yourself to madness. Every step of the way, it was my hand that guided this Empire!”

Kazhan met Jebiken’s furious gaze with icy detachment.

“How amusing. Had you not schemed in the first place, I would never have lost my reason. Yet here you are, shifting the blame entirely onto me.”

Kazhan had upheld their contract meticulously. He’d known the risks, yet he’d proliferated blood oaths to unite the fracturing nobility. He hadn’t sought out Ysaris immediately after becoming Emperor—because he’d been too busy fighting Jebiken’s wars, grinding himself into a battle-hardened veteran.

Only later did he realize Jebiken’s fingers had even touched his informants—the ones who’d fed him updates on Ysaris. The Chancellor had erased her memories of his true identity while feeding him false reports, deliberately twisting their relationship.

The result? Kazhan misunderstood and persecuted her. Drove her to fake her death and flee. Sent himself into a frenzy that left Uzephia in ruins.

Kazhan didn’t deny his own sins.

‘No matter who put the blade in my hand, it was still my choice to swing it.’

But none of it would’ve happened had Jebiken not schemed from the start. For him to now cite Kazhan’s tyranny as justification? Absurd.

“I told you—everything I did was for Uzephia.”

“And yet the opposite came to pass. You’ll answer for that, Duke.”

No more words. Kazhan raised his sword—not for another blood oath, but a killing stroke. Jebiken’s face twisted as he shouted:

“Do you even comprehend what you’re doing?! You’d let fleeting emotions destroy a great empire!”

Still, he refused to admit fault. By his logic, every choice had been rational. Kazhan was the one acting against reason.

If Jebiken regretted anything, it was not killing Ysaris outright instead of merely stealing her memories. He’d only sought to sever their bond, fearing Kazhan would abandon Uzephia if she died. A miscalculation.

He’d never imagined Kazhan would take back a woman who’d betrayed him—let alone make her Empress. That a man who resented her so deeply would hold her every night. That she’d conceive despite his covert demands for contraception.

What sick joke is this ‘love’?

Jebiken acknowledged it now.

He’d underestimated Kazhan’s emotions.

Underestimated Ysaris, too—and paid the price.

A painful misstep. But not fatal.

If he could just survive this moment—

“No. You’re wrong.”

“About what, precisely?”

“This isn’t the destruction of Uzephia.”

Jebiken scoffed.

“Threatening the man who shoulders the Empire’s most critical affairs—how is that not destruction?”

His tone dripped with condescension. Of course it would. Kazhan was a runaway prince who’d lived as a fallen noble. A man who’d never learned true statecraft. I gave him the throne. How dare he—

“That’s the problem, Duke.”

“Elaborate.”

Kazhan’s gaze was frigid. Even now, Jebiken stood unbent—every inch the unshakable Chancellor.

And yet, Kazhan still couldn’t fully grasp it. Logically, he understood Jebiken’s role in shattering his bond with Ysaris. But the truth hadn’t reached his heart.

Perhaps it was the lingering influence of years of subtle manipulation. Or the sheer surreality of this moment. Either way, it kept him coldly rational—not the emotion-drunk beast Jebiken accused him of being.