Being a knight is not easy

Chapter 361 The final madness
The king's pride seemed so pale and powerless in the face of the kingdom's survival. He abandoned all self-respect and posed an almost pleading question to this ancient being.

The gatekeeper's silence was colder than any mockery.

He was like a weathered stone statue of a god, witnessing the rise and fall of countless dynasties over millions of years, while this kingdom, with its mere three hundred years of history, was perhaps truly... insignificant in his long life.

The gatekeeper's words were like the coldest, hardest icicle, precisely piercing through the last trace of self-deception and wishful thinking in Rebaton's heart.

"The kingdom's true decline lies not in its enemies, but in its internal affairs."

These words exploded like thunder in the depths of Reibarton's soul, causing his body to shudder violently, as if someone had removed his spine!

The imperial scepter in his hand felt incredibly heavy for the first time, almost slipping out of his grasp.

He felt the crown emblem on his chest burning like a branding iron, suffocating him.

In an instant, countless images flooded my mind:
The power struggles within the noble council hall, the struggle for territory and tax revenue, even turned strategies for dealing with external enemies into weapons to attack opponents.

The provinces outwardly complied but inwardly defied the orders, and the governors acted like feudal lords, only caring about their own small kingdoms, rendering the kingdom's laws meaningless.

The sectarianism and sordid infighting among wizarding schools led them to stop at nothing to gain knowledge and resources, even going so far as to leak intelligence about border defenses to rival forces for personal gain.

Corruption within the army led to food shortages, counterfeit weapons, and a general low morale, leaving the army scattered like sand.

The numb despair and deepening hatred in the eyes of the lower classes, and the dust raised by the noble carriages as they rolled through the muddy streets, fell on their withered faces.

All of this was imprinted more clearly on his perception than the black-robed man's cold longsword or the fear of the massacre.

It's a kind of decay that starts from the inside out, an irreversible force of decay!
The corruption at home and abroad has caused the entire country to lose its cohesion, and every individual and family only thinks of themselves first.

“Their hearts do not belong to the kingdom…” Rebaton’s voice was hoarse, like sandpaper scraping, repeating the gatekeeper’s words, filled with immense sorrow and profound understanding, “So that’s how it is… I thought it was because of the surrounding powerful enemies and the precarious state of the kingdom… but the truly fatal thing is… that the hearts of the people have long been scattered…”

He felt an unprecedented weariness welling up from the depths of his bones.

All the hardships of fighting on the battlefield and all the painstaking planning seemed so pale and powerless at this moment.

Is he fighting against an empty shell that doesn't belong to him at all and has long since fallen apart?

He was advocating for a decaying palace that was about to collapse naturally due to internal decay.

The gatekeeper's presence, hidden in the shadows, is like a pair of indifferent eyes that have traversed the long years and seen through countless rises and falls.

He coldly exposed the futility of Reibarton's struggle with facts:

"Even without the Black Robe Organization, there would be White Robes, Red Robes, Green Robes... Ambition and chaos are the eternal themes of this era. When a decaying giant tree falls, it will naturally attract vultures that gnaw on the carrion. Enemies are always just external factors. The collapse of a fortress always stems from internal cracks."

The gatekeeper's words were like a cold scalpel, completely tearing away the kingdom's last fig leaf, revealing the bloody, festering truth:
"The Fall of the Giant Tree": This directly echoes the morbid projection of the Magic Well and the vision of the kingdom in Rebaton's mind—its foundation is rotten, and it is about to collapse.

"The vulture that gnaws on carrion": a prophecy of the future.

Black robes, white robes, red robes… these are merely symbols for plundering the corpses of the old order; it doesn't matter who they are. The kingdom's corpse is large enough to naturally attract countless covetous eyes.

"Ambition and chaos are the eternal themes of this era": elevating the discussion to a historical level, it points out the essence of the current era—a chaotic melting pot of the survival of the fittest, not just a random crisis.

"The enemy is merely an external factor": This reiterates the core argument. External pressure is simply the last straw that breaks the camel's back.

"The collapse of a fortress always stems from internal cracks": the coldest and most ruthless iron law!
This is the ultimate negation of all of Reibotton's efforts.

What he was protecting was a sandcastle destined to collapse from the very beginning.

Rebaton stood there like a stone statue drained of all its energy, the heavy base of his scepter pressing against the cold ground.

He gazed at the ancient presence before him, the gatekeeper like an unchanging dark coordinate, reflecting the fleeting and fragile nature of human dynasties.

A tidal wave, a mixture of utter despair, the desolation of being mercilessly mocked, and the helplessness of being unable to resist the vast torrent of history, nearly overwhelmed him.

He was no longer even capable of anger.

Anger is a targeted and motivated resistance, but the truth revealed by the gatekeeper at this moment is like an absolute void, swallowing all emotions and leaving only a cold, suffocating sense of ending.

His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, perhaps questioning the gatekeeper for turning a blind eye, perhaps protesting the injustice of fate, or perhaps mocking the incompetence of the royal family... but in the end, all the words froze on his tongue.

The stone hall fell into an even more deathly and heavy silence.

Only the sickly, murky light of the chandelier illuminated his pale face in the gloom, and the shadow of the emperor behind him, a symbol of the Rebaton dynasty, now appearing infinitely lonely and in the twilight of its doom.

Finally, Rebaton revealed a crazed and ferocious expression.

"Can I destroy all of this? Destroy it along with these termites that corrupt the very foundation of this kingdom?"

The air around the gatekeeper's stone platform suddenly froze.

The murky, dark vortex of starlight seemed to suddenly stop spinning, as if drawn by the aura of despair and madness in Rebaton's words, a spirit of mutual destruction.

The figure in the shadows slowly raised its head, no longer completely indifferent. The darkness beneath the hood seemed to focus into two bottomless vortexes, staring straight at Rebaton's face, which was twisted by despair and mixed with sorrow and violence.

That's the kind of reckless backlash that erupts from the brink of despair, after being utterly crushed!

"Let's destroy these corrupting insects that erode the very foundation of our kingdom..."

The words echoed in the deathly silent stone hall, each syllable like a heavy hammer striking the cold rock, carrying a chilling sense of finality.

Rebaton's hatred was like tangible venom—he didn't hate the man in black, the ultimate gravedigger; he hated those "his own people" who sucked the marrow from the bones, drained the kingdom, and hastened its death, yet had more escape routes when disaster struck!
He saw through this cycle: when a kingdom falls, the royal family vanishes, but the aristocracy, like carrion worms, can attach themselves to the next emerging power and continue their surnames, titles, and exploitation!

This is an insult greater than death!

(End of this chapter)