电视剧上海王

[It is truly amazing. Attacking the stronghold of Ecorche wasn’t enough. You even dealt with the shadows, too. We admit that our plan has indeed failed. Roman Dmitry. You are more dangerous than what the public knows, and it is impossible to assassinate you by any means. Ecorche and the shadows. Mobilizing the troops would actually be better than an assassination.]

It was a one-sided conversation. Even without an answer coming back, Baron Charlton was certain of the other’s existence.

[But do not think that Kronos will give up. The Kronos Emperor wants your life, and our Emperor has never failed to get what he wants. If we fail once, we will do it twice and thrice. How long can one person live against the empire? Cairo and Dmitry cannot protect you. Being hostile against Kronos means going against a natural disaster.]

It was not just some verbal threat. In the past years, Kronos constantly proved its existence. Those who dared to rebel against them were trampled on, and even though people were aware of it, they just turned a blind eye. Even if they raised their voices alone, no one would help.

It was a powerful nation that openly spoke about its intentions to conquer the continent, so the other nations didn’t have the confidence to handle the darts of its anger. And maybe those who would stand up against them would be the first ones they would target. In addition, with the years of keeping silent over the fights that had happened once or twice, they have become more difficult to tackle.

Baron Charlton was having a rough time. He acknowledged Roman Dmitry, yet he believed that Roman would collapse at any time. However…

“Interesting.”

[…Interesting?]

“Since when did the Kronos Empire place words over actions? When the Kronos Emperor announced the assassination, there was this display of confidence that you would never fail, and now that I am alive and well, you still want to attempt an assassination in the future. Be it hiring another assassin guild or using shadows, you do what you have to do, but let me also warn you.”

Clench.

Roman Dmitry grabbed the neck of the shadow. As he was strongly suppressing the struggling man, who was losing his breath, his next words followed,

“Somewhere in your mansion, there will be a gift from me. If I decide to assassinate you, I will use a deadly poison. Keep this in mind. You are not the only ones who can attempt an assassination, and if you want to kill me, you should act quickly by leading your troops and declaring war instead of sending assassins in the shadows.”

It was the first time that, even in the face of Kronos’s threat, Baron Charlton couldn’t think of anyone who raised their voice.

“I look forward to seeing your face once you have checked out the gift.”

And with that.

Click.

The communication was cut off.

Baron Charlton turned his mansion upside down. A gift from Roman Dmitry. That meant that the security of his mansion had been breached, so the servants began to check every corner of the mansion. And as a result, they found a mysterious box in the warehouse.

“…There has been no outsider who has entered or left the mansion for the past week. It seems like they broke through the surveillance and left this box here.”

“Damn it.”

Baron Charlton’s stomach churned. Inside the box was a bottle of clear liquid. At first, he didn’t even touch it because he thought it was poison, so he asked the servants to return it to the box and send it to the Behemoth Magic Tower.

Roman Dmitry talked about an assassination using poison. And if this was for that, he would have to check if the poison could be detoxified or not.

Behemoth was a group that mainly dealt with lethal things like poison. Due to the frequent poison experiments they conducted, they had fairly good detoxification skills.

And Mateo, a magician at Behemoth, opened his eyes wide as he inspected this unknown liquid.

Clink.

“A colorless, odorless poison. You brought us something bothersome.”

“Don’t say nonsense, and check if you can handle it.”

“I understand.”

Mateo nodded. People generally thought that detoxification magic could cure all poison, but that was a huge misunderstanding. The detoxification magic was just a part of it. In order to fully cure a deadly poison, it was important for the magician to know about the poison’s roots.

With such skills, the Behemoth Magic Tower was known to be the best on the continent, and at first, they even looked at this deadly poison with relaxed expressions.

He headed to the laboratory. After poisoning a slave, he observed the reaction. The speed of the poison’s progress was so sudden. And there were no signs of anything until the slave coughed up blood and trembled.

“H-Help me… Cough.”

It was immediate, and Mateo manifested magic from a distance.

“Cure Poison.”

Wheik.

A small light shone, and he inspected the body of the slave with detoxification energy and tried to prevent the poison from spreading further.

However, the condition of the slave didn’t improve. He had a confident expression and wasn’t nervous, as he was sincerely focused on treating the slave.

But soon, the slave fell. Looking at the pale corpse, Mateo wiped the sweat off his forehead.

“Where did you get this thing from? The poison seems so toxic that it is absolutely impossible for magicians who have just seen it for the first time to cure it. I think we need to conduct several experiments to find out how to detoxify this.”

“If this had poisoned me, could I have been saved?”

“… Honestly, I cannot speak for sure right now.”

Baron Charlton was shocked.

A poison that the Behemoth Tower couldn’t cure. Actually, it could even be considered impossible to cure, and that meant Roman had the most deadly poison with him.

He could see it now. It was the same as Cort’s death. If Roman Dmitry had wished to kill him, this poison would have done the job.

His blood went cold. As Cort coughed up blood and died, the man looked down with a smile on his face, as if he had expected it to happen. Hence, this was a matter that couldn’t be overlooked.

“From now on, find a way to cure this poison using any means. I understand that it will take some time, but I will not allow an answer saying that it is not possible.”

“I understand.”

Baron Charlton moved.

Roman Dmitry. The more he knew him, the more the guy seemed unusual. From now on, his priority would be to report what had happened to the Emperor.

The series of events. The Kronos Emperor, who had heard of the deadly poison, and the shadow men, who had failed, spoke with an expressionless face.

“There have always been people who rebelled against the Kronos Empire. However, among them, there has not been a single one who refused to bow their head after facing the Emperor head-on. Baron Charlton. What type of person do you consider Roman Dmitry to be?”

“…Even if you break him, I don’t think he is someone who will lower his head.”

“As you said. When we pressed the Cairo royal family for Roman’s arm, they opted to engage with the Kingdoms’ Alliance and confront us head-on. And now the assassination too. The assassin guild and the shadows sent a message that they could even behead the King of Cairo, but as if it wasn’t enough that they failed, Roman Dmitry showed us that he could do the same. Roman Dmitry. He would never allow a compromise with us.”

Throughout history, there has been no one else like Roman Dmitry. When they came out strong, didn’t history prove the end of the individuals who tried to counter them?

Baron Charlton went silent. Knowing what kind of person the Emperor was, he didn’t dare say any more words.

“In order for an empire to be an empire, not a single mistake is allowed. But now is not the time to declare war, as Roman Dmitry asked for. People think that Kronos is tolerating this because we lack the power to conquer the continent, but we know that is not true. If only one problem is solved, Kronos can accomplish great things.”

Roman Dmitry didn’t know the truth. The power they held was just a small fraction. The power of Kronos that people feared wasn’t even power.

Their opponent was a frog in a well. If he knew the real power of Kronos, he wouldn’t have dared rebel against the Emperor, nor would he have uttered absurd remarks about leading their troops and declaring war.

That was why the Emperor wasn’t angry. No matter how angry and desperate he was, Roman Dmitry was just an ant. But with that being said, there was no reason to let him live.

“Call the Demons from the abyss.”

Baron Charlton’s eyes widened.

The Abyssal Demons—they had a completely different existence from the shadows. Mobilizing them showed the Emperor’s will to kill Roman Dmitry at all costs.

“I shall do so.”

Baron Charlton bowed his head. In the Kronos Empire, the Emperor’s words were law, and no one was allowed to express an opinion that differed from his.

“A chance will come sooner or later. Show everyone what it means to be hostile to Kronos. What happens when one falls out with Kronos? As Roman Dmitry, who is praised as a hero, is torn to pieces, set up a sign where no one would ever dare to look at us again.”

He leaned forward. As he sat on the throne, he looked down at the nobles behind Baron Charlton. From the start until the end, the nobles, who had been watching the situation, expressed their intention to follow the Emperor’s orders blindly.

They were sure of it.

Roman Dmitry—as the Emperor said, he would become an example to all.

At that time, Roman Dmitry headed for the estate.

Baron Charlton. The deadly poison that terrified him was the embodiment of his skills from his previous life.

‘They would be unfamiliar with that kind of poison. Even if the power of magic is used, they cannot easily decipher it.’

The source of the poison was the Sichuan Tang family. They were known to possess thousands of deadly poison varieties, and they drove countless members of the Demonic Sect to death. They were a group made for killing people in huge numbers.

If Baek Joong-hyuk hadn’t risen to the level of becoming invulnerable to poison, his conquest of Murim would have been difficult.

Finally, he decapitated the Sichuan Tang family’s head, and when the Sichuan Tang family’s Lord fell, they immediately raised a white flag, and he proceeded to acquire their knowledge.

Even if Baron Charlton succeeded in decoding it, it didn’t matter. The deadly poison that was sent to Baron Charlton was one of their thousands of poisons, and there were many more threatening poisons that Roman could use.

There were some restrictions on perfectly making the poisons in this new environment, but if a war broke out, he could use the poisons to terrify the enemies.

Hence, he deliberately exposed one of his weapons. Since Kronos made an assassination attempt, he needed to tell them that he could do the same to them.

‘With this, the Kronos Empire will be moving carefully. Dmitry also has a chance of attacking back with an assassination, so they will not try to do something that will also get them killed. In the end, Kronos has the advantage, but a deadly poison without a cure is slaughter.’

It was a kind of intimidation. The enemy’s plan failed, so they had two options. They would try to assassinate him again, or they would kill the people around him. And Roman Dmitry prepared for the latter by using the deadly poison.

Since he couldn’t prepare for all the situations alone, he put a knife through his opponent’s neck to protect the people around him. It was a plan to buy time, a temporary measure. War would break out someday, so it was necessary to be fully prepared.

‘Kronos cannot hide their ambition any longer. It is certain that in the near future, they will declare their conquest of the continent, and from then on, I cannot stop them on my own. I need to prepare as much as possible. The only perfect solution is to win the war.’

The wind was bad, and he could smell blood. Dmitry was already caught up in the storm and could never get far from blood and death.

And once he arrived at Dmitry, there was news waiting for him before his victory was even declared.

“… Lord. An invitation arrived from the Valhalla Empire.”

The Valhalla Empire—after crossing the mountain called Kronos, another one appeared.