Stuck in a Chinese novel

"You bastard! How dare you kill my son?!" A middle-aged man yelled as he swung his sword at another middle-aged man who blocked his strike with his own sword and yelled back, "What are you saying, you bastard?! You were the one who killed my son!!"

As the battle between the two men raged, their followers also fought to the death, making the section a hot zone where an endless battle ensued.

At least two thousand men were fighting but if that had been the only battle, the capital wouldn't have been in the ruins it was in now.

"You bedded my wife, you scoundrel!!!" Another battle ensued between a man and a younger man.

"You did the same with my sister!!!" The younger man yelled in return.

"When did I ever do that?!!!" The man asked, as if wrongly accused.

"I saw you coming out of her chamber last night!!" The young man yelled.

"I was with my sister last night!!" The man yelled back.

"That was my wife!!!" The young man yelled and another battle ensued along with about a thousand of their followers.

It wasn't just them. There were about 300 baron households, about 200 viscount households, about 150 counts, about 70 earls, and about twenty duke households. There were only five Grand duke households but currently, only one man held the title of a Grand duke and he himself was looking at the scene in the capital with wide eyes.

In between them, they all had an army of about 30,000 combined. Almost 5000 more than the imperial army combined with all of the orders accounted for.

In the capital at the moment, there were at least 15,000 of them, and except for the Grand Duke households, everyone else was involved in a battle. A battle between almost 13,000 men wasn't something that could be easily ignored.

The capital was engulfed in a sea of fire and the scales of the battle got to the point of destruction of the capital so quickly that no enforcement order could be dispatched in time. By the time they became aware of what was happening, everything had already happened.

Richard, the sole Grand Duke of the empire knew that the damage alone was something the empire would never recover from and the rift in the empire would last for centuries to come.

'Just… what could have caused this?' he thought and thought but no logical explanation came to mind.

"Assist the empire forces and stop this madness! Right now!" Richard ordered his forces to join the fray and bring everything under control while he equipped himself with his sword to stop the four Grand Duke household's leaders.

As for what had caused this? Well, the correct phrase was who caused and the one who caused this was currently sitting on the balcony of his room, eating snacks and speculating like he was watching a show.

"So if his sister was his wife, and he slept with his wife, does that mean he slept with his… Wait a minute, what?" Adrian stopped speaking. Speechless, he assessed the pattern once again and once he did, he did it again.

And then…

"Yuck!" He made a face as if he was vomiting and set aside the roasted meat in his hands.

Max and Rose looked at Adrian with narrowed eyes. If Max knew he would be helping with this, he would have never helped at all, and although the same didn't go for Rose as she still would have done what Adrian asked her to, she still couldn't believe how he could nonchalantly treat this all as his entertainment.

"This much is nothing," As if well aware of their thoughts, Adrian spoke before he added, "Wars ten times worse than these have been caused by the death of one single person. One single shot changed the entire course of history."

Rose and Max couldn't fully understand Adrian's words as they always didn't, but what they could understand was that their master was holding back. This much was normal to him or even mild given his nature.

But what they both agreed on without any debate was one thing and one thing only…

Their master was a lunatic.

[You're a lunatic]

[By the way]

[It was his sister]

'Ew…' Adrian made a disgusted face before he stood up and left for his room while saying, "Go home. Go rest. Tomorrow, we earnestly observe the aftermath."

~~

With this, the last thing on the old men's minds would be the theft of the sword. Granted there was no danger from the outside but that didn't mean there wouldn't and couldn't be a danger from the outside.

Of course, the disappearance of a divine-ranked weapon would never be forgotten and would be a reason to mourn quite a bit. But until this mess was sorted out, the sword would be the last thing on their minds.

Not to mention that it was kind of two birds with two stones. I got the sword and also pointed the finger towards the church. Now the enmity with the church has advanced to the point of no return.

All the while I will be sitting in the throne room with the sword right under their noses as they try to make heads and feet of this simple matter that riled up an entire capital.

Of course, there was a clear mastermind behind this incident. After all, the evacuation was done with this incident kept in mind so whoever it was, knew what was going to happen almost as if they made it happen.

Of course, it wasn't someone bad because they wouldn't care about the casualties of the normal civilians. Then whoever it was, they stood to gain the public's sympathy with this move.

The imperial family would further lose their image because they failed to do anything about this incident while someone anonymous, although couldn't save their houses, managed to save their lives and that was another plus point.

Now in the last century or so, the only one to do that selflessly has only been the church so once again, hopefully, all fingers would be pointed in that direction.

The only disadvantage of this would be the church becoming a good figure in the eyes of the public if they managed to figure this out.

For now, the church was bad because they went after me, the miracle healer but if they did this much while the imperial family did nothing, then the hate accumulated towards the church would lessen quite a bit if it didn't outright vanish.

"Explain." One word, only one word left the emperor's mouth as his mana spread throughout the imperial court, filled with at least 500 people. Except for the nobles, there were also the knight-ranked nobles in there.

Orion's mana wasn't like Rafael's, but quite a bit rough. Attuned for physical combat. A sub-category of mana, called aura. Like mana, the aura also had several attributes and Orion's attribute was lightning, the same as Rose but his method was different.

Anyway, whereas mana was designed for long-range combat, the aura was designed for close-range combat. The users of this power didn't use it to manipulate elements in the environment but arm themselves with the said element, enhancing their physical prowess according to that element.

For example, Max was an earth aura user and due to that, his defense was exceptionally high for his peers. The same went with Asmara whose attribute was fire, well, almost fire since she hadn't awakened it yet but she was still quite fiery with her swordsmanship.

So Orion's, the emperor's, power was something to behold. Usually, aura users were always one step behind the mana users but there were some rare aura users like Orion, Zarden, Bayren, and Asmara, who were stronger than their mage counterparts.

So given that his power was already at the pinnacle of the human realm and added to that was the most disastrous and destructive element of all times.

Of course, no one in the entire court even squeaked. How could they? They felt like their existences were about to be crushed under the weight of that power.

"Report," Orion spoke and the one to speak was Rafael because he was the only one who the emperor wouldn't hit at the moment. Anyone else so much as flinched would be getting a handful from the emperor himself.

"The cause of last night's… brawl… was the implantation of several aspects. Some counts were blamed for having stolen the wealth, treasures, and women of other counts, causing them to fight and compelling those under them to do the same. The matter got worse when Duke Randal and Duke Asher were involved in a scandal that could not quite be explained because it contained expected infidelity from one side, a side that remains anonymous for certain reasons." Rafael said while looking at both dukes from the corner of his eye.

It wasn't much of anonymity if the involved parties were just two. The certainty was 50-50 and it wouldn't be hard for others to figure out which side was the one who screwed and which one was screwed.

No pun intended.

"And then the matter got out of hand when…" Planting the idea of their downfall, Rafael continued.