Many nobles began to tremble. They suddenly collapsed onto the ground, and their bodies instantly became hollow.
Cracks giving off a nauseating rotten stench quietly appeared from their backs. Those cracks seemed to split open from inside their bodies, releasing malice.
At that moment, the smell of rot and damp mold instantly spread through the space, and a faint scent of blood made people shiver with fear.
Under everyone's gaze, churning flesh seeped out from their blackened bodies.
Shapeless black dust flowed rapidly across their surface, constantly changing, like chaotic ghosts.
During this transformation, their bodies instantly bulged into tall black mounds.
Black mist quickly rose from the flesh that wrapped their bodies, forming a croaking giant mouth.
That giant mouth muttered unclear whispers, but if one listened carefully, several clear human words were mixed within...
"Godd… ess…"
"Godd… ess…"
"Mon... monster!!!"
This scene left all the nobles present completely stunned.
They threw away the wine glasses in their hands in fear. The sound of the glasses shattering and other objects colliding echoed throughout this illusory universe.
At the same time, the doors of the banquet hall were broken open, and knights rushed in, immediately stepping into this chaotic black space.
The nobles desperately searched for an exit, trying to escape from this filthy and chaotic atmosphere.
Within wave after wave of chaos, order was impossible to maintain.
Viktor, however, acted as if he saw nothing. He simply gripped his staff and spoke calmly, "They are the cultists that the Empire has been clearing out all along."
These cultists infiltrated the Empire, killed humans, and then parasitized their skin, pretending to be human.
The moment the knights arrived, the nobles seemed to feel safe.
Because they had no reason to be afraid.
Not to mention that there were so many people here, there were also countless mages and powerful individuals among the nobles themselves.
The strongest person in the Empire, Emperor Aubrey, was right in front of them.
How could he possibly watch such monsters appear in the banquet hall without doing anything?
So the nobles almost all thought of only one possibility.
The Mage Council had probably discovered these cultists within the Empire long ago.
And they chose to expose them during this banquet.
In other words, they were putting on a show.
Very few people who could become nobles were fools. Otherwise they could not have sat safely in their current positions.
And the appearance of these cultists also meant that momentum was being built for someone.
They already knew very clearly who that was.
Viktor's gaze was sharp as he stared at the cultists in front of him. A red glow flashed in his eyes.
"These cultists have taken root in the Empire, constantly looking for opportunities."
Whenever the Empire changed its heir, these cultists would begin to stir.
When the Empire was unstable during succession, they would use human bodies as disguises to spread their twisted and fanatical doctrine everywhere.
"So His Majesty decided to determine the successor in advance. And that successor must be able to convince the public."
At the very least, when the successor took the throne, there could not still be a group of chaotic people under them.
They should not even need to waste energy dealing with such trouble.
Everyone present had already thought of this reason.
No matter whether the First Prince or the Second Prince became emperor, there would always be nobles who felt wronged on their behalf.
After all, their own interests were directly involved.
If the First Prince ascended the throne, the nobles in the Second Prince's faction would naturally protest.
Why?
Yes, the First Prince had the achievement of slaying a giant dragon, but the Second Prince was not bad either.
He had even led troops to investigate demons hiding in the northern border and came back covered in injuries.
Likewise, if the Second Prince ascended the throne, the nobles and ministers supporting the First Prince would almost certainly do the same.
But no matter what, those ministers were nobles. Even though they had their own calculations, they were not treacherous officials.
So unless they were extremely radical individuals, secretly eliminating them was impossible.
After all, everyone only wanted their own share of benefits.
Indeed, killing them all would be the most efficient method.
It could quickly remove those opposing ministers and stabilize the Empire under the new emperor.
But that would only be surface-level stability.
Once such actions were taken, both officials and common people would completely lose confidence in the Empire.
At that time, the fall of the Empire would only be a matter of time.
Even Aubrey could not force everyone to submit with violence.
He could only use strength to convince them.
To let ministers and citizens know that he had absolute power to govern the nation.
And if they wanted to ensure that the Empire would not face another purge like the one decades ago, then they had to make sure the ministers would not fall into chaos during the succession.
So since it was impossible to satisfy everyone, then the only choice was to make everyone dissatisfied.
Therefore, it was very obvious.
The nobles present were completely dumbfounded. They truly could not accept it.
No one could accept such a reason.
Just because of such a careless reason, the many years of competition between the First Prince and the Second Prince had turned into a joke?
Just because of that single sentence, all the efforts these nobles had spent years building, like a tall wooden cathedral poured together with resin, were burned down with one sentence, with one fire.
Turned into brilliant fireworks prepared for the princess?
Naturally, no one could accept that.
What is reason? What is right or wrong?
They did not care at all.
At this moment, they even forgot that those twisted masses of black flesh were crawling toward them.
The horror of those monsters was not even half as terrifying as the loss of their interests.
Even if these cultists existed, so what?
These nobles were like treasure hunters obsessed with power in a dense forest.
Even at the most dangerous moment, they did not worry about the beasts right behind them.
In their eyes, there was only wealth and status.
After all, they only wanted their own share of the pie, and the bigger the better.
What did cultists have to do with nobles like them?
The Calencia Empire was not theirs anyway.
At that moment, the evil thoughts in the nobles' hearts were like wriggling maggots, crawling out of a cesspit all at once.
Evil rapidly expanded until it swallowed them completely.
Most nobles could no longer stop these crazy thoughts in their minds.
They absolutely could not accept this absurd yet equal reason.
'Why!?'
'Why!?'
'No, I must win!'
'I must win!'
Suddenly, "Boom!" A loud explosion suddenly rang out, instantly shattering the nobles' frantic thoughts. They looked toward the source of the sound.
For some reason, one of the chaotic cultists had already exploded into ashes.
Along with flesh and dust, it vanished directly into this flowing illusory starry sky.
At the same time, the nobles all had the same thought, Viktor had used magic.
They turned their heads and saw Viktor raising his staff, pointing it at the second chaotic cultist.
They thought Viktor was about to release some terrifying destructive magic again.
To crush that twisted creature within this unbreakable space.
But in the next second, everyone widened their eyes.
They saw Viktor swing his arm in a full arc, smashing the black staff in his hand hard into the space.
Carrying traces of emptiness, it slammed deeply into the writhing blurred flesh.
BOOM!
That cultist was like an inflated balloon. Its entire hill-like body began to tremble irregularly, and in the next moment its flesh exploded.
With a violent explosion, the black flesh shattered apart, and countless still twitching black tentacles fell onto the starry ground.
Like a final struggle, they twisted twice with soft tapping sounds before losing all movement.
The teeth of the giant mouth also scattered in all directions. From the huge flesh mass burst a thick foul stench, like rotten dead fish sinking deep in a swamp.
One strike, then another.
Every blow from Viktor clearly smashed into the flesh.
Yet the nobles could not help but feel their hearts twitch.
Every time they heard the sound, their bodies, once hunched with anger, seemed to sink even lower.
Their fragile bones seemed as if they were being shattered by the pounding sounds, about to collapse under their bodies filled with swollen malice.
It was as if the staff was not striking the cultists.
But striking their twisted hearts.
Perhaps at this moment, they were actually no different from those cultists.
The cultists spread evil across the world for the return of their goddess.
Then they used their extreme sense of justice to cleanse it.
Perhaps in this way, they could feel justified.
Perhaps then the goddess of justice would see that they had regained their righteous posture and return to the mortal world to lead them once again.
And they themselves, for the sake of their own interests, had chosen to embrace evil thoughts.
The staff representing justice judged them again and again, purifying their filthy hearts.
It felt as if even the evil that once filled their hearts had been completely removed.
Until the final strike came crashing down.
The last clump of cultists completely disappeared within this space.
Viktor picked up the staff again and weighed it lightly in his hand.
After confirming that not even a trace of foul residue had stained it, he placed the staff beside him again, his expression still calm.
"What a pity. Not very elegant."
He let out a light sigh, yet the nobles' bodies trembled violently.
'You call this a mage? Are you even a mage?'
'What kind of mage swings a staff and smashes people with it? And you still qualify to be a member of the Mage Council?'
'You should apologize to all the mages in the world!'
Viktor turned back toward the nobles.
He simply straightened his back, yet he looked like a giant delivering judgment upon everything, carrying an unshakable authority.
But his tone remained calm, as if none of this was important.
"I know you are still dissatisfied that the princess, not the princes, has been chosen as emperor."
"I can still explain it to you."
As he said this, he raised a hand and gently clenched it in midair.
The surrounding world seemed to be squeezed and crushed by an invisible giant hand. The illusory starry sky was like a thin sheet of paper being crushed, collapsing and shattering.
In the blink of an eye, the nobles seemed to return to the magnificent golden banquet hall.
The hall looked as if it had been freshly cleaned, even more spotless than before.
The white tablecloths were almost glaring.
When the nobles looked around, they saw several shriveled corpses lying on the ground.
Their limbs felt as if they were bound, and a tight tension shot straight into their minds.
It proved one thing to them.
Everything that had just happened was not an illusion.
Viktor placed the staff beside him as if making an announcement, "Only our Mage Council possesses the power to examine and eliminate cultists."
"And our Mage Council will unconditionally support Aurelian Sol."
Hearing this, countless nobles suddenly stopped breathing.
The moment the words fell, the three council members standing behind Viktor instantly erupted with terrifying whirlpools of magic.
Various horrifying magic arrays began spinning rapidly. With buzzing vibrations, the air itself seemed to be seized by magic and thrown into chaos.
Viktor stood at the very front. At some point, he had already put on that old black windbreaker again.
Without wind, it fluttered on its own, flashing with five differently colored patterns.
Like the awakening of an ancient terrifying existence, natural energy began surging as well.
He looked down at everyone. Beneath the bright light, his obsidian eyes shone brilliantly.
"Sorry, but we are the strongest."
"So..."
"We can do whatever we want."