Chapter 284: The Weight of the Crown and the Bone Fruit (4617 Words)
After the time entered February 1510, the drum kingdom, which had gradually stabilized, was finally rejuvenated like early spring.
Last month, the Port of Vilia was finally captured by the Royal Army. The city lord Gilbert committed suicide in his castle in fear of guilt. The Drum Kingdom ended the civil war for nearly two years and restored peace.
However, under the surface of this peace, there is a turbulent undercurrent hidden. The reason is that the new king Herbert suddenly fainted during a court meeting.
Although in the end the imperial doctor gave that His Majesty the King had been overworked recently and caused physical discomfort, it eventually attracted the attention of many careerists in this country who wanted to go further to the peak of power.
Herbert is now 68 years old. In the Drum Kingdom, a winter island country, he is definitely a master. Before the outbreak of the civil war, Herbert, who was well maintained on weekdays, actually had thick blond hair , but since the outbreak of the civil war, the hair volume has become less and less, and it has turned white rapidly.
After successfully ascending to the throne, Herbert has long been a bald old man with white temples, usually with a trace of decay. After the sudden fainting incident not long ago, many ministers in the court have found that His Majesty's energy is not as good as Before that, many things were gradually handed over to the eldest princess Elizabeth.
"Has Your Majesty eaten today?"
In the eldest princess' room, Elizabeth asked a maid who had just entered.
Thanks to the fireplace and the heating supply in the room, the room is very pleasant compared with the cold environment outside.
Elizabeth was wearing a white gauze one-piece skirt at this time, and the golden belt embroidered with bauhinia patterns on the surface perfectly set off her graceful and graspable water snake waist, revealing a pair of long legs wearing black silk and deerskin boots , the slim-fitting gauze skirt also exposed her graceful figure.
Ever since she became the powerful finance minister, Elizabeth, who wears the princess crown on weekdays, has become more and more majestic, and her intoxicatingly beautiful face has made people dare not look directly at her. Her outstanding ability to govern the country has also attracted many young people. Noble Toshihiko looked pale in front of her.
The pretty-looking maid heard Elizabeth's words, and immediately bowed her head in front of Elizabeth and said, "It's used, but I only ate a little bit."
"I see."
Elizabeth replied blankly, and then waved her hand to let the maid who usually served Herbert go out.
After the maid went out, a hint of expression finally appeared on Elizabeth's fair and tender face. Her willow eyebrows were furrowed, her eyes were drooped, and her red lips were tightly pursed, revealing a deep worry.
Regarding the physical condition of his father,
Elizabeth, who pays attention every day, knows best.
It was said that he was a little unwell, but in fact, because of Herbert's overwork, coupled with his advanced age and the loss of his spiritual support (ending the civil war and completing reunification), his body was finally exhausted, and it has been a long time Not much.
"Ah~, the civil war ended with great difficulty, and the good times have just begun, and something happened again. If one is not handled properly, this country that just broke away from the haze of war may fall into a protracted civil war again."
Elizabeth was extremely worried.
There are still two people in the room at this time, and one of them is Haru, who became the foreign minister at a young age. This foreign minister who was recommended by Elizabeth to hold power is a solid princess party.
A man wearing a wolf-head mask and thick heavy armor stood at the door like a sculpture.
Haru heard Elizabeth's worried words, and immediately said: "There is no way, Your Royal Highness, we must take action. Princes such as James, Villen, and Hubbard have already started to act in private. If We will be very passive if we cannot win the support of other ministers in the DPRK and China, and I heard that Prince James has already told the world...."
"I know, I know, Haru, don't worry, I know what to do."
Before Haru could finish speaking, Elizabeth interrupted him and said seriously.
"Yes, Your Royal Highness, but please issue an order as soon as possible. The position of many people below has already begun to waver. At this time, please don't act emotionally." Haru sighed.
His Majesty the King is ill, so the battle for the heir apparent will naturally begin. Anyone with political literacy will pay attention to this kind of thing. After all, this is a good opportunity for chickens and dogs to ascend to heaven.
It stands to reason that, as the eldest son, Prince James would be the most powerful competitor, but the eldest princess has shown outstanding ability to govern the country, and has also been granted the temporary agency rights granted by the king. The most powerful competitor is no longer James. .
However, in the newly born Drum Kingdom, the aristocrats following the old tradition are very powerful. A figure like the queen who has never appeared in the Drum Kingdom is obviously not accepted by the traditional aristocratic forces.
Now, many traditional aristocratic forces have begun to gather around other princes and wave their flags behind them, which has gradually begun to shake Elizabeth's position in the court.
"Get out, I'm tired."
Elizabeth turned her head and said.
Seeing this, Haru hesitated to speak, but finally chose to keep his mouth shut, turned around and opened the door to leave.
"Mr. Das, what do you think I should do?"
When Haru left, Elizabeth suddenly turned her head and asked the armored man with the wolf-head mask.
The former leader of the Darth gang found that Elizabeth's temporary bodyguard, Darth, took off his mask, revealing a face full of weather, and said indifferently: "As you like, I was only entrusted by Baerna to protect you for a while. , have no obligation to be your advisor."
When Elizabeth heard this, there was a wry smile on her face, and she stopped talking, but she said again from Das that he would come to protect her under the entrustment of Barr, and her depressed heart suddenly felt much better.
During this period of time, because of the battle for the throne, she has been assassinated several times with precision.
If she hadn't eaten the devil fruit and continued to train, her strength was good, and she was protected by Darth, she would have been killed long ago.
As for these several assassinations, after she entrusted the investigation to the shadow organization, it has been found out that the people behind the planning of the assassinations were all done by people close to and trusted by her. Among them was her younger brother James, who had been taking good care of her. It left her devastated and exhausted physically and mentally.
Being betrayed by someone you trust is really uncomfortable.
Now these people are starting to press harder and harder, trying to covet the throne, acting more and more blatantly, even colluding with the world government and betraying national interests.
Thinking of this, Elizabeth's originally slightly relieved mood was covered with a haze again, and her expression looked very gloomy.
"But for the sake of you assisting my daughter in the research and development of therapeutic drugs, I will show you the way, just eight words, if you want to wear the crown, you must bear its weight. If you don't have the heart to fight, then leave early , so as not to harm others or yourself, you have a good relationship with Boy Barna, with him covering you, it is not difficult to get out."
Seeing Elizabeth's expression, Das suddenly remembered the gloomy expression of his daughter Shefia, and the smile that was often on his lips, and sighed.
As soon as these words came out, Elizabeth was shaken all over, and the expression on her face began to change constantly, sometimes hesitating, sometimes serious, sometimes sad, sometimes determined.
Finally, with a long sigh, she came to the bedroom, took out a long box from the wardrobe containing a large number of exquisite clothes, and opened it to reveal a rapier inside.
The rapier was inserted into the black scabbard at this time, and the scabbard was engraved with a large number of snowflake patterns, and the golden guard on the hilt was engraved with some light blue gemstones, forming a snowflake pattern.
These gemstones are obviously not ordinary gemstones, and they emit a trace of cold air automatically, and a trace of ice blue light will light up on the surface from time to time.
Elizabeth took out the rapier, which was known to be very noble at first glance, from the long box, and then endured a heart-piercing freezing feeling from the rapier, and pulled the rapier from the scabbard, revealing its The blade of the sword gleaming with cold light.
This rapier was given to her by Barr more than a month ago. At that time, it was just one night before Barr challenged Ram. She still remembers the scene when Barr gave this sword to her.
It was early in the morning and late at night, and the other party suddenly broke into her boudoir without anyone noticing, and shamelessly got into her bed, bullying her vigorously.
Before leaving, she said some inexplicable things to her, but when she thought about it now, she found that this man had already seen through the future of this country.
"This rapier sword is for you. Let me tell you a secret. It was made by me. Its quality is definitely not inferior to that of famous swords. Elizabeth, you are different from the conservative and corrupt old aristocrats in this country. You are a very smart man." Noble, know how to keep pace with the times, very self-motivated, and also very beautiful and sexy, I admire you very much, if you are not the princess of this country, I will definitely chase you, if, what I said is if, if If one day you want to aspire to the throne, you can come here with this rapier, and I will definitely support you."
In Elizabeth's memory, Barr took out the rapier sword out of thin air like a magic trick, held her hand, handed it to her hand, and said with a smile.
"If you want to wear a crown, you must bear its weight..."
Elizabeth looked at the stabbing sword in her hand and murmured.
…
On the other side, outside the Ice and Snow City, hundreds of kilometers away from the royal city of King Leslie.
Ice and Snow City's new legion, the Second Ice and Snow Legion, is conducting a large-scale actual combat exercise.
This is a legion of five thousand, all recruits who have undergone a certain degree of training.
These recruits come from various places on the Great Airway. They came to Ice and Snow City for various reasons, and then joined the Ice and Snow Legion in order to survive.
Now they are facing the first battle of life and death in their military careers.
The Ice and Snow Legion does not leave free food for free, and does not need to be useless. Following the law of the jungle, every official soldier must go through the test of blood and fire. This is clearly given in the recruitment posters when the Ice and Snow Legion recruits recruits.
Of course, with such a demanding requirement, the rewards given are also very generous.
After each soldier passes the test and becomes a formal soldier, he can obtain the status of a resident of the Ice Snow City. This is almost the fastest way for outsiders to obtain the status of a resident of the Ice Snow City. They will also be allocated a house, and their monthly salary is several times that of ordinary migrant workers.
Even if you die in battle, you will receive a generous pension.
Under the command of the commander, five thousand recruits quickly formed several neat battle formations, and then marched forward in neat steps.
Their opponents are some skeleton monsters made of bones. They are humanoid and beast-shaped. The number of these skeletons is quite large, at least two to three thousand, and they are all monsters who are not afraid of death. They will continue to act, and only when the strange pale flame in their heads is crushed, will they turn back into a pile of ordinary bones.
These scary-looking skeleton monsters were naturally created by a devil fruit capable user.
Their owner is a member of the Ram Gang named Gizas Badgers. This Badgers is the fighting champion Badgers who will become a member of the Blackbeard Pirates in the future. A small island nation in the kingdom of fighting.
Two months ago, the fighting champion was attracted by the lucrative rewards of the arena opened in the town of Gold. In the end, he defeated all strong opponents from the first half of the great route and won the championship. The championship prize of the arena at that time was exactly Bone fruit.
Badgers is undoubtedly a man who admires strength very much, and likes to use his fists to solve problems.
Therefore, after he won the championship, Barr used his flesh and blood clone to fight him, and then tortured him to death, and finally successfully pulled the future helmsman of the Blackbeard Pirates into his camp.
After Badgers ate the Bone Fruit, he gained the ability to manipulate and make bones at will. Under Baer's guidance, he developed an ability similar to Kimaro in Hokage.
Also, because the bone fruit also involves part of the ability of the soul, Badgers can collect souls, and then use the bones of the original creatures to create undead creatures such as skeleton monsters. Undead creatures basically have no intelligence and can only execute Ba Jess some simple commands.
Of course, if you only control a few skeleton monsters alone, Badgers can control them flexibly.
"Weihahaha, kill as much as you want, my little cuties."
On the city wall, Badgers, disguised as an officer of Bingxue Town, looked at the soldiers fighting with the skeleton monster below. He was so excited that he couldn't help laughing wantonly.
The reason why he came here to use the skeleton monsters he worked so hard to fight in these Ice Snow City is because of the order of his boss Baal, secondly, to improve his ability to control the skeleton army, and thirdly, to be able to fight in the ice and snow city. Harvest strong enough souls here.
Last but not least, he liked this bloody battlefield very much.
"Mr. Badgers, please stop laughing, this is war, please be serious."
Suddenly, a cold and very pleasant voice came from one, causing Badgers' laughter to stop abruptly.
Badgers turned his head and saw that it was a tall and beautiful female knight.
The female knight with fluttering blond hair is wearing a fiery red battle skirt, a pair of women's knight armor on her upper body, black leather gloves that cover her forearms, a black belt on her lower body, and knee-high boots , with an exquisite rapier hanging from his waist.
The whole person looks heroic and upright, like a female knight representing justice.
Badgers recognized her. She was Monica, head of the Ice and Snow City's lord, Maesfield's Guards, a power user of the blood fruit, and one of the few powerhouses in the Ice and Snow City who could fight against him.
"Weihahaha, Captain Monica, don't be so serious, they are just recruits like weeds, just recruit again when they are gone, by the way, we haven't recruited for a while, or, Shall we go down and play too?"
Badgers grinned, and laughed maliciously.
Faced with Badgers' provocation, Monica was not afraid. She pulled out the rapier at her waist, raised her head, and said coldly, "Then let me teach you the etiquette of the army."
As soon as the words fell, she disappeared on the spot with a swish, and stabbed Badgers with a sword.
Of course, Barr also quietly spread the six naval styles and domineering training methods among the high-level troops in the Ice and Snow City. Among them, Monica, Green, Dalton and other strong forces in the Ice and Snow City have learned some of the six naval styles, and even mastered them. Armed color domineering.
Monica is the most talented among the powerhouses of the Ice and Snow City. She has learned to shave, haze feet, iron blocks and moon steps, and has mastered two-color domineering. The strongest in the city.
Badgers was not weak either. The moment Monica disappeared, he put on a set of bone armor. The bone armor was so hard that even Monica's domineering blow with armed colors could only cover the body. It shattered, leaving a shallow wound on Badgers.