The guard was strangely lax in the area, but Gerard did not doubt anything.

His opponent was none other than the emperor, the guardian and the savior of humanity. No one was arrogant enough to say that they could ‘protect’ the emperor—even Winoa Weaver, the Captain of the Imperial Guards, considered himself to be a nagger rather than the emperor’s guard.

Gerard could see the emperor’s back before his eyes. The emperor’s back looked very big and dependable. All of humanity relied on that back and the emperor carried all of humanity on his shoulders.

With every step Gerard took amidst the silence, he began to feel a growing sense of sin weighing down on his shoulders.

‘Is this okay? Is this really the right thing to do? Am I capable of bearing the weight that the emperor carries on his shoulders? What if all my bones break and I end up being crushed to death as soon as I decide to carry all of humanity on my back?’

Gerard tightly bit his lips to the point of bleeding.

‘Get it together, Gerard.’

The wide and reliable back in front of Gerard’s eyes was the result of stealing the heart of a monster.

Of course, Gerard thought that this would not damage the emperor’s greatness or noble will.

But that didn’t change the fact that the emperor was unstable right from birth. If the emperor realized himself to be a monster, humanity would instantly perish. Gerard thought humanity could not be placed on such an unstable pedestal. In fact, the emperor’s refusal to rule the empire forever could even be considered proof of his instability.

The emperor had to be eternal. If he refused to be the emperor forever,...