A few years before the Day of Blood.

Wisdom did not like the king of Asbestos, Delmardin.

‘He is competent and cruel, but he quickly falls into conceit. What I need is a war machine, not a narcissist.’

However, Delmardin BR Oser was wielding powerful royal authority. Delmardin had been a bit strange ever since he became king 24 years ago.

He was the first prince, so he was most likely to become king anyway, but to keep his other brothers in check, he continuously sought out opportunities to assassinate and poison them to death, and he succeeded most of the time. Those who criticized his brutality were either kicked out of the palace, or made to vanish without a trace.

Once he became king, Delmdardin wasn’t necessarily a dark lord to the citizens, but he was feared by other aristocrats. The aristocrats, who had lost their power to keep Delmardin in check, were then serving Delmardin, and the lords of the borderlands where the central aristocrats couldn’t easily reach were weak in power.

In order to strengthen his power, Delmardin made his cousin the queen, and recently, he had burned his first and third sons alive with charges of treason. The longer he ruled, the more he saw his sons as competitors...