The Exalt [Cultivation Fantasy]

Surrounded by piles of paper and stacks of scrolls, Celestina worked tirelessly at her desk, sometimes stamping her seal on a document for approval or writing in a blank section to append to the statements and send it back for review. A faint sigh escaped her lips as she couldn't help but turn to the collapsed window, a section of the wall missing, which provided a larger view of the outside. But the scenery she used to enjoy since her birth was gone, replaced by the ruins of her capital. The dust had settled, and the storms cleared, but it only revealed the horrifying truth of the countless lives that were lost.

Standing near the gap in her wall, Celestina couldn't tear her sight away from the red wastelands, where several teams carried corpses and wrapped them up in cloth before resting them on clean grounds. She bit her lips. Her hand unconsciously clenched on the edge of the broken wall, cracks riddling the white stone. It had been a week now, and yet, the search teams kept finding more and more bodies, the varying grotesque conditions of many making her and everyone else feel sick to the core. A trail of discovered and wrapped corpses lined the clean streets, many taken away to be buried in their homes, but more replaced them.

"Empress. If you don't loosen your grip, the entire wall might collapse." A deep, clear voice that rippled with power arrived. Gavir, garbed in his draconic, golden armor, greeted her, his appearance having seen better days. His blue eyes drooped from exhaustion, the blonde hair unruly and frazzled at the ends, and another scar joined the other on his face, crossing each other, one through the bridge of his nose and the other extending past his right eye down to his left cheek. Gavir bowed and said, "The current count stands at sixty percent of our forces dead, twenty percent alive, and the rest unaccounted for."

Losing the strength in her legs, Celestina collapsed to the floor, crushing parts of the floor under her knees. Assuming those unaccounted for were still buried in the wreckages of Dragonheart and the Pavilion, then in this one battle, she lost eighty percent of their standing forces, a devastating fact. Millions lost. They won. However, it didn't feel like a victory, at least not to her. Lifting her hands, she held back the reflex to gag as she could only see blood covering them.

"Empress. You must lead us. You cannot falter here." Gavir bowed deeper, loyalty and pain in his trembling words. "We are still here. We have to create the future."

The look he gave her….She glanced at the missing left arm. Gavir had sacrificed much as well, losing most of his Drakiri. As the leader, she could not fall into despair while the others raised their hopes. Rising to her feet, Celestina checked her knees, noticing the small beads of blood trickling down her legs and the small splotches of red on her floor. Gavir moved to wipe it and give her a handkerchief, but she rejected it and sat down, ordering him to leave the floor as it was, the bright red splotch constantly in her sight.

"Other than our losses…how are the wounded?" Celestina asked. The previous report mentioned that almost half had critical wounds that crippled their Exalt powers forever and that many others, like Gavir, suffered severe injuries like missing limbs. Among them was her father, who was bedridden and unconscious for the whole week after the end. The throne fell to her as she took up the mantle of temporary empress. The more she thought about her father, the more the fear of him dying surfaced in her mind.

Apparently, Gavir knew her thoughts and answered, "The emperor is still unable to wake. His body has recovered to a stable condition. There is no danger of him dying, but the healers can't tell if he'll ever wake up."

"That's a relief in a way. How about the others?" Celestina asked.

"Still the same. The more critical ones are still being tended to." Gavir frowned, the stoic Drakiri unable to hold his expression before his master. She understood why. Vostolf Rudinberg, Gavir's grandfather, was one of the wounded, wavering between life and death. Sitting up straighter, she exhaled deeply, trying to calm herself, unwilling to break down while she held the reins of the empire. Gavir continued on with more ill news. "The reports say many fertile lands have been burned down, and the cities we sent small forces out to reclaim have been experiencing trouble by the neighboring beasts. And that renegade bandits, presumably remnants of the enemy armies that didn't depart the continent, are preventing us from taking supplies from the newly acquired lands."

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"The complete ownership of the Divine Essence will draw wanderers to our lands. Hire them with some promises of high-quality resources and use them to stamp out the beasts and open up the supply routes against these bandits. Our focus should be on the farmlands. Our people will starve soon enough. Jail the criminals who took advantage of the sieges and betrayed our people. Force them into labor." Celestina worried that the deteriorating state of the people in the throes of hunger would destroy the empire. Often, she read that victors rarely considered the aftermath and paid heavy prices in the future. She needed to see her empire through this calamity from within before the people could tear each other apart.

"About the food situation. Gilbert said that the Primaere of the Bloodlands will send fresh supplies to help our crisis." Gavir clenched his fist, a small action that caught her eye. He seemed to realize she noticed and apologized, "Forgive me; I should not react like that about our esteemed hero."

"Hero? A hero?" Celestina coldly snorted, her anger overtaking her. She crushed her table, scattering the documents and scrolls all over the room. Gavir reacted fast and sealed off the gaps in the room with his Ein, not letting a single paper be lost. She sighed and leaned her head on her chair, glaring at the ceiling. "I'm just as mad as you are. No. I'm enraged. That piece of–" She cursed out, ruining the dignity of an empress, lashing out on the table, crushing it under her foot.

"A marriage? A marriage?! That–" Her curses filled the room, and even Gavir shuddered from her outburst, but she didn't care. The Primanomachy ended a month before Wyrmir fell, and even the enemy surely felt the pressure on their shoulders that they couldn't destroy the defenses in time. But Gilbert never showed up until a week ago, after all the blood had been split.

Initially, the consensus was that Gilbert failed or died in the Primanomachy, and the Primaere had no reason to report that to them. But when she learned the real reason, she never felt so much anger that she wanted nothing more than to tear him piece-by-piece. The selfish prick took his time to enjoy his wedding to the holy daughter of the Primaere of the Bloodlands after the end of the Primanomachy, which he won.

"If he rushed back after the Primanomachy, the siege wouldn't have happened. The streets wouldn't be red with blood and buried with countless bodies. My father wouldn't be stuck in a bed. Your grandfather would be here. And Oscar wouldn't have lost everything!" Celestina shouted to the top of her lungs, a soundproof barrier stopping her words from escaping to any unruly ears. She recalled managing to escape from the so-called victory cheers and walking down the pathway of blood. Oscar was there, hugging Fred's corpse as a wail filled the lonely street.

A week ago, she couldn't call out to him. She wanted to reach out to and console him, but her lips failed her, her mind unable to form the words that would soothe him. Seeing the broken, bloodied Oscar, who cried like a newborn child, Celestina wished to move her feet, but they also refused to move. No matter what she tried, she realized she could do nothing to comfort him, remaining mute and still. When Oscar's bloody tears finally ran dry, and his throat ceased its wails, he stood up and walked away with Erden, not even looking back at her.

That lonely back and the deep sadness emanating from him halted her steps again. Did she even know how to begin to comfort him from this? That was her mistake. Back then, she should have done anything, even a simple hug, to pull him from that despair. But he slipped away from her grasp, nowhere to be found. Celestina panted and palmed her face. "Have you found him?"

Gavir shook his head. "I am sorry, Empress. Our manpower is already so stretched out that we can't commit a large task force to locate him. But I will say that he is the most admirable person I have encountered. Little wonder my wife used to be crazily in love with him." He joked and said confidently, "He will rise again."

"He lost everything, Gavir. He lost his parents, his uncle, his troops, and his best friends. I can't imagine what he is experiencing." Celestina slowly stacked up the papers on the floor, needing to replace the table later. "Please find him and bring him here. Remind him that he still needs to find his wife. She might be the only one who can help him now. But until then, we'll keep him safe and care for him in her stead."

"As you wish." Gavir helped her with the papers.

Someone knocked on the door, and an attendant entered, bowing as he said, "Empress, Lord Lockwood wishes to speak to you."

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