Chapter 214 Iris: Why did you suddenly fight back?
With the Air Cavalry Brigade stationed on Glass Island, Aiwass can finally breathe a sigh of relief and concentrate on his studies.
Because Meg was reincarnated as Ligeia, Avalon no longer needed to rush to resurrect Lancelot to protect the country. Therefore, the queen did not need to die for the time being, which in turn delayed the crisis of Shadow Sky.
Today, Queen Sofia undoubtedly hopes to be alive.
Soon, Avalon and Star Antimony would inevitably face a war. Queen Sophia's thoughts were similar to those of Aiwass and Ligeia... if handled well, this war could actually be an opportunity for Avalon.
But there is a prerequisite for this, which is to ensure that Avalon does not get into big trouble.
Although those old men and scoundrels were all worthless, they were still powerful figures. Isabel, still relatively young, might not be able to control them, and she didn't have the foresight to select the younger generation's talent.
However, there is no problem for Queen Sofia to come by herself.
During this time, she could take the opportunity to teach Isabel some things... and let Aiwass take care of Isabel.
She had never taught Isabel how to govern a country before, and the reason might be different from what Isabel herself thought, "I am not suitable to inherit Avalon" - because if that were the case, she would not have asked Master Janice to protect Isabel and teach her extraordinary skills.
The curse had already begun to spread at that time. Queen Sofia did not let Janice protect herself or track down the curser, but instead asked her to protect a little girl who was very low in the line of succession and not even adaptable to the path of authority?
"--It seems that what Queen Sofia has really done over the years is to hide the trees in the forest."
After listening to Aiwass's story, Sherlock thought for a long time before answering.
Sherlock was now "dead and not yet resurrected" and had missed a lot of interesting things. So Ives made a special trip back to the bishop's house to synchronize the information with Sherlock.
Except for not mentioning that he was appointed Minister without Portfolio, Aiwass told Sherlock everything else - even telling him that Aleister had been transferred to his work. Of course, this was to prevent Sherlock from having nothing better to do and making a blind investigation that would expose him completely.
"Go on, I'm listening."
Aiwass sat on the sofa, drinking sherry, and listened to Sherlock's analysis with a smile.
When Old Meg brought this wine over, Aiwass was surprised to find it quite delicious. Now he bought some for the Bishop - nominally for the Bishop, but actually he would drink a little when he had nothing to do.
Just treat it as storage. There will be some storage loss occasionally.
To be honest, Meg does have good taste. The wines she recommends are quite impressive.
So the reason why she usually likes to eat fried chicken and fried fish may be because there really isn't anything delicious in Avalon...
Sherlock didn't drink. He just held an unlit cigar in his mouth, his hands moving up and down with very rich body language, and he spoke incessantly. "Your Majesty has probably guessed long ago that the curse didn't come from a single source, so the causes of death of the royal family members were different. It's precisely because there are more than one curser... The Noble Red of the Star Antimony people, the spies and assassins of the Iris people. Lloyd may not know, but the first two are enough.
"That's why she never revealed the Curse--with the Eye of Avalon and Master Yannis around, it would be easy for her to investigate if she really wanted to. But the answer is something the people of Avalon can't bear. So she can only pretend she doesn't know.
"If we confront one nation, we might be able to inspire the Avalonians to fight. But if we confront two enemies simultaneously, there's no chance of victory."
"There are only four nations surrounding Avalon. Aside from the Theocracy in the west and the barbarians of the Wolf Nation in the north, only Star Antimony and Iris remain. Those barbarians already have a bad relationship with us, and with the dissolute Iris people and the shady Star Antimony people, we can be said to have enemies all over the world."
Shylock is undoubtedly a queen blowhard.
But he was probably right this time.
Because looking back now, after confirming that Avalon could not easily lift the curse and could not avoid being cursed herself, Sophia calmly made several preparations:
She first began to publicize Isabel's hidden adaptability to the path of beauty, allowing her to stay away from royal social interactions and power centers, maintain her purity, and not contact her brothers and sisters; then she began to prepare for the Shadow of Avalon ceremony and plan a protector for Avalon; she also found Janice, a protector and mentor for Isabel, to ensure that Isabel could grow up healthily.
Although Isabel's talent in art was quite outstanding, it was not enough to impress Janice - so the only reason Janice, who loved traveling around the world, stayed in Avalon for so long was because of the Queen's request.
From this point of view, arranging Isabel to attend the Royal Law University, where she could meet other outstanding talents of her age and future pillars of the country; giving preferential treatment to Sherlock, who was loyal to the royal family; and even giving Aiwass a ministerial position, all of this was for Isabel's benefit. It was all paving the way for her future rule.
As Isabel said, she and her grandmother have always had a good relationship. However, Sofia's love for her is not intimate, pampering, or giving gifts, but exists in a more rational and long-term manner.
That's great, Aiwass sighed.
The only miscalculation Her Majesty the Queen made was probably that Isabel was driven into autism by the pressure.
After all, when she was a teenager, she often put on makeup and sneaked out of the Temple of Silver and Tin to watch plays. When she was still in middle school, she wore female college students' clothes and pretended to be a schoolgirl to hang out at the university. She was even able to easily play with the world-renowned painter she met for the first time, and she was a social butterfly who made Janice take the initiative to draw for her... Maybe it was really hard to understand why Isabel became autistic so easily.
"I'm afraid that from the very beginning, Her Highness Isabel was the most suitable person to inherit His Majesty's philosophy of governing the country."
Sherlock answered affirmatively: "Avalon urgently needs to open up now and accept extraordinary people from other paths.
"Her Majesty has done everything she can to overcome the resistance to reform. She is a truly remarkable and brilliant monarch, but she is still short of time.
"According to my calculations, it will take at least a generation for the reforms to truly bear fruit and for Avalon's technology to catch up to international standards. If we choose to stop or even regress at this point, we will miss the final window of opportunity."
"really."
Aiwass nodded, surprised at Sherlock's sharpness.
Once the Narcissus Duchy achieves independence... that technological nation, whose ruling class is entirely composed of mages, will begin to unleash its century-long technological heritage. And if Star Antimony disintegrates, the demonologists, alchemists, and necromancers, their three unique skills no longer restrained by each other, will be in for a major upheaval.
Queen Sophia did not foresee what would happen to the Fallen Angels, but her political vision easily saw through the instability of the Narcissus Principality and the crisis within Star Antimony.
In this situation, any monarch who failed to resolutely overcome political resistance from all sides and continue to complete reforms as quickly as possible would effectively eliminate Avalon's last hope. But the only person Sofia could trust was Isabel.
Because the other heirs might betray her, but Isabel was the only one who wouldn't. After all, Isabel herself was the holder of the illegal path.
With the Iris Kingdom controlling most of the supernatural knowledge, the path of beauty, which allows for surreptitious observation and even easy teleportation through "artistic vision," is undoubtedly limited in Avalon. Those staid knights dislike—or rather, fear—this flashy ability.
Now that other heirs have been ruled out, the curser from the iris was caught on the spot when he "assassinated the minister", Meg's life span problem was solved, and Isabel had two capable assistants, Aiwass and Sherlock... After Aiwass solved the multiple deadlocks that had stuck Avalon, the Queen stopped acting.
She showed the iron fist that had ruled Avalon for many years -
The Queen displayed Ligeia in a high-profile manner, claiming that she had a close blood relationship with Meg, was a favored one blessed by the Silver Crown Dragon, and also possessed Meg's Dragon Blood Law - therefore, she would replace the "poorly healthy" Meg as the Grand Arbitrator.
Although Ligeia looked very young, she was actually already an adult. It was only because of the power of the gods that she maintained such a youthful body.
The Queen's words were all approved by the church. The senior officials present could sense that Sophia was telling the truth.
Then, Avalon began to put pressure on Iris.
They produced concrete evidence that Dean Lars Graham, as the leader of Iris College, had "tortured and killed students," "desecrated corpses," and "assassinated ministers"—without mentioning a single word about the curse.
But the Queen specifically pointed out that when the High Guardian had already stopped the attack and offered generous treatment if he surrendered, he not only refused to surrender but instead intended to use magic to attack innocent people. If he had not been interrupted on the spot, at least over a thousand civilians would have been killed or injured.
——So, the shameful incident of Aiwass being attacked three or four times in a row seemed to have become a great achievement.
Soon after, the assassin who had attacked Aiwass was revealed—it was Master Lars Graham who had handled her transfer to the Royal Law University. Since they used the same technique, they were likely from the same spy organization.
Because of Avalon's sudden attack, and the fact that these testimonies could be sworn in public to the Nine Pillars of God to ensure their authenticity... Under such circumstances, Iris suddenly fell into an extremely embarrassing and difficult situation.
They have been repeatedly put on the defensive in negotiations on other matters recently, and the Iris newspaper, like a fly smelling blood, took a boat directly to Avalon to conduct an interview in person.
By the time they return to Iris, this matter will probably ferment further.
With Lars Graham taking the blame, the previous assassination of Minister Droste in prison was explained: a senior official of the Supervisory Bureau who wished to remain anonymous presented strong evidence, indicating that Minister Droste had come into contact with a transcendental person of the Path of Love in prison before being assassinated.
As we all know, the mainstream path of the Iris Kingdom is the path of love and the path of beauty.
Avalon, who was being beaten, suddenly started to fight back, and completely ignored the Star Antimony people who were actually attacking them, and instead attacked Iris who was secretly stirring up trouble with all his strength - this made both Star Antimony and Iris helpless.
This was the first suggestion that Edwards made to the Queen after becoming Minister without Portfolio.
——It’s like a one-on-one man-to-man battle in the top lane. Your jungler is coming and I can replace him, so I will kill the one who comes to help first.
Star Antimony and Iris are also hostile to each other, and they are also happy to see this situation.
Xingti was also overwhelmed by the internal chaos. Seeing that Avalon and Iris suddenly started fighting... In order to avoid getting burned, he simply stopped his actions and let the nails inside Avalon remain dormant.
They planned to just watch Avalon and Iris fight, and even planned to add some firewood to make the fight more lively.
Little did they know that this was a play performed by the Queen.
This gives Avalon some breathing room.
Because the aid from Star Antimony was cut off, the Noble Red Society faced the spying of the Eye of Avalon and the attack of the regular army, and directly lost the ability to disrupt Glass Island.
This operation was named "Bear Hunt." Its nominal purpose was to "eliminate the giant forces that intended to overthrow Avalon's rule and the illegal supernatural organizations that had repeatedly massacred innocent villagers and townspeople." There was no mention of support for Xingti.
Since the fire did not burn them, the Xingti people did not agree to help Noble Red at this time.
So within three days of the operation starting, thirty strongholds of the Noble Red were destroyed by the thunder brought by the griffins.
The Queen gave an interview to the Glass Steps newspaper.
She did not say that this was a long-awaited counterattack. Instead, she pretended to be confused, claiming that these actions came from the strong suggestions of the new "minister of no responsibility" and that she was "very surprised" by this.
But as for his true identity, Her Majesty the Queen chose to keep it secret, regardless of the minister's personal wishes.
For a moment, the entire Avalon was caught up in curiosity and speculation about this irrelevant minister.
"—So, Aiwass."
After praising the Queen's wisdom, Sherlock pointed at the newspaper and asked, "Who do you think this minister is?"
The first chapter is 4,000 words long, so I'll have to wait until around 2 o'clock for the second chapter.
My nose has run more frequently, and it feels like I have a cold complicated by rhinitis, or it may be rhinitis induced by a cold... Compared with previous years, there is just one more thin branch, which is a sequelae left by last year's new crown.
Anyway, no Chongyang is a good thing...
(End of this chapter)
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