He's in Love with the Devil.

Chapter 36: The King's Splendid Meeting

Bloody, strange, as if the wind was blowing from an unknown direction.

The devil stood on the black earth, regrettably empty behind the gates of Purgatory, without any old friends he'd expected to say hello to. Their manners were getting worse and worse, maybe this was the time he should come to the door and reiterate to the lords of hell what it meant to be decent?

Undead butterflies fluttered up and down in front of him, guiding the way.

The devil stepped lightly across the scorched earth.

The canopy - if it can be called a canopy - is an uneven dark red, as if the sky were bleeding all the time. The blood dripped downward into a dark red rain of sulfuric fire. The rain of fire fell to the ground, and immediately a huge lake appeared on the charred ground, a white, choking mist swirling up from its surface, and molten lava-like fire flowing slowly in it.

This was a place that humans would never want to set foot in.

Huge jagged ridges rose from the ground, and the peaks were strange and bizarre, like hideous interlocking knives. Countless dead bodies hung from the peaks' outstretched blades, swaying in the wind, wrapped in long cloths or yellowed white coats.

The viscous river of hell snakes away like the veins of the sick and the dead. The river of hell is still, but at first glance, one would think it was flowing. At first glance, one would think that it was flowing. However, if one takes a closer look, one would realize that what is flowing is not the river, but the countless souls of the dead that are densely packed into the river, some of them intact, some broken, and some even fused together with the other souls of the dead, trekking forward in a hustle and bustle.

The devil strolled on, unharmed, over the lakes of boiling sulphurous fire, and through the rows and rows of hanging corpses, and at last he came to the river of Hell, and

The souls in the river parted noiselessly to the right and to the left, and with trembling made a wide path for the Devil.

At last he arrived at a castle that only the most maddening legends could describe.

Black, monolithic castles rose out of the ground, castles built on the peak of a sharp, steep mountain, with spires so large and small blending into the forest of black stone that it was hard to tell where the tops of the towers were and where the peaks of the stone were. Huge pale serpentine bones snaked around the entire peak, connecting the castle to the earth; those were the castle's steps.

The serpent bones were amazingly long, the curved arcs carried a morose beauty, those twisted joints seemed to be still impregnated with the soul of a cold and cunning being, and slender bone spines flew out diagonally to form the castle's delicate decorations. The giant serpent's cranium hung low to the ground, displaying a submissive stance.

The entrance to the castle is the mouth of the snake.

"It's been a long time."

Devil spoke briskly.

As his words fell, the air resounded with the sound of countless vibrating wings, a flock of strange bone birds lifted their wings from the shadows of the Black Stone Castle, and they circled in the sky, the sound emitted from the friction and collision of their bone wings surprisingly claimed to be beautiful, that is, the tunes were by no means something that could be possessed on earth.

The serpent bones began to move section by section, as if a giant snake had come back to life!

"It's time to wake up!"

He said lightly, with a rare lack of any pretense of frivolity.

The devil unfolded his hand and tens of thousands of black butterflies poured out, they looked so slender that the wind would break them, but the truth was that they swirled and danced, bringing up a mournful wind.

The world suddenly clamored.

Invisibly, this hell, which seemed to have been dead for a long time, began to let out its cheer.

........................

The flood bells of St. Wessex Cathedral were rung.

The penetrating sound of the bells echoed over half of Metzl Castle, and in the cold, solemn air the pale sun rose from the horizon, the sunlight spread out, the ice crystals and snow reflected the sunlight, and the darkness of the night was dispersed without mercy.

Enough time had passed since the King had issued his proclamation that the representatives of the Council who had traveled the distance from all parts of Rogaland had all distanced themselves to Metzl Castle.

Today, the largest council was officially declared.

The delegates arrived in front of the main gate of the Rose Palace in the early morning and stood waiting in the clearing where the warrior queen Elinor had once carried out the first m******e of the nobles. The snow had been cleared away, the red carpet was spread out, and the palace guards stood on either side of the main gate in their armor with their hands pressed to the hilts of their swords, without looking away.

The last of the morning bells struck heavily, and the gates of the palace opened right on time.

At this moment, the greatest power of the entire empire, the most supreme splendor opened its doors for everyone, and in that instant it was as if an invisible wave of air rose noisily from the royal palace, enough to dazzle everyone. The delegates looked at each other and stepped into the heart of the empire under the guidance of the attendants who came out in a line.

The scarlet Rose King's flag fluttered in the sky above the palace, waving in the air.

The opening ceremony of the council was held in the colorful room of the Rose King's Palace, unlike the previous impromptu meetings, at this time, all the candles in the colorful room were lit, and the candle flames reflected the splendor of the entire huge room as if it was built of gold. The fireplaces were all lit, and the roaring fire filled the room with overbearing heat, expelling the cold without mercy.

Excluding the great nobles, the small nobles, the representatives of the commoners saw their king for the first time.

He was sitting in the center of the conference hall.

The throne, a symbol of supreme power, was magnificent, but the king himself was even more magnificent than the throne. All the words used to describe honor and luxury could be applied to the king.

This was a formal ceremony occasion, the king wore the crown that had been inherited for thousands of years, the center of the crown was inlaid with a red rose-like gemstone, under the crown the king's face even surpassed all the legendary sons of god, his ice blue eyes coldly looked down on everyone, but made people feel that it should be so.

The king was dressed in the royal regalia of the ceremony.

A scarlet cloak with intricate rosebuds embroidered in gold thread caged his shoulders, and a golden corseted tunic with the same ornate embroidery. In his hand he held the golden scepter, the symbol of the House of Rosebud worn on his cold white fingers.

By candlelight, he was simply splendor itself.

Beside the king, on the left, the secular nobles, represented by the Duke of Buckingham, were seated by title, and on the right, the ecclesiastical nobles, led by the Archbishop of St. Wessex, were seated by office.

The long table where the king was was the table of power in the entire Rogaland Empire today.

With everyone seated, the Chancellor stood up and began to preside over this opening ceremony. The Chancellor of Rogaland was older than the Duke of Buckingham, wore a heavy wig, and wore a badge of the Iron Rose on his dark red robes, which indicated that he had been a staunch royalist during the "Change of the Rose".

The aged Chancellor stood erect, his wrinkled hand holding a long speech, which he endeavored to make clear and loud.

The Chancellor had originally felt that he was too old for the task, and had wanted to give up the honorable opportunity to another judge. But the king rejected his proposal.

--If anyone dared to laugh at the opening ceremony, he would wait until his head fell to the ground.

So said the king.

There was silence in the hall.

The people listened to the Chancellor reading the speech clearly word for word, in a pale, but powerful voice. Gradually, however, his voice became a little hoarse, and some of the petulant representatives of the nobility were just about to whisper, when they saw the king looking at himself icily from his throne.

Viper-like chills crawled across their spines, and instantly no one dared to make a sound.

Quietly, the Chancellor spoke about the purpose, content, schedule, and agenda of this session. Finally, the Chancellor announced that the meeting would next be officially declared by the monarch of Rogaland.

The Chancellor closed his speech and spoke the last sentence aloud, straightening his spine with pride.

"I declare-"

The King stood up, his gaze sweeping across the hall.

"This meeting, officially begins!"

His voice was clear, powerful, and carried an irrefutable majesty.

There was silence in the hall for a moment, and the people rose and bowed deeply to the king, both nobles and citizens, chanting at that moment, "God bless the king!"

The council, it began.

..................

This time the Parliament changed from the previous lengthy process, and after the opening ceremony, it went straight to the most important part.

Representatives of all ranks began to submit petitions and grievances in turn to the clerk of the council. Under the auspices of the Chancellor, the participants of the Parliament were divided into groups and began to discuss the topics that had just been presented.

There was no tedious ceremony, no feast, no show of appreciation.

This council was like a huge change in the participants, and from beginning to end it was filled with an urgent smell of gunpowder. The air seemed to carry invisible battle lines.

Unlike in the past, when he attended the opening ceremony and then left, not appearing until the resolution session, the king sat in the uppermost seat from the beginning to the end of the session this time, seemingly determined to participate in the entire process.

Something different from usual was brewing in the air.

Very quickly, this feeling was confirmed.

For for the first time the representatives of the freedmen who had been allowed to participate in Parliament began to present their petitions.

--Petitions for the removal of the local Sheriff.

Quite tacitly they did so, and each petition was accompanied by an incredibly detailed statement carefully describing the Sheriffs' dereliction of duty, and that some of those Sheriffs would even have to be thrown to the guillotine if they followed what it said.

Not a few of the sheriffs who were on the list of those to be dismissed attended the council, and they turned pale at the sight of the petitions.

All looked to the king.

No one believed that a commoner could make such a detailed, well-organized statement, and that it was absolutely by the king's will. And it was well known that the king's commissioners had flown like black feathers over the land of Rogaland some time ago.

The king who had become the center of attention raised his eyes absently.

"Gentlemen, need I remind you that this is a parliament? Please proceed as you have always insisted."

The councilors were dumbfounded.

In the past, when the king had convened the parliament to try to increase taxes, they had resisted by saying that the parliament had a fixed charter, and no one had expected that one day the king would instead utilize the sword.

"Continue."

The king said.