Chapter 495

The royal manor burned so fiercely that even the night sky glowed red.

Curtis stared at the ruins of his palace, at the countless corpses strewn across the ground. His pupils contracted violently.

These were all his hard work. His blood and toil.

More blood was vomited from his mouth.

The legitimate and illegitimate sons of the Blumenfeld family had all been captured and forced to kneel before Xander.

They wept and begged Xander to spare their lives.

Their cries pulled Curtis into a moment of daze.

These were the children he had once been so proud of. He had believed that as long as his sons survived, no matter what happened, he could never truly be defeated.

But now his eldest and all the others were bound like animals, kneeling on the ground.

The huge manor fell apart overnight. The dead lay everywhere. The rest had fled.

“Father, save me! I don’t want to die!” His eldest son sobbed, the one who had once been his pride and hope.

Now, to save his own life, the boy wept like a child.

The other sons and daughters were no better. They were all spineless, cowardly creatures.

“Raise your heads!” Curtis roared, struggling to surge forward, but two Nexalasia soldiers held him down by the shoulders.

He glared at the kneeling sons, bloodshot eyes almost bursting. “When did the children of the Blumenfeld family become so pathetic?”

Once, he had led them to carve out their foothold in Aeridon, never flinching even in the face of blades and blood.

And now, they were reduced to captives and cried like beaten dogs.

Xander sat calmly on a grand chair brought over in haste, idly tapping his finger against the armrest, not even sparing the kneeling boys a glance.

Only when Curtis’s roar cut through the cries did Xander raise his eyes, letting them fall on the eldest son. “I hear you manage half of the Blumenfeld family’s businesses?”

The boy shuddered violently, his sobs cut off. Trembling, he lifted his head. “Yes… Please, Your Highness, spare me! I have all the ledgers. I will hand them all over.”

“Worthless!” Curtis was so furious that his vision went black. He coughed up a mouthful of blood.

“That is the Blumenfeld family’s legacy of a hundred years! You might as well burn it, throw it away—anything but hand it over!”

“You should save your energy,” Xander interrupted him, his tone filled with undisguised sarcasm. “These children are more sensible than you?”

He waved his hand, and the guards immediately stepped forward to drag the teenagers away.

He ordered, “Take them down and take good care of them. With them around, the hiding places of those sea bandits will be exposed.”

Only then did Curtis understand. Xander had never intended to spare a single member of the Blumenfeld family.

The pirates were savage. Once they learned that the Blumenfeld family had betrayed them, they would not rest until they had slaughtered every last descendant.

“Xander, you are cruel!” Curtis broke free from the guards’ grip, hurling himself at Xander in madness, only to be blocked by the gleaming tips of spears.

The point of one spear tore through his robe and left a bloody gash across his chest, making his vision swim.

“Cruel?” Xander rose slowly, walking toward him step by step.

He looked down at the prince’s disheveled figure.

“You want to talk about cruelty?” Xander leaned closer, voice cold as ice. “When you sent the Blumenfeld family’s illegitimate children as hostages to win the enemy’s trust, did you think of cruelty then?”

He spoke quietly, yet each word was a blade. “Those children who died on the frontier. They are all waiting for you to join them.”

Curtis’s lips trembled as he tried to gain a foothold in Aeridon.

He did not hesitate to cooperate with the enemy country. To prove his loyalty, he had sent the Blumenfeld family’s daughters into the enemy’s beds, left them to be used for pleasure.

Countless illegitimate daughters had died by his hand.

Athena couldn’t help but look at Frieda, her eyes filled with pity. No wonder she kept trying to escape.

It turned out that she had known her fate for a long time.

“Your Highness, I want to report my father. He not only colluded with the enemy, but also imposed exorbitant taxes on the people of Aeridon,” the second son of the Blumenfeld family, Charlton, suddenly shouted at Xander.

He said, “Last fall, my father requisitioned 30% of the grain under the guise of rewarding the garrison troops, leading to over a hundred households in northern Aeridon running out of food and fleeing.”

He added, “This spring, he privately opened border trade markets, selling all the ironware and medicinal herbs to the Uglorian people in exchange for their warhorses.”

Curtis looked at his second son in disbelief, his eyes full of disappointment.

“Charlton, how could you do this to me?” Curtis roared like a beast.

His eyes were bloodshot, and he shouted and screamed like a madman.

Charlton laughed self-deprecatingly. “Father, at this point, what father-son relationship is left? I just want to live. Is that a crime? You are doomed anyway. If one life could preserve the entire Blumenfeld family, I would say it is worth the trade.”

Curtis looked at him in disappointment, slowly shaking his head.

He couldn’t accept that the son he had carefully cultivated had become the one who betrayed him.

Once Charlton spoke, the other clansmen followed suit, denouncing the prince one after another. Evidence poured forth like snowflakes.

The charges against Curtis could have filled dozens of scrolls.

He watched the collapsing Memorial Hall in the sea of fire, and watched his sons kneeling on the ground begging for mercy.

Looking at his hands covered in blood, he suddenly laughed miserably.

The laughter echoed in the crackling flames, with endless despair and sorrow. “Karma, it’s all karma.”

Then, Xander ordered, “Drag the King of Sinitia down, keep him under strict supervision, and push him to the intersection at dawn to be beheaded for public display.”

At Xander’s command, guards stepped forward to drag Curtis away.

However, before the guards could approach, Curtis laughed wildly. “I would rather die standing than live on my knees.”

As soon as he finished speaking, he turned around and snatched a guard’s long knife, holding it against his neck.

Without hesitation, he slit his own throat.

The long blade fell to the ground, and the towering body of Curtis slowly collapsed. He didn’t close his eyes, even in death.

Xander walked up to him and reached out to close his eyelids.

He said, “If you had been willing to take the right path, you would have been a hero, but it’s a pity you went the wrong way.”

Ansel stepped forward and bowed to Xander. “Your Highness, what should we do with Curtis’s body?”

Xander gave him a faint glance and said, “Throw it into the burial mound and let wild dogs eat it.”

He was a rebellious traitor, a person who brought disaster to the country. Not grinding his bones to dust was already a mercy.

None of the Blumenfeld family’s members dared protest. One by one, they knelt to the ground. “Thank you, Prince Regent!”

The rest of the clan were stripped of their titles, demoted to commoners, and sent to the mines as forced labor.

The two sons of the Blumenfeld family were sentenced to exile.

The next day, news of the death of Curtis spread.

The people of Aeridon came out to celebrate.

Some even knelt before the inn where Xander and Athena were staying.

The bolder ones even brought their own food to the post house.

At this time, Aeridon was like being reborn, and everything needed to be rebuilt, including laws and order.

Seeing that the people were not able to get enough food, Xander remitted Aeridon’s taxes for the next three years, so the people might finally breathe and rebuild their lives.