The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss
Chapter 75: The Empress

Chapter 75: Chapter 75: The Empress

The wind that morning was soft.

Soft, and honest. It smelled of ash-laced dew and overturned stone, the scent of land remembering what it once was — not a battlefield, but a nation. The ridge stretched before Eli like the edge of a faded tapestry, its earth quiet, scorched, and still holding the shape of gods.

She breathed.

And the breath stayed in her lungs.

That alone felt like a miracle.

Her shoulder ached where her arm used to be. The skin was smooth now — no open wound, no crusted blood. Just a sealed silence. The cost of survival, branded into the place she’d once held a sword.

She had not expected anyone to come.

But they did.

Three shadows emerged from the treeline — silhouettes against the broken dawn, armor tarnished by weeks of travel. The first knight removed his helmet, revealing a gaunt, weatherworn face that still managed to wear devotion like a second skin.

When they saw her — truly saw her, battered but breathing, scarred but alive — they dropped to their knees.

"Your Majesty," the eldest said, voice cracking. "We feared the worst."

Eli didn’t move.

Her eyes were fixed past them, toward the horizon — as if expecting someone else to appear. But the sun only climbed. And the world remained mercilessly unchanged.

The knight’s voice softened. "The cliffs gave way. Scouts said none returned from the demon attack. We thought the Dark Continent had claimed even you."

She looked at them finally.

"It almost did."

His gaze dropped to her shoulder. His breath caught.

"Your Majesty..."

"It doesn’t matter," she said.

There was no venom in it. No pride. Just fact.

"I’m alive. That’s enough."

The second knight, younger than the first, stepped forward. His hands trembled. He looked like a man torn between duty and grief.

"Forgive me, Highness, but... the prince. Atlas. Did he...?"

Eli’s expression didn’t change.

She let the question hang in the air, caught like fog between them.

"...He survived," she said at last. "He’s changed. More than I understand."

The youngest knight — a boy with sunburnt cheeks and a noble family crest sewn in frayed gold on his shoulder — swallowed visibly. "Then... that rumor..."

Eli turned sharply.

"What rumor?"

The boy hesitated. Then bowed low.

"We heard... that the borderlands no longer sleep. That even the clergy in the Crystal Abbey have gone days without rest. The highborn say it’s a plague. The warlocks say it’s divine punishment. But I—"

"—You know what it is," Eli said, quietly.

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

The eldest cleared his throat. "Forgive our disorder, Your Majesty. The Empire has... changed, since your disappearance."

Eli nodded. "....Tell me everything."

And so they did.

The scout teams, dispatched by the Empress’s last standing order, had scoured the entire perimeter of the Dark Continent. They’d lost over a hundred soldiers to beasts, terrain, and madness. But they never stopped looking.

"Because we knew you weren’t dead," the elder said. "Not you."

She said nothing.

She didn’t believe in prophecy.

But she believed in loyalty.

"Politics has shifted," the young one added, eyes darting. "The nobles... well, House Maltris declared your title forfeit two weeks after you vanished. Claimed your brother should inherit the throne. House Vann favored a peace treaty with Berkimhum — even offered hostages. Others... they called for a vote."

"A vote?" Eli’s voice sharpened.

"Yes, Majesty," said the second knight. "They seek to elect a new empress by decree of the Grand Tribunal. House Liron supports it. So does House Salaz."

Her lips curled.

"Vultures."

The boy nodded. "They all want your chair. But none want your weight."

"And the military?" she asked.

"The border holds, tight and ready," said the eldest. "But morale crumbles. The Watchers haven’t slept in days. Entire units were recalled when dreams turned to hallucination. Some priests tried invoking the gods. Others were... silenced."

Eli’s jaw tightened.

"What of the royal line?"

"The younger princes still rally in your name. One commands the silver fleet at the western ports. Another holds your banner in the highlands. But their voices grow faint in the capital."

She nodded once.

It was worse than she feared.

But not beyond repair.

Her remaining hand clenched into a fist.

"The Dreaming broke. The world with it. Atlas... did something. And now everything old is cracking."

A pause.

"Fine."

She stepped past them.

"The old world can burn. I’ll build the new one myself."

The knights flanked her now, quiet as ghosts.

They had found their Empress not in a throne room, not atop a hill of conquest, but kneeling on dirt and shadow, missing her sword and half her self. And yet, she stood.

And that was enough.

They came to a clearing just beyond the ridge — where the burned pines gave way to a cracked field wide enough to echo.

Eli paused.

She raised her eyes to the sky.

The sun was rising, but slow. Suspicious. As if it, too, feared what might come next.

She turned to face the men.

To face the memory of every coward who whispered her crown unearned.

To face Atlas — not the boy she once followed into madness, but the man she now marched to destroy.

She did not speak loud.

She didn’t need to.

Her words struck like nails into marble.

"I am Elizabeth, Blood of the Empire, last daughter of Sol’s flame and its rightful Empress. I speak now not as a fallen shadow, but as the blade that will restore our light."

Her voice echoed across the stone.

"The Empire has not died. It has bled. And now, that blood calls out."

"You all wonder who returned from the dark. If I am still the woman you once followed."

She raised her hand — the one she still had — and pulled back her cloak, revealing the stump with quiet pride.

"I am not."

"The woman who vanished into the Dreaming died there. The one who returned is war-forged. Dreamless. Merciless."

Her knights stood still, the younger one blinking back something that wasn’t awe — it was terror, made sacred.

"I make this vow," she said. "To the nobles who betrayed me — your silver tongues will rust. Your gold will bleed."

"To the priests who silenced their gods — I will teach you fear."

"And to Berkimhum — to the kingdom that stole the night and dared to turn my enemy into a legend — I bring fire."

She stepped forward, her cloak fluttering like the wings of something reborn.

"Atlas," she said, his name cutting through the wind like glass. "You should have died in that dream. You should have let me fall. Now you’ve made me into something you can’t unmake."

Her eyes burned.

"I march not just to reclaim what’s mine. I march to end you."

"This is my declaration. Of return. Of reckoning. Of war."

"And may the gods you once defied — the ones you dragged down into your grave — tremble when they see what rises to meet you."

The knights dropped to one knee.

The knights rose without question.

One offered her a cloak — royal black with the sunburst crest stitched in silver thread. She accepted it, not for warmth, but memory.

Eli wrapped it around her shoulders, the fabric brushing her bare stump.

It hurt.

But she wore it anyway.

"Your Majesty..."

She turned.

"Yes?"

The elder knight bowed.

"Your army awaits."

She didn’t smile.

She didn’t cry.

She walked.

And every step cracked the old Empire further apart.

But behind her — loyalty followed.

And before her — war waited.

And within her — fire.

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