Main Meeting Room — The Council of State
The Main Meeting Room of the Castle-Cathedral was not the room that didn’t exist.
It was the opposite — fully documented, fully official, with the ceremonial architecture that any state power space in Mahallem should have.
High ceilings with frescoes narrating the empire’s founding moments.
A long table of dark wood, polished over generations, where state decisions were formally made and recorded for posterity.
Around the table sat the political power structure of Mahallem in its most complete form.
Liou, at the center, with the position that the office of Emperor demanded.
To his right, the King — not king of Mahallem, because Mahallem was an empire and not a kingdom, but a ceremonial-administrative position that had existed since times before imperial formation and had been preserved for reasons that had more to do with symbolic continuity than with current practical function.
A man in his sixties, with a well-groomed beard, robes that communicated tradition.
The Pope — leader of Jerundism, Mahallem’s predominant religion, with elaborate religious vestments and the posture of someone who carried spiritual authority with the same seriousness that others at the table carried political authority.
The President — a position that coexisted with the Emperor in a division of power that Mahallem’s historians loved to debate endlessly over the exact jurisdictional nature, but which in practice meant that the President managed everyday administrative aspects while the Emperor held supreme symbolic and final authority.
A Minister — representing the vast ministerial structure of the empire in a chair that rotated between different portfolios depending on the agenda.
The Chief Justice — with the permanently analytical expression of someone whose profession required evaluating everything through legal lenses even in contexts that weren’t strictly legal.
The General Counsel — a position that served as a bridge between the High Council (which didn’t officially exist) and the visible government structure (which very much existed).
Eight people.
Two seats were missing from the complete structure — Melody, Master of Mar-Kondo, and João, General — but the meeting had been called with the specific agenda of the day supposedly not requiring the presence of both.
The agenda of the day was marriage.
“The argument,” the King was saying, with the voice of someone who had presented that argument several times before this specific meeting and was now condensing it for formal record, “is structural and lasting.
The tension between Mahallem and the Elven Kingdom of Sylvenar doesn’t disappear through treaties, which are paper, and paper can be ignored when convenient.
It disappears through shared blood.”
“A royal marriage,” the President confirmed, with the tone of someone who was genuinely in agreement and not merely following protocol of concurrence.
“Princess Aerith Sylvenar and Your Majesty.
The union would consolidate decades of peace in a way that no trade agreement could replicate.”
The Pope nodded with the appropriate religious gravity.
“Jerundism,” he said, “looks favorably upon unions that produce lasting stability between peoples.
The Central Temple’s blessing would be available immediately upon confirmation of the commitment.”
The Chief Justice consulted a document.
“Legally,” he said, “there is no impediment.
Mahallem’s succession law allows marriage to members of foreign royal houses without compromising the imperial succession line, provided that—”
“Your Majesty,” the Minister interrupted, noting something the others, focused on their own arguments, hadn’t yet fully processed.
“Is Your Majesty listening?”
Liou was seated in his central position, with the posture that seemed, at first glance, entirely appropriate for the gravity of the discussion — upright, attentive, with the serious expression that was his standard expression.
What the others at the table couldn’t see, due to the angle and the tabletop’s position, was the phone.
Small, discreetly positioned in his lap, with the screen projecting soft light upward that Liou’s carefully calculated angle prevented from reflecting on his face in a way that would betray what he was doing.
Liou’s fingers moved with small, rapid, precise taps.
He was in the middle of a Brawl Stars match.
Not just any match — a ranked match, of the category that Liou had decided, with the same absolute seriousness he applied to everything else in life, deserved full attention despite the circumstances.
“Yes,” Liou said, without looking up completely, with the voice that maintained its usual calm even as he coordinated the positioning of a character named Mortis through a narrow virtual corridor. Read the latest chapters at novelping.com.
“Continue.”
“Your Majesty,” the King said, with a note of controlled tension in his voice, “this is a significant state decision.”
“I’m listening,” Liou said, executing a super attack that eliminated two virtual enemies simultaneously, with the contained satisfaction of someone who had calculated the angle perfectly.
“Princess Aerith,” the King continued, with the specific patience of someone who had decades of experience dealing with the divided attention of powerful people, “is known for her wisdom and beauty.
The Elven court’s reports describe—”
“Good choice,” Liou said.
The King stopped.
“Pardon, Your Majesty?”
“The choice of Aerith,” Liou said, with the voice that finally, briefly, lifted his eyes from the phone to look at the King with the serious and complete expression of someone genuinely participating in the conversation, before lowering his eyes again at the exact moment the game emitted a sound indicating an urgent tactical situation.
“Seems solid.
Diplomatic solid.”
The General Counsel and the Chief Justice exchanged a glance.
“Your Majesty,” the General Counsel said, with the careful formality of someone choosing words so as not to appear to be questioning the Emperor directly, “perhaps it would be productive to discuss the specific terms on a date when—”
“No,” Liou said, with enough firmness that the General Counsel stopped immediately.
A brief silence.
“Continue now,” Liou said.
“I’m fully capable of processing two things simultaneously.”
The President, with enough political experience to recognize when insisting would be counterproductive, resumed the thread of discussion with the professional resignation of someone who had already learned, over years of service, to work within the parameters Liou set rather than against them.
“The matter of the dowry,” the President said, “and the succession terms for any eventual heirs is where we need Your Majesty’s decision on—”
“Acceptable within reason,” Liou said, eliminating another virtual enemy with a movement that, to anyone who knew the game, demonstrated considerable skill despite divided attention.
“The General Counsel can negotiate the specific details.
I trust his judgment.”
The General Counsel, despite everything, felt a small professional satisfaction at the expressed trust, even if it had come in the middle of a mobile game match.
The Pope opened his mouth to add something about the religious component of the ceremony when the door to the Main Meeting Room opened.
Melody’s Arrival
Melody entered with the step of someone who had come directly from somewhere, without the ceremonial preparation time that entrances into rooms like this normally received.
Her expression was her usual one — serious, contained — but there was, in the quality of the seriousness, something that communicated specific urgency rather than the baseline seriousness that was simply her default disposition.
The eight at the table, and Liou, looked up.
Liou, for the first time since the meeting had begun, fully put away the phone.
“Master,” the President said, with the appropriate formal acknowledgment but also with the genuine curiosity of someone who recognized that Melody’s entrance, outside the expected time and without prior notice, meant something.
Melody sat in the chair that was reserved for her, even in her absence — Mahallem’s protocol always reserved the complete seats of the power structure, regardless of confirmed presence.
“Apologies for the interruption,” she said, without really sounding apologetic in tone, but fulfilling the expected verbal formality.
“This couldn’t wait until the end of the marriage discussion.”
“What is it,” Liou said, with the voice that had completely shifted register, any trace of divided attention having vanished entirely.
“Sherpia,” Melody said.
The name, spoken in that specific room, with that specific power structure present, produced varied reactions — the King and the Pope, who had limited knowledge of recent operational details, with moderate curiosity; the President and the Minister, who had access to more complete briefings, with immediate tension. You are reading on novelping.com, the official source.
“I received an updated analysis of Sherpia’s defensive vulnerability,” Melody continued, placing a document on the table with the precise movement of someone who had prepared that presentation carefully despite the urgency.
“After the first attack, we reinforced, but the reinforcement was distributed in a way that assumed the threat pattern would be repetition of the same type of operation.”
“It isn’t,” Liou said, not as a question.
“It isn’t,” Melody confirmed.
“The analysis shows three additional points of structural vulnerability in Sherpia that weren’t addressed in the first reinforcement.
Points that, if attacked simultaneously with any repetition of the initial pattern, would create a situation where the current garrison lacks adequate response capability.”
The Chief Justice, with his analytical mind always processing implications, intervened.
“You’re suggesting,” he said, “that a second attack on Sherpia could be significantly more successful than the first.”
“I’m confirming that,” Melody said, with her usual direct precision.
“And I’m suggesting that we need to redistribute the current reinforcement before that becomes relevant, not after.”
The King, who had been following the conversation with the patience of someone accustomed to discussions that exceeded his specialized domain, raised a hand.
“This interrupts the marriage discussion,” he said, not with irritation, but with the practical need to understand the current order of priorities.
Liou looked at him.
“The marriage to Princess Aerith remains a priority,” Liou said, with the voice that had fully recovered its total authority, without any trace of the division he had demonstrated minutes before.
“The General Counsel will negotiate the terms as discussed.”
He turned back to Melody.
“But this,” he said, looking at the document on the table, “needs immediate response.”
Melody nodded.
“How much time do we have,” the President said.
“I don’t know,” Melody said, with the direct honesty that was her trademark.
“But if Sherpia was the first piece of a larger pattern, as the Emperor already confirmed in this very room previously, then the window between us confirming the vulnerability and someone exploiting that vulnerability could be much shorter than we’d like.”
Liou was still for a moment, processing.
“I want the reinforcement redistributed before the end of the day,” he said, with the directness that completely replaced any trace of the divided attention from minutes before.
“The three points you identified receive maximum priority.”
“I’ve already issued preliminary orders,” Melody said.
“I came here to inform the Council of State formally, not to ask for permission.”
There was, in how she said this, the confirmation of a dynamic that Mahallem’s power structure knew well — that Melody’s military authority, as Master of Mar-Kondo and number two of the Island, operated with an autonomy that exceeded what most formal power structures would allow, and that no one in that room questioned that autonomy because the results, consistently, justified the trust.
The President, with enough political experience to recognize when formal support was simply confirmation of something already decided, nodded.
“The Council of State supports the redistribution,” he said, with the formality that made the decision officially recorded.
The others at the table, with varying degrees of full understanding of the situation, also nodded.
Liou looked at Melody.
“There’s more,” he said, not as a question.
Melody looked at him.
“There’s more,” she confirmed.
“But that’s for after this meeting.”
Liou nodded, recognizing the distinction between what needed formal state record and what was conversation that required a different context.
The meeting continued, with the marriage discussion briefly resumed for the final details that needed formal conclusion — but Liou, this time, kept the phone completely put away, with the full attention that the situation, now clearly, demanded.