124: Chapter 124 Don't talk to me about loyalty, talk about your offer.

Ella's heart hammered against her chest, not from fear, but from a tremor mixed with horror and a certain morbid excitement.

She spun around abruptly, walking quickly to Levi and staring intently with her azure eyes at his excessively calm face.

The cold morning wind blew through her golden hair, making her look like an enraged lioness.

“Converting military to civilian? The Northern Defense Line? Levi Byron, what on earth are you trying to do!” Her voice was low, yet carried an irrepressible fury. “Annexing Silvermoon City wasn't enough, and now you want to target the very foundation of the Empire? You want to dismantle the entire Imperial Army!”

Levi did not answer immediately.

His gaze passed over Ella's shoulder, looking toward the military camp outside the city that had already begun to become orderly.

Soldiers were drilling, and kitchen smoke rose in curls; everything seemed so peaceful, as if yesterday's tension had been a mere hallucination.

“Dismantle?” He retracted his gaze and looked at Ella, his eyes carrying the helplessness of a project manager reviewing a substandard report. “Your Highness, your choice of words is very inaccurate. I never dismantle any valuable asset; I only optimize and restructure it to maximize its value.”

“Don't play games with these words I don't understand!” Ella stepped forward, almost able to feel the body heat radiating from him. “The army is the Empire's shield, an extension of imperial power, not a commodity you can use to calculate value!”

“Is that so?” A mocking curve hooked the corner of Levi's mouth. “Then we might as well let the facts speak. Evelyn.”

Evelyn, who had been standing quietly to the side as if blending into the shadows, bowed slightly.

“Bring the financial archives of Silvermoon City from the past ten years to the drawing room.”

Levi made a 'please' gesture to Ella with an elegant posture, as if he weren't handling a fierce interrogation but rather inviting a business partner into a meeting room.

Ella's chest heaved; she badly wanted to refuse this rhythm of being led by the nose, but reason told her that anger would solve nothing.

She had to understand the underlying logic of this man's insane plan.

She took a deep breath, suppressed her anger, and turned to follow Levi down from the city wall.

In the drawing room of the City Lord's Mansion, the fireplace flames burned quietly, making a slight crackling sound.

Evelyn had already neatly stacked a pile of thick, yellow-edged parchment dossiers on the long table.

The air was filled with the dry scent of old paper mixed with dust.

Levi did not sit down; instead, he casually picked up the top dossier and spread it out before Ella.

It was a massive table, densely recorded in neat Imperial Common Tongue, detailing the tax sources and expenditures of Silvermoon City for a particular year.

His fingers were long and powerful, sliding slowly down the expenditure column before finally stopping at an item that occupied nearly two-thirds of the section.

“Look here, Your Highness.” His voice was calm and clear, like a cold auditor. “Silvermoon City, as a second-tier city in the eastern Empire, has an average annual tax revenue of about three hundred thousand gold coins. Of that, the expenses for maintaining a City Defense Force with an establishment of five thousand men—though the actual combat strength might be less than three thousand—including pay, equipment maintenance, logistics, and official salaries... total over two hundred and twenty thousand gold coins. That is seventy-three percent.”

His fingertip tapped lightly on the figure 'seventy-three percent,' as if it weren't a cold number but a heavy iron anchor.

“In the past ten years, this army has neither repelled any decent external enemy nor suppressed any large-scale internal unrest. Their greatest purpose was to make the former City Lord Valerius look imposing during military parades and to act as thugs during tax collection. In my view, this is a complete 'distressed asset' with a rate of return so low it can be ignored.”

Levi set down the dossier, picked up another blank piece of parchment and a charcoal pencil that Evelyn had just handed him, and pushed them toward Ella.

“Now, I invite you, in your capacity as an Imperial Princess, to co-draft this 'Feasibility Report on the Commercialization Reform of the Imperial Northern Defense Line Military System' with me. We don't need to talk about ethereal things like loyalty or honor; we only calculate the accounts.”

His gaze became sharp, as if it could pierce through the human heart.

“Calculate it yourself: if the logistics, armaments, and payroll of the two hundred thousand-strong army of the Northern Defense Line were all packaged and outsourced through commercial operations to a more efficient and professional organization, how many gold coins could be saved for the Imperial treasury each year? And with that saved money, how many roads could be built, how many canals could be dug, and how many starving subjects could live a decent life?”

Ella stared blankly at the blank parchment before her, the cold touch of the charcoal pencil traveling from her fingertips, leaving her mind a complete blank.

Levi's words were like a sharp scalpel, dissecting all the perceptions of the Empire, imperial power, and the military she had built up since childhood, revealing the bloody relationship between cost and benefit—wrapped in the cloak of 'honor' and 'loyalty'—nakedly before her.

For the first time, she began to wonder: when her father raised a toast in the grand palace of the Imperial Capital to the loyalty and courage of the border soldiers, were the Empire's financial officials behind that loyalty losing sleep over astronomical military expenses?

Meanwhile, in the temporary residence on the other side of Silvermoon City, Cassius felt an unprecedented sense of isolation and humiliation.

He was like a gambler abandoned by the entire game, watching helplessly as his opponent used means he couldn't understand to sweep all the chips—including the portion that originally belonged to him—to himself.

The Imperial Legion hadn't laid siege; instead, they had adopted a posture of a 'friendly visit.'

The commoners in the city revered that fraud named Levi as a god, and even the Imperial Princess, Ella, had publicly accepted so-called 'equity' and become the other party's accomplice.

He, the Special Envoy of the Imperial Capital and the spokesperson for His Majesty the Emperor, had become a complete joke.

No, he couldn't let it go like this.

He still held one last card—the authority of Imperial Law.

A surge of ruthlessness mixed with anger and despair rose in his heart.

Cassius changed into his most solemn set of Special Envoy robes and, escorted by a squad of the remaining Royal Guards who still obeyed him, walked outside the residence.

He personally took a decree sealed with official Imperial wax and written in gold-leaf characters and hammered it fiercely onto the bulletin board outside the residence with iron nails.

The 'thud, thud' of the hammering seemed to vent the resentment in his heart.

The content of the decree was concise and filled with condescending majesty: By Imperial Decree, it is hereby declared that the so-called 'silvermoon restoration bonds' illegally issued by the criminal Levi Byron are counterfeit notes that shake the financial foundation of the Empire and are immediately null and void.

All residents of Silvermoon City holding these counterfeit notes are required to surrender them to the Special Envoy's residence for destruction within three days.

Those who fail to surrender them by the deadline will be prosecuted as accomplices in treason!

As soon as the decree was posted, it immediately attracted the attention of passersby.

Like a stone stirring a thousand ripples, the hearts of the people, which had just settled down, were once again thrown into turmoil.

In less than half an hour, a rubbing of this decree was delivered to Levi's desk by Evelyn's hand.

Levi was discussing the equipment maintenance costs of different branches of the Northern Defense Line with Ella. Although Ella's heart was still full of contradictions, she had already been involuntarily drawn into this pure game of numbers.

He picked up the rubbing, glanced at it, and saw it as if it were a boring commercial flyer.

He didn't even move an eyebrow.

“He's using the Empire's credibility to provide the final endorsement for the bonds I issued,” Levi mocked himself softly, casually tossing the rubbing aside.

“My Lord?” Evelyn was somewhat puzzled.

The threat of this decree was obvious, directly categorizing all citizens holding the bonds as 'traitors.'

Levi looked up at Evelyn.

“Evelyn, go to the printing house and immediately print ten thousand more copies of Lord Cassius's decree.”

“Print more?” Both Evelyn and Ella, who was nearby, were stunned.

“Yes, print more.” Levi leaned back in his chair, fingers interlaced on the table. “Then, bundle them with the second phase of the 'Restoration Bonds' we are preparing to issue and give them away for free. Then draft a slogan and print it in the largest font in the most prominent position.”

He paused and said word by word: “A scarce asset the Imperial elite are envious of, the only chance for commoners to get rich in this lifetime. — Certified by official Imperial Special Envoy documents.”

A light of realization instantly lit up in Evelyn's eyes. She bowed to accept the order, and her figure quickly disappeared out the door.

Ella listened from the side, dumbfounded. She felt that her worldview had been repeatedly crushed, reshaped, and crushed again within this single day.

Turning an enemy's warning letter into an advertisement flyer for one's own product—this maneuver had exceeded her entire imagination of the word 'shameless.'

The night grew deep, and Silvermoon City gradually fell into silence.

In a remote study of the City Lord's Mansion, the hearth fire burned brightly, casting flickering light and shadow onto the massive map of the Terrarium continent on the wall.

Levi was focused in front of the map, his finger moving slowly along that long defense line in the north of the Empire.

The door was tapped lightly three times, two long and one short—the agreed-upon signal.

“Come in.”

The door opened, and a tall, burly figure slipped in. He had taken off that conspicuous Goshawk Battle Armor and changed into a plain gray traveling cloak, but that iron-blooded aura unique to a soldier could not be hidden.

It was indeed the commander of the Imperial Second Legion, General Tiberius.

He had come alone, in secret.

Levi turned around and gestured for him to sit in the chair before the fireplace.

There were no hypocritical pleasantries, nor any redundant formalities.

Between two pragmatic men, those red tapes were unnecessary.

After sitting down, Tiberius did not look at Levi but stared at the jumping flames, silent for a moment.

He did not talk about anything regarding loyalty, honor, the Empire, or the Emperor. Those terms had become too pale in the face of last night's business proposal.

He pulled two parchment scrolls from his breast and placed them on the low table in front of him with a dull thud.

“Lord Levi.” He finally spoke, his voice low and raspy. “Let's skip the useless parts and talk price directly.”

He unfurled the first scroll, which was a densely packed list of personnel.

“The Second Legion has thirty-four thousand, seven hundred and twenty-one people on the rolls. Among them, one hundred and eight officers have Battle Qi cultivation at the Earth Knight level; thirty-seven battle mages can skillfully manipulate magic above the third tier; common soldiers are divided into nine grades according to branch and seniority. I need you to give a clear monthly salary standard for each grade, as well as the payment cycle. It must be settled monthly, without any delay.”

Next, he unfurled the second scroll, which was a more complex equipment list.

“The runic steel armor of the heavy cavalry loses five percent of its runic luster after every high-intensity battle and requires mana crystals for charging and maintenance—who pays for this? Armor-piercing arrows for the crossbowmen are consumables; what is the replenishment rate for logistics? For the mages' casting materials, especially those rare metal powders, can you guarantee a stable supply?”

In one breath, he fired off thirty-seven specific clauses regarding pay, pensions, equipment wear and tear, logistical replenishment, disability standards, and resettlement for families of the fallen, like a rapid-fire cannon.

Every question went straight to the core, leaving no room for ambiguity.

He was using the most direct way to tell Levi: Don't talk to me about ideals; my people need to eat, they need to support their families, and if they die in battle, their families must have something to rely on.

Whatever you can give me, put it on the table.

Levi listened quietly, a faint smile always on his face.

He didn't directly answer any of the questions, simply instructing the shadow behind him, “Evelyn, bring the prepared S-01 standard contract.”

Evelyn stepped out from behind the bookshelf and placed a beautifully bound, impressively thick document folder gently in front of General Tiberius.

On the cover, a title was written in gold-leaf characters: 'Blackstone Security Consulting Company Standard Employment Contract (Legion Level)'.

Tiberius opened the first page in confusion, and with just one look, his pupils contracted sharply.

Article One, Salary System: Base salary paid at three times the Imperial standard military pay; additional performance bonuses based on indicators such as mission completion, loss ratio, and client satisfaction; year-end double pay, and full paid leave...

Article Two, Medical and Pension Protection: Establishment of a special medical fund, all employees enjoy free medical care, disability standards refer to the 'Blackstone Employee Disability Rating Table' for one-time high compensation; for those killed in action, their immediate family will be included in the 'Blackstone Orphans Support Plan,' with the company responsible for all education and living expenses of their children until the age of eighteen, and a one-time pension payment of twenty years' total salary...

The clauses of the contract were detailed to a terrifying degree, from the depreciation rate of weapons to the daily meat intake of soldiers, from the fodder standards for warhorses to holiday welfare packages. Each item used precise numbers and clear divisions of rights and responsibilities to construct a protection system he had never heard of, yet was incredibly enticing.

Tiberius flipped through page after page, his breathing becoming heavy without him realizing it.

The oil lamp in the tent was hot, but a layer of cold sweat broke out on his back.

This wasn't a contract; this was a poison he couldn't refuse.

Levi waited until he reached the last page before speaking unhurriedly, his voice level yet carrying a lethal allure.

“General, this is only the preliminary plan for the Second Legion. A... B-level contract.”

Tiberius looked up sharply, his eyes full of shock.

Levi leaned forward slightly, hands interlaced on the table, looking at him with burning eyes like a devil showcasing a blueprint for the future.

“If you can help me integrate the entire defense force of the Empire's northern border, bringing those military towns that fight their own battles with low efficiency into a unified, commercialized management system... then you will receive the position of Chief Executive Officer, the CEO, of the newly established 'Northern Security Group.'”

He paused and threw out the final chip.

“And, a ten percent equity stake.”

Tiberius's hand holding the contract trembled slightly.

He didn't answer immediately; a deathly silence fell over the tent, with only the occasional crackle of wood in the fireplace.

He could clearly hear his own heart beating like a drum.

After a long time, he slowly closed that heavy contract, the movement as ponderous as if the document weighed a thousand pounds.

He stood up, saying neither yes nor no, only giving Levi a deep look before picking up the contract from the table and turning to walk out of the study with long strides, his figure quickly disappearing into the thick night.