Shortly after dark, Count Raphael, dressed in black, appeared on the construction site of Port Royal on the east side of the Imperial City. The high collar and low brim of his hat www.biquge.info make it impossible to see his true face.

After the land transportation to the Western Kingdoms was cut off, the ambitious Rey III turned his attention to the endless sea of mist, and in order to develop the Empire's maritime strategy, Rey III decided to dig a huge canal, the Rey Canal.

Named after the current Emperor Rey III, the Grand Canal is more than 200 kilometers long and was built by the empire over a period of ten years.

The former commercial district of the imperial capital has long been transformed into a huge construction site, and the construction of Port Royal to prepare for the opening of the canal is located here, and the construction of Port Royal is nearing completion, which should be in time for the opening of the canal in three months.

The opening of the Rey Canal connected the Imperial Capital, deep inland, with the nearest seaport, the port of Tosk in the Gulf of Fundy, northeast of the Imperial Capital, allowing the Imperial fleet to reach the Imperial Capital directly. As the proud work of Rey the Great after his accession to the throne, the completion of the Rey Canal will mark that the imperial capital Castaya will also have access to the sea, and the invincible naval fleet of the Eliad Empire will be able to drive directly to the foot of the imperial city, which is of great significance to the future maritime strategy of the Empire.

Count Raphael quietly bypassed the construction site and came to the foot of the Imperial City, where it was once the eastern gate of the Imperial City. Gone were the wide roads outside the tall gates, replaced by a wide river filled with water, and Rey III wanted small warships to sail directly into the Imperial City.

Count Raphael had just arrived at the river outside the city gate when a vigorous black shadow flashed out of the shadows and asked in an ethereal and unfamiliar voice, "Lord Count?"

Count Raphael pulled down his collar so that the other party could see his face clearly, and the black shadow nodded slightly, and stretched his hand back: "Please follow me." ”

After the black shadow finished speaking, he was short, and he actually jumped into a small boat in the shadow of the river. Count Raphael hesitated for a moment, and jumped out of the dinghy after the shadow. This turned out to be a mechanical dinghy produced by the Duchy of Bavaria, the Kingdom of Machinery.

The dark shadow motioned for Count Raphael to sit on the seat of the dinghy like him, and then reached out and pressed somewhere on the edge of the dinghy, and an opaque cover slowly rose silently from both sides of the dinghy, turning the interior of the dinghy into a separate space.

Once the cover was fully closed, Count Raphael felt the dinghy shake and began to move slowly.

There was no lighting in the dinghy, and when the hood was closed, it fell into darkness, and the dark shadow that led him to the boat did not say a word, which made Count Raphael's nerves tense all the time. He didn't feel any magic fluctuations, nor did he hear any mechanical turns, so what did the dinghy move on?

Count Raphael wondered why Rey III summoned him so secretively.

It was always difficult to accurately estimate the passage of time in the darkness, and I don't know how long it took, when the tense nerves of Count Raphael gradually relaxed, and the hull of the dinghy shook again, and finally reached its destination.

The cover of the dinghy slowly opened, and a faint light came through, and Count Raphael was shocked to realize that they were in an underground river.

"This is ......" Count Raphael was about to ask when the dark shadow in front of him made a silent gesture and motioned for Count Raphael to hurry up and follow.

Count Raphael's heart sank, and he saw a trace of familiarity in the movement of the black shadow just now.

The shadow led Count Raphael up the river below, and by the light of the dancing torches on both sides of the river, he walked to a black doorway.

The shadow reached out and pressed the edge of the doorway, and the door opened from the inside. The black shadow walked in first, and Count Raphael, who had already sensed something, did not think too much about it, and obediently followed the black shadow into the doorway.

As he entered the doorway, Count Raphael noticed that the door and the door frame were cast of magic gold, and they were covered with mysterious magical patterns.

Behind the doorway is a richly decorated secret room, which is inlaid with several precious night pearls. Upon entering the chamber, Count Raphael felt as if he had stepped into a completely different dimension, completely separated from the world outside the doorway.

"Well, it's safe now, and we can be sure that our conversation won't be spied on. The dark shadow who had entered first walked straight to the only chair in the chamber and said.

As soon as Count Raphael entered the secret room, he immediately prostrated on the crimson velvet carpet in fear: "Your Majesty." ”

"Raphael, do you know what I admire most about you?" After sitting on the luxurious chair and comfortably resting his feet on the desk made of the precious tree of life in front of him, the voice of the dark shadow just now suddenly changed to the voice of His Majesty Rey III, the Emperor who was familiar to Count Raphael.

It was none other than Rey III himself who had been leading Raphael in the past. Count Raphael's heart was thrilled to be able to greet him personally and show him the way, and on the bright side, it showed that His Majesty the Emperor favored him and trusted him very much, but on the worst side, His Majesty the Emperor could at any time put him to death on charges of great disrespect.

"The minister was terrified. Count Raphael lay on the ground in a cold sweat, and did not even dare to raise his head.

"I admire your sensitivity and understanding above all else. Get up and talk, this submissive look is not like the style of one of the two empires. Rey III said suggestively.

Count Raphael rose from the ground and stood respectfully before Rey III.

Rey III was no more than forty years old, in the prime of life, with a fiery red beard, quite a bit of the style of Emperor Nazuotto. Since his accession to the throne, Rey III has also imitated Otto the Great's style of doing things everywhere, dictating and saying nothing, and has been trying to restore the style of the heyday of the empire and dominate the entire continent.

However, the cataclysm of fifteen years ago completely stopped Rey III's ambitions, which made Rey III very depressed for a while, until Rey III found a new goal: to conquer the Sea of Mists that no one had ever conquered, and to completely eliminate the influence of the Holy See in the Empire, so that the imperial power would rise above the divine power.

These two things were not done by Otto the Great back then, and Rey III thought that as long as he did these two things, he would definitely surpass the great Otto the Great and become the greatest human being in history in terms of merit.

In order to achieve the first goal, Rey III did not hesitate to spend huge national resources to build the largest and longest artificial canal in history, the Rey Canal.

In order to achieve the second goal, Rey III spent a great deal of energy to raise the O'Bright family and fight openly and secretly with the Holy See, and in fact, if it were not for the old Prime Minister Richelieu, Rey III was 90% sure that he would be able to uproot the Holy See from the Empire in one fell swoop.

Rey III had been waiting for an opportunity, and now the one he had been waiting for seemed to have arrived.