Inside the forbidden palace, other than the rows and rows of memorial tablets and the dimly burning candlelight, everything else was completely dark.
Elara walked up to the altar faintly lit by candlelight and carefully looked around the shrine using the flickering flame.
This forbidden palace was not large. Other than the rows of tightly arranged memorial tablets, there were only piles of various offerings used for worship behind them.
Elara walked slowly around the altar but didn't find anything related to divine artifacts.
She stared at the layers of memorial tablets and thought for a moment, then turned to go check the outer wall of the palace.
Suddenly, from behind the dark rows of tablets came a weak sound of a baby crying.
Elara froze and held her breath, using her enhanced senses to listen closely.
She realized there wasn't only a baby crying, but also faint screams mixed in.
Hearing such eerie sounds of a baby crying and people screaming in a place full of memorial tablets would scare anyone with a weak heart to death.
Elara paused for a second, then slowly walked toward the source of the sound.
It was coming from behind the pile of offerings.
Elara moved the offerings aside one by one.
The space they occupied wasn't large, only a few square meters.
After clearing the spot, there was nothing but empty floor tiles.
She stood on the cleared space and closed her eyes to listen carefully.
A few seconds later, the baby cries and screams could be heard again.
Elara held her breath and slowly crouched down.
The vague sounds of crying and screaming became a little clearer as she crouched.
She reached out and felt around on the floor tiles.
After a few seconds, she finally found one tile with a deep gap, separate from the others.
Elara gathered her inner energy and sent her spirit-powered tendrils, mutated from her time in the core palace, silently through her fingertip and into the tile.
After confirming there were no traps or surveillance below, Elara wrapped the spirit tendrils around the tile and quietly removed it.
Immediately, the faint baby cries and screams grew louder.
Dim light shone up from beneath the tile.
Using that faint light, Elara looked down and saw what was below.
Even though she had already witnessed many strange things in this world, the sight in the basement still made her pupils contract slightly.
Under the tile was a huge underground chamber.
Inside, single-person wooden planks were lined up closely on the ground like cramped rectangular compartments, covering almost the entire basement.
On each board lay a pregnant woman or man with a swollen belly.
Their wrists and ankles were shackled to the boards.
Attendants in special clothing moved among them, either carrying food buckets to scoop meals into bowls near the beds or checking their pulses and touching their stomachs to assess and record something.
Elara's eyes swept across the basement and saw that there were over fifty pregnant people locked onto the bedboards like breeding livestock.
Some of them were screaming in pain, in the middle of giving birth.
Those giving birth were being held down by attendants who forcefully pressed on their bulging, trembling bellies. No matter how much the pregnant people screamed in agony, the attendants ignored them completely, focused only on getting the children out.
A few seconds later, several sharp, horrifying screams tore through the air like people being skinned alive. Several babies were pulled out from beneath the almost lifeless bodies of the pregnant people.
"These ones are done. Drag them out and throw them away."
Elara's heightened sense of hearing allowed her to clearly hear the conversation between the attendants below.
The head attendant holding the babies casually waved his hand at the nearly dead bodies soaked in blood.
Immediately, attendants stepped forward and dragged those bodies out like trash.
The head attendant checked each newborn carefully and selected three of the healthiest ones.
"These are the sixty-second, sixty-third, and sixty-fourth generations. Take them down and raise them carefully. His Majesty's body won't last much longer. The Divine Mirror can only be used once more before his life ends. Report to the Grand Emperor and the Empress Dowager, and have the Grand Priest begin preparing the coronation ceremony for the next emperor chosen by the mirror."
"Yes."
Elara, crouching motionless near the floor tile, listened clearly to every word filled with information.
In an instant, she understood the strange secrets behind this forbidden palace.
It really was related to the harmful effects of using the Divine Mirror, just as they had once guessed.
That mirror, which could control or transfer death and injury by simply imagining a victim's face, required a heavy price from the user—each use consumed a large amount of the user's life force.
The more it was used, the shorter the lifespan, and the faster the generations changed.
No wonder the palace had so many tall, tightly packed spirit tablets.
The real eighteenth Salvia Emperor, Salvia Yi, had died long ago due to the toll of using the Divine Mirror.
All those tightly packed spirit tablets belonged to the emperors after Salvia Yi, who had also been chosen by the mirror and died early due to using it.
Elara recalled the last spirit tablet she saw in the altar was of the forty-ninth generation.
That meant the current emperor on the Salvia throne was actually some many-times descendant of Salvia Yi and the fiftieth ruler of the Salvia Kingdom.
And this current emperor, still alive for now, had little time left because of the mirror. At most, he could use it one more time before it drained all his life. Once he died, the mirror would choose another royal descendant to become emperor.
To hide this fatal weakness, the Salvia royal family made every emperor live in deep seclusion and continue using the original names, pretending to the public that each emperor lived a normal lifespan so that the mirror's side effects would stay hidden.
But while their emperors died quickly due to using the mirror, they secretly built this underground basement in the palace to ensure a steady bloodline. Using unknown methods, they made men and women continuously conceive royal heirs, guaranteeing enough descendants to fuel the mirror's cost.
Understanding everything, Elara felt an even deeper disgust toward the Salvia Kingdom.
This kind of inhuman cruelty was beyond words.
She listened a while longer to the attendants' conversations and, calculating that the "inspection" time was almost up, quietly moved the floor tile back into place. She restored the offerings she had moved earlier, smoothed out her steward robe, took out a secret Salvia royal medicine given by Prince Leland, and swallowed it before leaving the forbidden palace.
She then headed toward the emperor's sleeping quarters at the center of the palace, filled with the scent of Blood Pavilion assassins.
...
In front of the emperor's chamber
Even as the steward who had served the emperor since childhood, Elara still had to undergo strict checks every time she entered or exited the imperial quarters.