TL Notice : As you know, the previous name of the city Constantine burned was Nemeapatre. This confused me since no cities named Nemeapatre exist so I thought author named it himself but now that city is called Thebes which makes sense since Thebes was also a major city in ancient Greece.
The pacification of central Greece, led directly by the prince, concluded with ease.
The difference between the prince, who had meticulously devised his strategy while considering every possible scenario, and those who had been swept up in their own fleeting rebellion was immense.
The resistance forces fell into the prince’s trap exactly as he had intended, and, unprepared for what awaited them, they were effortlessly swept away.
The casualties on the prince’s side were virtually non-existent. With precise planning, he had wiped out the mere twelve hundred soldiers who had dared to resist.
Only then did the people finally turn their eyes to him.
Centuries of decline. Plagues and calamities so cruel they made it seem as though even the gods had abandoned them.
A brutal civil war, born of insatiable greed for a throne that ruled over little more than a handful of dirt.
The people had come to accept the inescapable fate they had long feared—that the cold and inevitable end, promised to all golden ages, had finally arrived.
And who could blame them? The despair had lasted for so long.
So even when the prince began to distinguish himself, the people paid little attention. Outside of Morea, which clung to him with absolute devotion, none could bring themselves to trust him.
Was he not the very man who had set an entire city ablaze in order to drive out the Ottomans? His name was inseparable from that unshakable scandal. To many, he was not a saviour but an object of hatred.
—And yet, he was their last hope, in both name and reality.
Had he been nothing more than a brute, he would have burned the city and been done with it. Had he been a man who relied only on willpower, he would have died long ago.
But the prince was a man willing to walk to the very edge of death itself. If he was certain that his homeland could be saved, he would not hesitate to throw himself into the fire.
He was the final light, the one who knocked upon doors everyone believed would never open—until they finally did.
And that light was drawing near.
After annihilating the last of the resistance forces, the moment he received Justinian’s report of victory, the prince marched straight into Thebes.
The Morean soldiers followed in his path, their armor in tatters after countless brutal battles. Yet not a single one of them showed signs of exhaustion.
They had witnessed the Miracle of the Virgin with their own eyes—had seen the Ottomans crumble before them. And they all remembered whose prayers had been answered. Their bodies were weary, but their spirit remained unbroken.
No one dared to look down upon such an army.
For a long while, an awkward silence stretched across the streets. The only sound was the metallic clatter of weapons shifting with each step.
Even if Thebes refused to welcome them, so be it.
Had this city not once chosen the Sultan over the prince? And had it not paid the price by becoming his army’s first target? No one expected a warm welcome.
But something had already begun to change in Thebes.
As the prince, clad in his crimson armor, stepped into the plaza, a sudden voice rang out—
“Constantinos Dragases Palaiologos, son of the Emperor and Prince of Morea, has arrived!”
In that instant, the people’s gaze, filled with a mix of love and resentment, tilted in one direction.
Would they continue to hate the man who had once burned their city to the ground?
Or would they accept him as the hero with the power to liberate Greece?
They chose the latter.
The uncertain air that had gripped Thebes shifted in an instant.
“The Liberator!”
“Prince Dragases has triumphed!”
The Morean army, once dismissed as mere invaders and conquerors, was now hailed as saviours. Even the soldiers, marching with confidence, were caught off guard.
This was not the reaction they had expected.
Their tension eased, if only slightly.
Even the prince was no different.
He halted his march and, in silence, looked across the city.
The crowd erupted in cheers, raising their hands high into the sky.
The soldiers, caught off guard by this sudden outpouring of welcome, stood in uneasy confusion.
Beyond the lively crowd, collapsed walls and burned buildings still bore the scars of war. Yet, unlike before, the prince did not sigh in sorrow. He did not let out a breath heavy with sorrow.
Instead, he fought to suppress the surge of emotion welling up in his chest.
Of course he did.
Because in this very moment, what flashed through his mind were the faces of the fallen.
Among them were the soldiers who had followed him, those who had once resented him for arriving too late, and those who, after long hesitation, had ultimately raised their swords against him.
As he cut them down, he had made a vow—to fight for the sovereignty and freedom of those who stood by him.
And in doing so, he had steeled himself.
—He would become a hope so radiant that none could deny it.
But the cruel reality remained unchanged.
The empire lay in ruins, reduced to nothing but ash. The very idea of searching for something worth saving seemed laughable.
Yet the prince had already reclaimed the most important thing of all.
Something the empire had long lost.
Something that must be restored.
“…Once more.”
—Once more, he would make them believe.
Believe that this nation was not beyond salvation.
Believe that they could still find shelter under its protection.
Believe, without doubt, that the hour of their downfall had not yet come.
With his own hands, he would prove that not everything had been reduced to ash.
Resolute in his conviction, the prince lowered his gaze to his own hand, still gripping the reins.
Perhaps the weight of that unshakable resolve was simply too much to bear.
His hand was trembling ever so slightly.
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