‎Everyone gathered on the deck and watched as the two naval ships sunk five suspicious ships with no banners that were approaching. Of course, it was a bit extreme, but both Rasmus and Aris could sense killing intents from those ships. Rasmus was the one who ordered the naval ships to sink them, and it was revealed he held power over them because Arka agreed to lend his fleet for Rasmus to use as he pleased.

‎

‎"Another failed attempt to get rid of me, I'm grateful, Count," Anastasha stood beside Rasmus and watched the bodies float on the sea with their separated limbs around the debris.

‎

‎"I'm curious why you have those bodyguards of yours with you if they can't even handle those assassins?" Rasmus asked and glanced at Anastasha's personal bodyguard, the only remaining one, Andrei.

‎"If loyalty can be bought, I would have thousands on my side, Count. Unfortunately, it's not, and the ones that are loyal to me are... the leftovers, the weakest among their peers. They knew that, and they were fine with that as long as I paid them more than their worth," Anastasha answered, her lower face covered by an unfolded fan, her gaze focused on those bodies on the water, realizing they were assassins based on their bodies.

‎"And you believed all of them are truly loyal and not a spy to keep an eye on you? If your father could infiltrate the elite assassins that belonged to your brothers, I think it wouldn't be hard for him to infiltrate your people," Rasmus raised his brows and looked at Anastasha.

‎"Then, should I kill him?" Anastasha glanced at her most loyal guard, Andrei. "Andrei, take out your life for me," she ordered.

‎Andrei bowed his head and grabbed a dagger before he slit his own throat without hesitation. Everyone on deck was petrified when they witnessed what had just happened. On the other hand, Rasmus' eyes lingered on Andrei's twitching body, not yet dead, but soon to be.

‎"Thank you for serving me well, Andrei," Anastasha stared at Andrei, knowing he was still capable of hearing. Not long after she uttered her words, Andrei's body stopped twitching and completely stiffened, dead from blood loss. "Who's next, Count? I can tell the remaining people I have to kill themselves," she raised her brows as she stared into Rasmus' eyes.

‎"That doesn't answer or prove my question, neither does it solve the issue of the matter," Rasmus said with a serious expression.

‎"So I just killed Andrei for nothing?" Anastasha tilted her head and kept staring into Rasmus' eyes. "But isn't my action answered, proved, and solved the issue? All I have to do is to get rid of everyone because I never trusted anyone in the first place. What I showed you wasn't loyalty because that doesn't exist, what I showed you was obedience," she folded the fan and smiled coldly at Rasmus.

‎"You want to erase bloodbaths in your own family, but you won't hesitate to kill due to lack of trust. if you can't trust your brothers once you take the seat as the head of the family, how could you prevent the bloodbath when you never trust them? Would you take back your words and kill them when it was necessary?" Rasmus asked with a serious expression.

‎"If I stripped them from power and influence, they would rely on me to live. They would be desperate enough to become obedient, and someone who lacked the ability to stand on their own, they lacked the fangs, claws, and jaws to hunt," Anastasha watched the soldiers carry Andrei's body away from the deck.

‎"Nature always finds its way, don't try to alter nature when you can't control it fully, and you will never be able to control nature completely," Rasmus warned.

‎"Exactly, Count..." Anastasha smirked as she closed the distance between them. "My brothers will always have the resentment toward me in the end, and I'll let them find people they can use, they can rely on other than me. I can use their blind resentment to involve other powers into the entangled mess and I will devour them and make myself grow more powerful and then? Obedience will be the only solution for them," she whispered, revealing her ultimate plan.

‎Rasmus narrowed his eyes when he heard the whole pattern of Anastasha's system. He saw a self-sustaining, self-consuming, and self-sufficient system that it looped back to itself. The system controlled the imbalance, and it produced an inevitable reaction, then it became a conflict, and that conflict was what Anastasha was looking for. She observed and monitored the conflict, and that was when she began to select which side or power she needed to consume to maintain the conflict. That was when she grew more powerful while the conflict stayed to feed her endlessly.

‎"A loop to that can make you grow endlessly," Rasmus nodded with understanding. "East Neva is the perfect place for such a system. Your system is almost impossible to break," he was fascinated when his brows furrowed and eyes narrowed.

‎Anastasha tapped Rasmus' chest with her folded fan and her smile became genuine joy the moment she grinned. She admired Rasmus' sharp mind that he could see through her plans and her system so effortlessly.

‎"A self-consuming system that relies on nothing but itself. A system grows and adapts to stay necessary, but if a system stays the same but not at the same time? They will obey it, and depend on it," Anastasha smirked and chuckled softly.

‎Rasmus finally realized how dangerous Anastasha was as an individual. She wasn't blinded by power, she was the one who created power and consumed it. She wasn't naive, she wasn't as shallow as he had thought she would be when she wanted nothing but to break the tradition of her family. She had shown that she planned to rule over East Neva through stable chaos within her system.

‎"Ouroboros..." Rasmus muttered to himself when he realized that it was similar to the symbol of self-sustaining, and that it was a snake as well, just like Anastasha.

‎"What did you just say?" Anastasha stared into Rasmus' eyes with her eyes wide open.

‎"Ouroboros?" Rasmus raised his brows, and he could see the shock in Anastasha's face.

‎"How did you know about that?" Anastasha asked as she gripped Rasmus' wrist. "Who told you about that name?" She tightened her grip on his wrist, her eyes searched his eyes for an answer.

‎"A long time ago, I don't remember. Why?" Rasmus asked with a serious expression. "Don't tell me, that the blood of the Celestial Beast that runs in your veins is Ouroboros?" He stared into Anastasha's eyes.

‎Anastasha stared into Rasmus eyes and found no deception or lie but truth and pure confusion. She let go of Rasmus' wrist, and then left without saying a single word back into the cabin.

The way Anastasha reacted to his question, he was convinced that he was right about it. It was no wonder that Anastasha could come up with such a system that perfectly fit in East Neva. However, the fact that it had a similar meaning to mythology and had the same name, it was unnerving and unbelievable.