From Parasitic Vine to Empress of the Empire

When Lina woke, she had forgotten who she was. The village tavern owner who had rescued her had already decided she would be the wife of his disabled son.

Without some kind of accident, Lina could see exactly how the rest of her life would go.

While the legionnaires stationed outside the village were out blowing off steam, Lina deliberately caught the attention of a young centurion from the Third Infantry Cohort and began an affair with him.

But before she could use him to change her fate, the man died.

Lina: "..."

If one wouldn't do, she'd find another.

This time, she got hold of something she could use against the man and successfully joined the army. She left the damp, freezing town of Burette with the legion as it set out to quell a rebellion.

But a secret cannot stay hidden forever. Lina's identity as a woman was exposed. To distance himself from her, the man who had brought her along schemed to send her to the legion commander's bed. By a strange twist of fate, this gave Lina a chance to whisper advice in the commander's ear, enabling the legion to turn the tide and win from the brink of defeat.

But the good times didn't last. Peaceful days were few and far between. With the empire in turmoil and wars breaking out everywhere, men who went to battle died far too easily.

Dead again.

Standing before her dead husband's grave, a nameless fury suddenly surged through Lina. Ambition, watered by desire, opened its eyes. Better to stand on her own than cling to someone else and live in fear.

What Lina never expected was that, just as she had painstakingly built a web of shared interests with several chief administrators in the region and was ready to make her mark, the legion she had joined would be betrayed by a traitor and wiped out in a battle to suppress a rebellion. The only woman to survive, she was captured by barbarians.

After three months as a prisoner, Lina seized her chance and escaped. Relying on the connections she had forged in the Holy Falcon Empire and her natural talent for strategy, she killed her enemies and rose again.

She returned as governor of the empire's largest western province. Amid ceaseless civil strife and foreign wars, Lina led the legion into battle while secretly expanding its power. Through restructuring and consolidation, she made the commanders of all twenty-three legions across the empire swear before the gods that they would serve her to the death.

When her forces reached the capital and surrounded it, Emperor Marcus of the Holy Falcon Empire finally realized disaster was upon him. Just as he had gained the throne through foul means, he was betrayed by the Imperial Guard he trusted and sent to the executioner's block.

At the new emperor's coronation, no one could believe their queen was only nineteen.

And no one knew...

That the woman whose name, Turana, struck terror into the hearts of all who heard it

had, at first, only wanted to make her life a little better.

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Theme: A woman conquers the world