Translator: CinderTL
The towering city walls still stood majestic, but against the leaden sky, they seemed pale and fragile.
The streets were deserted, every door and window tightly shut. Only the heavily armed patrol units marched through the stone-paved roads, their heavy footsteps echoing eerily through the silence, adding to the oppressive atmosphere.
A deathly calm, like the stillness before a storm, hung over the pearl of the royal capital.
This oppressive atmosphere wasn't born of fear of an impending siege.
In truth, with Golden Grain City's formidable defenses and the still-considerable garrison within the inner city, they were far from defenseless.
The real pressure came from within, from the heart of power itself:
The imperial palace.
Crash!
The sharp sound of shattering porcelain echoed through the vast, oppressive throne room.
A finely crafted silver teacup lay in fragments on the floor, its warm contents splattering like Lucius's shattered composure.
The nearly seventy-year-old imperial prince's face was now devoid of its usual feigned senility. Even the cunning and shrewdness that had lurked beneath his facade had vanished without a trace.
In its place was a deathly pallor and an uncontrollable terror.
The mere thought of the vast army encamped outside the city walls, of his imperial father—a man who walked among mortals like a living god—and of his father's iron-fisted ruthlessness, his absolute intolerance for betrayal, sent tremors coursing through Lucius's body.
"Where's Arno?"
He snapped his head up, his voice carrying a barely perceptible edge of sharpness as he barked the question at the soldiers guarding the heavy hall doors.
"Where has Duke Arno gone?"
The soldiers at the entrance flinched at the sudden, harsh interrogation, bowing low as they hastily replied.
"Your Highness, Duke Arno... he went to the newly constructed High Tower in the western district. He said he was going to consult with the wizards there. Your Grace said... said he might have a way to repel His Majesty the King."
"A way? A way..."
Lucius murmured the words, a bitter, despairing smile twisting his lips.
As if drained of all strength, he staggered backward and collapsed onto the cold, unyielding throne.
His fingers unconsciously traced the intricate carvings on the throne's armrest, the icy touch seeming to freeze his fingertips.
He knew, of course, that Arno's so-called "method" could never be anything righteous or honorable.
The core nobles, who had previously been ambivalent or even prepared to remain neutral, had suddenly become unusually compliant and resolute in recent days. This sudden shift was highly suspicious.
Lucius understood perfectly well that Arno must have wielded some unknown, likely sacrilegious and dangerous strength to forcibly unite these self-serving individuals.
But he didn't care.
For Lucius, who had endured seventy years of suppressed ambition, as long as he could kill Monen and finally claim the throne he had coveted his entire life, he was willing to pay any price and make deals with any entity.
"In this world... who has ever been an imperial prince for seventy years?"
He muttered to himself, his voice low and hoarse, in the empty hall.
Even if Monen spared his life out of familial affection, the lingering, wretched existence that would follow would be more unbearable than death itself.
Seventy years of waiting, seventy years of deception—and now, with the summit within reach, was it all about to crumble?
He couldn't accept it!
He had believed that the combined forces of the nobles would be enough to shake the kingdom, at least delaying Monen's advance and perhaps even forcing him to compromise. But reality had delivered a crushing blow.
Barely a month after news of Monen's return spread, his terrifying army had swept through the land unopposed, now standing at the city gates.
This overwhelming speed sent a chill to his bones and made his heart pound with dread.
"Useless... all of them are utterly useless!"
The suppressed rage and fear finally breached the dam of reason. Lucius roared, his voice echoing through the empty hall.
"They're all so eager to scheme for power and wealth, yet when it truly matters, they can't even slow him down! And those soldiers... after all the years we've maintained them..."
As he wallowed in his venomous curses and terror, an unusually heavy, rhythmic sound—distinctly different from the footsteps of anyone in the imperial palace—began to echo from the far end of the deep corridor, growing steadily louder.
Thump... thump... thump...
The measured footsteps echoed through the hall, each stride landing as if directly on Lucius's heart.
The unsettling weight of the sound shattered the deathly silence, instantly choking off the curse Lucius had been about to utter.
The heavy footsteps halted in the vast throne room. The newcomer was Duke Arno.
Yet Lucius sensed immediately that the Arno before him was different from the man he knew.
The duke's once-stern, soldierly face now carried an almost feminine, subtle shift—an indescribable, unsettling change.
But Lucius, his mind reeling in chaos, had no time to dwell on this subtle anomaly.
Like a drowning man grasping at driftwood, he stumbled toward Arno, his voice trembling with terror.
"Arno! You're back! Tell me, what's the plan? What plan do we have to repel him?"
Arno gazed at the utterly distraught imperial prince, a barely perceptible curve tugging at the corner of his lips.
Instead of answering directly, Arno leisurely walked to a nearby chair and sat down with an elegance that seemed utterly out of place in the tense atmosphere.
He even picked up the silver teapot from the table and poured himself a cup of long-cold black tea, taking a delicate sip.
"Your Highness, why the panic?" Arno asked, his voice sounding less rough than usual, now carrying a hint of huskiness and a peculiar, magnetic resonance, as if the structure of his vocal cords had undergone a subtle transformation.
This subtle change went unnoticed by Lucius, who was solely focused on the method that could save him from disaster.
"The method! Tell me your method!" he demanded, almost shouting.
Arno set down his teacup, his fingertips tapping lightly on the table. In his mind's eye, he recalled the scene he had witnessed at the High Tower not long ago.
The so-called wizards were bustling around a complex ritual, attempting to jointly cast what they considered their trump card: the maze technique.
At the memory, the true controller deep within Arno's consciousness couldn't help but let out a derisive snort.
"What a pitiful, broken age. A mere eighth-circle spell requires such elaborate rituals and the combined efforts of multiple spellcasters just to barely function."
"The maze technique should theoretically be highly effective against knights like Monen, who rely solely on brute force and Battle Qi. If cast by a truly powerful spellcaster, it could banish the King to a labyrinth of space-time, or even combine with the teleportation technique for permanent exile. But these half-baked wizards..."
A flicker of undisguised contempt flashed in Arno's eyes.
"By relying on these contrived rituals, the spell's stability and precision are severely compromised. Whether it will even hit its target is uncertain. And even if it does, with Monen's strength, breaking through such a feeble labyrinthine restraint would likely be only a matter of time. However..."
Thinking of the subtle manipulations he had made earlier, the Duke of the Eastern Territory's lips curled upward involuntarily, forming a twisted smile that was far from human—a smile brimming with malice and delight.
"This clumsy attempt has provided me with the perfect opportunity."
"If Monen were to die, the entire kingdom would plunge into an unprecedented power vacuum. What glorious chaos and despair would unfold across this fertile land!"
With these thoughts, Arno turned his gaze back to the anxiously awaiting Lucius, his voice now hoarse yet strangely hypnotic.
"Your Highness, there is indeed a way, but it requires you to... summon a certain measure of courage and resolve."
The inhuman smile on Arno's face deepened, becoming even more profound.
"Courage... resolve..."
Lucius unconsciously repeated the words, his brow furrowing. A nameless anger flared within him at Arno's deliberate mystification.
This was a matter of life and death. What need was there for such empty rhetoric?
Yet Arno ignored the rising anger on Lucius's face, fixing him with eyes that had grown unfathomably deep. In a flat tone, he posed a seemingly unrelated question:
"Your Highness, the blood of King Monen flows through your veins, does it not?"
Caught off guard by the abrupt question, Lucius nodded almost instinctively.
"Of course! I am his eldest son!"
His words carried a hint of humiliation at having his bloodline questioned, mixed with a sense of entitlement.
"Your Highness still hasn't answered me. Do you possess the courage and resolve necessary?"
Lucius, provoked by this relentless questioning, felt his suppressed fear instantly transform into a surge of impulsive rage. He snarled without thinking, "Courage? Resolve? After all this, you still ask me that? Of course I do!"
Arno responded to Lucius's outburst with a hint of almost gleeful appreciation. This was precisely the desperate, reckless determination it needed—the kind born from being pushed to the brink.
"Excellent."
Arno's voice deepened, its peculiar magnetic quality resonating with a rhythmic cadence that seemed to burrow into Lucius's mind.
"Then, Your Highness, one final question... To achieve your goal, to utterly kill King Monen and end his reign, are you willing to... pay any price?"
"Any price?"
Lucius repeated the words, his crimson eyes fixed on Arno as if trying to discern the hidden meaning behind them. But his desperate desire to grasp at this lifeline overwhelmed all doubts.
"Of course! As long as I can kill him, as long as I can claim the throne, I'm willing to pay any price! Any!"
The last two words were practically screamed, echoing faintly in the vast hall.
The moment his words faded, the hall's light seemed to dim imperceptibly for a split second, as if an invisible shadow had silently spread.
The flames dancing in the fireplace flickered strangely, their color momentarily tinged with an indescribable eerie green before returning to normal so quickly it might have been an illusion.
The inhuman smile on Arno's face widened.
Without a word, he slowly raised his right hand and extended his index finger.
Beneath the skin at his fingertip, faint, black, vein-like patterns flickered briefly before vanishing.
He didn't touch anything, merely tracing an invisible path through the air between them with his fingertip, moving with excruciating slowness.
A faint scent, like iron rust mingled with ancient parchment, filled the air.
Yet when sniffed closely, it seemed merely the smell of aged dust.
Lucius hadn't clearly seen what had happened, nor had he even noticed the subtle anomalies.
But the moment Arno's fingertip brushed past him, he felt a sudden, inexplicable pang of dread, as if something cold and heavy had silently coiled around his soul.
A fleeting sense of indescribable restraint vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving him shivering involuntarily.
He attributed it to his overwhelming tension and fear.
"Very well," Arno repeated, but this time, the meaning in his voice was entirely different. It was no longer a question or confirmation, but a...
declaration.
A declaration that a contract had been sealed.
He slowly rose to his feet, the shadows behind him seeming to lengthen and distort, no longer fully obeying the laws of light.
"Then, Your Highness, rest assured. Everything... has been arranged."
A barely perceptible, almost imperceptible curve tugged at the corner of Arno's lips.
Just as Lucius was growing increasingly confused and agitated by this cryptic exchange, he suddenly felt a strange chill in his left chest—not a bone-chilling cold, but a...
A hollow, empty chill, as if something vital had been lost.
He instinctively lowered his gaze.
The next moment, his pupils constricted to pinpricks.
Beneath his opulent formal attire, a fist-sized hole had silently appeared in his left chest.
There were no signs of a sharp blade. The edges of the flesh were impossibly smooth, as if annihilated by some incomprehensible force.
Most bizarrely, not a single drop of blood flowed from the wound, revealing only the stark emptiness within.
His heart, which should have been beating powerfully there, was gone.
The vitality of life was draining away through that void. Lucius could clearly feel the core that sustained his existence slipping away.
Overwhelmed by terror and bewilderment, he jerked his head up, staring incredulously at Arno, who stood mere inches away.
Arno's right hand, which had moments ago been holding a teacup with an air of elegant harmlessness, now lay calmly open.
In the palm of his hand, a living heart pulsed slowly and stubbornly.
With each contraction and expansion, it radiated a faint halo of light and a vibrant life force.
The heart was unmistakably the one that had just been missing from Lucius's chest.
The scene before him defied Lucius's comprehension.
He even forgot to scream.
He could only stare fixedly at his own heart, still beating in his enemy's hand, a guttural "gurgle" escaping his throat. His strength completely drained, he slumped backward in slow motion.
Arno lowered his gaze, studying the organ that sustained life and bloodline as if admiring a perfect work of art.
A bizarre smile, tinged with both satisfaction and cruelty, spread across his now more feminine face.
The flickering candlelight in the throne hall cast the scene in the manner of a dark, blasphemous ritual.
And that heart, detached from its body yet still beating, seemed to foreshadow a terror far beyond mortal imagination—a terror whose prelude had only just begun.
(End of the Chapter)
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