Chapter 282: Order Above All
Volgar exhaled with a start, staring at him:
"V-Valerius...?"
Valerius caught the stick in his teeth, removed his feet from the table, and leaned his chair forward slightly, continuing to chew the sweet leisurely.
"Yep, that's me. Hey," he said lazily.
The king was still in a stupor of terror, but Valerius, paying no mind to his paralysis, reached out toward the side cabinet, pulled open the drawer, and yanked out a thick document covered in writing. Casting a quick glance at it, he casually hurled the papers across the table right into the king's face:
"Is this not yours by any chance?"
The documents scattered like a rustling fan at Volgar's feet. The king came to his senses instantly, blood rushing to his face from fury and fear. He whipped his head around toward the mages lurking in the corners and roared:
"Hey! What are you standing there like statues for?! Kill him! Kill him immediately!"
Not a sound answered him. Absolute silence hung in the study.
At that very moment, Lucius Feramir stepped forward silently behind Volgar's back. He took a couple of steps forward, ending up right in the middle between the king and Valerius, and spread his hands slightly to the sides:
"Who are you talking to? They're all dead."
The moment Lucius said this, the elite mages who had been hidden up to that moment became distinctly visible: their bodies were brutally pinned to the walls, their heads hung limply on their chests, and wide, congealing trickles of blood were already flowing down their bodies and onto the floor.
Volgar shuddered, shifting a wild gaze from the dead mages to the guards. But they were dead too. After that, he shifted his gaze to the servant by the exit and croaked out:
"Henry..."
The servant sat on the floor, his back leaning against the door, soaked in blood from head to toe, with glazed eyes and not the slightest sign of life.
Lucius lifted his cane slightly and made a sharp sweep, shaking the blood off its tip. Volgar stood opposite, trembling violently all over; a mix of wild horror, panic, and utter incomprehension froze in his eyes.
Taking a step forward, Lucius closed the distance to a minimum. He froze right up against the king, looking at him with a heavy gaze devoid of any humanity, and said quietly:
"Spending your entire budget on this 'party', sincerely hoping you could eliminate all the arriving kings, get away scot-free, and swallow up their nations... thereby turning the lives of ordinary people into hell."
At this soul-chilling tone, Volgar convulsively swallowed and took a couple of steps back, his back nearly crashing into the door. For a second, gathering the remnants of his self-control, he forced a nervous, crooked smile onto his face and croaked:
"You... are you serious? Do you really think I'm capable of that?"
Lucius chuckled silently and took a wide step to the side, clearing the view. Now Volgar clearly saw Valerius sitting at his own desk, continuing to suck on the caramel stick.
"Are you a complete moron?" Lucius snapped coldly, nodding at Valerius. "Isn't this your partner?"
Volgar frantically opened his mouth, gathering strength to scream a denial at the top of his lungs:
"No way, I have no idea who..."
Valerius narrowed his eyes and nodded serenely:
"Yeah, yeah, that's him."
Lucius sighed heavily, spreading his hands with ostentatious regret:
"You're a dead man."
With a wild scream, Volgar spun around and lunged for the study's exit. He frantically yanked the handle, threw the doors open, and flew out into the corridor, hoping to call for help. But right on the threshold, his feet nearly slipped on fresh crimson puddles: the two guards who had been securing the entrance lay on the floor. Dead.
In that exact same second, Lucius's calm, chilling voice echoed like a ringing chime right inside the king's head:
And where do you think you're running?
A strange, unlike-anything-else sound rang out—something between a hollow click and the crunch of tearing reality. Volgar shuddered all over, a murky film clouded his eyes... and in the next instant, he found himself standing in the middle of his study again. The doors in front of him were locked tight.
Lucius leaned against the edge of the desk and shook his head:
"Jeez... You people all fall for illusions way too easily."
Volgar breathed convulsively and raggedly, looking over the dead bodies of the mages arranged along the walls. Cold sweat poured down his forehead in sheets. A single insane hope raced through his mind, and he choked out:
"Or maybe... maybe this is all just an illusion too...?"
In that very second, Lucius materialized silently right beside him, peering straight into the king's eyes:
"Nope, this isn't an illusion."
Lucius took a step back and then added:
"Though it would've been way cooler if it was, right?"
Volgar swallowed nervously, a wild, crooked smirk spreading across his lips. He whispered nervously and hysterically, cracking into a hoarse laugh:
"You're a monster... You fucking monster!"
Lucius tilted his head slightly and adjusted his tone coldly:
"Me? Nope. First and foremost, I'm order. And only after that, maybe a monster."
Before Volgar could even process what happened, Lucius made a lightning-fast, imperceptible movement with his cane. The tip returned to its original position with a dull click, and the cane itself was already resting in his hand, propped against the floor.
Volgar's head remained upright, but a deep puncture passed clear through the middle of his neck. In the next second, a powerful fountain of blood erupted from there under immense pressure, soaking everything around. The king's body slumped limply to the floor, and right after it, his head detached with a thud and rolled across the floor, leaving a wide crimson trail behind.
Lucius glanced at the blood-stained floor, shook off the main droplets with a slight flick, and then discreetly pressed a tiny button on the hilt. Inside the hidden mechanism, a stream of the purest water gushed, washing away the remnants of blood right onto the floor and restoring the cane's flawless shine.
Lucius turned his head slightly toward Valerius and asked calmly:
"Done. Everything's done."
Valerius spat out the wooden stick silently.
Lucius relaxed his grip on the cane slightly, letting it drop freely. The pommel struck the floor with a dull thud, bounced up a couple of centimeters, and Feramir caught it with his fingers.
In that same instant, the illusion dropped across the entire perimeter of the castle and surrounding areas. All the mages, guards, and servants who had been under the influence of his technique came to their senses instantly.
In Volgar's study, Lucius and Valerius dissolved into thin air simultaneously.
In the very next second, right in the spot where Lucius had been standing, Chris appeared. A long, unsheathed sword was clenched in his hand, fresh blood slowly dripping from the blade onto the floor. Chris's gaze itself was directed downward—at the headless corpse of the king.
A fraction of a second later, Versailles's duty mages felt a sharp fading of their ruler's mana.
The first of them, blasting through the locked doors with spells, burst inside, and two others slipped right through the shadows. Seeing the pool of blood, the sprawled bodies of their colleagues, and the figure standing over the headless king, they froze with their eyes widened in speechless horror.
"Bastard!" one of them screamed frantically.
The mages threw their hands up instantly, forming dozens of attacking spells in the air, and unleashed a barrage of attacks upon him. Chris barely resisted, only making sure that the incoming damage looked like a real, hard-fought battle. Flashes of spells covered his silhouette with a roar.
At this time, Lucius was climbing the stairs to the second floor of the main hall alone, calmly shifting his cane from hand to hand. Reaching the balustrade, he hopped up, sat on the carved railing, and dangled his legs right over the hall.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" he shouted so loudly and clearly that his voice instantly cut through all the orchestra's noise and the clinking of glasses.
All the aristocrats and servants fell silent at once, throwing their heads up toward the balustrade.
"I ask for everyone's attention!" Lucius continued. He paused briefly, clearing his throat slightly, and stood up with confidence to his full height right on the narrow railing. "I have some news for you... but please, don't panic. Volgar Bjornsson is dead."
Some of the kings stirred, starting to whisper anxiously and intermittently. Other rulers, however, remained completely cold and indifferent.
One of the duty guards by the hall's tall doors cried out across the entire room involuntarily:
"What do you mean he's dead?! That's impossible!"
Lucius smoothly pointed the tip of his cane right at the shouting guard:
"Unfortunately..." then he whispered barely audibly to himself, ...or fortunately, before continuing aloud, "...he really has perished."
The guard turned pale, looked around wildly, and, breaking from his spot, bolted down the corridor toward the royal wing. The remaining servants and guards froze in mute shock, unable to utter a single word from the terror gripping them.
"But there's no need to worry!" Lucius raised his voice again, wearing a reassuring smile. "The assassin has already been identified."
A wave of fury and muffled murmuring ran through the guards and guests instantly. The guards hardened at once, gripping the hilts of their swords.
At that moment, one of the kings down below frowned and threw out loudly to Lucius:
"Why should we believe you? Besides, you're behaving extremely inappropriately! It does not befit the crown prince of the Avers Kingdom to act this way!"
Lucius placed his hand over his heart politely, tilting his head slightly:
"Yes, that's true. Indeed, I shouldn't be behaving this way, I apologize," with these words, he hopped down lightly from the railing onto the balustrade's carpet runner, and then added in a cold tone: "But the idea that I'm lying? That's incorrect. Ask the mages or guards guarding this castle directly. They will all confirm that it was done by an assassin named Chris."
"And how do you know it was him specifically?!" another aristocrat interrupted immediately. "How do you know his name? How do you even know about the death in the study?! Could it be that you're his accomplice yourself?!"
At these words, the hall's servants and guards stared at Lucius with wild malice and suspicion.
Feramir merely smiled calmly and indulgently:
"Do you really think I didn't hear the screams and groans of the mages who were literally shouting across the whole hallway that the king was dead and the culprit was a man named Chris?"
One of the kings standing below chuckled and shook his head:
"What kind of idiot would say his own name at a crime scene?"
Lucius spread his hands, keeping his flawless smirk:
"I am of the exact same opinion."
At that moment, a deafening, crushing explosion tore through the silence of the hall. The castle shuddered, and dust showered down from the high ceilings. A murmur swept across the hall instantly: some kings and servants exchanged frightened glances, and the guards broke from their spots immediately, running toward the sound—to where the ruler's study was located.
Some kings sighed heavily and muttered with annoyance:
"...And I was just about to forge an alliance with them."
Realizing the evening was completely ruined, these kings shook their heads in disappointment and headed for the exit. Other kings, though harboring intense fear inside, tried not to betray their weakness in any way: they kept their facial expressions as cold as possible and hurried to leave the castle with quickened, rapid steps. There were also those who remained standing in the main hall with a completely unflappable demeanor.
A group of rulers who were striding quickly toward the exit had almost passed through one of the long corridors when the ceiling collapsed right in front of them with a deafening crack. Chris tumbled out onto the corridor floor from above, shrouded in crackling discharges of purple lightning.
The kings recoiled in horror, and Chris, under the weight of the damage dealt to him by the mages, punched through the floor in that very second and dropped even lower—to the lower level. A powerful electrical explosion rang out directly from down below, sending a wave of light and a resounding echo rolling down the corridor.
At this time, Lucius descended unhurriedly from the balustrade to the first floor and strode down the neighboring passage. A couple of steps later, Valerius appeared beside him silently, and they walked on side by side.
Valerius measured Lucius with a long look and couldn't hold it in:
"Well, what was the point of that spectacle? You could've just explained everything normally."
"I was just so bored that I wanted to spice up my presence here somehow," Lucius replied, turning to him on the go and continuing to walk backwards.
"Took you long enough to finish your job."
"Yeah, as if you finished in a second yourself," Valerius snorted.
"Well, actually, I did finish in a second," Lucius threw out with a smirk.
Valerius twisted his face in disbelief, not buying his words. Noticing his expression, Lucius shrugged:
"Well fine, not a second, but ten seconds for sure." He turned around and walked forward normally again. "But honestly, I'd rather have spent more time on it. Still, after that it was so boring that I had to talk to kings. That was absolute torture! And on top of that, I managed to quarrel with two other aristocrats. What was the name of their kingdom again...? Aquitania, sounds like."
Valerius perked up immediately:
"Aquitania?"
"Yep," Lucius smiled.
Valerius shook his head with a smirk too. They kept walking down the corridor, and Valerius asked:
"So who's going to head this kingdom now? He doesn't have any heirs, as I understand it? At any rate, he wasn't at today's gala dinner."
"Correct," Lucius nodded. "But Volgar has an heir. His name is Andrew. Right now he's in another kingdom, and according to my calculations, he should arrive tonight."
"Jeez... Everything's so complicated with these aristocrats," Valerius sighed.
"Well, maybe," Lucius replied, giving a brief shake of his head.
Valerius then asked:
“What about the commoners?”
"Well... they'll hardly want to tell all the townspeople that their king is dead. At the very least, that would be stupid. So most likely, they'll just cover everything up, and Andrew will head the kingdom, becoming the new king."
Lucius thought for a short while and muttered quietly to himself:
He doesn't have a significant other after all... Volgar's wife died of illness in the past. Which means he's going to be completely alone... Boom-boom-boom.
He exhaled loudly, turned to Valerius, and asked:
"Man, we spent so long looking for information about him... right?"
"Nah, seemed fast," Valerius replied. "Just a couple of hours."
"Slow," Lucius objected. "Considering how many years I wanted to kill him, that's a very long time."
Valerius only exhaled. They had already approached the main gates, but didn't open them—both simply vanished silently.
They appeared in the Dark Castle. Outside the window, it was just barely beginning to grow light.
Valerius shook his head and said quietly:
"We could've killed him even earlier."
Lucius, meanwhile, began descending down the ruined staircase, leaping over chasms and cracks in the stone:
"But then we wouldn't have had that helplessness we just saw."
With these words, he dissolved completely into the darkness of the lower tier. Valerius, meanwhile, turned around and walked in the opposite direction.
After some time, passing through the massive threshold, Lucius entered his laboratory. The doors behind him closed with a click. Walking along the workstations, he whispered quietly to himself:
Sorry, Chris...
In that exact same second in the Versailles castle, the mages trapped Chris in a final joint spell. One mage locked him in a dense water trap, a second scorched him with a lightning discharge, and a third materialized right above his head, formed a giant hammer out of earth, and smashed Chris's head in with a crushing blow.
Lucius froze in the middle of his laboratory and finished his thought:
...but you yourself understand that we had no other choice.