Chapter 141: [X] Chapter 141: Abyss Blood [ Golden Ticket Bonus - ]
Theron’s voice cut cleanly through the residual noise of the hall.
"The Third Prince, Alexander Abyss is the winner."
The official declaration landed with the weight of finality.
The earlier eruption of reactions had not fully died, but the instructor’s call forced the volume down into a lower, more controlled rumble.
People still talked.
Some still gestured toward the circle.
The Abyss section remained the loudest by a clear margin, but the pure chaos of the first few seconds after the match ended had settled into something sharper and more focused.
Reports were already forming in a dozen different minds.
"Hmm...it was a good fight."
He turned and walked toward Zara.
She stood near the boundary between the Abyss and Winterfang sections, exactly where he expected her to be.
His pace stayed steady even though blood continued to run down his left arm from the cut Rylan had landed near the end of the exchange.
Zara’s presence through the bond was quiet and satisfied.
She waited with her arms loosely crossed, expression calm in the middle of the lingering noise.
’Well, congrats, that was great for your first time using your Shadow Mantle in an active fight, there were a few things that could have been better, but we’ll talk about those later...’
He was almost to her when a broad-shouldered man from the Abyss section stepped forward with a loud, boisterous laugh that cut across the nearer conversations and drew several pairs of eyes.
"Hah! Look at that!"
"The boy finally shows them what true Abyss blood looks like in a real fight!"
Alex narrowed his eyes slightly.
The face was vaguely familiar.
’Hmm? Where have I seen him before?’
He had seen it before somewhere in the palace corridors or on the edges of formal gatherings, but the details refused to surface into anything useful.
The man was large, heavily built, with the kind of presence that filled space without needing rank or title to do the work.
The smell of alcohol clung to him in a thick, unmistakable layer that reached Alex even at a short distance and mixed unpleasantly with the residual scent of blood and dust from the circle.
The man kept talking, volume high enough for half the nearby platforms to hear without effort.
"I never doubted you for a single moment!"
"The rest of them can talk all they want about if you are Level 0 or not, and missing records and impossible attributes, but the Abyss Blood tells the truth eventually."
"The boy is just twelve and he definitely carries the real thing, and today he finally put it on display for every household watching."
"Let them write their reports and let them try to explain what they just saw with their own eyes."
Several other Abyss retainers joined in at once.
Open praise and approving shouts.
A few sharp nods of pure satisfaction directed at Alex as if the match had been a personal victory for the entire section rather than a three versus one spar that had ended with three Level 10 recruits outside the ring.
Alex ignored all of it.
He stopped a few steps from Zara and looked at the broad-shouldered man.
"Who are you and why do you stink of alcohol?" he asked flatly.
The question landed in a sudden pocket of silence that spread farther than the words themselves.
The broad shouldered man froze.
Pure shock wiped the boisterous grin off his face in a single heartbeat.
His mouth opened, closed, then opened again without any sound coming out.
The idea that the Third Prince of the Abyss household did not even know who he was appeared to short circuit whatever response he had prepared in advance.
The alcohol flush on his cheeks deepened under the sudden attention.
A few people from the Abyss section visibly struggled to keep their faces straight.
One younger retainer near the railing clamped a hand over his mouth and looked away.
From the Winterfang side, several officers turned their heads with the tight, controlled expressions of people fighting very hard not to laugh in public while still maintaining the dignity of their household.
The silence stretched just long enough to become uncomfortable.
Alex waited.
He had asked a simple question, so expected a simple answer.
The blood on his arm continued its slow path toward his wrist.
The residual noise of the hall pressed in around the small circle of attention that had formed around the three of them, but none of it mattered until the man in front of him produced an actual name.
Zara’s voice came through the bond, dry and faintly amused.
’You really do not know who he is, do you.’
’Should I?’
’Apparently yes, try not to make it worse than it already is.’
’Then why don’t you tell me who he is?’
’I like a little drama!’
’What...’
Alex kept his eyes on the man and waited for an actual answer if Zara wasn’t going to tell him.
He saw no reason to fill the silence himself.
The man had chosen to step forward and speak.
The least he could do was identify himself properly before offering opinions about his bloodlines and other’s reports.
The broad shouldered retainer finally found his voice again, though it came out several degrees quieter than the earlier boasting and carried a clear note of disbelief.
"You...you really don’t know who I am?"
He stopped, clearly still processing the fact that a full introduction was required at all in this situation.
Around them the hall continued its lower, more focused murmur.
The match was over.
The winner had been declared.
The political weight of what had just happened was already spreading through every conversation on the platforms, and none of it changed the fact that a basic question still stood unanswered in the middle of the floor.
Alex’s attention remained fixed on the one person in front of him who still owed him a name and identity.
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End of Chapter 141: Abyss Blood
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