The Return Of The Exiled Villain

"Seraph’s mine."

The words landed harder than the scream still tearing out of Prince Aerion.

The hall, which had just begun to move, froze again. Elven escorts had reached the prince. One of them was already pressing cloth to the open wrist.

Another had drawn a slender blade and pointed it at Gray, then stopped, because the palace guards were doing the same and no one wanted to be the first to step into that line.

The Emperor rose from his chair.

For a moment he did not speak.

The warmth he had used to welcome the vampires was gone. What remained was the look of a man who had just been struck in front of his own court.

"You actually... dared to..."

"And so?" Gray smiled mockingly.

"Seize him!" a captain shouted.

Three guards instantly moved at the command.

Swoop!

The first came in from the right, blade aimed at Gray’s shoulder.

The second dropped low for his legs while the third went straight down the center, trying to pin him before he could take another step toward the dais.

Gray moved at once.

Clank!

His rapier met the center blade with a short, ugly clang and slid off it.

He turned his body just enough for the first cut to pass his coat.

The low strike scraped stone where his ankle had been a breath earlier. It looked almost lazy, but to the court, it looked like a student surviving on luck.

Swoosh!

Along with those guards, the Elven escorts left Prince Aerion’s side and spread out.

Instantly, their saint-level pressure rolled off two of them.

The palace guards were not far behind.

Most of them sat at the peak of the King Realm, but their captain was also pretty strong.

His presence rose to Saint-level as he drew a heavier sword and cut off Gray’s retreat toward the doors.

"Surround him!"

"Don’t let him near His Majesty!"

"Take the arm if you cannot take the head!"

Blades closed in from six directions.

Gray gave ground in small steps, rapier flicking from one line to the next.

He parried an elven thrust, turned a palace cut aside, then ducked under a second elf’s horizontal slash.

Swip!

Sparks jumped off the polished floor.

A noble table overturned when a missed strike carved through its edge. Wine and glass burst across the stone.

No one came to help him.

Aurora’s fingers had already curled at her side. One look from Gray earlier in the week had been enough.

She stayed where she was, jaw tight, and did not step in.

Seraph stood frozen near the dais, the space in front of her still empty.

Maelis had started forward and then stopped, caught between the guards and the fact that this was no longer a dance floor.

The Emperor watched from above it all.

"Is this the genius who won the Inter-Academy Exchange?" he said, loud enough for the hall to hear.

"A boy who cut a prince’s hand and now hides behind footwork? You embarrassed my court. You insulted an ally. And now you cannot even stand still against men who guard this palace every night."

An elven Saint drove in harder.

Claaang!

Gray’s rapier caught the blow near the hilt.

The impact shoved him back two steps.

A palace guard used that opening and slashed across his side.

Rip...!

Drip!

His clothes tore as a thin line of blood appeared on his side. Just then, the captain came next, all of his force crashing down in a vertical cut meant to break him in half.

Gray slid aside.

The captain’s sword smashed into the floor and split a crack through the marble.

CRAACK!

Dust jumped.

The nearest nobles screamed and fell back.

"Look at him," the Emperor continued.

"Even now he holds that little rapier as if this were still a student match. Winning a tournament does not make you a man who can stand in front of a throne. It makes you arrogant. And arrogance dies quickly in my hall."

Gray completely ignored the Emperor’s words.

Another elf circled behind him.

Two peak-King guards pressed from the front.

The captain recovered and came again, faster this time.

Gray’s coat was cut a second time at the sleeve.

A shallow line opened on his forearm. To the court, he looked like he was being forced smaller and smaller inside a closing ring.

That was the point.

He was holding back.

The Emperor saw only a student surrounded by Saints and peak Kings.

"Kneel," the Emperor said.

"Before I have them take your legs as well as your pride."

At those words, Gray’s eyes lifted.

He smiled in a devilish way.

After all... just like in the tournament, the guards had appeared in a single flat line in his vision.

The Northern Duchess noticed and smiled directly. For the little time she spent with Gray, she had noticed something...

He doesn’t fight a battle he isn’t sure that he’s going to win.

Fwip!

The rapier moved as if the last minute of defense had been a lie.

SPLURT!

The first guard’s head left his shoulders before his blade finished its downward cut.

The second followed in the same motion, Gray’s point already gone from one throat and through the next.

The third had time only to widen his eyes.

Then his head was in the air with the other two.

Thump... roll...

Three heads crossed the hall under the chandeliers.

Blood sprayed across white marble and gold-trimmed pillars.

One head struck a fallen chair. Another rolled until it stopped near a spilled tray of glasses. The bodies dropped a second later, still trying to stand.

The surrounding guards froze for half a breath.

It was half a breath too long.

Gray stepped through the gap he had made and let go of the rest of it.

BOOOOOOOOM!

Killing intent exploded out of his body.

It was not the thin pressure of a mere student.

It was dense, black, and sudden, like a door being kicked open inside the hall.

The air instantly dropped; the chandeliers started quivering, almost falling to the ground.

The wine in nearby glasses rippled, then burst.

The Elven guards even staggered as if a mountain had been set on their shoulders.

The guards dropped first, their knees smashing into the floor. A woman in the crowd collapsed outright.

Even the captain’s Saint-level aura buckled.

Bodies hit the marble all at once.

"Guhhg!"

"I-I can’t move!"

"S-Saint cultivation?!"

The shout came from more than one mouth.

An elven escort who had been mid-thrust was flattened on his stomach, his blade skidding away from his hand.

The captain stayed on one knee, both palms pressed to the floor, veins standing out in his neck as he tried to lift his sword and failed.

The Prince Aerion, already pale from blood loss, was forced lower, his remaining hand slipping in the puddle forming under him.

Several nobles who had been standing near the side tables were now cheek-down on the stone, gasping as if the hall itself had become too heavy to inhabit.

Gray stood in the center of it.

His rapier hung at his side, still wet with warm blood.

The cuts on his coat looked almost meaningless now as everyone watched it how it healed at the speed of the naked eye.

"You were talking...?"

The Emperor had not been pressed flat.

His own cultivation held him on his feet, but the ease was gone from his posture.

The mantle on his shoulders no longer made him look untouchable. For the first time that night, the throne behind him seemed farther away than it was.

Step...

Gray walked up the first step.

The Emperor tried to move back and found that his legs no longer obeyed him.

The killing intent had not thrown him to the floor like the others, but it had locked his body in place.

His fingers twitched in empty air.

"Stand properly," Gray said.

The Emperor’s jaw tightened.

"You... are speaking to the ruler of this continent."

"I am speaking to a man who cannot lift his own hand."

A few nobles still conscious enough to watch made a broken sound. One of them tried to look away and could not.

The Emperor, who had toasted alliances and futures only minutes ago, was standing stiff as a statue while a former exile climbed the dais in front of the entire court.

Gray stopped one step below him.

"You sold your daughter in public. You promised royal blood to corpses that still walk... and then you told me to kneel." His head tilted slightly.

"Kneel for me instead."

"I will not..."

The pressure increased.

The Emperor’s knees bent against his will.

Not fully, but enough that the hall saw it. Just enough for the crown on his head to slip to the ground.

Clink... roll...

"Look at them," Gray said, without looking away.

"Your court... your allies. All of them watching you shake under a ’mere student’, huh? Must be quite embarrassing, no~?" he mocked him directly.

The Emperor’s eyes moved, desperate now, searching the hall for anyone still standing with enough power to change the shape of the night.

They stopped on Gloria.

She calmly remained on her feet when most of the room went down. Her gold hair was still in place as if the pressure emitted by Gray didn’t exist at all.

Then, as their eyes locked, she suddenly smiled.

Hope flashed through the Emperor’s eyes so clearly that even the nearest elves saw it.

"Gloria!!"

She walked toward the dais without hurry.

To the Emperor, it must have looked like rescue.

She climbed the steps, stopped in front of him, and looked at the man who had just tried to use her name as a shield.

THUD!

Her heel smashed into his face.

The Emperor’s head snapped to the side. The crown flew off and rang against the throne before rolling down two steps.

Blood burst from his nose and mouth.

He would have fallen completely if Gray’s aura had not already been holding most of his body in place.

Instead, he folded awkwardly, half-standing, half-broken, a red smear blooming across the white-and-gold of his mantle.

"Useless king," Gloria stated coldly.

Her voice was cold enough to silence what little noise had started to return.

"Cannot protect his kingdom, so he even allies with..."

Her gaze traveled to the vampires.

They had been watching the scene with open excitement, red eyes bright, the lead vampire’s smile still intact.

That smile vanished the moment she named them.

"Bloodsuckers."

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The vampires’ auras erupted at once.

Crimson pressure exploded from the three of them, old and vicious, filling the hall with a hunger that made several collapsed nobles choke.

Glasses still standing on the side tables burst.

To this, Gloria lifted her hand and waved it once.

SWOOOSH!

The vampire pressure died as if it had been cut at the root.

The lead vampire staggered.

One of his attendants dropped to a knee; the third coughed blood and stared at Gloria as if the world had stopped making sense.

In a single motion, she had put them down harder than Gray’s killing intent had put down the palace guards.

Gloria lowered her hand.

"Stay there," she said.

"The adults are talking."