Chapter : 913
He then revealed the final, beautiful, and exquisitely cruel layer of his own, masterful deception. “I did not, of course, share this particular detail with Amina. I felt it would be a delightful… surprise… for her to discover on her own, in time.”
Amina, who was standing beside the throne, her own composure now slightly, and very visibly, rattled by the sudden appearance of the King in the shadows, simply gave a small, almost imperceptible shake of her head. Her father was, without a doubt, a brilliant, magnificent, and utterly impossible man.
Lloyd, who was still reeling from the one-two punch of his own betrothal and Ken’s dramatic, power-level-revealing entrance, finally, finally, found his voice. The time for strategy, for subtlety, for the great, intricate game, was over. All that was left was the simple, brutal, and profoundly panicked truth.
“I cannot marry the Princess,” he said, his voice a flat, clear, and utterly, completely, and finally honest statement.
The Sultan’s smile did not falter. “And why is that, my boy? Do you find my daughter not to your liking?”
“No! Of course not! She is… she is magnificent!” Lloyd stammered, his face flushing, a rare, and very human, moment of pure, unadulterated social panic. “It is not that. It is… I am already married.”
He had said it. The bomb had been dropped. The final, terrible, and deeply inconvenient truth was now out in the open.
He braced himself for the explosion. For the fury. For the accusations of treason and insult.
And then, the Sultan did the one, single, and most infuriatingly unpredictable thing he could possibly have done.
He laughed.
It was not a chuckle. It was a full-throated, genuine, and utterly unrestrained roar of pure, unadulterated, and deeply appreciative laughter. He threw his head back and laughed until tears streamed from his eyes.
“Married!” he finally managed to say, wiping a tear from his eye. “Oh, my boy. My dear, sweet, and wonderfully naive northern boy. Do you truly believe that a simple, pre-existing contract is an obstacle? I am the Sultan! I can have your previous marriage annulled with a single, handwritten note! In this kingdom, a man of your station, of your power, is not just allowed to have multiple wives; it is expected! It is a sign of his strength, of his prosperity! To have only one wife is a sign of… well, of a certain, northern, and deeply provincial lack of imagination.”
He was not angry. He was not insulted. He was amused. Deeply, profoundly, and almost paternally, amused. He saw not a political crisis, but a quaint, almost charming, cultural misunderstanding.
Lloyd’s last, desperate, and truth-based defense had just been casually, cheerfully, and completely negated.
And then, as if the universe had decided that he had not yet suffered enough, a new, and even more terrible, thing happened.
As he was standing there, his mind a complete and utter blank, a faint, golden light began to glow from the very air around him. It was a warm, beautiful, and deeply, profoundly ominous light. It began to coalesce, to weave itself into a series of intricate, shimmering, and very familiar-looking runes.
The runes of the Jahl Challenge contract.
The light grew brighter, the runes locking into place around him, forming a silent, beautiful, and utterly inescapable cage of pure, binding, and ritual magic.
“Ah,” the Sultan said, his laughter finally subsiding, a look of pure, satisfied admiration on his face. “And there it is. The final, beautiful, and non-negotiable seal. The unbreakable vow. The magic of the Challenge itself, acknowledging its victor, and binding him to his true, and now declared, prize.”
Ken Park, the King in the shadows, stepped forward, his own crimson-glowing eyes narrowed in a look of profound, and deeply professional, concentration. He reached out a hand, not to touch the golden cage, but to feel its resonance, its power.
He was silent for a long moment, his face a mask of grim, analytical focus. And then he looked at Lloyd, and the look in his eyes was one of final, absolute, and utter defeat.
“The seal is of the Old Magic, Young Master,” he said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble of pure, unadulterated bad news. “It is woven into the very fabric of your Spirit Core. It is a bond of will, and of law. To break it by force would be… unwise. Even your father, the Arch Duke, could not easily sever such a bond without causing a profound, and very public, international incident.”
The final, beautiful, and exquisitely cruel nail had just been hammered into his matrimonial coffin.
He was not just betrothed. He was magically, ritually, and now, apparently, irrevocably… bound.
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Chapter : 914
Question Desk: So why did the Sultan, a man of supreme intelligence, say Lloyd has three spirits?
The answer is that the Sultan's statement is a deliberate in-character misinterpretation based on the limited, but overwhelming, magical evidence he has. He is making a logical, but ultimately incorrect, deduction. This isn't a continuity error; it's a reflection of how a character within the world would process a reality-breaking phenomenon.
Here is the step-by-step logic the Sultan and his mages would have followed to arrive at this flawed, but perfectly rational, conclusion:
The Sultan's Calculation
1. Spirit #1 (The Observed): Ifrit
a) This is the one everyone saw. A magnificent, powerful, Ascended/Commander-level fire demon. This is a hard, undeniable fact. It is Spirit #1.
2. Spirit #2 (The Detected): Fang Fairy
a) As the Sultan revealed, his mages were not watching the fight; they were watching Lloyd. They detected a second, powerful, but dormant, spirit core residing "within his soul."
b) This core would have a distinct elemental signature—lightning and storm—completely different from Ifrit's fire.
c) To a mage in this world, a separate, powerful, and bound spiritual entity within a person's soul is, by definition, a spirit. So, they correctly identified the presence of Fang Fairy. This is Spirit #2.
3. Spirit #3 (The Misinterpreted): Ken Park
a) This is the critical leap. A man, Ken Park, suddenly appears from the shadows. He is not just powerful; he is radiating the pressure of a King-Level Transcendent. This level of power is mythical, the stuff of legends.
b) This King-Level being is not an equal or an ally. He is a bodyguard. He shows absolute, unquestioning loyalty and subservience to Lloyd.
c) The Sultan, as a master strategist and a King-Level user himself, knows that a being of such immense power would never act as a simple retainer or bodyguard. Why would a king serve a prince? It defies all known political and power dynamics.
d) Therefore, the Sultan makes the most logical deduction he can, based on the impossible evidence: Ken Park is not a man. He is Lloyd's third, and most powerful, spirit. A spirit so incredibly advanced that it can maintain a perfect, stable, and long-term physical form, acting as a "bodyguard" in disguise.
Why This Misinterpretation is So Logical (From His Perspective)
a) It Explains the Loyalty: The absolute master-servant bond between Lloyd and Ken makes perfect sense if it's a master-spirit bond. It's the only explanation for why a King-Level being would show such deference.
b) It Fits the "Anomaly" Profile: The Sultan already knows Lloyd is a walking paradox who breaks all the rules. The idea that he has a third, even more powerful spirit that can masquerade as a human fits perfectly with the profile of the "beautiful, and utterly terrifying, anomaly" he's already built.
c) The Line Blurs at King-Level: At the King-Level of Transcendence, a user's power is so immense that the distinction between a "human" and a "spiritual entity" can become blurred to outside observers. Ken's very presence feels like a force of nature, just as a powerful spirit's would.
In summary: The Sultan's statement is not the objective truth of the story. It is the Sultan's subjective truth, his working theory based on the evidence. He sees one spirit, detects a second, and misinterprets a third, arriving at the logical, if incorrect, conclusion that Lloyd Ferrum is the master of three high-level spirits, with his seemingly human bodyguard being the most powerful of them all.
This creates fantastic dramatic irony, where the reader knows the truth, but the characters are operating on a flawed, and far more terrifying, assumption. It elevates Lloyd's perceived power and mystique in their eyes to an even more legendary level.
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The golden cage of light that surrounded Lloyd was not a physical barrier; it was a thing of pure, conceptual power. It did not burn. It did not shock. It simply… was. It was a silent, beautiful, and utterly absolute statement of fact, a piece of ancient, ritual magic that had sunk its ethereal, and very sharp, hooks directly into the core of his soul. He was a fish, and he had not just been caught; he had been tagged, bagged, and was now legally, and magically, the property of the Zakarian Royal Fishery.
The Major General’s mind, which had been so brutally, and so repeatedly, knocked off its feet, finally, and with a great, groaning effort, staggered back into a state of something resembling functional analysis. He was trapped. The word was no longer a metaphor; it was a precise, technical, and magically binding description of his current reality.
He looked at the two architects of his magnificent doom. The Sultan was a picture of serene, paternal satisfaction. The Princess Amina, however, was a different story. He could see, even through her veil, that her posture had changed. The cool, confident amusement was gone, replaced by a new, and very real, stiffness. He saw a flicker of genuine, almost alarmed, concern in her dark, intelligent eyes.