Chapter : 943
Kael’s fanatical training held. He clenched his jaw, his eyes darting towards the forest, a flicker of desperate hope that Jager might return.
It was this flicker that sealed his fate. Lloyd saw it, and his patience evaporated completely. He was done with the games.
He did not raise his voice. He did not issue a threat. He simply activated his power.
His sclera flashed black for an instant. An invisible, metaphysical seal, the quiet, terrifying power of the Black Ring Eyes, settled over Kael. It was not a seal of pain or confusion. It was the Seal of Severed Hope.
Kael’s world did not go dark. It did not go silent. It simply… emptied. The desperate, flickering hope of rescue, the defiant spark of his fanatical loyalty, the memory of his master’s power—it all vanished. He was left in a profound, internal void, a state of absolute, soul-deep despair. There was no past, no future, only a crushing, eternal, and meaningless present. His will to resist, his very identity as a warrior, was not broken; it was surgically, completely, and silently erased.
His body began to tremble uncontrollably. A low, keening whimper escaped his lips. His eyes, which had held a spark of defiance, were now the wide, terrified eyes of a lost child.
Lloyd released the seal. The sudden rush of sensation, of hope and memory and identity flooding back into the void, was a form of torture more profound than any physical pain. Kael screamed, a raw, ragged sound of a soul that had just been unmade and then hastily reassembled.
“The Altamiras,” he sobbed, the words tumbling out in a desperate, incoherent flood. “A shadow directive from the Crown Prince himself. The target was you. The objective was… destabilization. A message to your father. He said… he said the North was getting too proud.”
The confession was a torrent, a broken dam of names, dates, and operational details. He revealed their benefactor was a high-ranking minister in the Altamiran court, a man known only by the codename ‘The Curator.’ He confirmed that the Soul Catcher was a relic from the Old War, a weapon of last resort.
Lloyd listened with a cold, dispassionate focus, his mind filing away each piece of intelligence. The name ‘The Curator’ resonated with a dark familiarity from the fragmented memories of his past life. This was not just a random act of aggression; it was a continuation of an old, bitter war.
When Kael’s confession finally subsided into ragged, exhausted sobs, Lloyd stood up. He looked at Ken. “Secure the asset. We are taking him with us. He will be a… gift for my father’s interrogators.”
Ken nodded, producing a set of heavy, spirit-dampening manacles from a pouch at his belt. As he moved to bind the weeping assassin, Habiba finally spoke, her voice quiet but firm.
“My lord,” she said, her gaze fixed on Lloyd. “His partner. Jager. He is still out there. He is wounded, but he is a King-Rank user. He is a threat.”
Lloyd turned to her, his face a calm, unreadable mask. “I know,” he said. “And he is angry. He is humiliated. And he believes he knows my true power. He will come for me again. And when he does, he will not be prepared for what is waiting for him.” He looked towards the carriage, where the silent, beautiful, and terrifyingly intelligent Princess of Zakaria was waiting. “The game has just been elevated. And we now have a new piece to play.”
The aftermath of the battle was a study in silent, professional efficiency. While Ken secured their prisoner, binding Kael in manacles that not only restricted his movement but also actively suppressed his spiritual core, Habiba performed a swift, tactical sweep of the clearing. She moved with a hunter’s grace, her eyes scanning the ground, reading the story of the fight in the churned earth and shattered trees. She confirmed that Jager had left no traps, no lingering magical signatures, save for the faint, foul taint of the Soul Catcher, which was already dissipating in the rain.
Lloyd, meanwhile, turned his attention to the carriage. He approached the door, his hand resting on the handle for a long moment. He was no longer the all-powerful Water-Knight or the cold, calculating Commander. He was a young man, covered in mud and the psychic residue of a life-or-death battle, about to face a power in many ways more formidable than any assassin: a deeply intelligent and justifiably concerned princess.
Chapter : 944
He slid the door open. Amina was exactly as he had left her, seated with a perfect, regal posture. The only sign of the turmoil she had just witnessed was the fact that her hands, which had been resting in her lap, were now clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists. Her obsidian eyes were fixed on him, and they held not fear, but a burning, analytical intensity.
“A report, Lord Ferrum,” she said, her voice a low, level command. “Now.”
Lloyd stepped into the carriage, the scent of rain and battle clinging to him. He gave her a concise, brutally honest assessment, the way a field commander would brief his sovereign. He detailed the assassins' ranks—King and Crown. He explained the forbidden nature of the Soul Catcher artifact and its spirit-sealing properties. He recounted his own counter-measure, the summoning of the two Commander Ranked spirits, framing it as a desperate, high-risk gambit. He concluded with the capture of Kael and the escape of Jager.
Amina listened without interruption, her gaze never leaving his face. When he was finished, she was silent for a long time.
“Two new spirits,” she said finally, her voice a soft, dangerous murmur. “Commander Ranked. Summoned from nothing, inside a perfect spiritual seal. You are not just a paradox, Lloyd Ferrum. You are a walking violation of the fundamental laws of this world.”
“I have been told I am a man of many hidden talents,” Lloyd replied, a ghost of a weary smile touching his lips.
“Your talents are not hidden,” she corrected him, her eyes sharp with a new, profound understanding. “They are merely… compartmentalized. The humble doctor. The ruthless industrialist. The peerless warrior. And now, the miracle worker who can pull new gods from an empty hat.” She leaned forward, her intensity a palpable force. “The question is no longer what you are. The question is, who is the real Lloyd Ferrum? Which one of those men is the mask, and which one is the true face?”
It was the most dangerous question anyone had ever asked him. It was a question that cut through all his layers of deception, all his carefully constructed personas, and aimed directly at the fractured, chaotic truth of his soul.
He met her gaze, and for the first time, he did not have a pre-planned answer, a clever deflection, a strategic lie. He was too tired, too raw from the battle. So he gave her the only thing he had left.
The truth.
“They all are,” he said, his voice quiet, stripped of all artifice. “And none of them are. They are… tools. Parts of a machine that I am building to survive. The real me… is the engineer who is trying to keep the damned thing from flying apart.”
The confession, so raw, so honest, and so utterly unexpected, seemed to stun her. The analytical gaze of the princess softened, replaced by something else, something deeper. A flicker of empathy. Of understanding.
She reached out, her fingers gently touching the back of his hand. It was a simple, fleeting gesture, but it was more intimate than any of their previous conversations. “Then we must ensure,” she said softly, her voice once again holding the warmth of Sumaiya, “that your machine has the strongest possible allies. Jager will report his failure to his master, The Curator. The Altamirans will escalate. They will not send assassins next time. They will send an army. Our three-month trial is no longer a diplomatic game. It is a race. We must be ready for the war that is coming.”
In that moment, they were no longer a Lord and a Princess, a doctor and an attendant. They were two soldiers, two survivors, who had just stared into the abyss together and had not flinched. The treaty they had signed in the palace was now sealed in the blood and fire of the battlefield. The journey was far from over, but now, they would face it not just as allies, but as partners in a war for the future of their world.
The journey back to the Ferrum estate was a descent into a new kind of silence. The chaotic violence of the ambush and the heady adrenaline of their victory faded, replaced by a heavy, contemplative quiet. The carriage, once a mobile war room buzzing with strategy and revelation, now felt like a sealed chamber where four powerful, exhausted souls were left to process the brutal realities of their new, intertwined destinies.