Episode-224

Words : 1585 Updated : Sep 29th, 2025

Chapter : 447 Or was it one of them? A ghost from Earth? Had one of his old enemies already infiltrated his life so completely, so seamlessly, that they had placed a spy in the very heart of his new empire? The thought was a jolt of ice-cold dread. It was a move worthy of Colonel Volkov, a classic piece of long-game espionage. The questions churned, a vortex of suspicion and doubt with no anchor of certainty. He looked down at the ledger, at the names, the locations, the operational details of the Gilded Hand. His initial plan—a clean, surgical strike, using the city’s own institutions to dismantle the counterfeiters—now felt hopelessly, laughably, naive. He couldn't just crush them. Not anymore. They were no longer just the enemy. They were a clue. The key to uncovering the traitor in his own house. Jacob Croft, the pathetic, embezzling guild master, had just become the most important man in his entire investigation. He had to be taken. He had to be interrogated. And he had to talk. Lloyd closed the ledger with a soft, final thud. The cold, triumphant thrill of the hunter was gone, replaced by the grim, weary resolve of a commander who has just learned there is a saboteur in his own command tent. The external war against the counterfeiters had just become a secondary front. The real war, the more dangerous, more painful war, was the one he now had to fight within his own walls, against an enemy who wore the face of a friend. He rose from his desk, the weight of this new, terrible knowledge settling on his shoulders like a shroud of lead. The loneliness of his position had never felt so absolute. He had power. He had resources. He had a brilliant mind and the experience of three lifetimes. But in this moment, surrounded by the ghosts of betrayal, Lord Lloyd Ferrum was well and truly, devastatingly, alone. The first step was not to attack the Gilded Hand. The first step was to set a trap. A trap for a viper that was nestled, warm and content, in the heart of his own home. The study of Headmaster Valerius was a chamber out of time, a place where the frantic, messy present seemed to hold no sway. The air was a quiet, scholarly perfume of ancient paper, dried herbs, and the faint, almost imperceptible hum of contained magical artifacts that had slumbered on the towering shelves for centuries. The light, filtering through the high, arched windows, was soft, golden, illuminating a world of quiet, absolute order. Valerius himself sat behind his massive, petrified ironwood desk, a figure as ancient and timeless as the room itself, his long white beard a river of snow against the deep, midnight blue of his robes. He was examining a small, intricate orrery, its tiny, magically suspended planets of polished gemstone and silver tracing slow, silent, cosmic orbits above his gnarled hand. A soft, respectful knock on the heavy oak door broke the serene silence. “Enter,” Valerius rumbled, his voice the sound of ancient stones grinding together, his pale, sea-glass eyes not lifting from the intricate dance of the miniature planets. A senior faculty aide, a man named Professor Orin whose field was advanced magical history and whose demeanor was one of perpetual, nervous anxiety, scurried into the room. He clutched a sealed parchment scroll in his hand as if it were a live, and particularly venomous, snake. He bowed deeply, his face pale, his brow beaded with a fine sheen of sweat. “Headmaster Valerius, sir,” Orin began, his voice a reedy, breathless whisper. “My apologies for the intrusion. But... an incident. A most... irregular... incident. In Professor Ferrum’s Special Category class.” Valerius’s hand, which had been gently guiding the tiny orbit of a sapphire moon, stilled. He finally looked up, his pale eyes, sharp and piercing as shards of ice, fixing on the nervous professor. He said nothing. He simply waited. His silence was more commanding than any shout. “It was... Lord Victor, Headmaster,” Orin stammered, unnerved by the intensity of the old man’s gaze. “He... he confronted Professor Ferrum. In front of the entire class. And Princess Isabella.” The addition of the Princess’s name made Orin visibly flinch. “Go on, Professor Orin,” Valerius prompted, his voice still a low, calm rumble, betraying nothing. Orin swallowed hard, unrolling the parchment with trembling hands. It was his formal report, a detailed, almost moment-by-moment account of the confrontation, which he had compiled from the frantic, terrified, and slightly contradictory testimonies of several students who had fled the classroom the moment the ordeal was over. He began to read, his voice gaining a slightly hysterical, breathless quality as he recounted the events. Chapter : 448 He described Victor’s arrogant taunts, his goading, his mockery of Lloyd’s past failures. He detailed Lloyd’s calm, almost clinical, psychological dismantling of Victor’s aggression. And then, his voice dropped to a shocked, almost fearful whisper, as he reached the climax. “And then, Headmaster... then Lord Victor... he crossed a line. A terrible line. He... he publicly insulted the Arch Duke and... and the Duchess.” Orin’s own voice trembled with a kind of second-hand horror at the sheer, unthinkable blasphemy of the act. “He called the Arch Duke ashamed, and the Duchess... he implied she was cursed with a... a failure for a son.” He paused, taking a ragged breath, bracing himself for the Headmaster’s explosion of righteous fury. Such an insult to a great Ducal house, an act of near-treason committed within the hallowed halls of the Academy itself... it was an unprecedented scandal. Valerius’s expression did not change. He continued to stroke his long white beard thoughtfully, his pale eyes distant. “And Professor Ferrum’s response?” he asked, his voice still unnervingly, impossibly, calm. “It was... terrifying, Headmaster,” Orin whispered. He described the sudden, chilling shift in Lloyd’s demeanor, the absolute coldness that had descended upon him. And then he described the chains. “They came from nowhere, Headmaster! From the very air! Gleaming, solid steel! They bound him, lifted him... it was... it was the true Steel Blood, of a potency and control I have never witnessed!” He then recounted the final, horrifying detail—the silent, invisible application of force, the way Victor’s body had locked in a silent, agonizing torment, the look of pure, soul-shattering terror on his face. “He did not just defeat him, Headmaster,” Orin concluded, his report finished, his voice trembling. “He... he broke him. Psychologically. Utterly. It was a display of... of ruthless, terrifying, and frankly, deeply problematic, force. A matter for the highest disciplinary review, surely.” He fell silent, his report delivered, his duty done. He stood there, trembling slightly, waiting for the ancient Headmaster’s verdict, for the inevitable summons, for the political firestorm that was about to engulf their quiet, academic world. Headmaster Valerius remained silent for a long, long moment. He looked at the trembling Professor Orin, then at the intricate, spinning planets of his orrery. A slow, deep rumble began in his chest. It started as a low, almost soundless vibration. Then it grew, a dry, rasping sound, like old, forgotten stones shifting deep beneath the earth. And then, it erupted. A laugh. A deep, genuine, and utterly, comprehensively, unrestrained laugh. Valerius threw his head back and laughed, a booming, hearty sound that echoed off the ancient, book-lined walls, making the tiny gemstone planets of his orrery tremble in their orbits. He laughed until tears of pure, unadulterated mirth squeezed from the corners of his ancient, sea-glass eyes and trickled down the wrinkled roadmap of his face into his magnificent white beard. Professor Orin stared, his mouth agape, his face a mask of pure, slack-jawed, comprehensive bafflement. The Headmaster... the ancient, powerful, and notoriously stern Headmaster Valerius... was laughing? At a report of treasonous insults and brutal, magical retribution? The world had officially, finally, gone completely mad. “Problematic, Orin?” Valerius finally managed, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye with the sleeve of his voluminous robe. “My dear professor, it is not problematic. It is magnificent! It is the most entertaining, most educationally valuable, thing to happen at this Academy in a century!” He dismissed the still-gaping Orin with a wave of his hand. “Thank you for your thorough report, Professor. That will be all. I shall... handle the matter personally.” As the bewildered aide scurried from the room, Valerius turned his gaze towards the large, enchanted window, a wide, deeply satisfied smile on his ancient face. He saw not just a classroom incident, but a beautiful, elegant, and long-overdue, lesson being delivered. Oh, Liam, you clever, magnificent bastard, Valerius thought, a silent message directed at his friend, his King. You knew. You knew this would happen. You didn't just appoint a professor; you unleashed a predator into a chicken coop filled with arrogant, overfed roosters. He mused on the state of his Academy. For decades, he had watched with a growing, weary sense of despair as it produced generation after generation of young nobles like Victor. Talented, yes. Powerful, certainly. But also... soft. Arrogant. Untested. They had never known true fear, never faced true consequence. They believed their names, their bloodlines, made them invincible. They saw power as a birthright, not a responsibility. They were a generation of sharp, beautiful, but ultimately brittle, swords, destined to shatter at the first true impact.

Episode-224

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