Episode-225

Words : 1511 Updated : Sep 29th, 2025

Chapter : 449 And now, into their midst, came Lloyd Ferrum. A boy who had been broken, who had been forged anew in some secret, unknown fire. A boy who understood that power was not about flashy spells or arrogant taunts, but about cold, hard, ruthless control. Who understood that an insult to a great house was not a social gaffe, but an act of war, to be met with a swift, decisive, and utterly unforgettable, response. He didn't just punish the boy, Valerius thought, a fresh chuckle rumbling in his chest. He taught him. He taught all of them. A lesson in the true hierarchy of power. A lesson in the difference between a schoolyard bully and a true ruler. A lesson they will not find in any of your dusty old history books, my dear Professor Orin. He looked out at the soaring spires of his Academy, a new, fierce hope dawning in his ancient heart. The stagnant, predictable waters of Bathelham were about to be stirred. The comfortable, arrogant swans were about to learn that there was a new kind of predator in their pond. The King had wanted disruption. And Professor Ferrum, it seemed, was proving to be a master of the craft. This, Valerius decided, a genuine, delighted grin spreading across his face, was going to be the most interesting academic year of his long, long life. The fireworks were just beginning. And he had the best seat in the house. The opulence of the royal guest suite was a silent, mocking testament to the life he was supposed to be living. Polished marble floors reflected the muted afternoon light like a still, dark lake. Heavy silk drapes, the color of clotted cream, hung in perfect, silent folds. The air itself seemed curated, smelling faintly of lemon oil polish and the distant, almost imperceptible, scent of power that clung to every stone of the Bethelham Royal Palace. It was a world of serene order, of immense privilege, a gilded cage designed to soothe and impress. And inside it, Lloyd Ferrum felt like a cornered wolf. The adrenaline from the classroom confrontation had long since faded, leaving behind the bitter, metallic aftertaste of a necessary, but deeply unpleasant, victory. He had asserted his authority, yes. He had shattered Victor’s arrogant challenge and silenced the whispers of his own past failures. He had stared down a hostile princess and met her ice with a cold, hard resolve of his own. He had played the part of Professor Ferrum, the enigmatic and unexpectedly dangerous new faculty member, with a flawless, chilling precision. But the performance had been draining, a profound expenditure of will. Maintaining the mask, suppressing the ghosts, controlling the immense, chaotic power that now churned within him—it was a constant, exhausting battle fought on a silent, internal front. And the victory in the classroom had only deepened his isolation, replacing the students’ skepticism with a new, wary fear. He was no longer just the drab duckling; he was a black swan, a creature they did not understand and were now, quite wisely, afraid of. He stood before a tall, silver-gilt mirror, his reflection a stranger he was only just beginning to recognize. The face was his, the handsome, oval features of a nineteen-year-old nobleman. But the eyes... the eyes were ancient. They held the weary weight of the eighty-year-old Major General, the cold calculation of the vengeful assassin from his first life, and now, the burgeoning, terrifying power of the man he was becoming. It was a crowded, haunted house behind that youthful facade. The weight of his dual life, his triple life, had never felt so heavy. He was Lord Ferrum, the heir to a great Ducal house, now a Royal Advisor, navigating a treacherous world of politics and expectation. He was Professor Ferrum, a teacher tasked with a revolutionary, almost impossible, educational mandate. And he was the White Mask, a faceless agent of consequence, a hunter who moved in the shadows. Each role demanded a different face, a different set of skills, a different soul. And the strain of keeping them separate, of preventing the lines from blurring, was becoming immense. Tonight, he knew, the Lord and the Professor had to recede. The counterfeit AURA, the attack on his burgeoning empire, was a wound that festered, a direct threat that could not be ignored. It was a problem that could not be solved in a lecture hall or a ducal court. It required a different kind of lesson, delivered in a different kind of classroom. It required the White Mask. Chapter : 450 He moved to a large, ornate wardrobe, its dark wood polished to a mirror sheen. He bypassed the rows of fine silk tunics and velvet cloaks, the formal attire of his public life. Tucked away at the very back, in a simple, unmarked leather satchel, was his other uniform. His real uniform. He stripped off the fine wool of his ducal attire, the fabric feeling flimsy, artificial against his skin. He pulled on the clothes of the shadow. Trousers of a dark, almost black, hardened leather, designed for silence and durability. A simple, high-collared tunic of a deep grey, its fabric woven to resist tearing and snagging. Soft-soled boots that would make no sound on grimy cobblestones. It was the practical, functional attire of an assassin, an operative, a man who moved through the forgotten, dangerous corners of the world. As he dressed, he felt the persona of Lord Ferrum begin to recede, the weight of noble responsibility replaced by the cold, sharp focus of the hunt. Finally, he reached into the satchel and drew out the last, most crucial, piece. The mask. It was a simple, almost crude thing, a piece of pine he had carved himself, its surface painted with a stark, matte white pigment that seemed to drink the light. It was featureless, devoid of expression, with two dark, empty holes for eyes. It was a blank slate. A void. When he tied it on, the rough twine biting slightly into the skin at the back of his head, the transformation was complete. He looked in the mirror again, and Lord Lloyd Ferrum was gone. The face that stared back was a cipher, an enigma, a faceless, nameless agent of consequence. It was the face of a ghost. The White Mask. With a final, silent nod to his reflection, he turned, and with a fluidity that was utterly at odds with the awkward youth he sometimes still pretended to be, he moved to the window. He did not use the door. He did not need it. A whisper of Void power, a flicker of thought, and the enchanted glass latch clicked open silently. He slipped out onto the narrow stone balcony, into the cool, embrace of the descending night. The descent from the pristine, ordered heights of the Royal Palace district to the grimy, desperate depths of the slum known as Rais was a journey through the stratified geology of society itself. He moved through the grand, gas-lit boulevards of the noble quarter, a silent shadow flitting across manicured lawns and past the silent, imposing facades of ducal estates. He crossed into the bustling, vibrant merchant’s district, the air still thick with the lingering scents of the day’s trade, the sounds of taverns and music halls spilling out into the streets. And then, he crossed a final, invisible line, and the world changed. Rais was not just a district; it was a scar on the face of the magnificent capital. A festering wound of poverty and despair. The air here was a physical, oppressive thing, a thick, foul stew of smells that clawed at the back of the throat. The stench of open sewers, of rotting refuse piled high in the narrow alleyways, of unwashed bodies crammed into leaning, overcrowded tenements, of the cheap, acrid coal smoke that choked the air, and, underpinning it all, the sour, metallic scent of hopelessness. The sounds were different, too. Not the cheerful bustle of the market, but a low, constant murmur of human misery. The sharp, angry shouts of a drunken argument erupting from a grimy tavern door. The thin, hopeless wail of a hungry child from a darkened window above. The scuttling of rats, bold and unafraid, in the shadows. The wet, hacking cough of a man dying of the Grey Lung, a sound that was as common here as the chirping of birds was in the palace gardens. The buildings themselves seemed to lean in on each other, their grimy brick and rotting timber walls creating a claustrophobic, labyrinthine maze of narrow, twisting alleys where the moonlight never reached. The cobblestones underfoot were slick with a layer of filth that was both ancient and perpetually fresh. This was a place the city guard rarely patrolled, a place the light of the King’s justice did not, or would not, reach. It was a kingdom of its own, ruled by despair, by violence, and by the simple, brutal law of survival.

Episode-225

Comments (0)