Episode-228

Words : 1605 Updated : Sep 29th, 2025

Chapter : 455 Lloyd listened to it all, his mind absorbing, cataloging, filing away every detail. The confession confirmed everything Ken’s intelligence had already provided, but it added a new layer of visceral, pathetic detail. This was not a sophisticated criminal syndicate. It was a desperate, grimy, back-alley operation run by two ambitious but ultimately small-time, thugs who had gotten in over their heads. When Debala finally finished, his voice a hoarse, ragged whisper, his body a trembling wreck, Lloyd stood up slowly. He had what he needed. The names of the brothers. The heart of their operation. His next targets. He looked down at the whimpering, broken man on the ground. He had served his purpose. With a final, silent thought, the steel chains that bound Debala dissolved, retracting back into the void, leaving him free, but a prisoner of his own terror. “Go,” the White Mask whispered, his voice a final, chilling command. “Run. Disappear. Leave this city tonight and never return. If I ever see your face in Bethelham again... I will send her,” he inclined his head towards the silent, beautiful, and still terrifyingly present Fang Fairy, “to find you. And she will not be so... merciful... next time.” Debala didn't need to be told twice. With a final, choked sob of terrified relief, he scrambled to his feet and fled, stumbling, crawling, clawing his way out of the alley, his own panicked screams echoing behind him as he vanished into the labyrinthine darkness of Rais. Lloyd watched him go, then turned to Fang Fairy. She met his gaze, her golden eyes holding a quiet, shared understanding. She offered a small, almost invisible, nod, then dissolved into a swirl of shadow and moonlight, her presence gone as quickly and silently as it had appeared. He was alone once more in the silent, stinking alley. The lesson was complete. The message had been sent. The rat had scurried back to its hole, carrying with it a tale of a white-masked demon and a goddess of lightning. The brothers Croft, he knew, would soon be hearing that tale. And they would be waiting for him. Good. He preferred it that way. The hunt had just moved to the next, more dangerous, stage. Lloyd called Ken. When he appeared, Lloyd said, "Finish... Debala." Princess Isabella’s private chambers at the Bathelham Royal Academy were a fortress of disciplined, martial elegance. The air held the clean, sharp scents of beeswax from the polished floors, old leather from the stacks of historical treatises on her desk, and the faint, almost imperceptible, metallic tang of weapons oil. It was the sanctuary of a warrior and a strategist, a woman who valued strength, honor, and undeniable quality above all else. And at this moment, the object that had just been placed on her heavy oak desk was an affront to all three. “This,” Isabella said, her voice a low, dangerous rumble of aristocratic disbelief, “is a travesty.” She stared at the grimy, burlap-wrapped bundle her Knight Captain, Eva, had placed before her. The AURA craze had been an irritating, low-level hum of courtly gossip for weeks, a phenomenon she had dismissed as the latest frivolous obsession of bored, wealthy noblewomen. She had heard the whispers about a revolutionary “Ferrum soap,” a product of such sublime quality that it had become the capital's ultimate status symbol. Her curiosity, a sharp, analytical thing, had finally gotten the better of her. She needed data. She needed to see this supposed miracle for herself, to assess its quality with her own exacting standards. But she would not be swayed by the pristine, gifted version she knew her father, the King, possessed. She wanted to see the product that was actually circulating in the city, the one that merchants and commoners were clamoring for. Eva, as always, had followed her orders with silent, perfect efficiency. Her agent had procured a sample not from a high-end purveyor, but from a shady street vendor in a side-arcade, a man associated with a minor, disreputable guild known as the ‘Gilded Hand’. With impatient, almost surgical precision, Isabella unwrapped the burlap. The object within was not a symbol of luxury; it was a testament to fraud. A crude glass bottle, the kind used for cheap horse liniment, was filled with a thin, watery, and distinctly unappealing bluish liquid. A flimsy, tinny-looking pump mechanism, already showing the first faint blush of rust, was jammed crookedly into its neck. And stuck to the front, like a final, pathetic insult, was a scrap of torn parchment with the word ‘AURA’ scrawled on it in a clumsy, semi-literate hand. A slow, cold smile of pure, vindicated satisfaction spread across Isabella’s face. So. This was the truth. It was a sham. A cheap, pathetic imitation. Chapter : 456 “This is what they are selling in the markets?” she asked, her voice laced with a cold, almost amused, contempt. She picked up the bottle; it felt cheap and unbalanced in her hand. “So it would seem, Your Highness,” Eva replied, her own face a mask of professional neutrality. Isabella pressed the squeaking, protesting pump, and a small squirt of the slimy, bluish liquid landed on the back of her gloved hand. The smell hit her instantly—a sharp, cloying, chemical sweetness that failed to mask an underlying, greasy rankness of something foul, like old fish. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. This wasn’t just a poor imitation; it was vile. Her initial satisfaction, however, quickly curdled into a cold, towering, and righteous fury. But her anger was not directed where one might expect. She was a ruler, a strategist. She understood the world, its greed, its opportunism. She knew, with an absolute certainty, that this... this bilge... could not possibly be the true Ferrum product. The House of Ferrum, under the stern, unyielding leadership of Arch Duke Roy, was many things. It was proud, martial, politically ambitious, and often ruthlessly pragmatic. But it was not shoddy. Their steel was the finest in the northern territories, their armaments legendary for their quality and durability. The Ferrum name itself was a brand, a stamp of unyielding strength and integrity. The idea that Roy Ferrum would sanction, let alone produce, a product of such obvious, pathetic quality was not just unlikely; it was ludicrous. It was an insult to the very character of the man and his house. This was not a case of a great house peddling cheap wares. This was a case of cheap criminals besmirching the name of a great house. “This is a counterfeit,” Isabella declared, her voice now dangerously quiet, the calm at the eye of a hurricane of aristocratic rage. She looked at the foul bottle on her desk with the expression of a queen who has just discovered rats gnawing on the royal tapestries. “A crude, pathetic, and deeply insulting, act of fraud.” Her anger was not for herself, not for being presented with a foul product. It was a deeper, more principled fury. It was the anger of a leader, a member of the ruling class, witnessing a direct attack on the integrity of the very system she represented. A noble house’s name, its reputation, was its most valuable currency. It was a symbol of trust, of quality, of a promise made to the people. And these... these Gilded Hand criminals... they were not just selling poison in a bottle; they were poisoning the very concept of trust. They were using the good name of Ferrum to defraud the people, to sell them filth disguised as luxury. It was a crime not just against the Ferrums, but against the entire social order. “To dare to use the name of a great Ducal house for such a pathetic, grubby little scheme...” she hissed, her icy-blue eyes blazing with a cold fire. “The sheer, unadulterated arrogance of it. They believe they can operate in the shadows, that their petty crimes will go unnoticed, that the great houses are too high and mighty to concern themselves with the grimy dealings of the marketplace.” She stood up, her posture ramrod straight, her face a mask of cold, hard resolve. “They are mistaken.” She was Princess Isabella of Bethelham. A warrior. A leader. And a fierce, unyielding guardian of the honor and integrity of her class, of her kingdom. She might have her own personal, and deeply negative, opinions about the character of the Ferrum heir. But an attack on the honor of House Ferrum itself, an attack on the very concept of noble integrity, was an attack she could not, and would not, tolerate. “Eva,” she commanded, her voice sharp as a drawn sword. “Your Highness?” “I want a full report,” Isabella ordered, her icy-blue eyes now gleaming with a new, determined purpose. “Everything you can find on this... ‘Gilded Hand’. Their leaders. Their operations. Their known associates. I want to know who is behind this disgusting little enterprise. I want to know who has the audacity to commit fraud under the very nose of the Crown.” She looked at the vile, blue-tinged bottle on her desk with the expression of a general who has just identified the enemy’s command post and is preparing to launch a full-scale, overwhelming assault. “These criminals have made a grave error,” she murmured, her voice a low, cold promise of impending, absolute retribution. “They believed they were merely stealing the name of a distant Duke. They did not realize they were spitting in the face of a Princess.”

Episode-228

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