Chapter : 1121

  A shockwave, silent and invisible, erupted from the core of her being. It was not a physical force, but a temporal one. The cacophony of the market—the screams, the shouts, the frantic ringing of a dropped bell—all of it stretched, thinned, and then vanished. The world became a perfect, silent photograph.

  A merchant, his mouth open in a horrified gasp, was frozen mid-shout. A flock of pigeons, taking flight in panic, hung suspended in the air like a child’s mobile. The sword in Gregor’s hand, a mere six inches from Martha’s shoulder, was a stationary, silver icicle. The only thing in the universe that moved was her.

  The sensation was profoundly disorienting. She was standing outside of time, a ghost in her own life. A new, terrifying power flooded her veins, a humming, high-frequency energy that made her feel weightless, untethered. It was the innate, impossible ability that had lain dormant in her bloodline for generations: the power of 'Speed.' Not the speed of a runner or a warrior, but the conceptual speed of thought itself. She was faster than sound, faster than light. She was faster than the world.

  As she took a single, hesitant step forward, a second transformation began. A new presence bloomed in her soul, not an invading force, but an awakening of a part of herself she had never known. It was a power of cold, unyielding, and absolute resilience. Her spirit, born of a quiet girl’s grief and a lifetime of suppressed strength, manifested for the first time. The ‘Diamond Queen.’

  The power flowed from her soul into her hands. The soft flesh and bone of her fingers underwent a breathtaking, terrifying alchemy. With a sound like a thousand tiny, crystal chimes, they transmuted. Her skin became a flawless, multi-faceted surface, her bones a core of unbreakable, crystalline light. Her hands were no longer flesh; they were diamonds.

  She looked at her new, impossible hands, at the way they captured the frozen sunlight and shattered it into a million tiny rainbows. There was no fear. There was no confusion. There was only a cold, quiet, and absolute certainty.

  She moved. It was not a run, but a simple, graceful glide through the frozen tableau of the world. The air, thick and still as amber, parted before her. She stepped between Gregor and Martha, her back to her terrified friend, her new, diamond-hard gaze fixed on the man who had dared to threaten her world.

  The sword was still descending, but to her, it was moving with the speed of a dying glacier. She raised her hand. Not in a block, not in a parry, but in a simple, elegant, almost contemptuous gesture of interception.

  Her diamond-tipped fingers met the razor-sharp edge of the steel blade.

  The sound that followed was not the clang of metal on metal, but a high, pure, resonant ping, like a tuning fork struck against a star.

  The sword, a fine piece of Northern steel forged to cut through leather and bone, stopped. It didn't bounce off. It simply ceased its forward momentum, its edge held fast between the delicate, unbreakable tips of her fingers.

  Gregor’s face, which had been a mask of triumphant, murderous rage, was now a perfect canvas of slack-jawed, comprehensive shock. His mind, trapped in the molasses of normal time, was struggling to process the impossible event that had just occurred. He was seeing a ghost, a goddess, a thing that could not be.

  Jasmin looked at the man, at the fear and confusion in his eyes, and she felt nothing. No anger. No pity. Only a profound, cold, and weary disdain. He was an insect. A loud, ugly, and insignificant problem that needed to be removed.

  She kept the sword held in her right hand and, with a motion so fluid it was almost lazy, she lifted her left leg. She didn't put any real force into it. It was a simple, contemptuous push, a gesture of dismissal.

  Her foot connected with his ample stomach.

  There was no visceral crunch. There was only a dull, percussive thump, and a silent, instantaneous transfer of kinetic energy. The world, for Gregor, became a blur. He felt a force not like a punch, but like being struck by a charging bull. His feet left the ground. The sword was ripped from his grasp. He flew backward, a stunned, rag-doll projectile, arcing through the air in a perfect, humiliating parabola.

  Chapter : 1122

  He crashed into the vegetable stall he had been standing beside. The wooden structure exploded in a shower of splintered wood, canvas, and a vibrant, comical spray of tomatoes, cabbages, and onions. He landed in a heap amidst the wreckage, a groaning, stunned testament to a force he could not comprehend.

  And as he hit the ground, Jasmin’s power, its purpose served, receded.

  Time crashed back in on itself.

  The sound of the world—the screams, the shouts, the crash of the stall—hit her all at once in a deafening, disorienting wave. The impossible strength drained from her limbs, leaving a deep, trembling exhaustion in its wake. She looked down at her hands. They were her hands again—pale, slender, and shaking uncontrollably. The diamond was gone.

  The crowd erupted into a chaotic babble of fear and awe. Martha stared at her, her eyes wide, her mouth agape, unable to form words.

  And Jasmin, the quiet, traumatized handmaiden who had just caught a sword and broken the world, looked at her own trembling, empty hands and felt a single, terrifying thought rise from the depths of her soul: What have I become?

  ________________________________________

  The news of the incident at the market traveled with the speed of gossip, which was to say, almost instantaneously. By the time the ducal guards had secured the scene, placed the groaning and spectacularly humiliated Gregor under arrest, and whisked the two terrified young women away to a secure location, a sanitized report was already sitting on Lloyd Ferrum’s desk.

  He read the dispatch in the quiet, controlled chaos of his manufactory study. Ken Park, who had delivered the message, stood by the door, a silent, impassive statue. The report was concise, clinical, and completely devoid of the sheer, reality-breaking drama of the event. It detailed a public altercation, an assault with a deadly weapon, and an "unexpected manifestation of innate spiritual power" by the handmaiden, Jasmin.

  Lloyd put the paper down, a slow, grimly satisfied smile touching his lips. He looked up at Ken, his eyes holding a fire that had nothing to do with surprise.

  "It's about time," he said, his voice a low, almost pleased hum.

  Ken’s expression didn't flicker, but a flicker of understanding passed through their silent bond. This was not news to the master of the house; it was the inevitable, and long-awaited, result of a calculated risk.

  Lloyd had seen the potential in Jasmin from the beginning. Beneath the quiet, timid exterior, he had sensed a core of unyielding, diamond-hard resilience. It was the same quality that had allowed her to function, to endure, after the trauma of Pia's death. Trauma, Lloyd knew from his own long and brutal experience, was a crucible. For most, it shattered the soul. But for a rare few, the intense pressure and heat could crystallize that soul into something new, something powerful. Pia’s death had been the catalyst. It had created a hairline fracture in Jasmin’s spirit, and today, the confrontation at the market had been the final, sharp blow that had split the stone and revealed the diamond within.

  "She is a weapon now," Lloyd continued, his thoughts turning from the past to the immediate, dangerous future. "A beautiful, terrifying, and completely untamed weapon. A power awakening of that magnitude, born of trauma, is a bomb waiting for a second trigger. It needs to be controlled. It needs to be forged."

  He stood, his movements now filled with a new, decisive purpose. "Where is she?"

  "In a secure holding room at the main estate, my lord," Ken replied. "She is with the girl, Martha. She is… distressed."

  'Distressed' was a masterful understatement. When Lloyd arrived, he found Jasmin in a state of near-catatonic shock. She was huddled in a corner of the opulent but sterile room, her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes wide and unfocused. Martha Jr. was trying to comfort her, but Jasmin was a million miles away, lost in the terrifying, alien landscape of her own newfound power. The ducal guards outside the door spoke of her in hushed, fearful whispers, as if she were a caged monster.

  Lloyd dismissed the guards and entered the room alone. Martha immediately rushed to him, her words a frantic, relieved torrent, recounting the story, her awe at Jasmin's power warring with her terror.

  Lloyd held up a hand, silencing her gently. "I know," he said, his voice calm and steady, an anchor in her storm. "You did well, Martha. You were very brave. Now, I need you to go with the handmaidens. They will take care of you. I need to speak with Jasmin. Alone."

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Chapter : 1123

  After Martha had been led away, Lloyd approached the trembling figure in the corner. He didn't loom over her. He crouched down, bringing himself to her level, a gesture not of a lord to a servant, but of a craftsman to a rare, precious, and dangerously unstable material.

  "Jasmin," he said softly.

  Her head snapped up, her eyes filled with a wild, desperate fear. "My lord," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I… I don't know what happened. I… I hurt him. I think I broke something inside myself."

  "You didn't break," Lloyd corrected, his voice a quiet, unshakeable certainty. "You awakened. There's a difference."

  He explained it to her not in terms of spirits and magic, but in a language he knew her practical, loyal heart would understand. He used the metaphor of a hidden inheritance. "Imagine your family, long ago, buried a treasure. A sword of immense power. They left it for their descendants, but over the years, the map was lost, and the treasure was forgotten. But it was always there, sleeping beneath the ground. Today, you didn't just stumble upon it. The danger to your friend, the memory of Pia… it was like an earthquake. It shook the ground so hard that the treasure chest was thrown to the surface, and it burst open."

  He looked into her terrified eyes, his gaze intense. "The power you feel, the speed, the strength… that is your inheritance, Jasmin. It has always been a part of you. But it is a raw, untamed thing. It is a sword without a master. And a sword without a master is as dangerous to the wielder as it is to their enemies. It needs to be understood. It needs to be controlled. It needs to be forged."

  He stood up and offered her a hand. "I can teach you. I can help you become its master. But not here. Not in this world, where time is our enemy."

  Jasmin stared at his outstretched hand, her fear warring with the first, fragile flicker of hope. She took it. His grip was warm and steady.

  "Close your eyes," he commanded gently.

  She obeyed. The moment her eyelids closed, the world dissolved. It was not a gentle fading, but a violent, instantaneous erasure of reality. She felt a sensation of falling and rising at the same time, a dizzying, weightless plunge through a void of absolute nothingness. The solid floor beneath her was gone. The air in her lungs was gone. Her very sense of self seemed to unravel. It was the most terrifying experience of her life.

  And then, just as suddenly, it stopped.

  She felt solid ground beneath her feet again. The air was still, sterile, and silent.

  "You can open them now," Lloyd's voice said, impossibly calm in the dead silence.

  She did. And she screamed.

  The scream was a raw, primal thing, ripped from the depths of her soul. It was a sound of pure, undiluted, existential terror. But in the place where she now stood, the scream had no Doppelganger. It simply left her lips and was swallowed by an infinite, featureless, and absolute silence.

  She was standing in a universe of pure, unblemished white.

  There was no sky, no horizon, no walls, no ceiling. The floor was a smooth, seamless expanse of the same luminous white, stretching into an endless, featureless eternity in all directions. There was no sun, yet the space was filled with a soft, even, shadowless light that seemed to emanate from the very substance of the void itself. There was no temperature, no breeze, no scent. It was a perfect, sterile, and profoundly unnerving vacuum of sensory input.

  It was the color of a blank page. The silence of a tomb. The emptiness of a forgotten dream. It was nowhere.

  Jasmin stumbled back, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. Her mind, already reeling from the traumatic awakening of her power, was now being assaulted by a place that defied all logic, a place that should not, could not, exist.

  "Where are we?" she whispered, the sound small and pathetic in the vast emptiness. "Is this… is this the afterlife?"

  Lloyd, standing a few feet away, a solitary, solid figure in the endless white, let out a soft chuckle. "No, Jasmin. Not the afterlife. Something… other."

  He walked towards her, his footsteps making no sound on the pristine white floor. He seemed completely at ease, as if this impossible place were his own private study.

  Chapter : 1124

  "This," he said, making a grand, sweeping gesture at the infinite nothingness, "is my storeroom. A private space, a pocket dimension, that exists outside of the normal world. A place where the rules are a little… different."

  To demonstrate, he raised his hand. From thin air, a simple, elegant teacup of his own design materialized, a solid, tangible object in the ethereal void. He held it for a moment, then willed it to disappear. It vanished without a sound.

  Jasmin could only stare, her mind struggling to process the casual, god-like display of creation and un-creation.

  "But the most important rule here," Lloyd continued, his voice taking on a new, serious tone, "is the rule of time."

  He pointed a finger at a spot in the empty air. A shimmering, holographic clock face appeared, its hands sweeping around its dial at a dizzying speed.

  "Out there," he said, gesturing vaguely to the world they had left behind, "one hour will pass. In here…" He pointed to the clock, which had already completed four full rotations. "In here, four hours will pass. Time flows differently. For every one day that passes in the real world, we will have four days in here."

  The implication of his words slowly, impossibly, began to dawn on her. The fear in her eyes was slowly replaced by a dawning, disbelieving awe. It wasn't just a storeroom. It was a cheat code. A place where time itself could be bent.

  "This is your new home, Jasmin," Lloyd declared, his voice resonating with a new, profound authority. "This is your classroom. Your forge. Your crucible. Out there, we are pressed for time. We have enemies, deadlines, and a world that does not wait. But in here… in here, we have all the time we need."

  He walked towards her until he was standing directly in front of her, his gaze intense and unyielding.

  "The power that awakened within you," he said, his voice dropping to a low, serious murmur. "The speed that stops the world. The spirit that turns your hands to diamond. You called her the 'Diamond Queen,' did you not? A fitting name. But a queen is not born. A queen is made. She is forged in pressure and fire. She is cut and polished until every flaw is gone, and all that remains is a brilliant, unbreakable, and absolutely perfect gem."

  He looked at her, and for the first time, she saw not a kind master or a brilliant lord, but a master craftsman looking at a raw, precious, and unformed stone. He was seeing not who she was, but who she could become.

  "I am going to train you," he stated, the words not an offer, but a declaration of intent. "I am going to push you harder than you have ever been pushed. I am going to break you down and rebuild you, piece by piece. You will learn to control your speed, to summon your power at will, to fight, to endure, to conquer the fear that is currently mastering you. You will leave the timid handmaiden behind in the old world. In here, you will be reforged. You will become the warrior you were always meant to be. You will become the Diamond Queen."

  He was giving her a new name, a new identity, a new purpose. He was offering her a path out of the terrified, helpless victimhood that had defined her life. The path was terrifying. The training would be grueling, an agony she could barely imagine. But it was a path. It was a choice. It was hope.

  Tears welled in Jasmin’s eyes. But for the first time since Pia’s death, they were not tears of grief or fear. They were tears of a profound, overwhelming, and liberating gratitude.

  "What… what is the first lesson?" she asked, her voice trembling but resolute.

  Lloyd’s grim expression softened into a small, approving smile. He pointed to her right hand.

  "The first lesson is simple," he said. "Summon it. Right now. Not by accident, not out of terror. Summon it with your will. Turn your hand into a diamond, and hold it for ten seconds."

  Jasmin looked at her hand, at the simple, pale, trembling flesh. The task seemed impossible. But as she looked up into the steady, unyielding gaze of her master, her teacher, she took a deep breath. She closed her eyes. And for the first time, instead of running from the power within, she reached for it.

  The first, tiny, beautiful, and impossibly bright flicker of crystalline light appeared on the tip of her finger. The forging of the Diamond Queen had begun.