Chapter : 1261

  He finally looked up, his gaze sweeping over the twenty black-armored knights, the two terrified-but-defiant royals, and the supremely confident demon-worshipper. He looked at them not as a threat, but as a group of rowdy, and very inconsiderate, teenagers who had just tracked mud all over his clean floor.

  He let out a long, weary sigh, the sigh of a man who has been pushed to the absolute limit of his professional patience.

  "Look," he said, his voice the tired, and deeply put-upon, tone of a man who just wants to finish his shift and go home. "I don't know who you people are, and frankly, I don't care. But we have a pre-wedding ceremony here in less than twenty-four hours. A very important, and very expensive, wedding. And you are currently standing on the Duchess’s prize-winning roses and leaking some kind of… unpleasant black ichor all over the pristine white gravel paths. So, I am going to have to ask you to leave. Now."

  He had just told an apocalypse to please use the coasters.

  Franz, the high-ranking priest of the Seventh Circle, the man who had orchestrated this perfect, silent, and world-shaking act of terror, simply stared. His mind, a sharp, cruel, and highly intelligent instrument, was struggling to process the sheer, unadulterated, and almost sublime absurdity of the situation.

  He had expected screams. He had expected a futile, heroic charge from the Prince. He had expected a desperate, and ultimately useless, plea for mercy.

  He had not, in any of his most fevered, and very detailed, imaginings, expected to be told off by a glorified party planner for ruining the landscaping.

  The sheer, breathtaking, and almost comically mundane nature of the interruption was a form of psychological warfare so advanced, so utterly alien, that it was, for a moment, completely and utterly effective. He was a god of despair, a harbinger of a new, dark age. And he had just been treated like a noisy neighbor.

  He finally found his voice, a low, purring sound of pure, condescending amusement that did not quite mask the flicker of genuine, baffled confusion in his eyes.

  "The… decorators," he said, the word tasting like a strange, and very unappetizing, new fruit in his mouth. He looked at Lloyd, at his simple servant’s attire, at his ridiculous clipboard, at his deeply, and profoundly, and almost insultingly, unimpressed expression.

  He scoffed, a sound of pure, aristocratic disdain. The brief moment of confusion was gone, replaced by a renewed sense of his own, supreme, and absolute authority. This was not a threat. This was a joke. A final, pathetic, and deeply amusing piece of comic relief before the main tragedy began.

  "You have a certain… courage, I'll grant you that," Franz purred. "The courage of a fool who does not understand the stage upon which he has just stumbled. Very well. Since you are so concerned with the tidiness of the gardens, you shall be the first to water them with your own, insignificant blood."

  He made a small, almost lazy, gesture to two of the Curse Knights, a silent, contemptuous command. Deal with the help.

  The two black-armored knights moved. They were not a clumsy, shambling force. They were a blur of silent, disciplined, and utterly lethal motion. They flowed across the lawn, their black swords raised, two specters of death sent to erase a minor, and very amusing, annoyance.

  The Prince cried out a warning. Princess Arisa’s hand flew to her mouth.

  Lloyd did not move. He simply stood there, his expression one of a profound, and very deep, professional disappointment. He let out another, long, and very tired sigh.

  "So be it," he murmured to himself. "I did ask nicely."

  And as the two Curse Knights were a mere five feet from him, their blades descending in a silent, final, and utterly merciless arc, Lloyd’s team moved.

  It was not a dramatic, heroic charge. It was a quiet, professional, and utterly terrifying event.

  From the deepest shadows of the garden, from the tops of the ancient cypress trees, from the very flowerbeds themselves, they emerged.

  The thirty butlers and the twenty maids.

  They did not shout. They did not scream. They moved with the silent, disciplined, and perfectly synchronized grace of a pack of hunting wolves. They were no longer servants, their faces no longer masks of polite, subservient deference. Their eyes were cold, hard, and utterly devoid of all emotion but a quiet, professional, and very deadly purpose.

  The two Curse Knights who had been about to cleave Lloyd in two were the first to die.

  Chapter : 1262

  Two of the butlers, who had seemed to materialize from the very earth at their feet, moved with a speed that was a blur. They did not use grand, sweeping attacks. They used short, brutal, and brutally efficient ones. Hidden blades, forged from a dark, non-reflective steel, slid from their sleeves. One butler’s blade slid between the gaps in the Curse Knight’s armor at the neck, severing its spiritual connection to its unholy master in a single, silent, and perfect thrust. The other butler simply sidestepped the knight’s clumsy swing and drove his own, shorter blade up under the helm, into the base of the skull.

  The two knights did not even have time to register their own, un-deaths. They simply collapsed, their red eyes flickering out, two empty suits of armor clattering to the pristine lawn.

  The garden, which had been a stage for an execution, was now a silent, brutal, and utterly beautiful kill-zone.

  Franz froze, his arrogant, condescending smile finally, irrevocably, gone, replaced by a mask of pure, stark, and abject disbelief. His perfect, flawless ambush had just been… counter-ambushed.

  And the battle had just begun.

  Head Maid Annalisa, a silver serving tray still held in her hand, met the charge of five more Curse Knights. She was not a terrified, cowering servant. She was a goddess of war. She spun, a whirlwind of black silk and righteous fury, and the silver tray became a deadly, spinning chakram in her hand. It hummed through the air, its polished, sharpened edge decapitating the first knight with a sound like a wet, final thwip. It ricocheted off the second knight’s helmet, stunning it for a fraction of a second, an opening that was all Annalisa needed. She flowed forward, a hidden blade appearing in her other hand, and dispatched the stunned knight with the same, brutal efficiency as her butlers.

  The other maids and butlers were a symphony of silent, professional death. They fought not as a disorganized mob, but as a single, cohesive, and perfectly drilled military unit. They moved in small, three-person cells, their movements a textbook display of small-unit tactics. One would create a distraction, a feint, a thrown bottle of wine that would shatter against a knight’s helmet. The other two would use that single, fleeting moment of distraction to flow in from the flanks, their hidden blades finding the small, almost invisible gaps in the unholy armor.

  There were no wasted movements. There were no grand, heroic duels. There was only a quiet, brutal, and terrifyingly efficient process of extermination.

  Lloyd’s Ghost Brigade had just made its debut. And it was a masterpiece of silent, and very, very bloody, art.

  The moonlit Royal Garden had transformed into a silent, brutal abattoir. The carefully manicured lawns were now a stage for a deadly, whispered ballet of assassination. Lloyd’s Ghost Brigade, his fifty butlers and maids, were not just fighting; they were performing a systematic, and terrifyingly efficient, dissection of Franz’s elite unholy honor guard.

  The Curse Knights, who had been an intimidating, monolithic force of terror, were being dismantled. They were powerful. They were resilient. But they were soldiers, trained for a conventional, frontal assault. They were a hammer. And they were facing a team of fifty scalpels.

  The butlers, with their hidden blades and their intimate knowledge of the palace’s terrain, were the primary assault force. They flowed through the shadows, their movements a blur, their attacks always aimed at the weak points, the joints, the visor slits. They were not trying to overpower their opponents; they were simply, and very professionally, taking them apart.

  The maids, who had seemed like the weaker half of the unit, were the true, terrible heart of the operation. They did not engage in direct combat. They were the support, the controllers, the puppet masters of the battlefield. They used their seemingly innocuous tools as weapons of terrifying ingenuity. A length of fine, silver wire, used for hanging decorations, became a deadly garrote, silently and efficiently severing the head of a knight from behind. A bottle of high-proof cleaning alcohol, thrown with perfect, arcing precision, became an incendiary device, creating a momentary wall of fire that would blind and disorient a group of knights.

  One particularly resourceful maid, a small, grandmotherly woman named Elspeth, used her feather duster. The handle was a weighted, iron cosh, and the feathers themselves were laced with a fine, almost invisible powder—a blessed, alchemical compound that, when inhaled, would momentarily disrupt the flow of unholy energy, causing a knight to seize up for a precious, and very fatal, second.

  It was a beautiful, horrifying, and deeply, deeply professional slaughter.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Chapter : 1263

  Prince Linkon and Princess Arisa stood in the center of it all, a small, stunned island of royalty in a sea of silent, whispered death. They were no longer the targets; they were the audience, witnesses to a secret war they had never even known existed.

  And Franz. Franz was a king whose castle was being dismantled around him, stone by silent stone. The arrogant, condescending amusement was a distant memory. His face was a mask of ashen, disbelieving horror. His elite honor guard, his twenty perfect, unholy warriors, were being systematically, and almost casually, exterminated by a group of… servants. The sheer, profound, and absolute humiliation of it was a poison in his soul.

  He had to act. He had to retake control of the narrative, of the battle.

  He let out a roar of pure, frustrated rage, a sound that finally shattered the eerie, whispered silence of the garden. "You think your little tricks can stop the coming of a new age?" he shrieked, his voice a ragged, tearing sound. "You are insects! You are fighting against the inevitable tide!"

  He drew his own weapon, an elegant, black-hilted rapier whose blade seemed to be forged from a shard of solidified night. And he charged. Not at the butlers or the maids. He charged directly at the still, calm center of the storm.

  He charged at Lloyd.

  But he never reached him.

  Annalisa, her face a mask of cold, professional fury, her silver serving tray now a blood-splattered, and surprisingly effective, shield, simply stepped into his path. She was flanked by four of her best butlers, their hidden blades now drawn, their eyes holding the cold, dead light of men who have killed, and will kill again, without a flicker of hesitation.

  They formed a silent, unshakeable wall of black silk and deadly intent between their commander and the enemy.

  The message was clear. You will not touch him.

  The counter-ambush was perfect. The enemy was contained. The royals were secure. And the commander of the entire, magnificent operation had not yet moved a muscle.

  Lloyd stood where he had been, his clipboard still held loosely in his hand. He watched the final, desperate struggles of his enemies with the detached, almost bored, interest of a man watching a particularly predictable play reach its inevitable conclusion.

  He looked at the seething, trapped, and now utterly impotent form of Franz. And he allowed himself a small, tired, and deeply satisfied smile.

  His trap had been a resounding success. And now, it was time for the main event.

  The garden, which had been a stage for a silent, lightning-fast counter-ambush, now became a cage. Annalisa and her four elite butlers formed a perfect, five-point cordon around Franz, their movements a fluid, practiced dance of containment. They did not attack. They simply… were. An unbreakable, and very patient, wall of black-uniformed death.

  Franz, a Crown-Ranked devil worshiper, a being of immense power and arrogance, was trapped. He was a cornered, snarling wolf, surrounded by a pack of quiet, and very professional, sheepdogs who had just revealed themselves to be, in fact, a pack of even bigger, and much more efficient, wolves.

  He looked past them, his plum-colored eyes, now burning with a desperate, hateful fire, locking onto the calm, still figure at the center of it all. Lloyd.

  "You," Franz hissed, the word a venomous, sibilant thing. He finally understood. The servants were not the true threat. They were just the pieces. This quiet, unassuming, and infuriatingly calm "decorator" was the player. The grandmaster.

  "I have read the reports about you," Franz snarled, his voice a low, dangerous rumble of dawning, and very horrifying, realization. "The Lion’s Cub. The hero of Ashworth. I thought they were exaggerations. Propaganda. The desperate myth-making of a dying kingdom."

  He let out a harsh, barking laugh, a sound that held no humor, only a wild, desperate, and self-loathing disbelief. "They weren't exaggerations, were they? They were understatements."

  Lloyd simply inclined his head, a small, polite, and deeply infuriating gesture of acknowledgment.

  "And you," Franz continued, his gaze now sweeping over the ongoing, one-sided slaughter of his remaining Curse Knights, "you knew we were coming. This entire, magnificent, and utterly humiliating spectacle… this wasn't a counter-ambush. This was a trap. A welcome party. You were waiting for us."

  "The King's hospitality is legendary," Lloyd replied, his voice a smooth, calm, and utterly unapologetic thing. "It would have been rude not to prepare a suitable reception for such… distinguished guests."

  Chapter : 1264

  The quiet, sarcastic confirmation was the final, twisting turn of the knife in Franz's pride. He had walked, with a supreme, arrogant confidence, directly into a perfectly designed, and beautifully decorated, abattoir.

  His rage, his humiliation, and his own, fanatical devotion to his dark god, all boiled over into a single, final, and suicidally defiant roar.

  "Then you will face me yourself, Lord Ferrum!" he shrieked, his voice a ragged, tearing sound. "You will not hide behind your trained monkeys! You will face the righteous fury of the Seventh Circle!"

  He raised his black rapier, and his demonic power, the power of a Crown-Ranked master, was finally, and fully, unleashed. A swirling, chaotic vortex of shadow and black fire erupted around him, a storm of pure, unholy energy that sent Annalisa and her butlers stumbling back.

  He had become a miniature sun of pure, abyssal power.

  "You should have stayed a decorator, Lord Ferrum," he sneered, his voice now a layered, demonic chorus. "You should have stayed with your flowers and your silks. Because you have just, very foolishly, stepped into a war you cannot possibly comprehend."

  Lloyd looked at the magnificent, terrible, and deeply impressive display of demonic power. He looked at the swirling vortex of shadow-flame. He looked at the arrogant, and now utterly doomed, man at its center.

  And he simply smiled. A slow, gentle, and almost pitying smile.

  "I agree," he replied, his voice a quiet, conversational thing.

  And then, he summoned his own spirit.

  It was not a subtle materialization. It was a cataclysm.

  The very air in the garden seemed to ignite. A silent, concussive wave of pure, absolute, and overwhelming annihilation erupted from the space behind Lloyd. It was not a heat that could be felt; it was a conceptual heat, a wave of pure, sun-destroying energy that made the very laws of thermodynamics tremble.

  The beautiful, enchanted light crystals that illuminated the garden did not just go out; they shattered, their magic unmade by a power of a fundamentally higher, and more terrible, order. The gentle, whispering fountains did not just stop; their water instantly, and silently, flash-vaporized into clouds of superheated steam.

  A nine-foot-tall demon, forged from the living heart of a volcano, materialized. Its skin was of jagged, black magma armor, its inner core pulsing with the light of a dying star. And in its hands, it held a colossal, twelve-foot-long zanbatō, a greatsword whose blade was not steel, but a roaring, contained river of pure, annihilating fire.

  This was Iffrit. And his arrival was not an entrance; it was a judgment.

  The swirling, chaotic vortex of shadow-flame around Franz did not just falter; it was cowed. The lesser, chaotic fire of the Abyss recoiled, it whimpered, in the face of the pure, absolute, and utterly sovereign fire of creation’s heart.

  The spiritual pressure that radiated from Iffrit was not just a level above Franz's. It was a different universe of power. Franz was a Crown-Ranked master, a formidable power in his own right. Iffrit was a Transcendent. A god.

  Franz’s arrogant, triumphant smile froze on his face. The demonic fire in his eyes was extinguished, replaced by the dawning, wide-eyed, and utterly abject horror of a man who has just realized that he has not cornered a sheep, but has willingly, and very, very stupidly, stepped into the cage of a sleeping, and now very, very awake, god of destruction.

  The silence in the garden was now of a different, and far more terrible, quality. It was the silence of a lesser god in the presence of a greater one. The quiet, professional slaughter of the remaining Curse Knights had ceased, as Lloyd’s ghost brigade, their own, human-scale violence rendered a pathetic, childish thing in the face of the two new, divine presences, had frozen in a state of profound, and very sensible, awe.

  Franz stood as a statue of pure, unadulterated, and comprehensive shock. His own, magnificent, and terrifying spirit, a Crown-Ranked Hellfire Crow, a being of living shadow and cold, abyssal flame, materialized beside him in a desperate, instinctual act of self-preservation. It was a beautiful, terrible creature, its wingspan a twenty-foot spread of oily, black feathers that seemed to drink the very moonlight, its eyes two burning embers of hateful, intelligent malice.

  It was also, in the face of the nine-foot-tall god of annihilation that now stood before it, a pigeon. A small, pathetic, and very, very flammable pigeon.

  The Hellfire Crow let out a terrified, guttural squawk and took an involuntary, hopping step backward, its own, lesser demonic nature screaming at it to flee from the presence of a true, primordial fire.