Chapter : 1585

  He climbed into the carriage. Ken was already in the driver's seat, looking like a mountain of furs. With a crack of the whip, the carriage lurched forward, the wheels crunching on the gravel.

  Jasmin watched them go. She watched until the carriage turned the bend and disappeared into the mist, leaving only the sound of fading hoofbeats. She reached up and touched the cold metal of the hairpin, gripping it tight. A deep, unsettling feeling settled in her stomach, a cold knot of dread that had nothing to do with the morning chill. It felt like the silence before a thunderstorm.

  Arch Duke Roy watched her for a moment. He saw the way she stood, the set of her jaw, the hand on the weapon-ornament in her hair. He gave a rare, almost imperceptible nod of approval. The girl had steel in her spine.

  "Come inside, girl," Roy commanded, turning back to the massive doors of the manor. "We have work to do."

  "Yes, Your Grace," Jasmin said, tearing her eyes away from the empty road.

  Roy intended to give her training because she has potential to use diamond like the steel.

  But miles away, in a dark cellar beneath the capital, a scrying bowl filled with black liquid rippled. A pair of red eyes watched the carriage depart in the reflection. A voice, sounding like dry leaves skittering on stone, whispered into the darkness.

  "The variable is removed. The Knight has left the board."

  A second voice, deeper and hungrier, answered. "Then the Lion King is exposed. Begin the operation. Burn the house."

  The shadows in the capital lengthened, stretching towards the north, towards the estate that suddenly felt very, very far away from help.

  It had been three days since Lloyd Ferrum departed for the southern territories. The Ferrum Estate, usually a bustling hub of military precision and logistical marvels, had settled into a tense but functional rhythm. The soldiers drilled in the yard, the servants scrubbed the stone floors, and the air was filled with the smell of iron and pine. It was a normal Tuesday, right up until the moment the sun decided to die.

  It didn't happen slowly. There was no gradual gathering of storm clouds or the rumble of distant thunder. One moment, the sky was a crisp, clear northern blue. The next, it was the color of a three-day-old bruise. A sickly, vibrant purple light washed over the entire duchy, tinting the white stone walls of the fortress with a nauseating hue. The birds stopped singing instantly. The wind died. It was as if the world itself had held its breath in anticipation of a blow it knew it couldn't dodge.

  On the ramparts of the main wall, the Captain of the Guard squinted up at the sun, which now looked like a bloated, infected eye staring down at them. He was a veteran of three border wars, a man who had seen goblins, curse knights, and rogue mages. He had never seen the sky look like it was rotting.

  "Sound the alarm!" he bellowed, his voice cracking slightly. "Full defensive positions! Shields up! Archers to the towers!"

  The bells began to ring, a frantic, clanging sound that echoed off the mountains. But there was no enemy army on the horizon. There were no siege towers rolling toward the gates, no legions of skeletal warriors marching in lockstep. The horizon was empty. The threat wasn't coming from the north, south, east, or west. It was coming from above.

  A single black dot appeared in the center of the purple sun. It grew larger, descending slowly, casually. It wasn't falling; falling implies a lack of control. This figure was lowering itself, like a man stepping off a carriage.

  As the figure got closer, the pressure began. It wasn't a wind. It was a physical weight, pressing down on the shoulders of every living thing in the castle. The horses in the stables screamed and buckled, their legs giving out. In the kitchens, ceramic plates shattered on the shelves from the vibration in the air. The guards on the wall fell to their knees, gasping for air as if the oxygen had been replaced by lead.

  The figure touched down in the center of the main courtyard. He didn't land with a crash. He didn't leave a crater. He touched the stone pavement as lightly as a feather, yet the shockwave of his arrival blew out every glass window in the main keep.

  Chapter : 1586

  He was beautiful. That was the most terrifying thing about him. He didn't have horns, or a tail, or skin made of lava. He looked like a human man in his prime, tall and perfectly proportioned. He wore a suit of pristine white armor that seemed to be made of bone and starlight, with a long, flowing cape of deep crimson. His hair was black, slicked back, and his eyes were the color of amethyst.

  He stood there, in the center of the chaos he had caused, and he looked bored. He looked around the courtyard, at the soldiers struggling to stand, at the panicked servants peering from windows, and he sighed. It was a sigh of profound disappointment.

  "Is this it?" he said. His voice wasn't loud, yet it was heard by everyone in the castle, from the dungeons to the highest tower. It bypassed the ears and spoke directly to the brain stem. "I was told the Lions of the North were formidable. But all I see are trembling dogs."

  This was Lucifer. The Devil King of Pride. He hadn't brought an army because he didn't need one. He didn't bring generals because he didn't share glory. He had come alone because, in his mind, he was more than enough to erase a human bloodline from the face of the earth.

  The Captain of the Guard, veins bulging in his neck from the effort, managed to force himself to his feet. He was a brave man, perhaps foolishly so. He drew his sword, the steel scraping loudly in the silence.

  "You are trespassing on the land of House Ferrum!" the Captain roared, though his legs were shaking. "Identify yourself or die!"

  Lucifer turned his head slowly to look at the Captain. He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't raise a hand. He just looked. And then, he smiled. It wasn't a smile of joy. It was the smile a boot gives to an ant.

  "Identify myself?" Lucifer mused. "You do not ask the sun for its name before it burns you, little man. You just burn."

  The pressure in the courtyard spiked. It went from heavy to crushing. The flagstones beneath Lucifer's feet cracked, a spiderweb of fractures spreading out from him in a perfect circle. He took a single step forward. The sheer arrogance radiating from him was a physical force, a tangible wave of superiority that hit the defenders like a physical wall.

  "I am not here for war," Lucifer stated, brushing an invisible speck of dust from his white pauldron. "War implies that there is a chance for the other side to win. War implies a struggle. This? This is housekeeping. This is taking out the trash. I am here for an execution."

  The terror in the courtyard was absolute. It wasn't just fear of death; it was the primal fear of a prey animal in the presence of an apex predator. The soldiers of House Ferrum were trained to fight men, beasts, and even magic users. But they weren't trained to fight gravity. They weren't trained to fight a concept. And that is what Lucifer was. He was the concept of Pride made flesh.

  "Form ranks!" the Captain screamed, trying to rally his men. "Attack! Don't let him take another step! For the Arch Duke! For the North!"

  It was a valiant effort. About fifty House Guards, the elite shock troops of the estate, managed to overcome the crushing pressure through sheer force of will. They roared their battle cries, raised their halberds and swords, and charged. It was a wave of steel and discipline, a coordinated assault that would have broken a cavalry charge.

  They rushed toward the lone figure in white. They were ten feet away. Five feet away.

  Lucifer didn't blink. He didn't shift his stance. He didn't even look at them. He simply released a fraction of his spiritual pressure, focusing it outward like a pulse.

  Thrum.

  The sound was like a heavy book slamming shut.

  The charging guards didn't fly backward. They didn't burn. They simply stopped. The air around Lucifer became harder than diamond, heavier than a mountain. The fifty men hit that invisible wall of pressure and were instantly, horrifyingly flattened.

  Chapter : 1587

  It happened in a blink. Armor crumpled like paper. Bones snapped with the sound of dry twigs breaking. Bodies were pressed down into the stone pavement with such force that they became indistinguishable from the ground. There was no blood spray, no screams of pain. Just a wet, crunching sound, and then fifty piles of red paste where fifty brave men had stood a second ago.

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  The Captain, who had been a few steps behind the charge, skid to a halt, his face pale, his eyes bulging. He looked at the remains of his squad. They hadn't even touched him. The Devil King hadn't even lifted a finger. He had just... existed at them. And they had died.

  Lucifer stepped onto the red-stained stones, not caring that he was walking on the remains of the defenders. His white boots remained spotless.

  "Messy," Lucifer commented, wrinkling his nose slightly. "Humans are so full of fluids. It is inefficient."

  He looked at the Captain, who was now frozen in shock, his sword hanging limp in his hand.

  "You," Lucifer said. "You seem to have a loud voice. Perhaps you can be useful."

  The Captain couldn't speak. His throat had closed up. He was staring at death, and death was beautiful and bored.

  "I called for the master of this house," Lucifer said, his tone conversational. "But he seems to be hiding. Perhaps he is shy? Or perhaps he is smarter than his servants and knows what is coming."

  Lucifer looked up at the main keep, his amethyst eyes boring through the stone walls.

  "I do not like waiting," the Devil King said. "Waiting is for servants. Waiting is for mortals. I am neither."

  He raised his right hand for the first time. He pointed a single, manicured finger at the massive, reinforced iron gates of the inner sanctum—gates that had withstood siege engines and battering rams for three hundred years.

  "Open," Lucifer commanded.

  He didn't cast a spell. He didn't throw a fireball. He just spoke his will, and reality obeyed. The massive iron gates didn't swing open. They imploded. The metal groaned, twisted, and then crumpled inward as if a giant invisible fist had punched through them. Shards of iron the size of dinner plates flew into the hall beyond, embedding themselves in the stone pillars.

  The dust settled. The way was open. But Lucifer didn't enter. He stood in the center of the carnage, bathed in the sickly purple light of the sky, and took a deep breath.

  "ROY FERRUM!"

  The name boomed like thunder. It shook the foundations of the castle. Tiles slid off the roof. Glass shattered in the village a mile away. It wasn't just a shout; it was a summons. It was a command from a god to a mortal.

  "Come out!" Lucifer roared, his voice filled with a terrible, joyful malice. "Come out and die like a king, or stay inside and die like a rat! The Seventh Circle has sent its regards. We are tired of your family's existence. We are tired of your defiance. Today, the shield of the North breaks. Today, the Lion is skinned."

  The echo of his voice rolled over the estate, silencing everything. The surviving guards dropped their weapons, falling to their knees, their spirits broken by the sheer scale of the power in front of them. There was no fighting this. You don't fight a natural disaster. You just pray it passes you by.

  Lucifer lowered his hand. He smoothed his cape. He waited. He knew Roy would come. Men like Roy Ferrum, men who built their lives on pride and honor, could not ignore a challenge. That was the weakness of humans. They cared about things. And Lucifer was going to use that care to destroy them.

  The silence stretched out for ten seconds. Then twenty. The dust from the destroyed gate swirled in the heavy air.

  And then, from the darkness of the shattered doorway, a sound emerged. It was the heavy, rhythmic clank of metal on stone. Step by step. Slow. Deliberate. Angry.

  Lucifer’s smile widened. His eyes lit up with predatory delight.

  "Finally," he whispered. "The main event."

  ________________________________________

  Chapter : 1588

  The dust billowing from the shattered gateway parted, not by the wind, but by the sheer force of a man's presence. Arch Duke Roy Ferrum stepped out into the purple light. He was not wearing his ceremonial robes. He was clad in his full battle plate—black adamantine armor that seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it. His cape was gone. His helmet was off, revealing a face carved from granite, eyes burning with a cold, absolute fury that matched the devil’s arrogance.

  Roy didn't look at the red paste that used to be his guards. He didn't look at the terrified survivors. He locked eyes with Lucifer, and the air between them began to distort, the clash of their spiritual pressures creating visible sparks of static electricity.

  "You have made a mistake," Roy said. His voice was low, a rumble of tectonic plates grinding together. It wasn't a shout, but it carried the weight of a death sentence. "You have come into my home. You have killed my men. And you have interrupted my tea."

  Lucifer laughed. It was a bright, musical sound that felt entirely out of place in the slaughterhouse of the courtyard. "Tea? How charmingly rustic. I offer you extinction, and you complain about beverages. You humans are endlessly entertaining in your smallness."

  "Smallness?" Roy took another step. The ground shook. "I am the wall that the North breaks against. I am the iron in the blood of this land. And you are just a trespasser."

  Roy threw his arms wide. "COME TO ME, GOG! MAGOG!"

  The summoning was instantaneous. There was no chanting, no delay. The reality behind Roy tore open.

  From the earth to his left, Gog erupted. He was a Titan, a creature made of living mountain rock and steel veins, standing forty feet tall. His roar was the sound of an avalanche. From the sky to his right, Magog descended. A primordial dragon made of storm clouds and lightning, its wingspan blotting out the purple sun. These were Sovereign-Level spirits, gods in their own right, the guardians of the Ferrum line.

  But Roy wasn't done. He didn't just summon his spirits; he became one with his element.

  "SSS-Class Steel Blood: World of Blades," Roy whispered.

  The ground of the estate, the walls of the castle, the discarded weapons of the dead guards—every scrap of metal within a mile answered his call. The iron liquefied, flowing into the air like rivers of mercury. It swirled around Roy, forming a thousand floating swords, spears, and chains. He was the center of a galaxy of steel.

  "Die," Roy commanded.

  The attack was a cataclysm. Magog unleashed a beam of pure lightning. Gog slammed his massive stone fists down. And Roy sent his river of steel crashing forward like a tsunami. It was enough power to erase a city from the map. It was a coordinated, three-pronged assault of physical, elemental, and conceptual destruction.

  Lucifer didn't move. He didn't dodge. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, watching the apocalypse rush toward him with mild interest.

  The attacks hit.

  The explosion was blinding. A mushroom cloud of dust, lightning, and pulverized stone rose into the air. The shockwave flattened the surrounding stables and sent the surviving guards tumbling like leaves. For a moment, it seemed impossible that anything could survive. The sheer violence of the assault was absolute.

  But as the dust cleared, a sphere of pristine white light remained in the center of the crater. Lucifer stood inside it, untouched. There wasn't a scratch on his armor. His cape hadn't even ruffled.

  "Impressive," Lucifer said, nodding appreciatively. "For a human. That actually had some mass to it. I felt a breeze."

  Roy didn't panic. He was a veteran of a thousand wars. He knew the first strike rarely killed a King. He narrowed his eyes, analyzing. A barrier? No. He didn't block it. He dispersed it. He pushed the energy away before it touched him.

  "Again!" Roy roared.

  He changed tactics. He didn't just throw energy; he used mass. He commanded his steel river to form into three colossal dragons of solid iron. They were intricate, heavy, and moved with the speed of a whip. They lunged at Lucifer, their jaws snapping, their bodies coiling to crush him.

  Lucifer raised a hand and caught the first iron dragon by the nose. He held the massive construct, weighing hundreds of tons, with one hand.