The heavy, metallic scent of fresh blood inside the bedroom did not dissipate.
Instead, it mingled with the freezing wind howling through the cracked glass balcony doors.
On the floorboards, the dark crimson pools from the shattered silver guards slowly began to freeze at the edges, turning into jagged, dark crystals under the weight of the unnatural cold.
Valerius remained hovering over Scarlett, his long shadow trapping her against the velvet sheets.
His hands were still pinned on either side of her head.
The intense fury that had completely erased the Capital’s elite less than a minute ago was gone from his face.
In its place was an absolute, unblinking stillness.
Scarlett forced her breathing to remain shallow.
Her throat still stung slightly from the cold imprint of his palm.
She didn’t look at the splinters of the door.
Her silver-ruby eyes were locked onto his sharp jawline, watching a thin, stray drop of rain slide down his pale skin.
”They will keep sending them,” Scarlett whispered, her voice cutting through the heavy silence.
She tried to weaponize the slaughter that had just occurred right in front of them.
“The High Council.
Lord Kaelen.
They won’t stop until they tear this entire pavilion apart.”
Valerius tilted his head slightly, his dark hair falling across his forehead, casting deep shadows over his eyes.
He didn’t look like a tyrant who had just broken an army.
He looked exposed.
Vulnerable.
He reached out, his long, pale fingers gently brushing a stray lock of hair away from her damp cheek.
His touch was incredibly light, almost hesitant.
”Let them tear the world apart,” Valerius murmured, his voice dropping to a low, rough frequency that vibrated against her skin.
His gaze searched hers with a desperate, dark intensity.
“I don’t care if you hate me, Scarlett.
I only fear the day you stop looking at me.”
Scarlett’s heart skipped a heavy, erratic beat.
He was standing here, drenched in blood, confessing his deepest fear to the one person capable of destroying him.
His obsession wasn’t just a weapon anymore; it was a sickness.
Before she could form a reply, a massive, deafening roar echoed from the courtyard below, violently shaking the entire foundation of the Onyx Pavilion.
Down in the muddy trenches of the courtyard, the battle had reached its boiling point.
Ethan was forced down to one knee, his breathing ragged and uneven.
His silver enforcer blade was dug deep into the wet earth, using it as an anchor to keep himself from being completely flattened.
Every instinct in his body screamed at him to run from the monstrous energy radiating through the rain. Find the original chapter at g.com.
But he smiled anyway.
Lord Kaelen had not moved a single inch from his original position.
His massive broadsword was raised slightly, its heavy iron surface pulsing with a dull, suffocating grey light that made the stone bedrock beneath his boots warp and crack.
”Your stamina is commendable, Chief Enforcer,” Kaelen stated, his emotionless voice cutting clearly through the roaring wind.
He raised his left hand, and the heavy grey mist instantly solidified into dozens of rotating stone pillars above Ethan’s head.
“But you are defending a sinking ship.
My guards have already breached the upper levels.
The human is secured.”
Ethan wiped a mixture of rain and dark blood from his eyebrow, his grip tightening around the hilt of his blade until the leather wraps groaned.
He slowly forced himself back to his feet.
”Secured?” Ethan laughed, the sound sharp and hollow against the thunder.
“You really don’t know who is sitting in that upper room, do you, Kaelen?
Your little silver puppets didn’t go up there to secure a target.
They walked straight into their graves.”
Kaelen’s unblinking eyes narrowed just a fraction of a millimeter.
For the first time, a small ripple of unease crossed his stone-cold expression.
Right at that exact second, a horrific sound echoed from the upper balcony—the high-pitched, metallic screech of silver armor being violently torn apart, followed by four distinct, heavy thuds landing on the grass outside.
Four broken, silver-plated helmets rolled out into the muddy courtyard, stopping just a few feet away from Kaelen’s boots.
The visors were completely cracked through.
Ethan’s grin widened, his blade crackling with blue plasma energy once more.
“See?
I told you.
You brought a knife to a god’s playground.”
Inside the shattered main hall of the pavilion, the air was suffocatingly thick with the smell of burning circuits.
Julian was leaning heavily against his cracked console, his fingers flying across a secondary emergency pad.
His face was pale, lit only by the flickering red error messages dancing across the holographic screens.
“Lyra!
The internal lifelines of the vanguard guards just went completely dark!
All four of them…
erased in less than ten seconds!”
Lyra stood at the base of the grand staircase, her twin plasma daggers dripping with white-hot hydraulic fluid from the remaining guards she had been holding off.
She wiped her blood-stained shoulder against the marble banister, her eyes flicking upward toward the dark corridor leading to the presidential suite.
No one in the pavilion dared speak his name aloud in this state.
”Julian, keep the lower security gates locked,” Lyra whispered, her royal composure finally breaking into raw dread.
She knew exactly what those readings meant.
If he decides to come down here himself, he won’t care who he steps on.”
”I’m trying!” Julian yelled back, his fingers smashing a manual override button as the lights flickered violently.
“But the main courtyard barrier is completely failing!
Kaelen is gathering his remaining mana for a massive strike!
If Ethan doesn’t stop him, the entire eastern wing is going to collapse!”
Upstairs, the heavy silence returned to the bedroom, but the psychological air between Valerius and Scarlett had completely transformed.
Valerius slowly straightened his spine, his dark eyes shifting toward the broken balcony where the storm was screaming.
He could feel Kaelen’s crushing pressure expanding outside, threatening to level the roof over their heads.
The heavy wooden pillars supporting the ceiling started to splinter.
He looked down at Scarlett one last time.
His expression was no longer detached or cruel.
”Empires can survive betrayal, Scarlett,” Valerius said softly, his voice cutting through the groaning of the breaking walls.
He stepped closer to the edge of the balcony, the wind ripping through his dark hair as lightning flashed behind his silhouette.
“I cannot survive losing you.”
She should have hated him.
She should have feared him.
Yet as the walls trembled around her, Scarlett realized something terrifying—his madness was becoming the only place where she felt safe.
”Valerius, wait,” Scarlett called out, her voice involuntary, her fingers reaching out toward him before she could even think to stop herself.
Valerius didn’t look back, but a dark, hollow smile touched his lips as he stepped out onto the rain-drenched balcony.
“Stay inside, my cross.
I will go silence the noise outside.”
The storm screamed across the shattered balcony.
Lightning split the heavens.
Black mist swallowed his silhouette.
Scarlett couldn’t look away.
The thought of losing him frightened her.
And she hated that it frightened her.
With a sudden, violent eruption of dark energy, his figure vanished into the downpour, leaving her entirely alone in the bleeding sanctuary of the room.
Oh my god, the character depth in this chapter is immaculate!
Scarlett’s internal conflict is so raw now—she is terrified by the very thought of losing the man she’s supposed to hate, and that inner battle makes her character so much more relatable and complex.
Valerius has officially entered the battlefield to face Lord Kaelen himself.
Will Chapter 22 bring the clash of the centuries between the pureblood King and the High Executioner?
How will Scarlett deal with this unwanted shift in her own heart?