Chapter : 1765

  "Perfect," she whispered, her voice changing from the high pitch of a child to the smooth, oily tone of a Devil. "He didn't even ask for proof. Grief makes people so... predictable."***

  ________________________________________

  The Siddik Fortress was a masterpiece of defensive architecture. It sat on a high hill overlooking the capital of the Northern Province. Its walls were made of white stone reinforced with magic runes. It was designed to withstand armies, dragons, and siege engines.

  But it wasn't designed to withstand Lloyd Ferrum.

  Lloyd walked up the main road leading to the gates. The storm was at its peak. Thunder rattled the sky, and lightning illuminated the white walls of the castle in stark, flashing bursts.

  "Halt!"

  A guard on the battlements shouted down. He aimed a heavy crossbow at the lone figure in the mud. "Identify yourself! This is Siddik territory! No entry without authorization!"

  Lloyd didn't stop. He didn't look up. He simply raised his right hand.

  He felt the iron. He felt the heavy steel bolt loaded in the crossbow. He felt the chainmail shirt the guard was wearing. He felt the iron rivets in the massive wooden gates.

  "Open," Lloyd said.

  He didn't shout. He didn't need to. He clenched his fist and pulled back.

  A screeching sound of tearing metal echoed through the valley.

  The iron hinges of the massive gates—hinges as thick as a man's leg—didn't just unlock. They were ripped out of the stone. The metal groaned and twisted like wet clay. With a deafening crash, the giant doors fell outward, slamming into the wet earth and sliding down the hill.

  The guard on the wall gasped, firing his crossbow in panic.

  The bolt flew at Lloyd’s head.

  Lloyd didn't dodge. He twitched his index finger. The bolt stopped in mid-air, caught in an invisible magnetic web. Then, it spun around and shot back upward, embedding itself deep into the stone wall inches from the guard's face.

  "I am not here for you," Lloyd projected his voice. It sounded metallic, amplified by the vibrations of the iron in the air. "Get out of my way."

  He walked through the shattered gateway.

  Inside the courtyard, fifty soldiers were waiting. They were the elite Siddik house guard, clad in shining silver-steel plate armor. They formed a shield wall, leveling their spears.

  "Stop!" the captain of the guard roared. "One more step and we will cut you down!"

  Lloyd stopped. He looked at the wall of steel. To anyone else, it looked like an impenetrable defense. To Lloyd, it looked like a resource.

  "You are wearing your defeat," Lloyd stated flatly.

  He spread his arms wide. The blood in his veins surged, creating a massive, oscillating magnetic field.

  "Lock."

  The effect was instantaneous. Every soldier in the courtyard froze. Their armor, the very steel designed to protect them, suddenly became rigid. The joints of their knee-guards fused together. The overlapping plates on their elbows clamped down.

  Fifty men cried out in shock as they toppled over. They couldn't move their legs. They couldn't lift their arms. They were statues trapped in silver cages. They crashed into the mud, a chaotic heap of clanking metal and frightened shouts.

  Lloyd walked past them. He didn't kill them. They weren't the target. He stepped over a fallen spearman who was struggling to breathe against his magnetized breastplate.

  "Stay down," Lloyd advised coldly. "Or I will compress the chest piece until your ribs snap."

  He marched up the stairs to the main keep. He blew the lock off the great double doors with a pulse of magnetic force and stepped into the Great Hall.

  The atmosphere inside was jarring. It was warm. Braziers burned with bright, steady fires. The hall was clean, orderly, and smelled of lavender and old paper.

  At the far end of the hall, sitting behind a large desk covered in scrolls and reports, was Rosa.

  She looked up as the doors burst open.

  She didn't look like a villain. She looked exhausted. Her silver hair, usually pinned up in an intricate style, was loose and messy. Her eyes were red-rimmed. She was wearing a simple grey dress, not her royal finery. She had been working for days without sleep, trying to coordinate the defense of the kingdom, trying to find Rubel, trying to fix the mess Lloyd’s rebellion had caused.

  "Lloyd?" Rosa gasped, standing up. The quill dropped from her hand.

  Relief washed over her face. For a moment, the "Ice Queen" mask slipped. She looked like a wife who had just found out her husband wasn't dead.

  Chapter : 1766

  "You're alive," she breathed, stepping around the desk. "Thank the gods. My scouts said you had vanished. Lloyd, we need to talk. The situation is critical. The cultists are moving in the west, and—"

  "Shut up," Lloyd said.

  His voice echoed in the cavernous hall. It silenced the crackling of the fires.

  Rosa froze. She saw his eyes. They weren't the eyes of the boy she had married. They were the eyes of a dead man walking.

  "Lloyd?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly. "What is it? Are you hurt?"

  "Don't speak to me of cultists," Lloyd said, walking closer. His boots left muddy footprints on the expensive carpet. "Speak to me of maps."

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled parchment. He threw it.

  It fluttered through the air and landed at Rosa's feet.

  Rosa frowned. She looked at him, confused, then bent down to pick it up. She unfolded it. She saw the map of the forest. She saw the circle around the cabin.

  "What is this?" she asked. "A map to... the cabin? Lloyd, I don't understand."

  "Look at the seal, Rosa," Lloyd snarled.

  Rosa looked. She saw her family crest pressed into the wax.

  Her breath hitched. She stared at the paper, her mind racing. It was a forgery. A perfect forgery. But the implications were terrifying.

  "You think I did this?" Rosa looked up, her eyes wide. "Lloyd, this isn't mine. I didn't draw this."

  "It has your seal!" Lloyd shouted. The control he had maintained in the tavern finally broke. His rage poured out, causing the iron chandeliers above them to sway dangerously. "It has your signature! Don't lie to me! Did you tell him? Did you tell Rubel where she was?"

  "No!" Rosa cried, stepping forward. "Lloyd, listen to me! I would never do that! Mina was my sister!"

  "Exactly!" Lloyd yelled, pointing an accusing finger at her. "She was your sister! And she was better than you! She was kind! She was warm! And you hated her for it!"

  The accusation hit Rosa like a physical blow. She staggered back, clutching the map to her chest.

  "I envied her," Rosa admitted, her voice shaking. "I envied that she could make you smile when I couldn't. But I loved her, Lloyd! I have been trying to save this family! I have been trying to save you!"

  "Save me?" Lloyd laughed. It was a harsh, barking sound. "Is that what you call it? You isolated me! You drove me away! And when I found happiness, you sold it to Rubel to buy your throne!"

  He gestured around the grand hall.

  "Look at you!" Lloyd sneered. "Sitting here in your warm castle while she rots in the mud! You're liquidating the Ferrum assets, aren't you? My spies told me. You're selling my land. You're gathering an army. You took everything!"

  "I am selling the land to buy an artifact!" Rosa screamed back, tears finally spilling down her cheeks. "To buy a core that can save a soul! I am trying to fix this!"

  "Liar!" Lloyd roared.

  He raised his hand. The iron candelabras on the tables flew into the air. They twisted and sharpened, turning into distinct, floating spears aimed directly at Rosa's heart.

  "You're the final loose end," Lloyd said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "Rubel was just the weapon. You were the hand that swung it."

  Rosa stared at the metal spikes hovering inches from her chest. She looked at her husband. She saw the layers of pain and manipulation that had buried him. She realized, with a sinking heart, that she couldn't talk him out of this. The lie was too perfect. The grief was too fresh.

  She straightened her back. She wiped the tears from her face. If she begged, he would despise her. If she fought back, she would have to hurt him.

  "If you truly believe that," Rosa said, her voice regaining a shred of its icy composure, "then there is nothing I can say to convince you. Strike me down, Lloyd. If that will bring you peace."

  Lloyd’s hand trembled. He wanted to do it. Every logical circuit in his brain screamed that she was the enemy.

  But his hand wouldn't close.

  Suddenly, the heavy doors of the hall burst open again. A messenger stumbled in, gasping for breath. He stopped dead when he saw the floating metal spikes.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "My... My Lords!" the messenger squeaked.

  Lloyd didn't look away from Rosa. "Get out."

  Chapter : 1767

  "It's urgent!" the messenger cried, holding up a scroll. "It's Viscount Rubel! Our scouts found him! He's not hiding! He's heading for the Valley of Silence!"

  Lloyd froze. The name cut through his rage.

  "The Valley?" Lloyd asked, slowly lowering his hand. The metal spikes clattered to the floor.

  "Yes, my Lord!" the messenger said. "He has sent a challenge! He calls for the 'Last Ferrum' to meet him there at dawn. He says... he says he will tell you the real story before he kills you."

  Lloyd stood in silence for a moment. He looked at Rosa, then at the dark window.

  Rubel was the one who had swung the sword. Rubel was the one who had laughed. Rosa might have been the architect, but Rubel was the butcher.

  "He's mine," Lloyd growled.

  He turned his back on Rosa. He began to walk toward the door, his heavy boots echoing on the stone.

  "Lloyd, wait!" Rosa called out. "The Valley of Silence? It's a trap! You know what that place is! It's composed of Null-Stone! Your powers... even your bloodline... will be dampened there! You'll be walking into a grave!"

  Lloyd stopped at the door. He didn't turn around.

  "Better a grave than this house," he said.

  He walked out into the storm, leaving Rosa alone in the hall.

  Rosa stared at the empty doorway. She looked down at the forged map in her hand. She crumpled it into a ball.

  "He's going to die," she whispered to the empty room. "Rubel will have archers. Without his magnetism, Lloyd is just a man with a sword against an army."

  She looked at her staff leaning against the wall. She looked at the reports of the cultist movements. She knew she should stay. She was the Regent. She had a duty to the kingdom.

  But then she remembered Lloyd’s face. She remembered the boy who had made medicine for her mother. She remembered the husband she had failed to love properly.

  "I can't let him die thinking I betrayed him," Rosa said. Her voice was firm now. The exhaustion was gone, replaced by a desperate resolve.

  She grabbed her staff. She grabbed a pouch of mana crystals.

  "I have to save him," she said, running toward the door. "Even if he hates me. Even if he kills me for it."

  She ran out into the rain, chasing the man who wanted her dead, heading straight for the valley where silence waited to swallow them both.

  ________________________________________

  The Valley of Silence was not named for a lack of noise. The wind still howled through the jagged cracks in the cliffs, and the thunder still rolled overhead like crashing wagons. It was called the Valley of Silence because it was a graveyard for power.

  The canyon was a deep, winding scar on the northern edge of the Ferrum territory. The rock here was not ordinary granite or limestone. It was composed entirely of Null-Stone, a rare, dark-grey mineral that acted like a sponge for energy. It didn't just absorb sound; it absorbed mana, spirit power, and even the ambient electricity in the air.

  Lloyd Ferrum walked into the mouth of the valley. He was alone.

  For the last few weeks, Lloyd had felt like a god of physics. His Ferrum Steel Bloodline had been humming constantly, creating an invisible web of magnetic sensitivity around him. He could feel the iron in the ground, the steel in a bird’s feather, and the blood in a man’s veins from a mile away. He had been the "Ghost Assassin," a creature of perfect awareness.

  But the moment his boot touched the grey gravel of the valley floor, the world went dark.

  It was a jarring, physical shock, like walking face-first into a glass wall. The hum in his blood vanished instantly. The sensory web collapsed. The connection he had to the metal in his sword and the iron in his own marrow was severed. He tried to reach out with his mind, frantically searching for a magnetic signal, but there was nothing. The Null-Stone swallowed the signal before it could travel an inch.

  He was no longer the Kinetic Engineer. He was just a nineteen-year-old boy, soaked to the bone in freezing rain, walking into a trap with nothing but a rusty sword and a heart full of broken glass.

  "Inefficient terrain," Lloyd whispered to himself.

  Even his voice sounded wrong here. The sound didn't carry. It fell flat, dying the moment it left his lips, absorbed by the hungry stones.

  Chapter : 1768

  He kept walking. The rain fell straight down in heavy, relentless sheets. It turned the dust of the valley into a thick, grey sludge that clung to his boots, dragging at his ankles with every step. The valley walls rose high on both sides, blocking out the remaining light of the stormy afternoon, creating a tunnel of oppressive shadow.

  Lloyd knew this was a trap. Every logical circuit in his brain, every instinct honed by his "Black Box" mentality, was screaming at him to turn around. The strategic analysis was clear: entering a geographic choke point with zero visibility and disabled powers was suicide. It was a tactical error of the highest order.

  But logic had lost the war against rage.

  Viscount Rubel was here. The man who had swung the sword at his family. The man who had burned the cabin. The man who had taken Mina away from him. Lloyd didn't care if he had to crawl through broken glass; he wasn't leaving this valley until the debt was paid. The anger kept him warm. The hatred kept his legs moving when the mud tried to stop him.

  After twenty minutes of trudging through the gloom, the valley opened up. It formed a wide, natural amphitheater, a circular basin surrounded by towering cliffs of jagged Null-Stone.

  Standing on a ridge at the far end of the basin, looking down like a king on a balcony, was a solitary figure.

  It was Viscount Rubel. He wore a thick fur cloak to ward off the chill, and he looked far too comfortable for a man who was being hunted by a ghost. He stood with his arms crossed, a smug, oily smile plastered on his face.

  "I honestly didn't think you would come," Rubel shouted. His voice echoed slightly, amplified by the strange acoustics of the stone bowl. "I thought the great 'Ghost of the North' would be too smart to walk into a Null-Zone. But I guess grief makes people stupid, doesn't it, nephew?"

  Lloyd stopped in the center of the basin. The rain plastered his hair to his forehead. He reached deep inside himself, trying to grab onto the feeling of the iron in his blood. He tried to harden his skin, tried to summon the wires that had slaughtered the knights in the forest.

  It was difficult. The power was there, deep inside his marrow, but it was sluggish. It felt like trying to run underwater. He could barely reinforce his muscles. Projecting the power outward was impossible. The wires wouldn't form. The magnetic field wouldn't hold.

  "Come down here," Lloyd said. His voice was calm, flat, and terrifying. "Come down here and let me show you exactly how stupid I am."

  Rubel laughed. It was a harsh, barking sound that grated on Lloyd’s ears. "Oh, I don't think so. You see, Lloyd, I've learned from your little rampage. I watched you dismantle my Shadow Knights. You turn their armor against them. You turn their swords against them. You are a magnet."

  Rubel gestured grandly to the cliffs surrounding the basin.

  "So, I decided to change the variables. I brought weapons made of wood and stone. And I brought men who don't wear metal."

  Movement flickered along the cliff tops. Dozens of figures stood up from behind the rocks. They weren't soldiers in shining plate. They were dressed in the crimson robes of the cultists, their faces hidden by deep hoods. They didn't hold steel swords or iron-tipped arrows.

  They held crossbows made of polished bone and dark wood. And loaded in those crossbows were bolts carved from black obsidian, tipped with a glowing, sickly green paste.

  "Hex-bolts," Lloyd analyzed instantly, his mind automatically calculating the threat despite the situation. "Material: Volcanic glass. Toxin: Necrotic neurotoxin. Estimated time of death after contact: 45 seconds. Survival probability: 0%."

  He tightened his grip on his sword. It was just a piece of sharp steel now. No magnetism to guide it. No wires to protect him. He was a man with a knife fighting a firing squad.

  "You really are a disappointment," Rubel sneered, leaning over the edge of the ridge. "My brother, your father, was a fool. But at least he died fighting. You? You're going to die like a rat in a bucket. And the best part? The world will think you went mad with grief and walked into an ambush."

  Rubel raised his hand high. "Fire."

  The twang of bowstrings echoed through the valley like a collective snap.