Chapter 1116: The Forgotten Palace [Part 3]

Chapter 1116 – The Forgotten Palace [Part 3]

He appeared beside the broader guard, low and fast, one hand gripping the man’s wrist, turning the weapon away. His second dagger reversed in his palm and struck beneath the ribs, angled upward into the spiritual core. The guard jerked. Lux caught him by the shoulder and pulled him inward, almost like an embrace.

The broader guard sagged.

Lux let him down silently.

The taller one reached for the dagger lodged in his collar rune.

Cyrinne appeared behind him and wrapped one arm around his neck, the other hand covering his eyes.

"Sleep," she whispered.

He did.

Lux pulled his dagger free before the body fell, then caught the guard’s armor with one hand.

Together, they lowered both into shadow.

No noise, alarm, or blood on the marble except a few dark drops that Lux erased with a flick of Greed flame.

Cyrinne watched him clean the floor. "You are very tidy for an assassin."

"I’m not an assassin."

"You just killed three people and hid the bodies."

"I am a CFO adapting to poor meeting conditions."

"That is the most Greed thing I have ever heard."

Lux gave her a look.

She smiled.

The corridor opened ahead into a circular hall.

Worse.

The hall had once been beautiful. A domed ceiling arched overhead, painted with constellations that had faded into black smears. A grand chandelier hung broken in the center, its crystal shards suspended midair as if the moment of falling had been paused forever. Around the walls stood twelve doors, only four intact. The floor bore a massive sigil carved into the marble, old, deep, and inactive.

Except not fully.

Lux could feel something beneath it.

A listening spell.

Dormant.

Waiting for noise.

He stopped Cyrinne with one hand.

She looked at him.

He pointed down.

Her gaze followed.

Her expression tightened. "Sound grid."

Lux nodded. "Can you disable it?"

"Not quickly."

"Can we cross without triggering it?"

"Depends how attached you are to physics."

Lux looked at the hall.

Six guards inside. Two near the far door. One walking around the chandelier. Three gathered near a cracked pillar, murmuring in low voices. Too many eyes. Too much open space. The sound grid meant a body hitting the floor wrong could wake half the palace.

Fantastic.

Lux had wanted new power.

Apparently new power required auditioning for ancient murder ballet.

He flexed his fingers around the daggers.

Cyrinne leaned closer. "Ideas?"

"Yes."

"Good ones?"

"No."

"Romantic."

Lux exhaled. "On my mark, blind the three near the pillar. Make them look inward. I need four seconds."

"And the other three?"

"I’ll handle them."

"Of course you will."

Her voice had that teasing bite again, but softer now. Something warmer beneath it. Admiration, maybe. Or envy. With Cyrinne, those two probably shared a bedroom.

Lux stepped into the hall.

The sound grid trembled beneath him.

He did not step on the floor.

Not properly.

Lux’s eyes flicked upward, catching the broken chandelier hanging above the hall. Its crystal body had shattered long ago, but the old suspension chains still remained, stretched from the ceiling beams in blackened loops. Ancient, thick, half-rusted, and ugly as royal guilt.

Useful, then.

Lux jumped lightly, his dagger hooking around one of the hanging chains. The metal gave a faint groan, but he controlled the sound before it could travel, muscles tightening as he swung himself forward. His boots hovered just above the marble, never pressing into the carved sigil below.

He moved from chain to chain, dagger to broken crystal frame, palm to cracked wall, using whatever the ruined palace had left behind. Just balance, blades, and the kind of absurd physical control that made assassination look like expensive dancing.

Cyrinne watched from the shadows.

Of course he turned a ruined chandelier into a walkway.

Lux Vaelthorn could look at broken furniture and find murder infrastructure.

Absurd.

Elegant.

Deeply annoying that it worked.

The walking guard turned.

Lux threw himself sideways, using a suspended crystal shard as a pivot. His body rotated through the air, coat flaring behind him, one dagger flashing. He passed the guard without landing, blade touching the man’s alarm rune, then the base of his skull. The guard folded silently.

Lux caught the body before it hit the floor, one arm locking around the armor, his dagger still pressed beneath the collar where the alarm rune had died without a sound.

One.

The two by the far door reacted.

Fast.

One raised a hand toward his mouth.

Lux moved faster.

His dagger left his hand in a clean black-gold flash. It crossed the hall like a thought sharpened into murder and pinned the guard’s sleeve to the stone beside his head before the alarm could leave his throat.

The guard froze.

Lux was already there.

He landed behind him, one foot touching the floor only on a dead portion of the sigil. His second blade slid across the guard’s collar rune, killing the signal before it woke. Then Lux drove the pommel into the back of his skull with soft, brutal precision.

The impact was quiet.

The result was not kind.

The guard’s spirit flickered, collapsed inward, and his body sagged. Lux caught him by the chest plate and lowered him into the shadow behind the broken arch.

Two.

The last far-door guard drew his blade.

Cyrinne moved.

Across the hall, the three near the pillar suddenly froze, their eyes glassing over, faces twisting as if each had seen the one thing they had always envied just beyond reach. One whispered a name. Another smiled like a broken child. The third began to cry silently.

Lux had his four seconds.

He ducked under the far-door guard’s slash, stepped inside the range, and caught the man’s wrist with his empty hand. His dagger reversed in his grip and slid into the crossed point beneath the armor where movement, magic, and alarm met.

Cut the signal, the breath,the fight.

The guard died with a confused frown.

Lux caught him by the chest plate and lowered him down inch by inch.

Three.

Then he turned.