Chapter 1160: Cursed Guard [Part 2]

Chapter 1160 – Cursed Guard [Part 2]

Vaelor’s breathing became heavier.

"He made me watch."

Lux said nothing.

"He imprisoned her beneath the palace ruins. Then he changed me."

Vaelor touched the broken chain wound in his shoulder.

"He poured demonic power into my body until my bones broke. He rebuilt them. Broke them again. He kept changing me until I could survive here forever."

Lux’s eyes sharpened.

So that explained the database.

The system couldn’t find his demonic origin because there wasn’t one.

He hadn’t been born in Hell.

He hadn’t been summoned.

He hadn’t even been transformed through any recognized infernal lineage.

Kaelmor had manufactured him.

A mortal converted into something demon-adjacent through brute force.

"What was your command?"

Vaelor’s face twisted. "Guard the princess."

Lux frowned. "That sounds like your original duty."

"It was."

Vaelor stopped. His claws dug into his palms. "That was the cruelty."

Lux understood before Vaelor finished.

"He kept the words." Vaelor’s voice cracked. "He twisted their meaning."

The brands across his chest were dark now, but Lux could still see their scars.

"I was ordered to guard her so she could never leave. To kill anyone who came to free her. To stop her if she tried to escape." His jaw clenched. "I became the lock on her cage."

Lux looked away for a moment.

Kaelmor hadn’t merely enslaved the man.

He had taken the man’s loyalty, the thing Vaelor had probably valued most, and corrupted it into the mechanism of his princess’s imprisonment.

That was deliberate.

Personal.

Sadistic.

"How did she survive?"

Vaelor’s expression became hollow. "Her blood."

Lux looked at him.

"She heals."

"For centuries?"

"She doesn’t age normally anymore."

Lux felt another piece click into place.

Kaelmor had probably experimented.

Harvested.

Changed her.

Maybe her healing blood had preserved her naturally. Maybe whatever had been done to her amplified that trait.

Either way...

Another battery.

Another stolen source.

Kaelmor’s kingdom was beginning to look less like a throne and more like an elaborate extension cord plugged into everyone unfortunate enough to possess something valuable.

They moved faster.

Vaelor suddenly lifted his head.

"She is close."

Lux felt it too.

Beyond the next corridor came something completely unlike the oppressive demonic energy surrounding them.

Warmth.

Weak.

Soft.

But unmistakable.

Life.

Lux’s system reacted.

[Unknown restorative energy detected.]

[Concentration increasing.]

Vaelor began limping faster. "Princess..."

His voice changed.

For the first time, the monstrous guard disappeared.

Lux heard the man underneath.

The knight.

The mortal who had failed one duty for hundreds of years because someone had stolen even his ability to choose.

Then...

"Lux!"

Runa’s voice echoed from ahead.

Lux’s wings flared instantly. "Runa!"

He teleported.

Darkness swallowed him.

He appeared at the end of the corridor with both daggers raised.

Runa stood before an enormous pair of white doors covered in royal chains.

She wasn’t injured.

Lux’s shoulders relaxed by approximately one percent.

Runa pointed toward the door. "I found her."

Vaelor emerged behind Lux.

He stopped dead.

His entire body trembled.

Beyond those doors came the faint rhythmic pulse of healing energy.

Once.

Twice.

Like a heartbeat.

Vaelor whispered something so softly Lux almost didn’t hear it. "She’s still alive."

Lux looked at the chains.

Then at his twin daggers.

Then back toward the man who had spent centuries forced to guard the prison of the woman he’d sworn to protect.

A slow, dangerous smile returned to Lux’s face.

"Good."

He walked toward the doors.

"Then let’s finally let you do your actual job."

Vaelor stared at him.

Something fragile crossed the former knight’s ruined face before he turned toward the enormous white doors.

Runa stepped beside Lux. "Break it?"

Lux examined the chains.

Royal runes.

Layered formations.

Several ancient seals had been stacked over one another until the entire doorway resembled a paranoid king’s magical scrapbook.

"Break it."

Runa grinned.

They attacked together.

Lux’s twin daggers struck the central seal while Runa’s fist hammered directly into the chains.

For one glorious half-second, Lux thought brute force had worked.

Then the seals flashed gold.

"Oh, shi—"

The formation retaliated.

Lux flew backward.

Runa went in the opposite direction.

Vaelor barely raised his arms before the backlash caught him too.

Lux smashed through a pillar, spun in midair and opened his wings before hitting the next wall.

Runa landed hard, rolled, then drove her claws into the floor.

Vaelor crashed onto one knee.

Lux stared at the perfectly intact door. "...Rude."

[Royal Seal integrity: 100%.]

Lux pushed himself upright.

Then he heard applause.

Slow.

Mocking.

-Clap! Clap! Clap!

Lux turned.

Five figures stood at the far end of the corridor.

They hadn’t been there seconds ago.

Black armor.

Royal insignias.

Masks covering the lower halves of their faces.

Unlike the feral demons upstairs, these five carried controlled demonic pressure.

Actual guards.

Finally.

The one standing in the center tilted his head toward Vaelor. "I never thought that pathetic half-human would lose."

Vaelor’s claws scraped against the floor.

Lux’s smile vanished. "Half-human?"

The guard shrugged. "Whatever His Majesty turned him into."

Lux rotated his right dagger. "Interesting."

The five spread out.

The center guard drew a long black sword. "You should have left when he warned you."

Lux glanced at Vaelor. "You warned people?"

Vaelor looked almost embarrassed. "Those who reached me."

"And the ones who didn’t listen?"

Silence.

Lux sighed. "Right. Stupid question."

The first guard attacked.

Lux teleported.

His dagger met the sword.

-CLANG!

Runa simultaneously launched herself at another guard.

Her fist struck his barrier.

The barrier exploded.

So did his confidence.

He flew backward.

Vaelor roared and charged the third.

Despite his injuries, the former knight hit like a collapsing building.

His shoulder drove into the demon’s chest, carrying both of them through a stone railing.

Lux ducked beneath the sword aimed at his throat. "Agility."

The world slowed.

He stepped inside the guard’s defense and drove his elbow into the man’s jaw.

Then his dagger flashed.

The guard barely blocked.

Lux’s second blade arrived from below. Blood sprayed. "Demonic Orbs."

Fifty black spheres appeared.

One guard looked up.

"...What?"

Lux pointed. "Customer complaints department."

The corridor became chaos.