Chapter 1180: Fortune and Calamity [Part 7]

"She will..." Celestine’s voice trembled.

Lux noticed her expression changing before she even finished speaking.

The beautiful, graceful Lucky Star, who had spent the entire evening smiling like a princess from a fairy tale, suddenly looked furious.

"She will always need me."

The chandelier above them flickered.

Lux raised an eyebrow. "That’s a rather bold prediction."

"She WILL!"

The ballroom shook.

Not metaphorically.

The entire bloody ballroom shook.

Wine splashed from crystal glasses. Chandeliers swung violently, sending fractured light dancing across the walls. The musicians continued playing, but their movements suddenly became jerky, their bows jumping backward across strings before repeating the same notes.

Lux glanced toward the orchestra.

A violinist’s arm snapped backward. Then forward. Then backward again. The same three notes played. Again. Again. And again.

The nightmare was glitching. And not the charming kind of glitch where a game character accidentally walked through a wall. This was the kind where reality had decided its subscription to physics was optional.

Lux looked back at Celestine. Her beautiful face was twisted with anger.

"She needs me," she hissed. "She has always needed me!"

Across the ballroom, Lullaby’s fingers twitched.

Pale-violet Sloth magic spilled from her hands, spreading across the marble floor like a soft mist. It reached the walls, climbed the pillars, and wrapped around the trembling chandeliers.

For a moment, the shaking slowed.

Then the violet magic shattered.

Lullaby’s eyes widened. "What?"

She tried again.

A larger formation appeared beneath her feet.

Nothing.

The dream swallowed her authority as though it were a particularly uninteresting appetizer.

Yue immediately moved toward Aurelia.

The blue-dressed woman stood near the banquet tables, looking terrified.

Then her face flickered.

Her entire body jerked backward half a step. For one second, Aurelia became translucent. Another version of her appeared in exactly the same position, overlapping the first. Then both merged.

Yue stopped. Her expression hardened. "You know what..."

Lullaby turned.

Yue looked from Aurelia to Celestine. "Lux is right."

Lullaby followed her gaze.

Aurelia flickered again. Her expression froze mid-breath, like a painting someone had forgotten to finish.

Yue’s eyes narrowed. "She’s being affected by the dream."

Lullaby’s face changed.

Which meant Aurelia wasn’t controlling it.

The host wasn’t the suffering sister.

It was the smiling one.

And Lux?

Lux had already reached that conclusion.

Unfortunately, he was currently standing approximately six inches away from the woman whose emotional instability was dismantling reality.

He tightened his arm around Celestine’s waist. Not enough to injure her. Enough to prevent her from pulling away.

Celestine stiffened.

Lux leaned closer, keeping his expression almost offensively charming. "Why are you angry?"

Her eyes snapped toward him. "What?"

"I’m asking you a perfectly reasonable question."

His smile became wounded. "Am I not good enough for you?"

Celestine stared.

Lux continued, "I’m wealthy, handsome, reasonably charming, and willing to spoil you with things your father would need three generations of tax revenue to afford."

The ballroom shook harder.

"And yet you seem considerably more interested in keeping your sister miserable than accepting my hypothetical marriage proposal."

"You don’t understand!"

"Then explain it."

"You can’t understand!"

"Which part?" Lux’s voice remained gentle. The kind of gentleness that made people realize a predator didn’t need to bare his teeth to be dangerous.

He guided her one step backward.

The music skipped.

"You don’t like her, do you?"

Celestine froze.

Lux watched her face. "You call her pitiful. You remind everyone she’s helpless. You enjoy being praised for tolerating her existence."

"Stop."

"But you can’t stand the thought of her becoming happy without you."

"Stop it!"

Lux tilted his head. "So why cling to her?"

The chandeliers began cracking.

"Why keep someone beside you if you don’t actually want her to become stronger?"

Celestine’s breathing grew uneven.

Lux lowered his voice. "Or..." He paused. His red eyes narrowed. "...are you hiding something?"

Celestine went completely still.

Lux felt it.

That sudden, unnatural stillness.

Not merely in her body.

In the entire dream.

He smiled. "Something about both of you?"

That did it.

Every musician stopped.

Every servant froze.

Every noble in the ballroom turned toward Lux.

Simultaneously.

Hundreds of heads.

One movement.

Lux slowly looked around. That was disturbing. Even by Hell’s standards.

The guests stood perfectly still, their faces turned toward him with identical expressions. Blank. Empty. Waiting.

Lux’s smile remained, but his thoughts accelerated. So that’s the fact. There was something hidden. Something concerning both sisters. Something Celestine absolutely didn’t want exposed.

The question was... What?

Celestine suddenly shoved him.

Lux released her waist rather than risk hurting her.

She stumbled backward, clutching her chest. "No..." Her voice sounded broken. "No, no, no..."

Then her knees buckled.

She slumped onto the marble floor.

Lux took a step toward her. "Celestine?"

The nearest nobleman moved.

Lux turned.

The man’s face melted. His skin dissolved into black smoke, leaving behind a humanoid silhouette with two glowing white eyes.

Then the woman beside him changed.

And the servant.

And the musicians.

One by one, the entire ballroom transformed.

Lux looked around.

Hundreds of shadows. All staring at him.

"Now this is more like the nightmare I expected."

The first shadow lunged.

Lux instinctively raised his hands, summoning his daggers.

Nothing.

He blinked. "Oh, for Hell’s sake."

The shadow’s claws slashed toward his throat.

Lux ducked.

Its arm passed over his head.

He stepped inside its reach and drove his fist directly into its face.

The impact felt surprisingly solid.

The shadow stumbled.

Lux followed with a sharp kick to its knee, then slammed his elbow into its neck.

It collapsed.

Unfortunately, it didn’t stay down.

Its body immediately began reforming.

Lux stared. "Of course."

Three more charged.

He seized a silver serving tray from a nearby table and swung it into the first creature’s head.

-CLANG!

The tray bent.

The shadow staggered.

Lux stared at the ruined silver. "Expensive-looking garbage."

Another creature lunged.

He kicked a chair into its legs.

The shadow tripped.

Lux grabbed a wine bottle and smashed it across its skull.

Black smoke exploded outward.

He looked at the broken bottle. "Much better."

Across the ballroom, Yue had positioned herself between Aurelia and the approaching shadows. "Lux!"

"Busy!"

Lullaby raised both hands.

Violet magic surged around her. "Sleep!"

Several shadows collapsed.

Then immediately stood again.

Lullaby stared. "Rude."

Yue grabbed one creature by its throat and threw it across the room.

It smashed through a banquet table.

She looked down at her empty hands. "My dragon fire isn’t working, even though Lullaby unlocked it."

Lux ducked another attack. "Welcome to my evening!"

A shadow swung at his face.

He caught its wrist, twisted beneath its arm, and drove a knee into its abdomen.

Then he grabbed a dinner knife from the table.

Small.

Decorative.

Barely sharp enough to cut roasted meat.

Lux examined it for half a second. "Well, hello, beautiful."

He plunged it into the creature’s throat.

The shadow shrieked.

Lux grinned. "Finally. Someone appreciates cutlery."

He ripped the knife free, spun, and slashed across another creature’s face.

It recoiled.

Interesting.

The weapons weren’t killing them permanently, but they could disrupt their forms.

Good enough.

Lux snatched a second dinner knife.

One in each hand.

He looked at the approaching shadows.

His smile widened. "There we go."

Two knives.

A ballroom.

An army of nightmares. No magic. Just his own experience and a deeply unreasonable amount of confidence.

Lux rolled his shoulders. "Gentlemen."

The shadows rushed him.

He moved. A knife caught the first beneath its jaw. His other hand struck the second across its wrist, redirecting its claws into the creature beside it.

Lux stepped between them, drove his shoulder into one, and kicked the other backward into a table.

Plates shattered.

Wine spilled.

A roasted chicken flew through the air.

Gula would’ve declared war over that.

Lux caught the chicken platter before it hit the floor.

Then smashed it into a shadow’s face.

The creature collapsed.

Lux tossed the platter aside.

Unfortunately, the shadows kept coming.

And Celestine remained slumped near the center of the ballroom.

Unmoving.

Lux glanced toward her.

Something was wrong.

If she controlled the nightmare, why wasn’t she directing the shadows?

Why wasn’t she speaking?

Why did she look like someone who’d just remembered something unbearable?

Another shadow charged.

Lux stabbed it through the chest and shoved it aside.

His gaze returned to Celestine.

Then Aurelia.

The younger twin was crying.

Not because of the monsters.

She was staring at her sister. "Celestine..." Her voice trembled. "Please..."

Lux heard it.

And something clicked.

He turned toward Aurelia. "Please what?"

Aurelia flinched.

Yue looked at him. "Lux, this isn’t the time!"

"Actually, I think it’s exactly the time!"

He ducked beneath another claw and kicked the creature into a pillar. "Aurelia!"

She looked at him.

Lux pointed one dinner knife toward Celestine. "What happened between you two?"

Aurelia’s face went pale.

The shadows stopped.

Every single one.

Lux slowly lowered his knife.

Aurelia stared at him with an expression of absolute horror.

Then whispered, "Don’t ask her that."

Lux’s smile vanished. "Why?"

Aurelia shook her head desperately. "Because..." The ballroom began trembling again. Her eyes filled with tears. "...she’ll remember."

Lux went still.

Remember?

Lux slowly turned toward Celestine.

The Lucky Star remained on the floor, trembling.

And suddenly, he realized something.

Maybe Celestine wasn’t merely hiding the truth from everyone else, she’d built this entire beautiful nightmare to hide it from herself.