Chapter 36: The Weight of the Crown

The Grand Obsidian Manor had changed little during Valerian’s three years in the frozen north, yet the silence within his private wing was starkly different.

Waiting outside his bedchamber stood two figures who had been his absolute shadow since his sixth winter: Corvus, his head butler, whose precise white gloves hid arms capable of snapping steel, and Lyra, his personal chief maid, her subtle shadow-aura lacing the folds of her pristine dress.

When Valerian stepped through the archway, his boots caked in northern mud and his northern blindfold exposed, neither servant gasped.

Corvus bowed instantly, a ninety-degree angle executed with flawless military precision, though his steady knuckles twitched once.

"Welcome home, Young Master Valerian. Your bath is drawn at precisely forty-two degrees, and a new set of dark crimson silk robes has been prepared."

Lyra stepped forward without a sound, her gentle eyes scanning every inch of his face, his healed collarbone, and the bare, unmasked right cheek where his slate cover had shattered.

Her fingers trembled slightly as she took his mud-stained travel cloak, her shadow-aura flaring for a fraction of a second to instantly incinerate the grime.

"You’ve grown four inches, Young Master," Lyra whispered, her usual stoic composure cracking into a soft, fierce warmth. "And you smell of northern dragon-ash. Let me tend to your hair before the Patriarch calls."

"It is good to see you both," Valerian said softly, offering a faint, genuine smile to the two people who had kept his personal branch alive while he was presumed dead in the crevasse.

"Keep my new staff in the inner sanctum. We have much to discuss once the evening falls."

"At once, my Lord," Corvus replied, his old eyes gleaming with absolute, quiet loyalty.

An hour later, Valerian stood before the heavy double doors of the Patriarch’s Private Study—a chamber reinforced with nine layers of ancient spatial suppression runes.

He knocked twice.

"Enter," a deep, resonant voice reverberated through the thick iron-wood.

Valerian stepped inside.

Icarus Prim Sanguis sat behind an expansive desk carved from a single slab of void-black obsidian.

He had shed his torn travel robes, dressed now in a pristine, high-collared dark crimson tunic embroidered with gold dragon crests.

He was casually reviewing a stack of war ledgers, his stern, marble-like face unreadable as ever.

"Sit," Icarus commanded without looking up.

Valerian crossed the room, pulling back the heavy leather chair opposite his father, and sat down with relaxed, immaculate posture.

He rested his hands on his knees, his acoustic perception mapping every subtle breath and heartbeat of the man who ruled the entire southern region.

"You handled your siblings well enough," Icarus murmured, finally laying down his silver quill.

His liquid-crimson eyes met Valerian’s northern blindfold.

"Your staff forms are crude, but your aura compression is adequate for a fifteen-year-old."

"I survived," Valerian replied smoothly, his tone light and pleasant.

"And I returned with what I required."

Icarus leaned back, resting his chin on his intertwined fingers.

"Then state your purpose, Valerian. You refused to cover your face upon entering the gates. You discarded the slate mask. What game are you playing?"

Valerian did not hesitate.

He straightened his back, his Sovereign’s Guilt Eyes pulsing with a cold, absolute resolve beneath his blindfold.

"I am throwing my name into the succession," Valerian stated clearly, his voice echoing in the quiet study.

"I intend to participate in the Succession War and claim the seat of the Next Patriarch."

Silence descended upon the study.

Icarus did not blink.

He did not frown.

He did not show a single flickering spark of surprise, anger, or pride.

His face remained an unfeeling, carved piece of granite.

Then, he simply exhaled.

THUMMMMMMMM!

In a fraction of a microsecond, the atmosphere inside the study ceased to exist.

A wave of pure, unadulterated Void-Sovereign Domain erupted from Icarus’s frame—not a physical strike, but a crushing gravitational pressure born from decades spent slaying godlike monstrosities in the Void Wasteland.

The air turned to liquid lead, instantly trapping Valerian in place.

CRACK!

The obsidian desk beneath Icarus’s forearms creaked, and the stone floor under Valerian’s boots sank two inches into the bedrock.

Valerian’s lungs seized instantly.

The sheer weight of the aura bypassed his physical skin, slamming directly into his inner sea and pinning his Blood Dragon Core beneath an absolute, suffocating mountain of pressure.

His sight blurred.

Cold sweat instantly broke out across his forehead, and his throat choked as he fought for a single molecule of oxygen.

His vision turned completely dark at the edges.

He was a High-Sovereign heir, yet before his father’s true intent, he felt like a blade of grass standing before a falling star.

Just as Valerian’s consciousness hovered on the razor-edge of blacking out, the pressure vanished.

WHOOSH.

Air rushed back into the room like a vacuum imploding.

Valerian pitched forward, his hands slamming onto the mahogany edges of the desk as he gasped violently for air.

Cold sweat dripped off his chin and soaked into his dark crimson silk collar.

Icarus picked up his silver quill, completely unfazed, as if he had done nothing more than turn a page.

"You have the ambition," Icarus said calmly, his voice as chilling and quiet as a winter midnight.

"But ambition without the flesh to back it is merely a suicide note."

Valerian wiped the sweat from his jaw, forcing his trembling hands to stabilize as he slowly pushed himself back up straight into his seat.

He didn’t complain.

He didn’t flinch.

He simply met his father’s gaze once more.

"All six of your elder brothers and sisters have already bound their Guardian Blood Beasts," Icarus continued smoothly, dipping his quill into red ink.

"Vespera bound the Nine-Tailed Nether-Wolf. Caelum bound the Iron-Scaled Drake. You stand before me with empty hands."

"Then tell me where to go," Valerian rasped, his voice still hoarse from the suffocating pressure.

Icarus paused, looking up from his parchment.

A faint, razor-thin curve touched the corner of his stern lips.

"The Ancestral Plain," Icarus commanded.

"Enter the deep realm and retrieve your Guardian Beast. If you survive, you may stand alongside your siblings in the trial."

Valerian felt an icy shiver run down his spine, a drop of cold sweat rolling down the back of his neck.

The Ancestral Plain.

Among the high realms of the continent, it was a terrifying domain known across the seven nations as the Land of Blood and Death.

In terms of sheer lethality, environmental corruption, and primeval horror, it sat directly behind the Demon Realm and the Void Wasteland itself.

"You leave at midnight," Icarus said, turning his attention back to his ledgers, effectively dismissing him.

"Do not disappoint me, Valerian."