Novel Full Chapter 417: Disgusting Truth
Chapter 417: Disgusting Truth
***
{Inside The Projection}
The Council’s section of the Holy Palace was quieter than usual, a bit too quiet.
Malik’s footsteps carried through the marble halls, making attendants pull aside without needing to be told.
Sinbad clung lazily to Malik’s shoulder, his tail curling around the back of Malik’s neck like a scarf.
Azeem walked slightly behind, head bowed in respect.
At the end of the corridor loomed a door twice Malik’s height, carved with many a word.
It was a door meant to impress… or intimidate. Either way, Malik pushed it open and entered.
The room was wide, round, and built for lies, with a long oval table at the center, surrounded by men in robes of white and green.
They all looked up when they entered, their voices dying mid-sentence.
Malik said nothing, didn’t need to, and instead walked along the edge of the table, passing each face without so much as a flicker of acknowledgment.
He only stopped when he came to a plain-looking man in modest council robes.
The man’s hair was thin, his posture weak, looking like someone you’d never bother to remember.
Sinbad hooted, as if confirming him to be the one, and Azeem stepped up, draping an arm over the man’s shoulder like they were old friends.
“Hey buddy~!”
His voice was cheerful.
“We know that it was you.”
The man flinched hard, shoving Azeem away and leaning back with a clumsy panic.
“I—I don’t know—”
His chair unnaturally toppled over, forcing him to stand, pushing against the table.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
His eyes darted around the room, a trapped mouse in the face of lions.
Malik, of course, didn’t respond right away; he just stood there, staring, before finally turning to someone else across the table—a man who, unlike the rest who’d jumped away, was still frozen in his seat, clutching the armrest like it might save him.
“Tell me, what should I do to someone who sent assassins after me?”
The man blinked rapidly, glancing between Malik and who appeared to be his friend.
“I—I heard…”
His lips trembled.
“It’s best to keep your enemies close.”
Oh, it was a brave thing to say… or maybe just stupid.
After all, he did just try to act smart before a damned SULTAN.
Malik almost smiled—almost.
“Whoever said that doesn’t have many enemies.”
He lifted his hand and pointed at the first man.
“This rat is a traitor.”
Azeem moved to seize him, but before he could take a step, the man screamed:
“You hate us all! You’d rather kill us than help us—you can’t be our Sultan!”
His words made the room go still, even his once escaping council members.
“Hate? I hate you? Why would I hate those so much weaker than me? You, who are so insignificant… so unworthy of all that I bring?”
Malik’s eyes locked on him, calm as still water.
“…All I feel for you and your kin is pity.”
Azeem’s head tilted towards his Lord, a faint smirk tugging at his lips.
“You’re surprisingly nice…”
Malik nodded once, then, without warning, he materialized behind the man who had spoken earlier in defense of his friend—the “brave” one—and seized his head, slamming it into the table with a sickening crack.
“Of course.”
His reply came like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Azeem took that as his signal.
He moved fast, a red glow flaring from one of the rings on his hand as he struck at the traitor.
The traitor, reacting surprisingly quickly, had his fist meet Azeem’s, deflecting his fire away.
Unrelenting, Azeem continued the attack, punching with his left, but just as he did, a flash of light materialized, his opponent’s element, reaching Azeem first, catching him across the chest and sending him sprawling to the floor.
He lay there unmoving.
The other man wasn’t as lucky.
Though his attack reached first, the fire from Azeem’s left fist tore a gaping hole clean through his stomach.
He staggered back until his spine hit the wall, sliding down to the floor with his hands pressed against the wound.
His breath came ragged and shallow as he stared at his wound, unable to believe it.
Malik, caring not for his struggle, had his eyes sweep the room.
Except for the one with the smashed face, every other council member had already fled.
“Hm.”
A small chuckle broke the momentary silence as Sinbad hopped down from Malik’s shoulder, landing lightly on the table.
He waddled over to the knocked-out Azeem and tilted his head.
“It would seem our friend possesses no true experience in battle whatsoever.”
Malik gave another nod as he took a chair from the table, placed it between the unconscious Azeem and the dying man, and sat.
Leaning back, he rested his left cheek on his fist, his elbow braced against the table as his gaze landed on the rat.
The man wheezed, eyes darting between Malik’s golden stare and Sinbad’s pink one.
He lasted longer than most might have, but eventually, the light in his trembling eyes dimmed.
His head sagged to the side, and his last breath slipped out into the silence.
Neither Malik nor Sinbad looked away until its echo faded.
This was hatred.
***
{Outside The Projection}
Oh, yes, that was hate.
Cold, cold hate.
Enough to make Azeem’s chest warm.
It made the corners of his mouth twitch further up, like he had been waiting years for this exact moment.
And of course it did. The hate those two felt wasn’t from the assassination attempt. Malik especially didn’t give a damn about that—everyone could see it.
No, this was different.
This was the hate of a man whose blood had been stirred because someone dared harm one of his own.
Hurt him… Azeem.
Azeem felt it deeply, so of course, of course it made him happy!
His smile kept creeping back like a tide returning to shore.
This was heaven to him.
Even better.
Sinbad caught that look, and his own eyes curved in something that was almost fond.
They might have been on different paths now, but some bonds didn’t care for roads or distance. Brothers were brothers, and brothers took joy in each other’s joy—even if it was born from blood and broken bone.
But outside of that bond, the hall had turned heavy.
The crowd seemed to fold in on itself, hunched beneath the weight of what they were seeing.
It had been easy, once, to scream accusations at the throne.
“You hate us all!”
“You’d rather kill us than help us!”
“You can’t be our Sultan!”
His exact words had filled the streets not even nine days ago.
They had been the world’s truth, a truth they’d have defended with their very lives.
It was a time the world had truly believed them—fiercely, almost desperately—but the projection had a way of stripping things bare. They saw Malik as he was, and Malik…
Malik’s truth ended it all before they even realized it.
He had never been a ruler built for a court; he’d been downtrodden from the first day, shouldering a throne that never fit, moving through a world too small to hold a man like him.
So now, the same words felt like something worse than poison in the mouth.
Dirty, filthy words—no one wanted to even remember them, not anymore.
It was a disgusting truth, a most ugly one.
A man like him, in a world like this—it was never going to fit.
And as they watched, they all knew the same thing: it wouldn’t fit for the next two hundred years either. The projection would show it, over and over, until the years swallowed him whole.
It was the truth, one that hurt so very deeply to admit.
…Dammit.