Novel Full Chapter 280: A Crown Claimed By Another!
Chapter 280: A Crown Claimed By Another!
Another maid followed, placing crystal dishes upon the table, pale confections dusted with frost sugar that glittered faintly under the palace light. Each plate was aligned with mathematical precision, edges parallel to the grain of the marble.
Hospitality, here, was ritual.
Only when the ritual concluded did Isolde speak.
“I do not deny,” she said evenly, her voice smooth as untouched snow, “the presence of Invaders.”
Her pale eyes settled on Duke, unhurried, unthreatened.
“But correlation does not equate to causation.”
She lifted her cup again. Steam curled around her face, softening her features into something almost gentle.
“Mana imbalances occur naturally over time. Leylines shift. Energy accumulates.” A faint pause. “The world breathes.”
She took a measured sip.
“It is entirely possible that what you are witnessing is the consequence of destabilization within Velmora itself.”
Bruce’s gaze sharpened almost imperceptibly.
“Destabilization?” Duke repeated, tone mild.
Isolde inclined her head, white hair sliding over her shoulder like silk threaded with frostlight.
“The world core,” she said calmly, “is not infallible.”
There it was.
Not denial. Redirection.
A subtle pivot, placed delicately upon the table between them like another porcelain cup.
“If the world core is failing in its duty,” she continued, eyes steady, “then abnormal dungeon activity would not be surprising.”
Bruce felt it then, the elven soul beneath her composure pulsing once, faint but deliberate. Not alarmed. Not strained.
Calculated.
Isolde lowered her cup with care.
“And speaking of the world core,” she added lightly, as though the subject were mere court gossip, “you have yet to answer my question.”
Her gaze locked onto Duke.
“Have you discovered its location?”
The hall seemed to grow colder, though no wind moved.
Bruce felt the Invader’s attention sharpen, like a blade pressing lightly against the inside of Isolde’s ribs.
Duke exhaled softly, as though considering the quality of the coffee.
“I have leads,” he admitted at last. “But I prefer to keep them to myself until they amount to something tangible.”
A faint smile curved Isolde’s lips.
“You always were cautious.”
“Someone has to be,” Duke replied.
Porcelain met saucer with a delicate click as Isolde set her cup down.
Then she rose.
The frost followed her.
It did not surge. It obeyed.
As she descended the steps of her throne, the hem of her gown brushed the marble without sound. Her white hair shimmered under the palace light, each strand catching like moonlit snow. She moved with measured precision, no wasted motion, no visible tension.
But the elven Invader tightened.
“When invasion threatens a realm,” she continued, voice smooth yet carrying a subtle resonance that seemed to press against the ribs of every living soul in the hall, “authority must be centralized.”
She stopped a few paces from Duke.
“Fragmented power is weakness. Independent guilds acting on their own discretion create instability.”
Her pale eyes sharpened slightly, not with anger, but with conviction.
“Adventurer decentralization is admirable in times of peace,” she said. “But in times of war?”
A breath.
“It is chaos.”
The guards did not move.
But Bruce felt the shift in them, the tightening of shoulders, the minute adjustment of weight on heels. They believed her. They would bleed for her.
Duke did not rise.
“And you believe,” he asked mildly, meeting her gaze without hesitation, “that only a monarch deserves access to the world core?”
“I believe,” Isolde replied, “that someone accountable to the stability of an entire kingdom is better suited to wield such power than wandering Adventurers who answer to coin and contract.”
The words were not only sharp. They hit deep.
The tension in the hall thickened until it felt almost tangible, like the air before a storm breaks.
Duke’s eyes flickered briefly to the frost creeping toward his boots. It halted an inch away, as if testing an invisible boundary.
“And yet,” he said calmly, lifting his gaze back to hers, “you suppress the Adventurer Guild within your borders.”
He did not raise his voice. He did not need to.
“You limit their authority. Restrict their influence. Undermine their development.”
His tone remained polite.
“But you still ask for my cooperation.”
Isolde smiled.
It was not cruel.
It was assured.
“The feeling is mutual,” she said softly.
“It is not my fault if the natives of Eiskar prefer the Royal Guild to yours.”
There was no arrogance in her voice. Only calm certainty.
Duke held her gaze for several long seconds. No one breathed too deeply. No one shifted. The frost hummed faintly against marble. Somewhere high above, a chandelier of frozen crystal chimed softly as temperature currents shifted.
Then, Duke smiled.
And said nothing.
The silence that followed was heavier than accusation. It was acknowledgment. A move declined. A piece left untouched on the board.
Bruce continued to observe.
Through Life Glance, the elven soul remained calm, confident, deliberate, testing the edges of Duke’s restraint. It pressed lightly, probing for cracks. It wanted commitment. A stance. A declaration.
Waiting. And beneath it all
Isolde’s true soul flickered.
Faint. Like a candle struggling behind layered glass.
Still there. Still resisting. But the resistance was thinning. The Invader soul was clamped tight around it…
Isolde even though she had found Bruce prolonged gaze a bit strange only concluded him a pervert and though nothing of it… She was yet to suspect anything. To her, time here, belonged to the frost.
’Should I act now?’ Bruce thought as he looked at Isolde who was now less than three meters away from him…
He actually had a plan to discuss with Isolde when he came with Duke, but right now, after knowing that the Isolde in front of him is not the real Isolde, Bruce saw no need to discuss anything with her…
He looked at Duke and sighed, he might need duke support if he wants to act right now… He wasn’t about to act recklessly and mess things up…
’Vaelith, speak telepathically directly to Duke’s mind, tell him that the message is from me and that he has to trust in and support what I’m about to do… Tell him that Isolde is possessed by an invader… The one speaking with him, isn’t Isolde and she have probably been possessed for years.’