Chapter 1227. Death Is a Mercy, and I Am Not Feeling Merciful Today

Chapter 1227: 1227. Death Is a Mercy, and I Am Not Feeling Merciful Today

Rex abruptly released his grip. Valentina fell backward like a broken marionette, her head snapping against the marble with a dull thud.

She lay there, convulsing slightly as her body struggled to process the agony in her ribs and the violation of her scalp. Her breathing was a wet, rattling, sound hiss wheeze as blood from her split lip smeared across her chin.

Her eyes, swollen and bloodshot, fixed on him with a cocktail of hatred so potent it should have burned, but beneath that rage lay something far more terrifying: a cold, paralyzing realization.

She was utterly, completely powerless.

Rex didn’t move to finish her. He simply stood over her, the shadow of his frame swallowing her whole, casting her into darkness.

When he spoke again, his voice was devoid of any inflection, as flat and unyielding as a tombstone.

"From now on," Rex said, each word precise, cutting through the silence like a scalpel, "you will do exactly as I command."

"You will be my eyes and ears..."

"You will gather every scrap of intelligence regarding the territories beyond Aethelgard."

"You will maintain absolute compliance within these walls... No riots, no hidden rebellions, and no pathetic attempts at martyrdom."

He paused, leaning down slightly, his shadow stretching across her broken form. "And most importantly, Valentina... you will make certain that when Helena returns, she does nothing foolish enough to force my hand."

"If she returns as a hero, she lives."

"If she returns as an obstacle..." He let the implication hang in the air like the smell of gunpowder. "I will make you watch as I break her, piece by agonizing piece, before you die."

A strangled sob escaped Valentina’s throat. The threat to Helena was the final killing blow. It wasn’t a physical wound; it was a spiritual evisceration.

Her daughter... her last hope, her last connection to a world that wasn’t broken was now nothing more than a leash wrapped around her throat. Her mind raced through impossible scenarios, searching for an escape, a hidden spell, or a last resort.

But there was nothing. The mana in the room felt dead, drained by his presence.

Her city was a corpse, her students were ghosts, and her daughter was a hostage to a boy she had once taught to love.

"You’re... a monster," Valentina whispered.

The words were weak, stripped of their authority, dissolving into a broken rasp that barely carried across the distance between them.

"Perhaps." Rex crouched down one last time, bringing his face level with hers.

Up close, there was no trace of the boy who used to ask for extra study hours. There was no Rex Rexilion here. There was only the architect of ruin.

"But I am the monster who holds your city’s fate, your family’s legacy, and your very soul in the palm of my hand." His eyes locked onto hers, pupils dilated, dark and bottomless. "So I suggest you stop mourning the past and start adapting to the future, Valentina."

"Because this isn’t the end of the war... This is merely the opening gambit."

He rose to his full height in one fluid, effortless motion. The scrape of his boots against the marble sounded like a final judgment.

Without another word, without so much as a glance at the destruction he had wrought, he turned his back on her.

Valentina remained on the floor, a broken woman in a ruined sanctuary. She watched his retreating figure, her vision blurring with fresh tears that burned like acid.

The betrayal was a wound that would never scab over; it was a poison that would seep into every memory she held dear.

Every smile he had given her, every ’thank you, Headmaster,’ every moment of shared triumph—all of it was now tainted, revealed as the calculated lies of a predator playing at being prey.

Rex walked out of the office with the same calm, measured stride he had always maintained as the Academy’s golden boy. The mask of civility was back in place, smooth and impenetrable.

As the heavy doors groaned shut behind him, he didn’t look back at the wreckage. His mind was already moving past Aethelgard, past the Underlayer, past the petty squabbles of kingdoms.

His gaze was fixed on the horizon of Erosyne itself, a vast, beautiful world that was about to learn exactly what happens when the hero decides to become the god of its destruction.

The heavy doors had barely settled into their frames when Rex paused in the corridor. His footsteps echoed in the empty hallway—click, click, click—a steady rhythm that suddenly faltered.

A cold, predatory thought crystallized in his mind, sharper than any blade. He had been too efficient. Too clinical.

He had broken her bones and her authority, but he hadn’t yet broken her spirit. A broken body could still harbor a spark of defiance; a broken mind, however, was something he could mold into whatever shape he desired.

To truly own Aethelgard, he couldn’t just rule it from a throne; he had to consume its heart. And Valentina was that heart.

"No," he murmured to the empty air, a dark smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "I left her with too much dignity intact."

He turned on his heel, his cape swirling behind him like a shroud as he stormed back toward the office. He didn’t knock.

He kicked the door open with such force that the ancient oak splintered at the hinges, CRACK BOOM, sending debris skittering across the marble where Valentina lay gasping.

Valentina flinched, her eyes widening in terror as she saw the shadow fall over her again.

"What... what more do you want?" she wheezed, clutching her bleeding ribs. "Kill me then... Just finish it."

"Kill you?" Rex’s laughter was soft, terrifyingly intimate.

He walked to her, his boots crunching on the glass shards of her shattered windows. "Death is a mercy, Valentina... And I am not feeling merciful today."

He reached down, grabbing her chin once more, forcing her to look at him. "My first command is not about intelligence gathering or city compliance."

"My first command is personal... You will come with me to the Starlight household."

"And there, you will submit to me completely... body, soul, and every inch of your flesh."

Valentina’s breath hitched. A different kind of horror washed over her, one that made the physical pain feel distant.

"What... what are you saying?"

"I am saying you will be my slave," Rex whispered, his voice dripping with venomous satisfaction. "You will be my fucktoy."

"You will learn to crave the very hands that crushed your ribs."

"You will learn that your only purpose now is to serve my pleasure."

"Never," she spat, a final, pathetic spark of defiance flickering in her eyes. "I would rather die—"

"You think you have a choice?" Rex’s eyes suddenly glowed with an unnatural, pulsing violet light. "You think your ’will’ matters?"

Before she could blink, Rex activated his power. The air around them didn’t just distort; it tore. Time slowed to a glacial crawl, then fractured entirely.

He reached into the chronal stream, seizing a thread of possibility and dragging it into the present.

"Look, Valentina," he commanded, his voice echoing as if from another dimension. "Look at the price of your defiance."

A psychic shockwave erupted from Rex, flooding Valentina’s consciousness. She didn’t just see images; she lived them.

Through the manipulation of time, he forced her mind to experience a cascade of horrific futures.

’First came Lily.’ Valentina screamed as she felt the phantom sensation of her granddaughter’s throat being crushed beneath Rex’s boot.

She saw Lily’s eyes go dull, her lifeblood pooling on the floor while Rex watched with detached curiosity.

SQUELCH.

’Then came Diana.’ She felt the searing heat of magical fire consuming Diana’s flesh, the smell of burning hair and meat filling her nostrils as she watched her friend scream for a salvation that would never come.

’Then Elliot,’ the boy she had mentored.

She felt the wet snap of his spine as Rex tore him apart like a ragdoll, the sound of breaking bone reverberating in her own skull.

CRACK CRUNCH.

’Finally, Helena and Elizabeth...’ The vision focused on her daughter.

Valentina watched in helpless agony as Rex systematically dismantled Helena’s life, leaving her a broken, hollow shell before finally extinguishing her light.

The visions snapped shut like a trap. Valentina collapsed into a convulsion, her body wracked with violent tremors.

Blood leaked from her nose and ears as her brain struggled to process the temporal trauma. She was hyperventilating, her eyes rolling back in her head as she clawed at the floor.

"That is the future you choose if you resist me," Rex said, looming over her like a vengeful god. "Every time you deny me, every time you try to plot against me, I will show you another way to die..."

"I will show you every scream, every drop of blood, every moment of agony your loved ones will endure because of your stubbornness."

He leaned down, his lips brushing against her ear as she wept hysterically. "So, now you understand, don’t you?"

"You will come to the Starlight household. You will take whatever I give you."

"You will let me use you until there is nothing left of the headmaster but a hollow vessel for my desires."

"Because if you don’t... I will make those visions real."

Valentina couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even cry anymore; her tear ducts were spent.

She simply lay there, shaking uncontrollably, the images of her dead family seared into her retinas. The terror was absolute.

The hopelessness was total. She was no longer a woman, no longer a leader; she was merely prey waiting for the slaughter to begin.