The Runic Alchemist

Chapter 917: A Wedding Unlike Any

Outside the Sanctum Building, Current time, Damian.

Damian had been quite busy for the last whole month, but he still put all that aside and organized a grand event with Souldealer, Evrin, and his five assistants. The wedding was full Earth style since they didn’t want to favor any existing religion. Damian had planned it.

Creating customs and traditions is also part of the ruler’s responsibilities. Words of Souldealer. He highly suspected they just wanted to push the responsibilities of arrangements onto him with that bullshit, but he accepted anyway.

The Third Keeper was wearing the fanciest white and blue suit they could make using the best resources and craftsmen available. Ghislain herself had made the suits and the bride’s dress. They had to make a lot of suits and fancy dresses, which was the dress code for the wedding. It worked Ghislain and her team to the bone, but they had also racked up a lot of money while doing it.

Damian was in a simple yet classic dark suit that had gold lining. The groom’s dress was ten times more detailed and fancier than his own, but the moron groom was moving here and there while pacing all around the room, making the maids and butlers sweat.

When Damian entered the room, the helpless glances of the people were all he needed to understand what was going on.

“Stop fidgeting, will you?” He scolded.

“I am not!” Sam refuted, finally standing still.

“You are,” Anthony added from the side.

“Grace is handling this much better. At least I can count on one of you.” Damian sighed.

“You saw her? What was she like? Did she say something?”

“She looks nice! Good choice!” Damian gave a thumbs-up.

“Not that!” Sam threw his hands up and started pacing again, “Did she say something?”

Damian took a few steps forward and grabbed the man by his shoulders.

“She’s happy, excited, and can’t wait to be done with this. Now stop squirming like a girl and let these people finish their job.”

“What if I mess it up? What if, after living together every day, she realizes I am.. I am..” The look on Sam’s face was remarkably similar to that of young soldiers moments before fighting their first war.

“She will see you for who you are. A powerful, kind man who has impeccable morals and is a great leader to his people.”

Moisture pooled in Sam’s eyes, but it did not flow down. He took a step forward and hugged him.

“I will not say thank you anymore, but that doesn’t mean I will ever forget,” Sam said.

“I will say it for you,” Anthony approached them from behind. “Thank you, kid, for everything.”

Damian just nodded with a smile. And pushed Sam to hurry up.

The entire Sanctuary was closed off. The Sanctum had organized a grand countrywide feast. Every city, every street was decorated by Damian’s team. They were broadcasting this marriage ceremony on all the city and town screens at once. The audio channel was entirely dedicated to talking about it or playing songs.

The outside of Sanctum was decorated with glowing crystals, runic tools, and all sorts of dungeon and manmade materials that cost over thousands of gold coins if one were to go buying it in the market.

It was a wedding unlike any before in the mainland.

The venue was the Outer Sanctum region, the open space beside the Sanctum building, and the Army headquarters. Soft music was coming out of the big receivers. All the guests were seated on fancy chairs facing the altar.

All major figures from the mainland were invited for this special occasion. The empire only sent representatives, but the Eldoris royal family, the Faerunian King, Highswords, and even the Shadowborn queen, Lazrin Halek, had arrived for the wedding.

Damian assumed Vearon would be a more aggressive and forward ruler like his brother, but since the day he had arrived, nothing he did was particularly aggressive. Accepting their invitation made him more amusing and political than forward. The way he talked in that slippery, oily way gave goosebumps to anyone, but the words he used did not held darl intentions behind them.

Maybe after watching his brother’s failure, the man had learned a thing or two, or maybe he was just in his observation period. Who knows, maybe Thaddeus was also the same once upon a time?

The rulers were given better, higher seats that overlooked the entire altar platform from another flying platform.

Sam entered to the murmurs of the seated guests. The people present included all kinds of nobles, merchants, sanctum officials, and everything in between. And still the suit Sam had worn was praised by a large majority of them. His designs and Ghislain’s skills had created something truly marvellous to behold.

But that was nothing.

When Grace arrived, the murmuring was accelerated to the max, and even some light gasps could be heard from the female guests. As she walked through the aisle with her brother beside her, all eyes were glued to her flowing pure white bridal dress.

She walked down the aisle slowly, the dress responding to her movement—pale fabric glimmering as if alive, pearls hovering just above the silk and drifting into new patterns with each step. The silver stitching on the bodice pulsed faintly, almost breathing, while the long train brushed the floor and left a soft trail of light behind her, and beneath a veil thin as mist, she looked unreal in a way that made the moment feel carefully engineered rather than accidental.

Needless to say, they had used more than just clothing design here. There were small runic devices added as well, to give an effect that would otherwise be impossible to replicate. She wasn’t the only one with those though.

He stood waiting in a blue-and-white suit that looked less tailored than designed—deep sapphire fabric cut clean and sharp, threaded with pale lines that glowed faintly like frost under moonlight. White panels along the shoulders and cuffs caught the light with a cold sheen, as if dusted with ice, and subtle patterns shifted across the cloth when he breathed, slow and deliberate. It wasn’t loud or ornate, just impossibly precise.

When the two stood opposite each other on the stage, the scene was beyond eye-catching.

Grace’s maid of honor was Einar. Dressed in a beautiful, glowing designer red dress, she stood beside Grace with Evrin, who had a similar dress but just in dark green.

Souldealer, in her fancy gold and white dress, stood ready between Sam and Grace to

Damian stood beside Sam to officiate the wedding.

All the dresses were designed by Damian and Ghislain; the demand was never-ending once they had seen Grace’s dress design, so they had to make one for a lot of people.

Damian’s black classic suit had no fancy effects or anything, but the simple thing suited his physique much better. With his long, dark hair and abnormally high charm stats, the suit did wonders for him, people said.

Well, only one person said that, and she was standing right beside him.

Vidalia wore a black dress that drank the light, its clean lines stark against her newly transformed white hair, the fabric whispering with faint, shadowed patterns as she moved—simple, restrained, and quietly impossible to ignore.

He had not done much for his own design, but the dress he made for Vidalia was one of the best. The color of choice was her own. Damian, as the Obsidian seat of silence, always wore black. The color officially represented him just like red was for Einar, green for Evrin, Gold for Souldealer, cyan for Sam, and dark blue for Lucian.

The choice of color was more than aesthetically pleasing. It was a declaration to all guests that she was a part of him now. In all aspects of his life.

The weird ritual they had gone through, swallowing that ethereal leaf, had resulted in some weird side effects. Vidalia’s skin, which was pale white before, was light-dark now, and her hair had turned silver white.

Even the race in her status had changed to Hybrid Semi-Demonic Elf from Hybrid Semi-Divine Elf, she had told him.

Part of his soul resided in her, and part of her soul resided in him. Their bodies had changed to be compatible with one another. But it looked like his side was slightly dominant with stronger mana and being a rare job, so the changes were mostly for her.

Damian had received only one change. His affinities that were Chaos, Space-time had now changed to Chaos, Space-time, and Light. As a weird side effect of gaining an affinity, his mana had changed slightly, which slightly weakened his dark and chaos spells while slightly enhancing light spells.

Short personal vows followed. Rings exchanged. Hands shaking a little despite both being powerful pathinders.

“Samuel Stromcaller, do you take Grace Ashborn to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

“I do.”

“Grace Ashborn, do you take Samuel Stormcaller to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

“I do.”

“You may kiss the bride..” Souldealer announced after a long ceremony.

The couple that could not stop looking into each other’s eyes closed the distance and shared a sweet kiss that sealed the union.

Loud applause and cheering followed; even the most elegant and graceful guests could not stop getting swayed by the happy, emotional mood.

A few people were cheering a bit too loudly and even crying, including Lumi, Elias, Reize’s sister, and that pugilist kid who was always around Reize’s sister. What was going on there?

The applause and cheering were echoing throughout the Sanctum land. The audio channel team was describing every second of the new marriage live, and Mindseer was accompanying that with her visuals.

They had set a president today, and several thousand people of Sanctuary swore to have the same type of marriage for themselves as well. A tradition that was their own and belonged to no religion.

Of course, Damian would never tell them where it came from.

The quiet smile the couple shared amidst the chaos made all the effort Damian had put into the organization totally worth it.