Chapter 45: Almighty’s Possession vs. Sorcerer’s Feelings

The heavy, golden trim of the royal carriage sat parked right in the middle of the ruined plaza, making the air feel completely suffocating. Cassius stood there completely frozen, his knuckles popping like small firecrackers as his black claws dug straight into his own palms. He wore a sharp, arrogant smirk, looking entirely detached from reality.

Inside his head, he was actually finishing a magnificent, dramatic speech. He was imagining himself looking down at Lord Vilucious like a god looking at a passing cloud, letting out a cold, smooth baritone line that would bring the entire kingdom to its knees: You are nothing to me. It felt amazing. It felt powerful.

Then, a sudden, heavy silence snapped him right out of it.

Cassius blinked, his heavy human irises in his eyes flickering out as the imaginary smoke in his mind cleared away. The reality of the messy courtyard rushed back in a cold, embarrassing wave. He hadn’t actually spoken a single word aloud. He was still just standing there next to Fukuro, who was still fully face-down in a sticky pile of purple sludge and dirt, completely sacrificing his professional dignity for the ruler. The grand, rebellious monologue had been nothing but a frantic daydream; a desperate mental shield against the absolute absurdity of the clerk’s corporate submission.

Up on the velvet throne, the figure didn’t even move, but the weight of his predatory gaze shifted right onto Cassius.

"My favorite slave..." Lord Vilucious drawled, his voice carrying a slow, heavily dramatic accent that practically dripped with theatrical mockery. He leaned his head back against the dark mahogany frame, tilting his chin down just enough to look over his gold Saber.

"...are you so profoundly blessed that the mere sight of me has stolen your words entirely?"

The tone was low, smooth, and drawn-out on purpose, designed to let every single syllable hum over the silent plaza like an insult. Vilucious started tapping his fingers against the blade again in a lazy, agonizingly slow rhythm, his cold, winter-ice eyes tracking the rigid, trembling posture of the silent sorcerer.

Cassius didn’t let the panic show on the outside. He forced his facial muscles to relax into a perfectly smooth, unbothered blank slate, masking the absolute chaos currently wrecking his brain cells. He kept his chin tilted up, meeting Vilucious’s cold, winter-ice stare with a gaze that looked completely deadpan, almost bored.

Inside his head, though, the ancient sorcerer’s pride was scrambling to flip the script.

A kid playing with power... huh, Cassius thought, his internal voice dripping with a heavy, serious condescension. Well, now I guess I’ve spotted his little temporary insecurity.

It was a brilliant mental defense mechanism. He was entirely serious about it, too. In his own mind, Cassius had completely rationalized his awkward, space-out silence as a tactical victory. He wasn’t a frozen idiot who missed his cue to talk; he was a profound, ancient genius who had intentionally chosen to ignore the king’s dramatic entrance to study his psychological flaws.

The illusion of his cool, nonchalant posture lasted for about three seconds.

"Hahaha, funny how you guess everyone’s mind," Cassius said, his eyes narrowing slightly as he locked his violet gaze onto Vilucious. He shifted his weight, his green banana-stem tail swaying behind him with a loose, easy rhythm that completely ignored the heavy, suffocating pressure radiating from the golden carriage.

He tilted his head, letting a strange, unreadable expression settle over his pale features. His next words came out with an odd, layered delivery- a mixed cocktail of emotions that made it impossible to tell where the sarcasm ended and the gravity began. It was a masterpiece of passive-aggressive diplomacy; it wasn’t a direct, execution-worthy humiliation to the lord, but it sure didn’t sound like a compliment either.

"But, thinking this truly as an aspect... I really noticed that my honesty is worth my life," Cassius continued, his voice smooth and steady as glass. He gave a tiny, mock-respectful nod toward the velvet throne.

"Because of a grand lord standing right before me."

The sentence hung in the air like a puzzle. To the royal guards, it might have sounded like a sudden, defensive display of submission. But to anyone actually paying attention to the deadpan smirk on Cassius’s face, it felt like he was treating the terrifying king as nothing more than an interesting psychological experiment.

Down in the dirt, Fukuro’s left ear twitched. He didn’t lift his face from the sticky marble, but his analytical brain immediately began calculating the sheer, catastrophic risk of Cassius’s casual mouth.

Yet, Fukuro didn’t risk opening his mouth after listening to Cassius’s sentence. The sheer, tight-wire terror of the moment kept him glued to his earlier position, his palms pressed flat against the sticky tiles, his breath held small and shallow against the stone.

Suddenly, the heavy, suffocating air around them all blew back in a violent, icy flash. It wasn’t a natural breeze; it was a pressurized shockwave that rattled the loose gravel and made the broken fruit carts groan. Before anyone could even blink, a blur of motion tore across the plaza like a streak of silver light, coming to an abrupt, flawless halt right in front of the dark mahogany carriage.

"My precious heart, my greetings to you," a voice announced, rich with crisp, military discipline.

The dust cleared instantly to reveal a figure dropped into a perfect, flawless royal greeting posture. She was down on one knee on the hard ground, her torso perfectly straight. One leather-gloved hand was pressed firmly over her chest, while her other hand gripped the hilt of a heavy, ornate sword, pinning its tip down against the cracked marble tiles.

It was a woman, and there was absolutely no mistaking that striking, lethal silhouette; it was Florianthum. She was dressed in her regular high-ranking soldier uniform, the polished silver pauldrons catching the sharp sunlight, her dark cape settling around her boots with a heavy, dramatic snap. Her presence radiated a sharp, metallic focus that cut right through Cassius’s casual sarcasm and Vilucious’s predatory amusement.

The sudden arrival of the commander struck the courtyard like a physical blow, freezing the entire plaza in a stunned, pale terror. The surrounding guards and merchants instantly stiffened, their breath catching at the sight of the high-ranking armor. Down in the dirt, Fukuro went entirely rigid, his analytical mind recognizing the heavy weight of military authority.

Yet, the two figures at the center of the storm didn’t show a single flicker of surprise.

Lord Vilucious didn’t lose an ounce of his lazy, predatory elegance, his cold eyes simply drifting down to track Florianthum with slow curiosity. Beside him, Cassius maintained his perfectly chill, nonchalant mask, his green tail giving an indifferent flick as if a high-ranked soldier was just another piece of boring royal theater. Both expressions remained locked in a chilling, deadpan calm.

Florianthum stood perfectly straight, her voice cutting boldly through the silence of the plaza as she looked directly at the throne.

"He is under observation, still thinking the best possible amusement for myself as per the actions to take on him," she announced, pointing her gauntleted hand toward Cassius without a hint of hesitation.

Lord Vilucious let out a low, rich chuckle that echoed off the high marble arches. "Haha, He?... My beloved, are you forgetting something?" he replied, his gaze shifting down to Florianthum. His dramatic, dominant voice carried a terrifying weight, seemingly piercing through the entire upper tier of the kingdom with the sheer force of his innate power.

The commander didn’t flinch, but her posture stiffened. She lowered her head in a swift, calculated gesture of absolute submission.

"My lord... I correct myself," Florianthum spoke, her voice ringing clear across the stone tiles. "Cassius Victus, born for the slaveric triben, is the one I mentioned just now."

The shift in the air was instantaneous, dropping the remaining temperature in the courtyard by twenty degrees. The lazy, theatrical mask Lord Vilucious had been wearing simply evaporated, revealing the terrifying, dark entity underneath.

"Darling, don’t kneel," the sudden, possessive, and dead-serious voice commanded. It didn’t carry a single trace of his earlier dramatic mockery; instead, it cut straight out of the highest authority of the kingdom with a heavy, suffocating gravity that made the flagstones beneath them vibrate.

Vilucious leaned forward, his icy gaze locking onto Florianthum’s bent head. His fingers finally stopped tapping the pommel of his gold saber, tightening around it with a dangerous, velvet-gloved-knuckled grip that signaled pure, unadulterated obsession. He couldn’t stand her lowering herself, even to him- in front of another man

Without a single complaint and in full military discipline, Florianthum stood up straight, locking her gaze onto the king. Her face remained completely hidden behind the cold, polished steel of her armet, making her expression entirely unreadable.

Yet, Cassius couldn’t bear the words that had just spilled from Vilucious’s mouth, and watching Florianthum obey them so flawlessly made it worse. The soft, lingering illusion of her that he had been holding onto in his mind from the day she used her blood memory to show him the reality made his feelings tear apart the entire Kingdom in one go. The toxic, friends-turned-enemies friction burned hot in his chest. Cassius couldn’t just stand by and watch this dominating, possessive nonsense unfold without pushing back.

"What are you so proud of? Your charm? Power?"

Cassius scoffed, taking a slow, deliberate step forward. He moved with the effortless, chill confidence of a high-tier predator, entirely unfazed by the heavy royal guards closing in.

He tilted his head, a sharp, lethal smirk cutting across his pale features as his purple eyes locked onto the throne.

"Ahh... Your psychopathic ruthlessness masquerading as your care!" Cassius said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, mocking purr that echoed boldly off the high marble arches, directly challenging the almighty lord of the kingdom.

Vilucious looked at Cassius with a stark, freezing seriousness before his features slowly melted into a dark, charming smile. With a sudden, sharp jerk, he flicked his palm down in the open air, stepping clear out of the royal vehicle.

Then, he began to walk on nothing. He descended through the space as if a solid, invisible staircase were built right in front of him a chilling, effortless display of his dark power.

As soon as his boots touched the ruined stone of the plaza, Vilucious stepped directly up to Florianthum. Without a word, he grabbed her hand, locking his velvet-gloved fingers tightly through hers. The grasp was intense and unyielding, instantly radiating the suffocating, obsessive energy of a psychopath who refused to let go of what he owned. Holding her pinned to his side, he turned his head and looked straight into Cassius’s eyes.