Chapter 68: The Ghost in the Watermark: Sacred Notice?

Fukuro stared down at the floorboards, his perfectly executed royal bow dissolving into a sudden, awkward stiffness. He didn’t rise smoothly. Instead, he dropped his weight straight down, sliding into a clumsy sit with his knees bent outward and his legs locked into a rigid, wide V shape.

"He’s..." Fukuro began, his theatrical confidence leaking out like air from a punctured tire. He shifted his weight, his palms sticking to the grimy stone floor.

"He is, conceptually speaking, a man of... substantial administrative gravity."

He stammered over the vowels, his tongue thickening as if the mere mention of the executioner’s actual name might invite a halberd through the ceiling for real this time.

Cassius watched the display through a heavy, exhausted gaze. The broad vampire didn’t shift his frame against the shredded stone wall, but his jaw tightened. Slowly, deliberately, Cassius closed his eyes. He let his head sink back against the masonry with a soft, dull thud, his large chest rising and falling in a slow, rhythmic breath of pure, unadulterated frustration.

The silence in the recess grew heavy, punctuated only by the pathetic sound of Fukuro swallowing hard and adjusting his glasses for the fourth time.

"So," Cassius murmured, his voice dragging across the quiet room, completely flat and devoid of patience. "It’s true, then. You lack the spine to speak sickening reality of him even in the dark."

The words hit Fukuro like a physical jolt. His knees snapped together, his heels digging into the shelf soot as his entire body went rigid. The sheer humiliation of being called a coward twice in five minutes seemed to short-circuit his theatrical brain entirely.

With an abrupt, violent scramble, Fukuro launched himself off the floor. His boots skidded across the rotting timber, his hands flailing to catch his balance against the stone pillar before he sprinted toward the narrow broken exit.

"I need to vacate my bladder!" Fukuro shrieked, his voice cracking spectacularly as he vanished into the dark corridor, his frantic footsteps echoing off the damp walls.

"The structural duress has compromised my kidneys! DO NOT FOLLOW MEEE!"

The heavy silence returned to the hidden room, leaving Cassius alone with the scent of burnt copper and the old, weathered paper resting against his ribs.

Cassius didn’t move his head, but his large hand twitched over his midsection. With a sudden, sharp flick of his wrist, he flung the old, weathered history paper away.

The heavy parchment sailed through the air with a dry, aggressive smack, hitting the grimy stone floorboards face-down in the empty center of the room. It skidded an inch through the grey soot, gathering dust on its edges before settling into a pathetic heap.

Cassius stared at the useless bundle of text, his dark slate-grey eyes hardening with a deep, quiet irritation.

"Rubbish," he muttered to the empty, silent room, his voice flat and bitter.

He leaned his heavy skull back against the shredded stone wall, letting out a low, gravelly breath that rattled through his massive chest. The whole situation was completely ridiculous. He was stuck hiding in a rotting hole, relying on a theatrical coward who couldn’t even say an executioner’s name without losing control of his bladder.

"Absolute su*king idiot," Cassius growled to himself, closing his eyes once more as the heavy silence of the recess swallowed his words.

He reached out with two massive fingers, hooking the edge of the sheet and flipping it over.

The text was plain, written in crisp, normal English. But it wasn’t the words that caught his attention.

"What is this muddy shi*t...?" Cassius thought, his brow furrowing as he pulled the page closer.

Pressed deep into the fibers of the page, sitting directly beneath the lines of ink, was an intricate watermark. It looked like an ancient logo, deeply carved into the paper itself, visible only because the angle of the light hit it perfectly.

Cassius narrowed his eyes, tracking the lines.

It was a drawing; freakingly detailed and unsettlingly old. It depicted a towering, dangerous entity, a non-human silhouette made entirely of jagged, black shadow aura. The creature’s form was monstrously abstract, its lines bleeding outward like smoke as it actively snuffed out the life of a woman.

The woman was crumpled at its feet. Even in the crude watermark, her posture screamed of violent, final agony. On her head sat a sharply pointed crown.

"A crown," Cassius noted inwardly, his chest tightening slightly as a cold realization clicked in his mind.

"A royal execution. Is this... Vilucious’s true legacy? Or the thing he serves with the help of his damn elites?"

He slid his gaze up to the normal English text floating above and around the drawing, trying to trace a connection.

But the words didn’t make sense. It was structured properly, the letters legible and clear, yet the message itself was a complete cipher. Without any prior context, without a name, a date, or a key to bridge the gap, the information was completely un-understandable.

"Damn it," Cassius growled silently, his jaw locking hard.

"It’s right here in my hands, and I still can’t read a single line of it. I need that loudmouth back here to decode this."

He rubbed his thumb over the jagged crown of the dying woman, the paper rough against his calloused skin.

Cassius stared at the page, his human eyes tracking the ink over and over, trying to force the fragmented words into something that made sense.

"...even a shift from the grace may result to offensive circumstances regarding the laws of VAMP."

He ran the line through his mind again. A shift from grace. It sounded like a warning. A threat tailored specifically for those who held power. It meant that even the slightest misstep, the smallest deviation from whatever ’grace’ meant to the kingdom, would trigger a brutal enforcement of the highest laws.

His eyes drifted lower, cutting through the next block of text.

’These rules and conditions are to be in the hands of minimum to the slaveric consideration militants...’

He paused, his thumb tightening against the edge of the parchment. Slaveric consideration militants. High-ranking officers. The elite.

’...no lower tier or other ranks related to be seen with this sacred notice.’

A restriction. This wasn’t public law; it was a deeply buried secret. It was a document meant strictly for the eyes of the absolute highest military tier. Anyone below that level caught holding this paper wouldn’t just be breaking a rule... they would be signing their own death warrant.

Cassius looked back at the drawing of the shadow entity snuffing out the crowned woman, the connection beginning to feel heavier, more suffocating.

He read on, parsing the next fragment.

"This bill is passed and no copies to be distributed among themselves, and would lead to offensive declaration of punishment."

No copies. No distribution. A total blackout. The kingdom had gone to extreme lengths to ensure this specific piece of information remained isolated. To leak it, to replicate it, meant an immediate declaration of execution.

Finally, his eyes locked onto the heavily stamped bottom line, the words polished and formal against the rough paper:

’Verified and carved to originality by the direct decree of the Beloved Sovereign of the Realm, under the absolute authority and protocols of V.A.M.P.’

Cassius let out a low, rough breath. The text was clear, the words were normal English, but without the core context of what the bill actually detailed, it was just a beautifully phrased cage. It was a warning system for a weapon he couldn’t see.

V.A.M.P...

Cassius thought, his gaze anchoring on the acronym. "What exactly are you hiding?"

The lingering echo of Fukuro’s frantic sprinting had barely faded when a sharp, heavy thud rattled the entrance to the recess.

Fukuro blundered back into the room, but the theatrical coward who had just fled in a panic was entirely gone. His posture was stiff, his eyes wide and completely unblinking behind his glasses. He didn’t look down at the floorboards, nor did he look at the paper in Cassius’s hand with any of his previous curiosity.

Instead, he struck the stone wall with the side of his balled fist... a hard, solid knock that sent a small shower of dust over his own sleeve.

"What the hell are you doing with that notice?"

Fukuro snapped, his voice rough and completely stripped of his usual playful rhythm. He stared at the parchment as if he had never seen it before in his life. "Do you even know what that is?"

Before Cassius could even narrow his eyes at the sudden shift, Fukuro moved.

He didn’t glide or stomp; he executed a desperate, low sprint directly across the empty center of the room. The distance vanished in a heartbeat. He slammed his hands onto both of Cassius’s broad, heavy shoulders, his fingers digging hard into the thick fabric of the slaveric outfit to anchor himself. His breath came fast, smelling of cold sweat and stale air.

Fukuro leaned in violently, pressing his face right against the side of the giant vampire’s head, his voice dropping into a frantic, trembling whisper directly into Cassius’s ear.

"Madam Floriantum sent me to say this," Fukuro breathed, his words cutting through the silence like a blade.

"She is standing right on the other side of this basement wall."

The grip on Cassius’s shoulders tightened, Fukuro’s knuckles turning white under the strain.

"When I told her about what you were doing... about what you stole," Fukuro whispered, his voice hitching in his throat, "...she was completely shocked. She didn’t think you’d survive long enough to read it."

Cassius didn’t flinch. His hand shot up, grabbing Fukuro’s collar and choking out his breath.

With a smooth extension of his arm, he shoved Fukuro backward into the soot. Before the man could even inhale, Cassius yanked him right back by the T-shirt, dragging his ear down to his lips.

Fukuro’s glasses slipped, dangling precariously.

Cassius leaned in. His lips moved against Fukuro’s ear in a low, silent vibration.

Not a single syllable escaped into the open room. The words remained a total secret, completely hidden from the dark corridors outside.

He released his grip with a sharp flick.

Fukuro froze. The theatrical panic wiped clean from his face, replaced by absolute horror. His jaw locked open. His eyes widened so violently the whites showed completely around his pupils, staring blankly at the stone wall as the weight of what he had just heard hit his chest.

The hidden room fell into a dead silence. Fukuro slowly raised a trembling hand toward his face, his voice barely a ghost of a sound.

"What..." he breathed, locked in a terrified trance. "...but how?"

Cassius didn’t answer. He simply leaned his head back into the shadows, and the purple light on his skin died out completely.