Chapter 74: The Gold Thread Network: Micro-current Trap

Crunch-snap.

The grip on Fukuro’s shoulder tightened like an iron vice, the stone-cold pressure sinking deep into his collarbone. Before the clerk could even attempt to wiggle free or drop another sarcastic comment, Kerwon yanked him backward with brutal, effortless strength.

Fukuro stumbled, his boots scuffing loudly against the dirt floor... skrrrt... as he was violently pulled away from the entrance.

Kerwon stepped into his place, his gaze cutting through the threshold to see what was happening inside.

Instantly, the governor’s posture froze. The shallow, panicked breaths he had been drawing since escaping the indoor forest jammed completely in his throat. His bloodshot eyes widened, stretching with a mixture of raw shock and explosive, unbridled fury.

The skin around his jaw strained, turning a stark, mottled white as the veins in his neck pulsed violently against his stiff collar.

Inside the dim chamber, the reality of the scene laid itself bare.

Cassius had Madam Florianthum pinned against the heavy wooden table. The noble lady’s head was lolled back, her long hair spilling across the dark grain like silk, her eyes closed in absolute unconsciousness.

She was entirely dead to the world, yielding completely to the posture. Yet, despite the violence of the positioning, Cassius was operating with a terrifying, uncanny gentleness.

His fingers held her wrists down with just enough pressure to secure her, his movements methodical and quiet as his lips pressed to the soft, pale curve of her collarbone, drinking her royal blood with effortless, rhythmic swallows-gulp... gulp... gulp.

A guttural, choked sound escaped Kerwon’s throat before erupting into a deafening roar that shook the dust from the low ceiling.

"YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A CARCASS," Kerwon bellowed, his voice fracturing under the sheer weight of his rage.

Shhh-wring!

Without breaking stride, Kerwon reached for the heavy, polished halberd slung across his back. The long shaft cleared his shoulder with a sharp, metallic ring, the broad steel blade catching the dim light as he marched directly toward Cassius, his heavy boots slamming into the floorboards.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

With the intent to cleave the brave main character as an opponent in two before another drop could be stolen.

Yet, Cassius didn’t even flinch at the thundering approach.

With cold, mechanical precision, he pulled his fangs free from the lady’s neck with a wet, quiet slip. He slow-dragged the back of his thumb across his lower lip, smearing a stray line of hot crimson across his skin, his eyes shifting upward.

As the heavy steel blade of the halberd began its downward arc, slicing through the air with a vicious, low whoosh, Cassius locked his gaze onto the governor’s bloodshot eyes... entirely unbound by fear, and completely ready for the strike.

Cassius didn’t even blink.

"You’re swinging out of panic, Governor," Cassius murmured, his voice a low, cold hum.

"Look at the angle. I’ll move before it grazes me, and you’ll cut your own Empress in half."

Screeech-clack!

The halberd ground to a violent, shuddering halt mid-air, the wicked edge vibrating barely an inch from Cassius’s temple. The sudden stop sent a heavy tremor back up the shaft, rattling Kerwon’s wrists.

Sweat poured down the governor’s temple as his bloodshot eyes darted from Cassius’s smirk to the unconscious Madam Florianthum pinned beneath him.

The cold memory of Cassius’s blinding speed from past encounters flashed through Kerwon’s mind, locking his muscles tight. He knew it was a losing gamble.

Cassius slowly let his gaze drift up to the trembling blade, the corner of his blood-stained lips tugging into a sharp, mocking grin.

"Good boy," Cassius whispered, his tone dripping with savage amusement. "You still have a shred of survival instinct left."

Cassius kept his gaze locked on the governor’s sweating face, but beneath that calm, mocking smirk, his mind was operating with the cold precision of a clockwork engine.

Pure success, he thought, a dark surge of savage satisfaction rippling through his consciousness.

These arrogant bloodsuckers think they own the world, and they don’t even realize a micro-device in my ear is about to change their entire game.

They treated him like just another monster in their brutal hierarchy, forgetting the one thing that made him truly lethal: he was a vampire with the unbroken mind and memories of a human even after mocking his weakness by letting him meet his own parents.

They relied entirely on raw, predatory instincts, but he possessed the complex, inventive genius of the old world.

You think you caught me off guard, Cassius thought, his inner voice dripping with quiet malice as he stared at the vibrating edge of the halberd.

But I built your execution order in the dark last night.

His mind flashed back to the meticulous hours of the place that led to the royal bedroom. He had planned this ever since the day he boldly wore Lord Vilucious’s own doublet just to mock him: the exact day he secretly unraveled that needle-thin strand of high-purity gold thread from the royal fabric.

For the core sensor, he had simply chipped a raw shard of quartz crystal right out of the palace’s damp stone foundation walls, shaving it down to a microscopic sliver with the edge of his own dagger made with his blood magic shape-shifting ability.

Even the speaker membrane carried a piece of his lingering human empathy. He hadn’t slaughtered an innocent creature for it; he had found a tiny field mouse gasping its last breaths under a shifting stone in the cellar.

He had waited for the poor thing to go cold before taking its bladder, stretching the membrane thin over a hollowed-out copper casing smaller than a grain of rice.

Now, those microscopic gold threads were stretched taut like a spiderweb across the floorboards outside. Every frantic step Kerwon had taken compressed those threads, sending a micro-current straight into the quartz resting deep inside his ear canal.

The crystal had vibrated right against the mouse-skin membrane, translating the governor’s furious, charging strides into a rapid series of sharp, rhythmic clicks directly against his eardrum seconds before the door was even breached.

Keep staring at the blade, Governor, Cassius thought, his eyes narrowing slightly as he held the unconscious lady down.

Keep bleeding anxiety while a human mind uses vampire blood to dismantle your whole empire from the inside out.

The governor’s jaw was clamped so tight the bone looked ready to snap, his furious gaze darting between Cassius’s mocking grin and the limp, pale form of Madam Florianthum.

Before Kerwon could even find his voice to speak, the heavy, suffocating silence of the chamber was completely shattered.

Clack-thud-slide.

Fukuro practically threw himself into the room, his entire body trembling so violently that his clerk uniform rattled. His knees gave out half a step in, sending him sliding across the dirt floor until he dropped heavily onto both knees right beside Kerwon’s boots.

His hands were slammed together in a desperate, frantic praying position, shaking like leaves in a storm.

"Sir Ker... Sir.. I tried my best, pls help me!"

Fukuro squeaked, his voice cracking into a high-pitched, pathetic whine as he begged for his life. "Madam Florianthum was... she was..."

His wide, panicked eyes darted up, locking onto Cassius, who was still casually wiping the royal blood from his lower lip. Fukuro’s face went entirely bloodless.

Realizing he was trapped between an elite governor with a massive axe and a genius main character who had just casually subdued the Empress, the clerk chose the only logical option: absolute, shameless surrender.

Thud.

Fukuro pressed his forehead entirely to the damp earth, bending his spine until he was completely flat against the floorboards.

"It’s not me... I give promise of my glasses!" he muffled into the dirt, holding his spectacles tightly against his face with one hand as if they were his most sacred, life-saving possession.

Cassius’s eyes flicked down to the pathetic display on the floor, the mocking smirk on his lips widening just a fraction as he kept his grip on the unconscious Lordess.

His expression hardened into pure, unadulterated coldness. The gentle grip he held on Madam Florianthum’s wrists didn’t loosen, but the atmosphere in the room plummeted another ten degrees.

"What in the kingdom are you doing here at this hour?" Cassius said, his voice a low, lethal whisper that cut cleanly through the clerk’s frantic whimpering.

"And exactly how long have you been lurking outside?"

Fukuro’s shoulders stiffened against the dirt floor, his hands still clutching his spectacles for dear life.

Cassius leaned forward just an inch, his fangs catching the dim light as he pinned the trembling clerk with a predatory stare.

"If you don’t shut that large mouth of yours this instant, I will personally carve it right off your face. I don’t care who you are. Do I make myself clear?"

This was all part of the plan. If he left the clerk to panic and wail on the floor, the idiot’s raw terror would butcher the fragile leverage he currently held over Kerwon. He needed the loose cannon out of the room before he ruined everything.

With a seamless, aristocratic fluidity, Cassius dropped down onto one knee beside the groveling clerk, his movements remarkably graceful despite the brutal environment.

He reached out, his pale fingers sinking into the messy strands of Fukuro’s hair. With a sudden, tight pinch, he gripped the roots and yanked the clerk’s head upward, forcing Fukuro’s tear-streaked, bloodless face to look straight into his own unblinking stare.

Fukuro winced, his fingers still desperately clutching his glasses as his neck was strained back.

"If you are still standing in front of me when I count to three," Cassius whispered.

Fukuro’s knees instantly twitched, his muscles ready to scramble him out of the room like a terrified animal.

Clack.

The heavy shaft of the halberd shifted in the air, the cold shadow of the blade cutting across the floorboards.

"You, stand exactly where you are," Kerwon barked, his voice raw but completely unyielding, a straight, sharp order to Fukuro.

The governor finally lowered the massive weapon from its executioner’s arc, but his knuckles remained strained white against the polished wood, his grip tightening normally as he kept the blade ready to strike at a moment’s notice.