Chapter 85: Subterranean War: Rebirth of the Tyrant King

The King looked down, his bloodshot, ancient eyes reflecting the harsh overhead lighting as he stared at the defect he had supposedly conquered.

The suffocating silence stretched, broken only by the rhythmic, pathetic drip... drip... drip... of Cassius’s blood striking the polished granite. Then, the tension didn’t snap; it dissolved into a low, terrifyingly pleasant chuckle.

"Oh my, my..." Vilucious sighed, his voice dripping with an artificial, velvety warmth. He stepped forward, his heavy royal blue robes, bordered with thick, intricate golden thread, whispering against the floorboards as he knelt down slightly, bringing his face closer to Cassius’s level. "Poor slave. Look at you."

The King tilted his head, a look of profound, mocking pity washing over his rigid features. He looked up at the three towering militants, his expression hardening into pure performance art.

"What are you guys doing? Leave him," Vilucious chided softly, waving a dismissive, elegant hand. "Open his eyes. Is this any way to treat them? Look, his mouth is also bleeding... his precious blood."

The sarcasm in the word precious was a razor blade wrapped in silk.

Kerwon remained a statue at the King’s flank, his gauntleted hand still folded behind his back, his cold eyes unblinking as he watched his sovereign play with his food.

The militants immediately stepped back, their heavy armor clanking as they released their grip. Cassius slumped entirely onto the stone, his chest heaving as he stared up through the matted strands of his hair, his mind reeling from the King’s bizarre, savage hospitality.

Vilucious stood back up to his full, imposing height, smoothing out the front of his pristine robes. The gentle, mock-caring facade vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by a dead, hollow stare.

At the command, a guard’s rough, gauntleted hand reached down, violently ripping the coarse red cloth away from Cassius’s face.

But there was no desperate blink. No cowering away from the light.

The moment his eyelids freed, the corridor’s artificial glare seemed to die, swallowed whole by the sight of Cassius’s face. His eyes were gone... replaced by a pitch-black, bottomless void. Thick, ink-like tendrils of shadow bled from the edges of his sockets, curling into the air like smoke from a dying fire.

Cassius pulled back his lips, exposing a row of lethal, razor-sharp fangs wet with dark blue blood.

Gggrrrrrrrrr...

A guttural, chest-vibrating growl ripped from his throat, a sound so feral and saturated with raw malice that the nearest elite guards instinctively shifted their weight, their steel shields clattering nervously. The shadow-smoke flared, snapping toward the King’s pristine face.

Vilucious didn’t flinch. He slowly straightened back up to his full, imposing height, smoothing out the front of his robes as if a stray breeze had just passed him by. He looked down at the snarling, shadow-bleeding creature at his feet, his lips curling into a cold, amused smirk.

"Whoa!" Vilucious chuckled, raising his hands in mock defense. "Seems like you were enjoying being blindfolded. Why did you get this angry... pardon me, Mr. Slave? Is that your name?"

The mockery hung heavy in the freezing air. Kerwon remained a statue at the King’s flank, his cold eyes fixed on the shadows pooling around Cassius, waiting for the slightest command to crush him.

The gentle, mock-caring facade on the King’s face vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by a dead, hollow stare.

"He seems to enjoy the friction of the stone corridors so much," the King murmured, turning his back to Cassius with absolute indifference. "Take him to the Raw Court. In the exact same way. Since he likes it."

Thud.

Before Cassius could launch his weight forward, a heavy, iron-toed boot crashed directly back into his fractured ribs, driving the wind and the shadows back into his lungs. The temporary mercy was gone. A rough hand violently grabbed him by the hair again, slamming the coarse, heavy red cloth back over his pitch-black eyes, burying his world in an absolute, suffocating crimson dark once more.

Drag... scrape... drag...

The guards hoisted his broken form by his arms, his knees immediately scraping against the sharp granite floorboards as they hauled him down the gallery like a piece of slaughtered meat, his boots trailing uselessly behind him while the King’s savage laughter echoed down the corridor.

As Vilucious turned on his heel to initiate his walk, Kerwon and the perimeter of elite palace guards instantly shifted into formation. Clack-clack-clack. Their heavy shields and armored shoulders locked into a seamless, rhythmic stride right at their sovereign’s flanks.

But before they could take their third step, the heavy silence of the gallery was punctured by the desperate, frantic scuffle of boots.

"Lord! Are you fine? I heard-"

Florianthum came bursting around the corner. Her chest heaved, her breath coming in sharp, ragged plumes against the cold subterranean air. Her vivid crimson cape was a chaotic swirl around her sabatons, and her sharp, predatory eyes darted frantically between the King and the bleeding, shadow-stained slave on the floor.

Hearing her voice, Lord Vilucious paused. His pristine royal robes slowed to a halt. He didn’t turn around with urgency; instead, he slowly pivoted his towering frame back toward her, a slow, dark smirk spreading across his sharp jawline. He didn’t look like a man who had just survived a siege or a systemic override. He looked entirely untouchable.

With a theatrical, mocking elegance, Vilucious raised both hands, lifting his palms up into the air in a sweeping gesture of supreme, unbroken power.

"Fit and rigid as usual, my darling lordess," he purred, his voice dripping with smooth, unbothered arrogance that echoed off the high stone walls.

To the King, Florianthum’s breathless arrival sounded like the frantic devotion of a loyal hound. But Kerwon, standing perfectly parallel to his sovereign, knew the subtle shifts in her posture better than anyone. He had spent years tracking her movements, covering her tracks, and burying her deadliest secrets deep beneath the palace floors: secrets that would have seen her executed for treason if Lord Vilucious ever found out.

Looking at the slight, rhythmic tremor in her hands, Kerwon realized the truth with a jolt of ice in his gut. She isn’t terrified for the King. She’s terrified for the slave.

She was looking at Cassius. Her sharp, predatory eyes were wide, tracking the trail of dark purple blood leaking onto the stone from beneath the red cloth, her chest heaving with a raw panic she was desperately trying to suffocate.

Before the King could catch the slip, Florianthum caught herself. She drew her shoulders back, her face instantly freezing into the cruel, elegant mask of a true high-born monarch. She forced her gaze away from Cassius, locking her eyes onto Vilucious with a mask of pure, aristocratic concern.

"Was it him?" Florianthum drawled, her voice dropping into a dark, velvety purr that dripped with the cruel elegance of an apex predator, desperately masking the tremble in her throat. She tilted her head toward the blindfolded, dragging shape of Cassius, her nose flaring with mock disgust.

"Did this... vermin dare raise its claws against the crown? I was half-dead with worry that some treasonous hand had touched you, Vil... Lord-"

She caught the near-slip of his name instantly, smoothly redirecting her words, but Kerwon’s eyes narrowed slightly behind his heavy visor.

The lie was seamless to anyone else. To the King, she was the picture of perfect, worried nobility. But Kerwon had seen the genuine terror in her eyes when she looked at the boy. He closed his fist tighter behind his back, the metal joints of his gauntlet groaning silently.

Once again, he would have to keep her secret. Once again, he would have to play the silent shield, standing between her treasonous heart and the King’s absolute wrath.

Vilucious let out a low, satisfied hum, completely blind to the silent war of secrets happening right in front of him. "Do not distress yourself, my darling," the King murmured, his voice dropping into a low, purring register as his thumb brushed against the column of her neck. He cast one final, bored glance over his shoulder at the retreating form of the slave.

"He is merely entertainment for the Raw Court tonight. Come. Let us see how much friction he can endure."

Florianthum held herself perfectly still under his touch, her regal smile remaining flawlessly intact, though her skin involuntarily prickled beneath the King’s fingers.

Right at her flank, Kerwon’s entire world narrowed to the sight of Vilucious’s hand resting against her skin.

Behind the dark, unyielding visor of his helmet, Kerwon’s jaw clamped shut so hard his teeth clicked. A chaotic, suffocating wave of emotion reared up in his chest- a hot, territorial anger that clashed violently with the cold discipline he had spent a lifetime forging.

His feelings for the Lordess were a tangled, dangerous knot he had never dared to unravel. He was her protector, the keeper of her treasonous secrets, but watching the King claim her so easily sent a jagged spike of jealousy straight through his ribs.

Control it, he commanded himself, his inner voice a brutal snarl. If you break stance, you both die.

With agonizing deliberation, Kerwon forced his breathing to remain steady, exhaling a slow, silent plume of air through his visor. He closed his fist even tighter behind his back, the metal joints of his gauntlet groaning under the immense pressure of his grip until his knuckles went entirely numb. He kept his eyes locked straight ahead, burying his confusion and his rage deep into the blackest corners of his mind.

"As you command, my Lord," Florianthum murmured softly, her velvety voice masking the quiet sigh of relief as Vilucious finally lifted his hand to gesture forward.

Thud-thud-thud.

The procession surged ahead into the damp, echoing dark of the lower levels. Kerwon marched onward as a flawless, unblinking machine, shielding the woman he loved from the monster he served, while the pathetic scuffle of the dragging slave echoed ahead of them like a funeral march.

The procession surged ahead into the damp, echoing dark of the lower levels. Kerwon marched onward as a flawless, unblinking machine, shielding the woman he loved from the monster he served, while the pathetic scuffle of the dragging slave echoed ahead of them like a funeral march.

But as the heavy iron gates of the Raw Court loomed ahead, the oppressive thrum of the corridor seemed to warp, pulling at the edges of the present.

The pristine, untouched majesty of Lord Vilucious standing before them now was a lie. It was a flawless mask plastered over a memory that still made the dark blue blood in Kerwon’s veins run cold—a memory from the previous cycle that the palace walls desperately tried to swallow.

-----Flashback-----

The timeline had fractured. The central wing had been a smoking, chemical wasteland, choked with the blinding violet-crimson tracer rounds that had torn the night apart.

There had been no grand speeches. No royal dignity.

A bit of the horrific, wet squelch of the King’s boots sliding through his own purging fluids. The royal lips, now so smooth and arrogant, had been coated in a thick, freezing purple slime that sizzled against the stone floorboards. The tracer rounds had done their work, threatening to turn the King’s internal anatomy into a hollowed-out, blackened cage.

Vilucious had been collapsing, his eyes rolling back to expose dead white sclera, his fingers clawing uselessly at the air as his dark blue royal blood spilled in erratic, violent bursts.

He was dying. The sovereign was falling.

But the palace protocol did not allow him to fall.

Before Kerwon (lord’s personal governor) could even reach for his lord, the invisible, psychic frequency had spiked with a deafening, silent Vrrrrrm. The system had overridden the panic.

Out of the smoke, the palace guards hadn’t rushed forward with frantic medical kits or desperate cries. They had marched.

Thud. Clack. Thud.

Their movements had instantly turned rigid, jerky, and terrifyingly mechanical. Four elite vanguards had stepped over the debris, their left arms hanging entirely limp at their sides, their faces completely wiped of human expression. Their eyes had turned glassy and vacant, reflecting the emergency mercury lights like pieces of dead marble.

Without a single word, operating on pure, unyielding code, the overridden soldiers had lifted the convulsing, slime-choked body of the King. They didn’t carry him with care. They carried him like a piece of broken machinery being returned to a factory line.

Thud. Clack. Thud.

With robotic, unblinking faces, the guards had fallen into a perfect, uniform step, their heavy boots striking the blood-slicked stone in a single, deafening cadence. They had dragged and carried the dying monarch down the long, dark corridor toward the Healers’ Center, moving with the blind, mindless momentum of a plague of locusts.

And right behind them, marching in the exact same robotic cadence, her jaw slack and her predatory eyes turned completely vacant, had been Lordess Florianthum. Her vivid crimson cape had trailed through the purple slime on the floorboards, her sharp mind locked away in a dark corner of her own skull as she joined the faceless, mindless river.

They had carried him into the dark to be remade. To be patched up by the cold logic of the system.

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