Chương 207: Chapter : 207

"Since I have already taken the personal responsibility of eradicating these Black Magician pests," Lancelot said, and there was a subtle, razor-sharp edge to his voice now, a warning wrapped inside a statement, "I will handle the solution myself. My network is already in place. My servants are already moving. The cells that ZulFarah relies on are being dismantled one by one, systematically and completely. This is not a problem that requires a thousand soldiers charging across a battlefield.

This is a problem that requires precision, and precision is my domain." He leaned forward slightly in his chair. Just a fraction of an inch, but the movement sent a visible wave of tension around the table. Several rulers actually leaned back in response, a subconscious retreat from the overwhelming presence of the masked figure.

"Sit down and wait," Lancelot commanded, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous murmur that was somehow more frightening than all the shouting that had come before.

"I will handle this. If I somehow fail, which I will not, then you may send your armies. You may have your war. You may march and shout and blow things up to your hearts' content. But not before. Not without my authorization. Is that understood?" The question hung in the air. It was not really a question. It was an order, dressed up in the polite clothing of a question, but everyone in the room could see the iron fist inside the velvet glove. To disagree with Lancelot was not just unwise. It was potentially fatal.

Not because he would kill them, although he certainly could. It was because Lancelot's intelligence network knew things about every single ruler at this table that could end careers, destroy families, and topple governments. Disagreeing with him meant making an enemy of the most dangerous man in the Empire, and nobody in this room was foolish enough to do that. The senior knight was the first to respond. He straightened in his chair, his armored hands clasped together on the table in front of him.

"Understood, Lancelot," he said, his voice much quieter and much more controlled than it had been a few minutes ago. The fury was gone, replaced by a grudging, almost resentful respect. One by one, the other rulers nodded. The silver-masked ruler gave a tight, clipped nod. The bone-white mask dipped briefly. The crimson mask tilted in acknowledgment. Even the beast-masked ruler, who had been the most aggressive of the group, sat back and crossed his arms, clearly unhappy but unwilling to challenge the decision.

They swallowed their pride, each and every one of them, and strictly agreed to Lancelot's undeniable authority. The invasion would not happen. Not today. The armies would stay in their barracks. The border would hold. And Lancelot would handle the problem his way, in the shadows, with precision and overwhelming force applied exactly where it was needed. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. The meeting continued for another hour.

Lancelot distributed additional intelligence details, answered questions with cold, efficient precision, and laid out a rough framework for continued monitoring of ZulFarah's activities. He did not share his full plan, because Lancelot never shared his full plan. He gave them enough information to satisfy their curiosity and not a single scrap more. The rulers accepted this, because they had no choice. When the meeting finally ended, the twelve figures rose from their chairs.

Eleven of them activated their personal teleportation spells, vanishing from the chamber in flashes of colored light. One by one, the seats emptied, until only Lancelot remained, sitting alone at the massive obsidian table in the cold, silent chamber. Ken Eliot reached up and pulled off his mask. The glowing purple eye vanished, replaced by two tired, sleepy, very ordinary black eyes.

He set the mask down on the table with a soft clink and ran his fingers through his messy black hair, which was damp with sweat from wearing the mask for so long. The dramatic black cloak felt like a heavy blanket on his shoulders, and he shrugged it off with a groan of relief, letting it pool on the chair behind him.

"That was exhausting," Ken muttered to the empty room. He slumped in his chair, his posture going from dark emperor to tired college student in the span of two seconds.

"Two hours of sitting in a hard chair, listening to angry people yell about war, and pretending to be scary. I could have been sleeping. I could have been eating. I could have been doing literally anything else." He looked at the mask sitting on the obsidian table. The single purple eye was dark now, just an empty lens in a piece of shaped metal. It looked harmless, ordinary, like a prop from a costume shop. But when Ken wore it, it became the face of the most feared man in the Belmontia Empire.

It was funny, in a sad, exhausting kind of way. The most dangerous person in the room had been the one who just wanted to go home and take a nap. Ken picked up the mask and tucked it inside his cloak. Then he activated his own teleportation spell, and the chamber was truly empty, the obsidian table sitting in silence, reflecting nothing but shadows. When Ken materialized back in his room at the 13th Unit estate, the first thing he did was kick off his shoes. The second thing he did was fall face-first onto his bed.

The mattress was soft. The pillow was cool. The blanket was warm. It was perfect. It was everything the Round Table Chamber was not.

"No more meetings," Ken mumbled into his pillow.

"No more wars. No more dramatic speeches. Just sleep. Beautiful, wonderful, peaceful sleep." And within thirty seconds, he was out like a light, his messy hair spread across the pillow, one arm dangling off the side of the bed, the mask of Lancelot sitting on his nightstand like a silent, dark guardian watching over the dreams of the laziest hero the Belmontia Empire had ever known.

It started with a sigh. Not a loud sigh, or a dramatic sigh, or the kind of sigh that Ken made when he was pretending to be dying on the couch. This was a small, quiet, deeply sad sigh that came from the corner of the mansion's indoor garden. It was the kind of sigh that made flowers droop and leaves curl inward, which in this particular room was not a figure of speech but an actual, literal event.