Chương 56: Chapter 24 Part 3

By mid-afternoon, the sun had fully broken through the lingering storm clouds, casting a warm, golden haze over the Morvant Estate's expansive inner gardens. The gardens were a masterpiece of excessive noble wealth. Pristine, geometrically manicured hedges formed a living labyrinth around a massive, tiered marble fountain depicting the Water Goddess.

Exotic, vibrant flowers that had no business blooming in this climate were sustained by subtle, underground thermal wards, filling the air with the rich, sweet scent of jasmine and lotus. Right in the center of this pristine sanctuary, a delicate wrought-iron table had been set for afternoon tea. Clara, a young maid who had survived the siege on the Vael Estate, stood near the table holding a silver serving tray. She was shaking so violently that the porcelain teapot was audibly rattling against the metal.

Her sheer terror was entirely justified. Sitting across from Ming Xuan Ji at the small, fragile garden table was a seven-foot-tall mythical apex predator. Aurelithia, or Lithia, as she was now begrudgingly known within the estate's walls, sat perfectly rigid in a cushioned wrought-iron chair that groaned alarmingly under her condensed, draconic density. She was watching Clara pour the tea with the intense, unblinking focus of a hawk watching a field mouse.

Clara swallowed a whimpering sob, her hands trembling as she poured the steaming jasmine tea into a tiny, hand-painted porcelain cup placed before the dragon-woman. She then hurriedly set down a three-tiered silver platter of delicate fruit tarts, macarons, and sugar-dusted pastries.

"T-The tea is served, Lady Ming. Lady Aurelithia. Lady Evanthe," Clara squeaked, her voice cracking halfway through. She immediately bowed at a sharp ninety-degree angle and practically sprinted back toward the safety of the mansion's kitchens. Xuan Ji, lounging lazily in her chair with her legs crossed, picked up her teacup and took a slow, highly satisfied sip.

"You're traumatizing the staff, Lithia."

"I am merely observing," Lithia replied, her dual-layered voice a smooth, rumbling purr.

"Mortal servants possess a fascinating, fragile nervous system. I could smell the adrenaline spiking in her blood from three corridors away."

"Well, stop staring at them like they're the appetizers," Xuan Ji chuckled, setting her cup down.

"Try the pastries. The Morvant chefs were apparently the highest-paid culinary masters in the inner rings. It would be a shame to let their talents go to waste just because their previous boss committed high treason." Lithia narrowed her luminous, vertical slit-pupils at the tiny, fragile porcelain teacup resting on the saucer before her. For a creature who was used to casually wading through molten lava, the concept of "delicate" was entirely foreign.

She slowly raised her right hand, attempting to pinch the microscopic, curved handle of the teacup between her thumb and forefinger. The sheer concentration on the Sovereign of the Peaks' face was intense enough to bend reality. A bead of sweat would have formed on her brow if dragons could sweat. Clink. Tink. Lithia's golden, scale-dusted fingers bumped against the porcelain. She adjusted her grip, trying to apply a fraction of her physical strength.

"This is an absurd vessel," Lithia grumbled, her brow furrowing deeply.

"A stiff breeze could shatter it. If I flex a single tendon in my forearm, this porcelain will be reduced to fine powder, and the boiling liquid will spill uselessly onto the table." Sitting between them, Evanthe was holding her own teacup with both hands. The young girl watched the towering, terrifying dragon-woman wage a psychological war against a tiny cup of jasmine tea. A sudden, unfamiliar sound broke the quiet atmosphere of the garden. Evanthe giggled.

It wasn't a nervous, terrified gasp, or a polite, suppressed noble chuckle. It was a genuine, bright, fourteen-year-old giggle. Lithia's golden eyes snapped toward the girl. Evanthe immediately clamped a hand over her mouth, her eyes widening in panic, expecting to be reprimanded or incinerated for laughing at a mythic beast. But Lithia didn't look angry. The dragon-woman tilted her head, observing the young girl's perfectly balanced Yin-Yang core humming peacefully in her chest.

"You find my struggles amusing, little one?" Lithia asked, a faint, rumbling amusement bleeding into her own voice.

"I-I'm sorry, Lady Lithia," Evanthe stammered, lowering her hand.

"It's just... you look like a great lion trying to thread a sewing needle." Xuan Ji threw her head back and let out a genuine, booming laugh.

"She's right, you know. Just hold it by the rim, Lithia. You're immune to heat. You don't need to use the handle." Lithia let out a huff of hot air that momentarily caused the nearby jasmine flowers to wilt. She abandoned the delicate handle, instead placing her massive hand entirely over the top of the cup like a lid, gripping it by the rim. She lifted it effortlessly and took a sip. Her vertical pupils instantly dilated.

"Fascinating," Lithia murmured, looking down at the amber liquid.

"The floral notes are surprisingly robust. The mortals have managed to extract the essence of the garden and steep it in hot water. It is... pleasant." She then reached out and picked up a delicate, strawberry-topped pastry from the silver platter. Instead of taking a polite bite, she simply tossed the entire tart into her mouth, chewing once before swallowing.

"The nutritional value is practically nonexistent," Lithia noted, reaching for three more pastries at once.

"But the sugar content provides a highly agreeable taste." In less than a minute, the Sovereign of the Peaks had completely demolished the entire three-tiered platter of delicate baked goods, thoroughly enjoying her very first tea party. Xuan Ji smiled, leaning back in her chair and turning her face up toward the warm sun. For a long time, the only sounds in the garden were the gentle bubbling of the marble fountain and the rustling of the wind through the tall hedges.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. It was a moment of profound, uninterrupted peace. Evanthe rested her head against the back of her chair, her eyes half-closed. The heavy, suffocating weight of the Heavenly Killing Star was entirely gone, replaced by a cool, harmonious flow of Qi. She was no longer a hostage in a ruined estate. She was sitting in the sun, protected by a Heavenly Demon and an Ancient Dragon, entirely safe.

Lithia sat quietly, her golden eyes casually tracking the distant, reinforced windows of the estate's massive ballroom. Even from the garden, she could feel the intense, rhythmic, volcanic heat radiating from the glowing indoor nest she had built. Her child was safe, resting amidst the magma-stones, entirely hidden from the prying, greedy eyes of the world. And Xuan Ji simply sat there, thoroughly enjoying the quiet novelty of the resting period. Her gaming instincts were still sharp.

She knew exactly what awaited them outside the high, fortified walls of the Morvant Estate. She had to go to the Royal Palace. Do some business and prepare for hunting more of the remaining cultists within the kingdom. And after that, she had to mobilize her newly empowered Vanguard, point Lithia toward the horizon, and begin the grueling, bloody, continent-wide hunt for the decentralized, fanatic cells of the Blood God Cult.

The kingdom was teetering on the edge of a massive geopolitical upheaval, and she was the one holding the hammer. But as Ming Xuan Ji took another slow sip of her jasmine tea, listening to Evanthe quietly humming a tune beside her, she decided that all of that could wait.

While the new master of the Morvant Estate was busy thoroughly enjoying the floral notes of her jasmine tea, the Crown Prince of the Zareth Kingdom was currently contemplating throwing himself off the highest balcony of the Royal Spire. Theron sat behind the massive, sprawling oak desk of his private study, entirely barricaded by towering, precarious mountains of parchment.

He pressed the heels of his hands aggressively into his eyes, trying to massage away a migraine that felt like a dwarven mining drill boring into his skull. He let out a long, ragged sigh, lowering his hands and subconsciously running his fingers through his hair. He paused, his heart skipping a beat as he checked his fingertips, legitimately terrified that the sheer stress of the last forty-eight hours was causing his hair to thin.

The immediate apocalyptic threat was gone, but the administrative fallout was a nightmare of epic proportions. Theron picked up his quill, dipped it in ink, and pulled the next parchment from the stack. It was a structural assessment from Archmage Kirnof. The upper hex-grids of the Aegis Array had been catastrophically warped by the ambient heat of the dragon's breath attack, requiring millions of gold pieces in mythril and liquid mana to repair. Theron signed it. He pulled the next parchment.

It was a casualty report and a property damage assessment from the inner rings following the Blood Priest's vanguard assault. Theron signed it. He pulled the third parchment. It was the finalized, heavily stamped legal transfer of the Morvant Estate, one of the largest, most historically significant manors in the capital, designating it as the absolute sovereign territory of a wandering martial artist and a polymorphed Ancient Gold Dragon.

Theron stared at that one for a long time, the absurdity of the legal document mocking him, before he heavily signed his name to that as well. The heavy, reinforced oak doors of his study suddenly swung open.

"Your Highness!" a bold, highly energetic voice rang out. Theron didn't look up immediately. He just slowly blinked his exhausted, bloodshot eyes. Marching into the royal study with the heavy, synchronized clanking of plate armor were Knight Commander Eldora and Dame Liora Sable. The two elite knights looked entirely battered but incredibly triumphant. Their silver armor was caked in layers of dried, foul-smelling mud, and Liora sported a fresh, shallow claw mark across her cheek.

They had been deployed to the deep outer territories over a week ago on a highly dangerous, specialized hunting commission. Eldora stepped up to the desk, his chest puffed out with martial pride, and slammed a heavy, wax-sealed requisition manifest onto the remaining empty space of Theron's desk.

"Mission accomplished, Sire," Eldora reported, a massive, victorious grin on his face.

"We tracked the Deep-Woods Troll coven to their lair in the southern bogs. It was a brutal fight that nearly broke our vanguard line, but we prevailed!"

"Countless fully intact, high-rank Troll carcasses have been secured and delivered to the Apothecary Guild's cold-storage," Liora added, standing at strict attention, her eyes shining with the pride of a hard-fought victory.

"The regenerative properties of their blood and marrow will allow the kingdom to brew enough high-tier healing elixirs to supply the entire Royal Guard for a year. The capital's alchemical reserves are secure!" They waited, standing tall. It was a massive achievement. Slaying a Troll Chieftain was a feat that usually warranted a royal commendation, a parade through the outer rings, or at the very least, a grand feast in the knights' honor. Theron slowly raised his head. He looked at Eldora. He looked at Liora.

His eyes were hollow, carrying the heavy, traumatized thousand-yard stare of a man who had recently watched the sky catch fire. He didn't smile. He didn't stand up to congratulate them. He just slowly reached out, took the requisition manifest, dipped his quill, and signed it with a loud, aggressive scratch.

"Excellent work, Commander," Theron said. His voice was completely flat, entirely devoid of inflection or royal grandeur.

"Put it with the apothecaries." Eldora's proud smile faltered. He exchanged a confused, slightly concerned glance with Liora. They had spent a week sleeping in freezing bogs and dodging massive, tree-trunk clubs to secure this vital resource. The Crown Prince's reaction was akin to someone acknowledging the delivery of routine office supplies.

"Sire?" Eldora asked tentatively, stepping slightly closer to the desk.

"Forgive my overstepping, but... you look dreadful. Are you unwell? Has something happened in the capital while we were deployed?" Theron set his quill down very, very carefully. He intertwined his fingers, resting his elbows on the mountain of paperwork, and stared dead ahead at his two most elite, thoroughly confused knights.

"While you were camping in the bogs," Theron began, his voice a low, monotonous drone of administrative suffering, "a sleeper cell of the Blood God Cult successfully infiltrated the inner rings." Eldora and Liora physically stiffened, their hands instinctively dropping to the hilts of their swords.

"What?! Sire, the wards!"

"To bypass the wards," Theron continued smoothly, cutting them off, "they bribed Duke Morvant into smuggling an Ancient Gold Dragon's egg into the Blackwater Docks. This provoked the mother dragon to descend upon Elyndria. She possessed the thermal density of a dying star, and she was preparing to melt the Aegis Array and incinerate two million people to glass." Eldora's jaw dropped. The color instantly drained from Liora's face.

The sheer scale of the threat was so far beyond a Troll Chieftain it completely short-circuited their martial comprehension.

"By the Ancestors..." Liora breathed in sheer, paralyzing horror.

"How... how is the city still standing? Did Archmage Kirnof deploy the ultimate deterrent?!"

"No," Theron answered, his deadpan stare remaining perfectly unbroken.

"The Heavenly Demon, Ming Xuan Ji punched the dragon out of the sky." The grand royal study plunged into a silence so absolute it was deafening. Eldora opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. He looked like a fish out of water. His brain frantically tried to process the sentence the future King of Zareth had just spoken. Punched. The dragon. Out of the sky.

"I... I'm sorry, Sire, I must have misheard you," Eldora stammered, his commanding presence entirely dissolving.

"You didn't," Theron confirmed, his voice devoid of all joy.

"Following the battle, Duke Morvant was arrested for high treason and executed at dawn. And to ensure the Heavenly Demon did not view the Crown as an enemy, I surrendered the Morvant Estate to her. She currently resides there. With her Vanguard. And the dragon."

"The... the dragon?" Liora squeaked.

"Yes," Theron sighed, finally breaking his stare to aggressively rub his temples again.

"The Ancient Gold Dragon took human form and is currently acting as Lady Ming's roommate while she incubates her egg." Theron picked up his quill again, pulling the next towering stack of parchment toward him.

"So, yes, Commander Eldora. Thank you for the troll blood. It is highly appreciated," Theron muttered, dipping the quill in ink.

"Now, if you will excuse me, I need to figure out how to tax the merchant guilds to pay for a hole in the sky. You are dismissed. Go take a bath." Knight Commander Eldora and Dame Liora Sable did not salute. They did not speak. They simply turned around with stiff, robotic movements, their minds entirely broken by the sheer, incomprehensible paradigm shift of the capital's power dynamic, and silently walked out of the room. Theron listened to the heavy oak doors click shut.

He stared at a localized property damage report, the words blurring together. He let out another long, hollow sigh that carried the weight of the entire kingdom.

"I need a drink," Theron whispered to the empty room.