Delaia went cold to the bone, his face the color of ash. "Your Highness... why would you do this? Can't we talk it out..."

Paris stood with hands behind his back, high as a cliff, eyes judging like a god in thunder. "You still didn't hear me.

You, Elyu, Ostos—none of you understand me.

Ridiculous. My father and my own brother know me less than a few outsiders."

Delaia stepped back twice, a spring coiling to flee. From the side, Velledo’s arrow hissed like a wasp and punched through his right leg.

"You won’t get away with this. This is the Royal Capital. The Erene Guard and Tianensai are here. We even alerted the Royal Vault. You can’t win!" He dragged his bleeding leg, edging from Paris like a crab from surf.

Paris strolled closer, calm as night tide. "Who do you think the vault men obey? Who sits inside? In whose hand is the Erene Guard?"

Delaia’s eyes blew wide, as if heaven’s bolt split his skull. He drew breath to speak—when a black-gold long spear dropped from the sky and nailed his heart.

Thump—. A world-shaking warlord slammed down, gripping the blood-wet black-gold spear. His stare went scarlet and icy, predator-cold. Delaia saw the thick pheasant plume streaming behind him like a dark banner, and finally understood.

Too late. He clenched Elyu’s personal ring in his palm. Without a cry for aid, he died in the palace, resentful as winter stone.

The head that once made bandits scatter like leaves toppled to the side. Its empty, unwilling gaze fell on the lush flowers by the palace, lingering like dew that won’t let go.

"You came, Hippo." Paris greeted him like an old friend under a quiet moon. Hippo unhelmed, showing his true face at last.

He looked past forty, the years a buried root. He was likely near fifty, yet armor had kept his skin pale as snow.

Severity sat on him like iron, yet he held command. His eyes were tiger-hungry and blade-sharp. Brown hair draped his shoulders. His frame was a bastion. In his hand, a plain black-gold spear breathed menace.

The spear stood about one point eight meters, the tip glinting cold gold in the moonlight. Along the shaft, a six-clawed dragon coiled, noble as a crest and deadly as a storm.

"Your subject, Hippo Modong, welcomes Your Majesty’s return." Hippo bowed low, respect deep as a well.

"We pay respects to Your Majesty." Led by Velledo, the others bent like wheat in wind. A few unarmored nobles slipped in to kneel.

Paris’s face was stone. He stepped toward Ostos Palace, each footfall quiet as falling ash.

...

Tianensai moved quick as a swallow over a brook, flipping up the wall in three clean beats. He readied to lift Venus over—then thunder cracked.

An Erene Guard officer, a black-gold pheasant plume hanging to his shoulder, charged in with a Black Spear like a storm bolt.

Forced, Tianensai raised a block. Steel met steel, sparks like fireflies. "What are you doing? So we’re tearing the veil now?"

"Sir Tianensai, what do you mean?" The officer’s voice ran smooth as rain. "Outside’s chaos. Please stay and guard His Majesty. One more blade, one more shield." He spun and thrust; air heaved and crackled like dry branches.

Lightning snakes flickered where his spearpoint went. Tianensai slipped aside and cut back, a river stroke. The officer shifted a hair’s breadth, letting the fierce slash whistle past.

Vmmm—ooohhh—! Frostbite’s tip birthed a Cyclone, a hungry wind rolling forward. Several Erene Guard raised shields in a snapping blur.

Ding—thunk—splash... It sounded like a stone sinking into a dark lake. The Royal Capital–grade war-shields flash-froze into ice in a breath.

Two men lagged and froze hand and shield together. If comrades hadn’t chopped their wrists clean, they’d have become ice statues on the spot.

"What weapon is that?" Cold stabbed the officer’s marrow; killing intent surged like black tide.

"Die!" He finally dropped the mask. With two other Erene officers, he drove in, three spears like converging thunderheads.

Finished. The word tasted of iron. Tianensai glanced back at the trembling empress and the lost-faced Venus, and knew escape was a broken road.