"AHHHHH!" A guttural scream tore its way out from the very pit of his stomach.
Duke Cassius Ursa, the current head of House Ursa, one of the five noble dukedoms that encompassed the majority of Alkavia, a man who had taken countless lives and passed untold tribulations to become what he was today... found himself gasping for every ounce of breath.
His fists trembled, clenched so tightly they seemed fused together, refusing to let go.
The audience—comprised of the most esteemed Dukes, the reigning Queen, and even the legendary Emperor of the previous era—watched with varying reactions, their faces frozen in a mixture of shock and disbelief at what had just unfolded before their eyes.
Stunned, they stared wide-eyed at the man who had shaken the very foundation of the nation—the epicenter of the groundbreaking changes that had been the focus of their hard-fought discussions moments ago. He, the topic of their meeting, had acted in a manner that defied every expectation.
'This makes no sense,' thought the Emperor, hailed as the unparalleled genius of his era. No matter how many threads of logic he pursued, no matter how deeply he delved into his analysis, he could not make sense of the situation.
'The boy has shown no prior inclination toward unprovoked aggression. Why now? Why this?'
From everything Lucious had been able to piece together about the boy's activities since his arrival in Alkavia, every action pointed to cooperation, satisfaction, and a shared vision for progress within the Kingdom.
In short, the boy's demands were being met, and the Kingdom was benefiting immensely as well.
Their trade was working.
'Then why, pray tell, does the boy now seek to create a rift between himself and the Kingdom?'
'What changed?!'
It defied logic.
It defied reason.
'From my recollection,' the Emperor mused, his mind racing to piece together the baffling scene unfolding before him, 'Cassius is incapable of landing so much as a successful hit on Captain Lastrange. Why, then, would the boy take any interest in him? No, it must be for a reason...but what?'
[Narrator POV]
Kuzan's actions, though unprompted, were understood by everyone present.
The Dukes, the Emperor, and even the Queen recognized the significance of what was unfolding before their eyes. It was an act that transcended language, borders, and even worlds.
The oldest way humans have demonstrated dominance over one another...
A Test of Strength!
Two opponents interlocking hands, each trying to overpower the other by bending their adversary's wrists back. A victor declared only when one submits or yields under the other's pressure.
Still, though the act itself made sense to the men present, its purpose—its intention—remained a mystery.
[Unknown POV]
The test of strength playing out before them all—if one could even call it that—seemed futile in its very premise.
What could it possibly prove?
Everyone present already knew the obvious truth: if the boy so much as decided to kill the young Duke, none of them would be able to stop him. They would be powerless, forced to stand as mere spectators to the carnage.
All this "contest" would achieve, it seemed, was souring the pristine relationship that had been painstakingly built between them.
"Clink!"
"Pop!"
The sound of bones rattling and joints straining echoed faintly, barely audible to the onlookers, yet unmistakable. It was as if the young Duke's body itself begged for mercy, his every breath a desperate gasp for air. Each inhale felt like salvation, each exhale a reminder of his plight.
The contest had been decided the moment it began.
The boy's smirk never wavered, his calm demeanor unbroken. Slowly, methodically, he pressed the Duke's hands lower and lower, his movements deliberate, almost measured, showing no signs of effort.
Blood began to seep from the Duke's clenched fists, staining the polished floor beneath them. Yet still, the test continued.
The Duke, already brought to his knees under the relentless pressure, found his head forced closer to the ground with every agonizing second. He wanted to beg, to plead, to surrender—but the boy gave him no opportunity. His pace never changed, his expression never faltered, his focus unyielding.
Cassius's bravado, once bold, evaporated almost immediately—three seconds into the test, shattered alongside his confidence. By the seventh second, his wrists screamed in protest, his strength all but gone. By the tenth, even the hope of relief deserted him.
It wasn't the physical pain that crushed the young Duke's spirit.
It was the realization of the man standing before him.
Cassius's bloodshot eyes, desperate and wild, flicked upward for the briefest of moments, and in that instant, he understood.
He was not simply losing a test of strength.
He was standing before death.
The certainty hit him like a blade to the heart. This wasn't a vague possibility, a fleeting fear. It was absolute. It was determined.
The boy in front of him exuded no bloodlust, no outward rage. Yet in his gaze, there was a truth so potent that it left the young Duke trembling.
If the boy wished it, Cassius would die here today.
The weight of that certainty was unbearable. This wasn't a mere threat—it was a statement of fact, carved into the very fabric of reality by the boy's presence.
Cassius wanted to scream, to beg for forgiveness, for mercy, for reprieve. His eyes, wide and pleading, sought to convey what his voice could not.
"I submit. I've lost. Please…
...just let me go."
But the boy ignored his silent pleas.
Cassius had lost more than just this contest. He had lost his will. His dignity. His very essence.
And still, the boy refused to let him escape.
Just why?
The young Duke desperately wanted to yell, but his lungs lacked the air to form words. The pain, the humiliation, and the overwhelming presence of the boy drained him of even the strength to speak.
In his desperation, his gaze shifted to the others in the room. His pride shattered as he did the unthinkable for a Duke.
He begged.
His eyes, wide and pleading, turned to the other Dukes, silently imploring them for aid. It was a silent scream, a desperate act that would tarnish his reputation for the rest of his life.
'Stupid bastard.'
The thought echoed in the minds of the Dukes who received his gaze, though none moved to help.
While they couldn't quite discern the boy's reasons for targeting Cassius, the answer was all too clear to them. The youngest Duke, brash and impulsive, had failed to read the room, unlike the rest of them.
'That's what happens when you let such a hothead become a Duke,' thought Duke Leon, his stoic expression hiding his judgment.
'Cassius was a second too late in his response, that's probably what annoyed the boy, if I had to guess,' Duke Aqua mused silently, his lips pressed into a thin line.
'Young blood, always so feisty,' sighed internally Duke Totle, too old and weary to intervene. He watched dispassionately, resigned to let Cassius learn his lesson the hard way.
Duke Windslow, however, was still paralyzed. The revelation that a man he could not read—a man whose motives were beyond his understanding—existed had shattered his confidence. Cassius's pleading gaze didn't even register to him.
Finally, when the young Duke's eyes landed on the Emperor, something shifted.
For Luscious Alkavia, the former Emperor and the one bearing the greatest responsibility in the room—for both his Kingdom and his Dukes—doing nothing was not an option.
'It seems my guess was right,' the boy thought to himself as he noticed the Emperor stirring. 'Only the Emperor has some real balls.'
"Azuleth, please!" the Emperor called out, his voice tinged with urgency and desperation. It was an unprecedented act—Luscious, the great unifier of the Peninsula, humbling himself in front of his former subordinates and begging his own daughter for intervention.
It was a shameful act.
But it worked.
The Queen, who had been watching the display with vivid amusement, her lips curled in a bloodthirsty smile, finally reacted. At first, her expression soured, as if irritated by the interruption. Then, with an exaggerated roll of her eyes, she spoke, her voice light and mocking.
"Come on, dear husband," she said casually. "We don't have time for these shenanigans."
BOOOOM!
The declaration shattered the room.
"Thuck!" "Thuck!" "Thuck!" "Thuck!"
It was a sound similar to the shattering of a mirror, the slient sound of the Emperor's and the Dukes' collective minds breaking under the weight of her words. Even Duke Windslow, who had already been teetering on the edge of sanity, felt whatever fragments of coherence he had regained crumble into dust.
"Husband?" the Emperor whispered, his voice faint, his face a mask of incredulity. His piercing gaze shot toward Azuleth, disbelief etched into every line of his features.
The implications of her words rippled through the room like a tidal wave. Husband? The boy? How? When? Why?
For once, even Luscious Alkavia, the man hailed as the genius of his generation, found himself utterly, hopelessly lost.
With a single sentence, the Queen had inflicted more damage on their psyches than the boy had inflicted physically on the young Duke.
Before another moment could pass, the boy stopped.
The test was over.
He released his grip, withdrawing his hands from Cassius's trembling, bloodied fists.
Cassius remained kneeling, his face pale, his breathing shallow. His mind, still reeling from the encounter with certain death, hadn't yet registered that he'd been spared. It would take hours, if not days, for him to recover from the psychological trauma.
"Well, that's that," the boy said with a casual smile, wiping the blood from his palms.
"Splach! Splach!"
The sound of blood hitting the pristine floor punctuated his parting words.
"Listen to the Emperor and don't make trouble for him, you got it?" he said flatly, his voice devoid of emotion, the message direct and absolute.
It wasn't the response the Dukes had wanted to hear.
As if reading their thoughts, he cut them off before they could act.
"Don't even think about it."
All it took was the slightest shifting of their body weight for the boy to realize what the remaining Dukes were about to do. They were poised to kneel, ready to pledge their eternal loyalty to him simultaneously and without hesitation.
But it was useless, the boy could care less about what thoughts were floating around in the Dukes' heads.
"I don't have the time," he said coldly. "Simply listen to Luscious. That is all."
Without waiting for a response, the boy turned his back on them and walked away, leaving the shattered young Duke and the stunned assembly behind.
His destination: his private chambers, the heart of his research.
The boy hadn't come to the meeting for power or recognition. He had come for a single purpose: to confirm how close he was to his goal. And after his brief conversation with Azuleth, he had his answer.
The finish line was near.
There was no time to waste on the trivialities of the Kingdom anymore. Continuing this facade, even for a second, was too much of a waste—time better spent honing his strength while at the same time waiting for the inevitable.
When he returned to his chambers, the room he had made his cave to cultivate both his body and mind, it was now pristine, devoid of even the smallest speck of dust. All of his little trinkets and books were taken away. Instead, at the room's center stood a simple table bearing five objects, each meticulously placed, sitting there quietly as if ready to be inspected—just as he had expected they would be.
A sword.
A shield.
A mirror.
A pair of shackles.
And a glowing crystal.
The five most valuable artifacts that the Kingdom of Alkavia possessed, national treasures whose mere existence was hidden, afraid of the greed they might incite if their existence were ever known to the world.
'Is it possible to have a better wife?' the boy thought, smirking faintly.
Someone who would provide all that she was capable of giving, who would put everything she had into helping him succeed in his goal, meeting his needs without even requiring the effort of putting it into words?
How could such a relationship, so pure and pristine, possibly not be blessed by the heavens themself?