A Peacock Husband of Five Princesses by day, a Noble Assassin by Night Chapter 182

After a while;

The Arcana Masters were out of a pocket dinsion.

spat, laughed, then sobbed once and wiped his face with the back of his hand. "By the gods... we’re alive."

A younger one crawled to his knees, eyes glassy. "Who—who did this? Who saved us?"

Azzy stood where he’d left them — tall, calm, the scythe sheathed at his side. He watched them gather, unhurried, like a man who’d perford a necessary cruelty and was already moving on. He didn’t look triumphant. He looked tired in a way that made people instinctively bow.

Iphi was the first to cross the stretch of sand, boots quiet, face a closed map of grief and fury. She scanned the circle, searching the open ground for a body that should have been there.

"No body," she said flatly, voice catching. "Where’s Captain David? Where—"

Azzy’s gaze found her, softening a fraction. He reached out a hand and, for a mont, it looked almost paternal — the way he’d touched Cyro a breath ago — then he raked his fingers through the air, dismissing the softness.

"Not here," he said simply. "He isn’t gone."

The commandos clustered around, hungry for answers. So of them fell to their knees at the re idea that the captain might be alive again. Others scowled, suspicious.

"Did he die?" a grizzled sergeant demanded.

Azzy let the desert wind pull his cloak. "He died in the field," he said. "But I didn’t leave him to rot." He pulled a small, black sigil out of his palm — the sa sigil that had pulsed when he called the pocket-dinsions into being. It glowed faintly, like a heartbeat in the dark.

"I bound him," Azzy continued. "A forbidden seal. It holds his soul to his body. It’s not a resurrection you can call tomorrow — it’s a tether. Two centuries is the minimum for the bond to stabilize and for the reapers to lose claim. Two hundred years, and he’ll awaken whole."

A shocked murmur ran through the group. Two hundred years. The number landed like a stone in a still pond.

Iphi’s hands curled into fists. "You—two hundred years? That’s—"

"A long ti," Azzy agreed. "I know."

"So you just took his body?" one of the commandos cried. "You just—carried him away?"

Azzy nodded. "I took him. He’s safe with ." There was no flourish, no ceremony — only the iron certainty of soone who’d made a decision and shouldered its weight.

So of the n laughed then, ugly and relieved. "You bastard," a corporal said, clapping Azzy once on the shoulder until the reaper didn’t flinch. "You kept your word. Thank you."

A young recruit — barely a man — stared up at Azzy with wet eyes. "I don’t know what to say. We thought— we thought we were done."

Azzy looked down at him. "Live well," he said. "That’s what your captain would have asked."

Iphi kept looking, as if she expected the captain to step out of the shadows and scold her for imagining him gone. Her voice was small. "Will he—will he rember? When he cos back?"

Azzy’s expression didn’t change much, but when he answered, his words were precise. "Yes. He will return with mory intact. The seal binds soul and flesh — it preserves. He wakes as he was, but he will wake under my terms." He tapped the scythe at his side once, a subtle click. "I will watch over him."

She swallowed. "Two hundred years is a long ti. For him... for his n."

"For everyone," Azzy agreed. He looked past her, to the horizon where the sea t the sky. "Ti isn’t always the enemy," he said quietly. "Sotis it’s the redy."

Another voice, rough with relief, asked the practical question. "What do we tell command? What do we tell the world?"

Azzy turned, and his eyes were suddenly all command again — the magnet that drew obedience without demands. "You will report one thing," he said. "Tell them Aquiloria is aware. Tell them the demigod ordered this to be reported. Keep repeating it. Until soone above you knows, keep passing the ssage up. If they ask proof, tell them you saw the seal, the pocket-dinsion. They’ll listen eventually."

The soldiers exchanged looks. It was an odd command: not a demand for dals, not a call for oaths — an order to stitch a new na into the fabric of rumor until it beca fact. So scoffed at the bureaucracy; so accepted it like a breadcrumb the world had dropped.

Iphi stepped forward, anger worn down into sorrow. "You took his body. You’ll keep it two hundred years. And when he wakes—what then? You just... use him?" Her voice trembled with the fear that had been in every chest down in that altar room.

Azzy’s jaw tightened, then eased. "When he wakes, he will owe nothing but life," he said. "I will not make him a puppet. I will not bind his will. He chose — or he will choose again. I gave him a path out of death and a shield against oblivion. That is paynt enough."

A thin, half-bitter laugh escaped the sergeant. "You do things like a god and talk like a man." He bowed his head, forehead to sand. "We won’t forget."

They ant it. So of them cried openly, others clenched their jaw until their knuckles showed white. Azrael — no, Azzy — who had stood in the eye of storms and commanded fate with a flick of a hand, simply watched them gather their bearings.

Then, with a single motion, he dismissed them.

"Move out," he said. "Tell Albert and Admiral Hamid what I told you. Tell them where I left the body. Tell them Aquiloria will keep it safe. Pass the ssage until it reaches ears that matter." He inclined his head once, a curt salute that asked for nothing in return.

Iphi hesitated at the edge of the small gathering, hands clenched, sorrow and fury mingling into a hard, fragile thing. Finally she said, quietly, "Thank you. For him."

Azzy allowed the barest of nods. "Tell Captain Varn—David, when he wakes," he added, as if rembering to close a loop, "that I kept my word."

They filed away in fits and starts, so still shaking, so tapping ssages into transmitters with hands that didn’t quite steady.

When the desert had sunk back into its indifferent hush, Iphi remained a mont longer, as if the absence of the captain’s corpse had left a strange gap in the world. She looked up at the horizon, then back at the place where Azzy had stood.

He t her glance and, for the first ti that night, offered a smile that wasn’t quite cold. "Live," he told her. "And if you ever co looking, don’t co for gratitude. Co because you can."

She swallowed, nodded once, and walked away. The others soon followed, carrying the story with them — the sealed body, the pocket-dinsion, the word Aquiloria like a talisman to whisper up the chain of command.

Azzy stood alone a mont longer, the desert wind tugging at his cloak. The sigil in his palm faded into nothing. He closed his fingers around a quiet, human wish and let it go into the night: may the man he’d preserved find a life he could live worth a thousand years.

Chapter 24 — Ti Prison and the Devil’s Release

The wind swept over the sands, carrying the last faint tremors of battle away. The survivors still stood before Azzy — half in awe, half in disbelief — as his calm, otherworldly tone washed over them.

"Anyway," he said at last, brushing a speck of ash from his coat sleeve, "my job here is done. I’m leaving."

The words hung in the air like a verdict. No dramatics, no declaration — just quiet finality.

He turned slightly, gaze fixed on the far horizon where the rift shimred faintly, marking the edge of the collapsing portal.

"In two days," Azzy continued, "this dinsional gate will close. When that happens, the Werewolf Lord will awaken again. I made sure not to interfere with the world’s balance by killing him."

Their expressions darkened — dread creeping in where relief had only just begun.

Azzy went on, voice level as stone, "It’s highly probable that he’ll rember the forbidden ritual. And that ans he’ll also know how to resurrect his pack. So... expect that much."

The words hit them like falling stones. So of the commandos exchanged stunned glances. Others muttered prayers under their breath.

Iphi took a hesitant step forward. "You an... all of this will happen again?"

Azzy gave a small nod. "History tends to repeat itself when mortals ignore its warnings."

His gaze slid toward her — steady, calm, and faintly reproachful. "It’s nice knowing that you’re doing well," he said after a beat. "But your growth doesn’t match the potential of your Arcana Spirit."

Iphi stiffened, uncertain whether to take it as insult or concern.

"If you’re ever interested in pushing past your limits," Azzy continued, his tone soft but firm, "you’re welco in Calot. Train there — learn from the Death Clan, the Minamoto, and the Elves. They’ll teach you how to wield your flas like the phoenix you were ant to be."