The hall fell into a deathly silence.
Lucien stood frozen, the blood of his fallen knight still warm on the polished stone, steaming faintly in the cold air. The crimson pool spread outward like a blooming flower—vivid, damning.
He had faced tyrants before. Mad kings and fanatics. But never this.
Never a boy-king willing to spill diplomatic blood so cleanly. So coldly.
No trial. No outburst. No hesitation.
Arthur Tesla had drawn blood in a throne room ant for words, not war. And in doing so, he made it clear—the next head to roll could be anyone's.
Lucien raised his eyes to the throne.
Arthur had not moved. He remained seated—composed, regal, deadly. The flickering torchlight etched sharp lines across his face, but his expression betrayed no fury or guilt.
Only precision.
Those weren't the eyes of a desperate ruler grasping at power.
They were the eyes of a man who knew exactly what he was doing.
Before Lucien or his knights could act, Arthur's voice rang out—not loud, but with an edge that silenced thought.
"Lucien," he said, smooth and even, "are you now ready for a proper discussion? One where you address and treat as a king—not soone you can insult at your leisure."
The words may have sounded casual, but beneath them lay the unmistakable edge of a final warning. However, behind them was the corpse of a knight. Proof that Arthur no longer dealt in idle threats.
Lucien's hands tightened at his sides. Rage clawed at the edge of his composure, but he did not move. He could feel the eyes of every guard and knight—Chronos and Keldorian alike—watching, waiting.
He knew that surviving is his main priority at the mont and once he returned to Chronos, there would be no salvaging this. Brandon Rivas would not let such a transgression pass. The invasion plans they had set would be activated. Troops already stationed inside Keldoria would strike from within, gates would fall, Arthur would be dragged in chains from his throne.
And yet…
Lucien hesitated.
He had assud Arthur was bluffing. That behind the posturing was still a scared boy clinging to borrowed power. But now? Now he wasn't so sure. A man willing to kill a diplomatic guard without blinking might not be so easily captured.
Lucien studied the young king's face.
If he remained defiant, another knight might die. Or worse—Lucien himself.
So, slowly, Lucien inhaled. Then exhaled.
He dipped his head—barely. Not quite a bow, but enough to acknowledge the shift in power.
"Very well, your Majesty." he said, his voice careful and composed.
Arthur's lips curled slightly. Not into a smile, but into sothing colder. Satisfaction without warmth.
"Good," he said. "Now you finally rember how to address a king. We'll resu our discussion shortly—after the ss is dealt with."
He turned his gaze toward one of the guards and made a small gesture.
At once, the man moved with trained efficiency, disappearing through a side corridor. Monts later, staff entered the hall—servants with pale faces and quick hands. They carried towels, buckets, and a shrouded cloth.
Everyone stood still.
Lucien, his remaining three knights, the Keldorian guards, even the ministers and scribes lining the walls—no one spoke as the lifeless body was rolled onto a cloth and dragged away. The blood was wiped, but the silence could not be mopped up so easily.
Arthur hadn't ordered the death out of rage. Nor out of insecurity. It wasn't about emotion at all.
The truth was far simpler—and more brutal.
Arthur understood what Lucien was. A career diplomat, honed like a blade. A man who could dismantle kings with smiles and sentences, provoke without ever raising his voice, and walk away with victories won through words alone. Had Arthur let him continue unchecked, the envoy would've twisted the narrative, belittled Keldoria's defiance, and walked out of the hall with the upper hand—all while Arthur watched his carefully laid plans unravel.
Arthur couldn't be allowed that.
Letting Lucien speak freely, letting him control the room, would've been more dangerous than any open threat. Every insult left unchallenged would chip away at Arthur's authority. Every diplomatic maneuver tolerated would drive another nail into Keldoria's coffin.
And Arthur had no intention of watching his kingdom die slowly.
He already knew the truth behind Chronos's so-called "support"—the knights, the mages, the garrisons. They weren't allies. They were seeds of control, planted under the banner of protection. A Trojan Horse in broad daylight. A slow, quiet conquest masquerading as generosity.
Brandon Rivas, the king of Chronos, who had mastered the art of military strategies had likely expected Arthur to be too desperate or too dull to notice.
He was not wrong. If Arthur were not from earth where these strategies had not been invented and commonly known, even with currently enhanced mory Arthur would not be able to notice the strategies.
However, unlucky for Brandon, Arthur wasn't of this world.
Where he ca from, such tactics were common—recorded in textbooks, practiced in realpolitik, warned against in the histories of fallen nations.
Back on earth, it was called infiltration, subversion, psychological warfare. Here, it was considered brilliance.
But to Arthur, it was obvious.
What Brandon Rivas considered a masterstroke, Arthur saw for what it was: a standard maneuver dressed in the trappings of dieval statecraft. And he wasn't about to fall for it.
By the ti the servants finished scrubbing away the blood and dragging the body from the hall, a cold calm had returned to the room—as if nothing had happened at all.
Arthur, still seated high on his throne, didn't bother to adjust his posture. He didn't need to. His voice, when it ca, was steady and asured.
"Lucien," he began, eyes locked on the envoy's, "you underestimate . You truly think I would confront Chronos without knowing the full extent of Brandon Rivas' strategies?"
Lucien's expression didn't shift, but the flicker in his gaze said enough.
He didn't believe it.
No, Lucien still believed he was the one in control. That Arthur was simply bluffing—grasping at scraps of dignity, barely understanding the depth of the trap he'd stepped into. That Chronos remained one step ahead, just as it always had.
But then Arthur continued, and the air in the great hall changed again.
"When you return to Chronos and deliver your report," Arthur said, his voice no louder than before, "Brandon will respond exactly as I expect. He'll call it a breach of contract. A betrayal. He'll summon his generals. He'll rally his armies. And the knights and mages he embedded in our cities under the banner of alliance—those guests you so generously stationed here—will begin their work."
Arthur's fingers tapped once—twice—against the armrest of his throne, deliberate and steady.
"They'll sabotage my roads. Burn my granaries. Poison wells. They'll paralyze my lines from the inside long before your armies ever arrive."
Lucien's spine stiffened.
Arthur hadn't guessed. He hadn't speculated.
He had described, step by step, the exact opening phase of Chronos's fallback invasion plan. A plan locked in the inner sanctum of the royal court. A plan known only to Brandon Rivas, his war council… and Lucien himself.
And Arthur had laid it out like he was reading from the sa page.
"I don't need spies in your court," Arthur said coolly. "I only need to think two steps ahead. While you believe yourself the hunter—always one step in front—I've already circled behind you."
He paused.
Then his mouth twitched ever so slightly—just a flicker of self-awareness—as if he realized how theatrical it sounded. A bit cringeworthy, even.
But the mont passed, and his gaze locked back onto Lucien with renewed focus.
He leaned forward slightly.
"Now, Lucien, tell —am I wrong? Is what I've described rely the ramblings of a child playing at kingship? A boy pretending to understand statecraft while borrowing a crown too heavy for his head?"
The words weren't angry. They weren't shouted at. But each syllable landed with precision, like a blade placed delicately between the ribs.
Lucien didn't answer imdiately.
Because he couldn't.
Not without revealing sothing he wasn't authorized to confirm. Not without giving Arthur the satisfaction of knowing he'd struck true.
Not without slipping—without confirming that Arthur had pierced the veil of secrecy surrounding Chronos's military strategies. Not without handing the boy-king the satisfaction of knowing he had struck dead center.
But Arthur didn't need the words. He saw the truth in the silence—the subtle tightening of Lucien's jaw, the rigid line of his spine, the way his hands remained clasped behind his back like a man trying to hold sothing together.
Check.
The air between them thrumd with unsaid truths, but Lucien finally broke the silence with a scoff—a diplomat's weaponized amusent.
"Let's say," he began, voice smooth as oiled steel, "that everything you've said is correct. That you've unraveled the web we so carefully spun. Let's even pretend—for argunt's sake—that you manage to blunt our initial strike."
He took a step forward.
"But do you truly believe Keldoria—your tiny, reford kingdom with its patchwork army and idealistic ruler—can stand against the full weight of Chronos? Yes, we may bleed. Yes, you may surprise us in the opening act. But by the ti the curtain falls, your cities will burn, and your reforms will be buried under ash. Your Majesty."
The last words ca with just enough venom to sting, his eyes glittering with cool condescension.
Arthur then laughed—short, sharp, and unexpectedly genuine.
"Oh, Lucien," he said, shaking his head slightly. "You still don't get it."
He straightened.
"I told you—I'm two steps ahead. You think I haven't accounted for the difference in our military strength? And that I've been sitting here sharpening my rhetoric instead of my swords?"
His voice dropped, every word deliberate.
"If Chronos dares to march on Keldoria, you won't just fail to conquer us. Chronos will disappear from the continent of Nova."
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