The seal cracked with a sound too sharp for parchnt.
Raven’s eyes darted across the ink, each line burning deeper than the last. His grip tightened imperceptibly on the letter.
By the ti he lowered it, the air around the balcony had frozen.
"They struck the neutral faction’s hall," Raven said softly, though the words seed to cut through every heartbeat. "Six generals of the demon army. The Vaise informants and two of our elders who were hiding and keeping an eye on things had to reveal themselves, but... There is no hope for them to win alone."
The weight of the revelation spread like smoke.
One by one, Clara, Siris, Selena, Lia, Rufus, Jake, Jessy, and Graye converged upon the balcony.
Unlike others, they didn’t need Raven to tell them what was going on to understand the situation.
Their faces were hard as steel, shadows of torchlight flickering in their eyes.
Even the nobles—though they couldn’t hear the exact words—felt the storm in the air.
The hum of conversation stuttered and broke into uneven fragnts. Goblets paused halfway to lips. Laughter died unfinished.
Their uneasy eyes darted from Raven’s group to the king, then back again, searching for answers none of them dared voice.
So of them, including Duchess Elvarine and Duke Astazin, had already begun marching toward the dais, wanting to know what was going on.
Only Alex and Nibbles remained on the side of joy, utterly oblivious of the weight crushing the balcony.
The dumb guy was crouched outside in the torchlight, feathered hat cocked at a ridiculous angle, whispering to children about his "secret lava handshake technique."
Nibbles also expressed his opinion with a sign that said, Certified 90% effective.
The crowd shrieked with laughter.
The difference was stark.
Inside the great hall, the music still played—the king’s strict order forbidding pause—but the lody clashed with the silence of unmoving dancers.
Nobles stood stiff in their finery, their voices hushed to brittle whispers.
"Why did they stop smiling?"
"Sothing’s wrong..."
"Look at their eyes—it seems serious."
But outside, the citizens sang with the minstrels.
They clapped in rhythm and spun in circles with one another, lifting their children high above their heads as if the war was nothing but a rumor.
They toasted, they cheered, and they drowned themselves in the illusion of unity.
Selena’s voice broke through the balcony’s tense stillness. "Raven. What do we do?"
Raven folded the letter once, sliding it into his cloak. "This was sent an hour ago. If the elders are still fighting, then every second we waste could be the one that kills them."
His crimson eyes burned like embers. "We move at the fastest pace possible. And we pray sothing can still be salvaged."
He turned, gaze sweeping across his group. "Jake. Fetch Alex and Nibbles. Tell them to et us at the outskirts. The rest of you—move quickly, move quietly."
Jake nodded once and slipped away into the shadows without a word.
Raven faced the hall one last ti, his expression shifting into sothing colder and sharper.
His eyes locked with Velric’s.
"Velric," Raven said, his voice low but carrying, "whatever excuse you must make, do it. Handle the nobles. Keep the citizens rry. Nothing must seem amiss. If fear spreads tonight, it’ll poison everything we’ve built."
Velric’s throat bobbed once, but he straightened, his back stiff as steel.
For a heartbeat, the boy who had ascended the throne seed younger than his crown—but then he nodded.
"Undersood," Velric said.
Raven gave a last glance at the hall—at the nobles trying to read aning from every flicker of his gaze and so trying to move toward them—and then, without ceremony, he and his companions slipped away.
The shift was imdiate.
With Raven gone, the nobles leaned in closer, their voices rising in anxious hisses.
The music strained to fill the void. The scent of roasted at seed suddenly cloying, the wine too sharp, and the chandeliers too bright.
Before the duchess or the duke could reach up, Velric rose.
He didn’t command the hall the way Raven could. But he had a crown, and for tonight, that crown was enough.
"Ladies and gentlen," Velric began, his voice steady despite the coil of nerves in his chest, "forgive the interruption. It seems a matter of logistics has demanded the presence of our... honored guests."
He gestured faintly toward the balcony where Raven had stood, cloaking truth in casualness. "But do not mistake their absence for weakness. They stand vigilant, so we may stand here in peace."
The nobles shifted, their murmurs dulling but not vanishing.
Velric forced a smile, raising his goblet high. "So drink with . Dance with . Sing with . Tonight is proof that Velmoria does not bow. Not to fear. Not to demons. Not to anyone."
A ripple of applause followed. It wasn’t thunderous or joyous, but it was enough to soothe, if not restore.
The musicians plucked their strings harder, the drums echoing like distant thunder. A few nobles forced themselves into a dance, their steps chanical, their laughter strained.
Outside, the citizens still laughed and sang, blind to the storm on the horizon.
So were sad that Alex and Nibbles were gone, but they soon resud the celebration, as it was not always that they could eat as much free food as they wanted.
For the common populace, it was a celebration.
Inside, the hall glowed as bright as ever, but the warmth was gone.
Velric, standing alone with his crown heavy on his head, knew it.
The celebration lived on, but its heart had fractured.
Away from everyone’s eyes, however, was a lean minister with dark eyes, the sa guy who had skillfully avoided being detected by Nibbles when he had inspected the court mbers before.
The mont he saw Raven and his group leaving the hall, his eyes flashed with excitent. ’Yes, yes. Go. The mont you are all gone, the people here would die.’
Then, as he sensed Raven and his teammates were gone, he moved further into the corner, took out a spherical device, and pushed his mana into it.
Bzzz!
The static sound continued for two seconds before a voice was heard from the sphere.
"Are they gone?"
The lean man took a deep breath and replied with reverence in his voice. "Yes, my lord."
A deep ’Hm’ was heard from the other side before the static returned, making it clear that the one on the other side had disconnected the link.
Seeing that, the man stopped pushing his mana into the sphere and pushed the sphere into his shirt.
Surprisingly, the sphere dissolved into his body, or more like, entered his body.
Then, his gaze moved through the hall, watching how every noble tried not to appear tense but still kept whispering about what could be happening.
"Fools. Worrying about things they can’t do anything about when they don’t even know that their death was monts away," he sneered, shaking his head when his eyes landed on Velric.
"Oh, how I would love to see the look on your face when you realize that you have no one to protect you today."
But then the man frowned, taking a triangular device out of his body.
Yes, his body.
It was as if he could store things inside his body.
He pushed his mana into the device and waited for a few seconds. It was only when the device beeped green that his frown loosened.
"Yes, they are definitely gone," he muttered to himself, now sure that everyone in Group Raven was gone.
After all, the device he used was one from the demon realm. In that device, the mana signatures of Raven and his group mbers were stored, and using those signatures, it could tell if the mana holder was within a two-kiloter radius of the artifact.
It blinked green, so that ans they were gone for good.
The man was sure that Raven and his group would return soon after they reached the neutral faction’s eting spot and realized that everyone was dead.
But by the ti they return, everything will be over.
By then, it would be too late to save anyone.
"You dared to kill our people, so now, be ready to see a river of blood flowing through the streets of the capital of the kingdom you cherish so much."
Those were the man’s final words before he mixed into the crowd, pretending to be one of them, as that was what he was best at.
While doing that, he waited.
He waited for his lord’s arrival and the river of blood that would flow in a while.
Velric, on the other hand, sat on his seat, staring into his goblet, finally feeling the weight of the crown he had always wanted to wear.
He didn’t even know that these might be his last few monts alive. He rely sighed, knowing that he had to prepare himself for the worst as the war was only beginning.
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