The silence from the audience threatened to seep onto the stage, but the actors, thankfully, were true professionals. The Silver Jasmine Opera Troupe was one of the most renowned companies on the continent, after all. The performance continued flawlessly, the actors’ passion and voices untainted by the eerie atmosphere below.
Jenkins could already guess how much intelligence would be smuggled out of the city tonight, disseminated through countless channels. He realized the matter of Duke Antak would not have a simple resolution. Even if the duke's whereabouts remained unknown, even if he was likely under the Treehouse's strict surveillance, the way events were unfolding now had very little to do with the man himself.
"Perhaps I'll never see Antak again in this lifeti. Lucky him."
BOOM—
The trendous roar completely shattered the rhythm of the music, and with it, the silence that had gripped the audience.
A gaping hole tore through the ceiling above the stage, dragging down the light fixtures. Only two lamps remained, casting a ager light. Amidst the darkness and billowing dust, a woman’s scream signaled the start of a panic, but the rising commotion was quickly quelled by a man’s powerful shout.
"Nobody move! I'm wearing thirty-eight B6-type steam bombs. If a single person dares to take one step through that main entrance, I'll blow us all to kingdom co!"
The voice bood from the dim stage, cutting through the dust and debris of splintered floorboards and collapsed ceiling beams, reaching every ear in the hall.
The dust soon settled, revealing the figure of Antak, who had just leaped down from the second floor. Most of the stage lights had been destroyed in the collapse, leaving only two still burning. Antak stood directly beneath one of them.
No other lights were permitted during the opera, so those two remaining lamps, cutting through the haze on stage, were the only sources of light in the entire hall. It naturally drew every eye to the man standing in their glow.
It had been a few days, and Duke Antak looked to be in surprisingly good shape; his complexion was healthy, not at all like that of a broken man. He wore a black greatcoat, which he held open with both hands to reveal the steam bombs strapped across his torso and two longswords belted at his waist.
"Let make myself clear," he declared. "If anyone—I don't care who—dares to walk through that door, we all die together!"
His voice was powerful and resonant, projected with a unique technique typically mastered by actors and orators.
"Antak, what are you doing? Do you really want to provoke a full-scale war between our two nations?"
The voice of a man called out from one of the boxes on the second floor, though Jenkins couldn't be certain who it was.
"I'm here for Williatte!"
Briny squeezed Jenkins's left hand.
"I'm here for Jenkins Williatte!"
Jenkins squeezed Chocolate's tail and was rewarded with a sharp scratch from its claws.
"I'm here for Jenkins Williatte! I challenge you to a duel, you coward! A duel of honor! The winner will have the hand of Miss Briny Mikhail!"
Hathaway's grip threatened to tear his arm from its socket.
"Duel now, Williatte! Win or lose, everyone here can walk away free. But between the two of us, only one will leave this stage alive!"
CLANG—
He drew one of the swords from his belt and tossed it onto the stage, where it landed in the pool of light from the other surviving lamp. The duke then looked directly toward the darkness where Jenkins was now standing, the corner of his mouth curling into a faint, unreadable smirk.
But Jenkins suspected his mood was actually quite good. He could see that the sword Antak had thrown was an ordinary weapon, while the one the duke kept for himself had been ritually enhanced.
Jenkins recalled Duke Antak ntioning that he had indeed proposed marriage to Marquis Mikhail, though the Marquis had declined for various reasons. Therefore, to the average person, challenging Jenkins to a duel over this matter would seem perfectly logical. Duke Antak knew of Jenkins’s public, secular identity, but he also knew Jenkins was an Enchanter. By issuing the challenge in front of such a large audience, he knew Jenkins couldn’t be the first to use any supernatural abilities, not with so many influential people present. It was a rare opportunity—gathering so many of Nolan’s prominent figures in one place was no easy feat. Making a grand appearance on this stage was his way of guaranteeing his own victory. As for his reasons for orchestrating this, he had botched the affair involving Skryu Pompey. Even with his Stage Arcane Lock—a precursor to the powerful Destiny's Stage—he needed to accomplish sothing significant to win back the Treehouse's trust. He was a wanted man now, with nowhere to turn but to them. That was his deeper motive. There was also a reason he’d singled out Jenkins. Jenkins had defeated him soundly the very first ti the duke had used his arcane lock. Antak was not a forgiving man. Since the Treehouse intended to stir up trouble in Nolan, targeting Jenkins was the perfect move. Furthermore, he had a nagging premonition that the evolution of his own power was sohow inextricably linked to this young follower of the Sage. Of course, he had told no one of this suspicion, because in his eyes, the fanatics at the Treehouse were just as untrustworthy as anyone else. To the uninford, however, Duke Antak’s reckless terrorist attack in a foreign land was already riddled with suspicion. For him to now appear in public while a wanted fugitive, only to challenge another young man of similar age to a duel... the motives behind it were truly baffling. It was a move designed to provoke and embarrass both the Church and the city governnt.
"Williatte, don't just stand there in silence! This is your opera. I know you're here! Show yourself! If you don't, every single person in this hall will die in your place!"
The duke shouted again, throwing his coat open even wider. This model of steam bomb required no fuse or impact to detonate. One simply had to pull the safety pin, break the sealed protective casing, and press the button on its surface.
In other words, Duke Antak could detonate the bombs at any mont. But Jenkins knew he valued his own life far too much to do so recklessly.
Jenkins glanced upward. An unfamiliar Level 8 Enchanter was perched at the southeast corner of the theater, on what looked like a ledge or window extension. He was here to protect Antak; a man with his abilities and status would be invaluable to their organization. If Antak failed, the man was clearly prepared to create a major incident before they escaped—a reprisal for the Treehouse's missing demigod. Only the Church would have the power to kill Clark in this city. The man appeared so confident because he knew none of Nolan's demigods could possibly reach an opera house in the distant suburbs in ti. Even if their entire plan collapsed, he could still escape with ease. Demigods were still mortal, after all, just mortals of incomparable power. It was a reasonable assumption.
"The Treehouse really has a surplus of demigods. How many is that in the last six months?"
Jenkins mused internally. Ignoring Briny, who was tugging desperately at his arm, he pulled his left hand free and raised it high above his head.
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