Chapter 75
<78화>
An eerie red light flickered in the eyes of the man shrouded in shadow.
Calyps, appearing even more imposing than when they had met at the banquet, walked toward him with heavy, rhythmic steps. In one hand, he held the sleeping Aisha; in the other, a long sword.
“Y-you… Why are you…?”
The Duke of Pose’s mouth hung open in slow-motion shock.
Calyps should have collapsed. He had been stabbed—twice, no less.
In fact, the dagger from earlier was still gripped in Aisha’s hand as she lay in his arms.
Furthermore, the blade was still embedded in Calyps exactly where it had pierced him…
‘He came all the way here like that? While carrying a child!’
How on earth? Was that even possible?
No, there was no need to wonder. The man standing before his eyes was living proof that it was.
—Aisha. Wake up.
Just in case, he tried calling out to Aisha in his mind.
—Aisha! Open your eyes! Lift your eyelids!
Unfortunately, it seemed black magic could not command the soul of someone who was asleep.
‘Damn it. I have to get out of here first.’
Flustered by the unexpected turn of events, the Duke of Pose scrambled to his feet.
He quickly hurled a chair at Calyps.
Thud!
However, Calyps avoided the chair with a slight tilt of his upper body. The chair struck the wall with a loud crash and rolled across the floor.
It didn’t matter. He just needed to open the window and escape.
‘Besides, he’s moving, but he’s limping. He’s not in good shape.’
He would escape the room first, then immediately call for help from his spy subordinates who should be stationed around the building.
It was just as he reached to throw open the window.
“Aaaaaaaagh!”
The Duke of Pose’s mouth flew open as he let out a harrowing scream.
It was a pain unlike any he had experienced in his life.
The sensation of bones crushing and flesh tearing… It felt as if thousands of needles were piercing through the back of his hand simultaneously.
When he regained his senses, he saw a massive sword driven through the hand he had used to reach for the window.
“Where do you think you’re going…? Since I don’t know what else you might try, I’ll pin you down before we talk.”
“C-crazy bastard! Help! Pose knights! Spies! Someone, get in here now!”
This was the third floor. Moreover, it was a room closed off on all sides.
Red veins bulged in the whites of the Duke’s eyes as he screamed at the top of his lungs, though no one would hear him.
He had always been the one giving orders.
Thanks to that, he was brilliant at political maneuvering and scheming, but because he had only ever used his head, his strength and combat experience were utterly lacking.
In truth, this was his very first time facing such a crisis.
What should he do?
As he stood there, paralyzed by panic—
“Cough!”
Thump—
Calyps coughed up a spray of blood and sank to his knees as if his strength had finally failed. Yet, he did not let go of his sword.
The Duke of Pose was horrified by the sight.
‘T-this lunatic…!’
He had never seen a man so tenacious.
Calyps should have been psychologically broken. To find out his wife and daughter were spies—anyone would have lost their mind after hearing such shocking news!
That was the very calculation the Duke had made when executing this operation.
Five years ago, Calyps had surely fallen into despair after losing Ariena and his children.
He was a man who had even worn a mask to hide his emotions.
And yet, the man before him now seemed as though he hadn’t been touched or affected by any of it.
“Y-you… Do you have no emotions? Your wife and daughter were spies!”
The Duke of Pose shouted, his arm trembling violently because of the sword pinned through his hand.
However.
“Do you appeal to emotions in a state of war?”
A low, blunt voice returned, cold enough to make his spine tingle.
“…….”
A state of war.
The Duke of Pose’s lips parted like a fool as he quietly processed the words Calyps had spat out.
Calyps spoke again, his words like gravel.
“What kind of father falls apart when his child collapses in tears?”
Grit—
Calyps gripped the hilt of the sword so hard his knuckles turned white. As the blade cut deeper into the back of the Duke’s hand, a cry of agony escaped Pose’s lips.
“Ugh, aaagh!”
The Duke wanted to use his ability. That was why he had created the Poison Ability and cultivated power to rival the House of Crost.
He wanted to use his power to his heart’s content and strike down this damn man who kept prattling on about being a father.
But now that he was in an actual fight, he couldn’t find the focus.
Faced with a raw, agonizing pain he had never felt before, he was too busy suffering to even think of using his ability.
Through his fading consciousness, he thought of the spies who had died silent deaths while carrying out their missions.
Pose Cray. He was the head of the House of Pose.
As the leader of a family of spies, he was a man who handled tools.
Now that he was the one being treated like a tool for the first time, he thought he understood.
The spies who abandoned their missions and fled…
They weren’t weak.
Because they were living beings, they simply wanted to struggle against the fear of death.
But when a truly profound terror washed over him, the sensation that arose was even stronger than the instinct for survival.
‘I’d rather just die.’
He wanted to escape from Duke Calyps, who was clinging to him like a leech.
Gulp. The Duke of Pose swallowed hard and finally made his final decision.
He managed to thrust his other hand, which was shaking as if convulsing, into his trouser pocket.
But just as he was about to pull out the Potion of Death hidden inside—
“I can’t let you do that, Duke Pose.”
Crash—!
Somehow having seen the movement, Calyps’s hand—the one that had been holding the sword—snatched the potion in an instant and smashed it.
“If you die now…”
But there was one thing Calyps had overlooked.
Thud—
His upper body, which had been barely holding on because of Aisha in his other arm, lost its balance and tilted, falling forward.
Calyps’s vision began to blur.
In truth, his body had already reached its limit due to excessive blood loss. Any ordinary person would have collapsed long ago.
The only reason he had been able to drag himself here and pin the Duke’s hand with his sword was sheer vengeful spirit and willpower.
“…You can’t… die yet.”
As Calyps muttered those words, his eyelids slowly closed—
“…….”
Silence filled the room.
“…W-what?”
His eyes wide, the Duke of Pose stared at Calyps, who had collapsed while still holding Aisha.
Then, unable to believe it, he rubbed his eyes with his free hand and checked again.
Calyps was down.
That bastard, the one who had been clinging to him like a leech, had finally closed his eyes.
“…He… Hehe… Hahahaha! I knew it! M-my calculations couldn’t be wrong!”
Though he couldn’t move immediately because of the sword through his hand, his subordinates would soon realize the situation and arrive.
“It’s over! This tedious operation is finally over! Now that the head of Crost is dead, it won’t be long before the Frozen Kingdom is absorbed by Doctia, and the Doctia Empire is founded…!”
It was then.
Boom—!
“Duke Pose Cray. You are under arrest on charges of attempted regicide, arson, and fraud.”
The closed door burst open, and knights of the Frozen Royal Palace filed in, surrounding the Duke of Pose in a semi-circle.
And—
“…What did you just say? That the Frozen Kingdom would be absorbed by Doctia?”
The Duke’s mouth fell open at the sight of the knight asking the question with a murderous expression.
“I-I never said such a thing. W-what is the meaning of this?”
He replied as if nothing were wrong, but his insides were churning with chaos.
Arrest? That shouldn’t be happening.
The royal knights didn’t know about the relationship between Pose and Calyps.
Hadn’t he spent the entire banquet wearing a benevolent smile to make a good impression on the nobles for this very reason?
Of course, they might try to blame him seeing Calyps collapsed like this, but he was also stabbed.
He could easily make an excuse.
However, they had explicitly mentioned the charge of attempted regicide.
He didn’t know what they had found out, but the Duke of Pose had a powerful backer in King Arjen. In other words—
‘They must have the wrong idea.’
His panicked gaze narrowed.
Maintaining his noble dignity, the Duke of Pose immediately barked at the knights.
“How dare you!”
The royal knights flinched for a moment.
Just as he thought. They had definitely come here under a misunderstanding.
These knights clearly didn’t know who the Frozen royalty was actually allied with.
“You dare think you can arrest me? Does His Majesty King Arjen know you are doing this? He will be furious when he hears of this!”
Surely, Queen Consort Grace had sent the knights at the behest of the House of Crost.
‘If I mention King Arjen, even the knights will be a bit flustered.’
And indeed, the Duke’s prediction seemed correct.
The knights looked troubled by his fierce rebuke, frowning and exchanging glances.
‘Good. Now I just have to go to King Arjen and tell him everything is finished…’
However.
“Are you insane? We are here on the direct orders of His Majesty King Arjen.”
The words fell upon him like a death sentence.
“……?”
A brief silence followed.
His thoughts ground to a halt. The Duke, who spent a long moment analyzing the meaning of the knights’ words, asked again just in case.
“…King Arjen ordered this himself?”
“We are the royal knights; whose orders would we… Forget it. There’s no reasoning with him.”
The knight commander clicked his tongue as if the Duke were an idiot and gave a nod.
At his command, the knights swarmed forward and began to drag the Duke of Pose away.
“King Arjen… would never…”
It couldn’t be.
What kind of relationship did he have with King Arjen?
What kind of schemes had they plotted, what crimes had that man committed?
…Wait.
A terrible foreboding flashed through his mind.
‘Did King Arjen betray me?’