Chapter 151

Jan 02, 2024

For the White Master to even touch lightly on the events that took place in Agrece that past winter was not all that surprising. While the Black clan was particularly adept in the field of intel gathering, the other clans also had their own means of collecting information.

Hiakin let out a chuckle as he watched Deon turn his head away without a hint of emotion.

“Still as silent as a rock, I see.” Of course, the head Fipellion was equally as chatty as a babbling brook. “Well, I suppose I don’t really have any business with the likes of you. Especially, seeing as you’re neither the clan master nor its heir.”

The Agrece’s unwillingness to engage with him was clearly starting to chip away at his interest. Then the White Master changed his tone in a wholly contradictory manner as though he wished to put an end to the fruitless conversation he had started.

“Anyway, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again.”

The words faded along with his footsteps. Deon, however, remained rooted to where he had stood from the beginning of the encounter. He waited until the irritating older man’s footsteps had completely disappeared, but began to move toward an unclear destination. He let his feet navigate the way on their own, then soon realized he had arrived at the entrance to the central rose garden where the tea party was still in full swing.

From where he stood, the faint smell of roses greeted him. But before he could even savor the fragrance, a chilling, murderous intent washed over him like being flung into the sea.

Why did I even come here? Who was I even trying to find? He clenched his fists so tightly that they began to tremble. The veins on the back of his hands and joints began to protrude wildly as well. His fingernails dug into his palms to the point that they might pierce into his flesh.

“Did you think there would be a welcoming party when you arrived that made you run all the way to Yggdrasil like this?”

“Honestly, how can you still be so dense?”

“At the very least, you can’t possibly think I’m to blame for your late arrival tonight.”

Were those words not enough? To think I actually chased after her again like some sort of homing pigeon subconsciously following my instincts. At this rate, I might as well be like a mutt on a leash mindlessly following his master.

Unable to repress his destructive impulses, Deon gritted his teeth and turned his back to the rose-filled garden. However, in doing so he collided with a pair of Fipellion cousins.

“Unless you have a death wish, I suggest you get lost.” Deon’s low voice was so haunting that it sent shivers down the two men’s spines and caused them to step back.

They would never know just how much mercy the Agrece had shown them in that moment by offering them a verbal warning. Nothing could dampen his spirits any further after his meeting with Roxana that night he arrived in Yggdrasil. Or perhaps since the night he exchanged blows with Cassis Pedelian and was forced to retreat.

If he was willing to be even more honest with himself, he might have even supposed it went as far back as the moment he learned of his sister’s whereabouts in Vertium. If not that, then it was undoubtedly his last conversation with Sierra that burdened him with such an unnerving sensation that made it so that her words had been eating away at him ever since. They were like a tiny insect gnawing at him from his heels upward.

“Wh-Wh... Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”

With his face flushed red with anger, Duran Fipellion decided to instigate the man he had been unlucky enough to be standing behind. To his cousin Jerome, it seemed more like an attempt to recover his pride after backing away in fear at first.

“F-Forget it, Duran. Let’s just go.”

“No way. You heard what this pretentious prick just said.”

What a pesky fly. Perhaps I should just kill them right here and now. I clearly warned him already. The fact that he continues to bark must mean he’s willing to die. As always, Deon’s hands moved before he even finished his thoughts.

“Kegh!”

Before he had a chance to blink, the red-faced Fipellion’s throat was caught in the Agrece’s vice-like grip. The slightest bit of force exerted in his fingertips would have been all it took to snap the brittle bones.

“Hey, what the hell?! Unhand my cou— Urgh!”

The crimson-eyed man’s free hand soon found itself locked around yet another neck belonging to the cur yapping away at his cousin’s side. As he watched the two men struggle to gasp for air, he sank into a silent reverie.

I wonder what would happen if I broke their jaws and ripped their limbs off afterward. Yggdrasil would most certainly become embroiled in chaos if he were to do that. I’d like to see the look on everyone’s faces if I did. His sister Roxana no longer seemed as intent on destroying their clan as she had during their coup that past winter.

The way she had arrived in Yggdrasil under her Agrece name made that much clear. On top of that, she was making a show of going around with their younger brother Jeremy who had succeeded their father Lante Agrece as the Black Master.

What would everyone make of an even more senior Agrece committing murder here in the neutral territory now? What if I went ahead and slaughtered them all the way that Fipellion unleashed a demon monster years ago?

It was an unspoken yet shared knowledge that Yggdrasil’s neutrality was merely a façade that was barely holding on by a thread.

It’s not as though I need a lance, sword, or any other weapon to take a human life. In fact... I could kill so many of the clan members here by simply flexing my arms.

Just as he was about to tighten his grip around their necks, the one voice which could fuel his bloodlust more than anything or anyone else hit his eardrums like thunder.

“Deon Agrece!”

As his name echoed around him, he reflexively loosened his hold ever so slightly. He then turned his burning glare toward the voice’s source. At the end of the corridor stood the one man he wished to kill above all else—the Blue Heir, Cassis Pedelian.

“You are utterly hopeless, you know that? Can’t you just learn to sit quietly and behave?” Cassis’ chilling gaze looked past the two men Deon was still choking to cast a rebuke-filled glower on the Agrece.

Although the two Fipellions were still alive, they were more or less unconscious due to the obstructions to their airways. The Pedelian had only just left Nix’s cell. The puppet may have felt that the visit was nothing short of an eternity, but in truth, only a few minutes had passed.

Most of the Vertium puppets were so fragile that even the slightest pinch would cause them to wince and spasm as if that were programmed into them as a natural human reaction. But despite the sadistic nature of his visit, the Blue Heir was never one to delight in the suffering of others, so he felt neither amused nor refreshed after torturing the insolent, blond creation. He had decided it best to return to the rose garden where he had left sister Sylvia.

While he was fully aware that she had long since grown into a fine young lady, she would always be the little sister who needed supervision to him. It was just as he was approaching the garden entrance when his eyes caught a glimpse of a grim-looking man standing before two individuals struggling feebly.

Upon recognizing that it was none other than Deon Agrece, his golden gaze cooled just as the crimson orbs locked with his.

“Did you crawl out from whichever hole you were hiding in to die in their place?”

“First insolence, now recklessness?”

Cassis scoffed as he considered how if it had been anywhere else, he would have gladly played into the older man’s provocations. But as they were in Yggdrasil and at a conference to facilitate harmony, he had no intention of confronting a Black clan member. Even so, having all of his senses instinctively heighten at the very sight of Roxana’s older half-brother was a completely separate matter of concern.

“Damn it! What the hell is going on out here?!”

Just then, a gust of wind carrying the heavy scent of roses from the garden swept in and hovered over them. As they both turned in the direction of the voice, their eyes met the two people standing at the entrance as the vines swayed behind them gracefully. Having witnessed the entire affront, Jeremy Agrece came barreling into the corridor ready to hurl a slew of insults at his half-brother.

However, neither his older brother nor Cassis was paying any attention to him. The two were both fixated on the woman beside him who remained standing silently with the blood-red roses serving as a backdrop.

Roxana simply scanned the unfolding scene without a single trace of emotion on her beautiful face. Then without warning, her lips parted much like one of the rose buds behind her coming into bloom.

“Deon.”

The Pedelian couldn’t help but shiver ever so slightly as he heard the accursed name ring in his ears. Deon also failed to hide his reaction as her voice pierced his eardrums.

“Don’t make things worse.” She spoke so calmly that there was a brief moment of peaceful silence.

Unfortunately, it ultimately yielded the opposite effect. His fiery gaze slowly began to cool until the shade of red once again matched hers. The two stood staring at one another for a moment until he finally moved toward her.

It was only then that the Fipellions he had locked in his grip were allowed to fall to the ground like corpses as he released them. Although he had been prepared to strangle them to death moments prior, it was evident he had lost all interest in them.

Jeremy had also been glaring at him all the while but determined it best to act like the clan leader he was. He swiftly stepped around his brother, then hoisted up the gasping men in each of his arms. Then to avoid anyone else seeing them, he moved through the vines like a shadow. Upon the youngest’s departure, only Cassis, Deon, Roxana, and the sickeningly heavy scent of the flowers remained.

Roxana shifted her gaze to where Cassis stood.

“Could you please give us a moment?”

It took all the effort he could muster to calm the sea of emotions raging within himself. But just as his beloved had asked, he left without a word. Her brother continued to stare at the Blue Heir’s back until his figure vanished among the crowd in the garden.

“Shouldn’t you be scurrying off behind him? He is your darling little pup after all.”

She did not so much as wince at her brother’s blatant mockery.

“If you were just planning to keep getting in my way, why did you even bother coming here?” Her tone was shallow yet deadly as it lingered in his ear. “Perhaps you would have been more useful to me if you had died that night along with Lante.”

Her words came out flat but still managed to cut through him like a freshly sharpened knife. Deon remained silent for a moment as he simply stared at his sister, then slowly opened his mouth to speak in his emotionless voice.

“Perhaps you should discuss that with your mother. She was, after all, the one who chose to save me.”

The fact that he had dared to even mention her mother was the surest evidence of his desire to properly hurt his half-sister. If she was still the Roxana he thought he knew, then her mother would be the one person in their world who she could never truly forgive for saving him.

She, however, stood still as if his voice hadn’t reached him at all. Her ruby lips slowly curled up into a smirk, then a soft chuckle escaped from between them.

“You really are like a child who’s desperate for attention, you know that?”

With each breeze from the garden entrance behind her, her black dress gently lifted up to hover over the grass. She took a few smooth steps toward her brother until she was just below his ear and could ensure he’d hear her whisper. But as her words reached him, his eyes seemed to glow more sharply than ever before.

“Whatever will I do, Deon? I no longer need you.”

With the same hand he had used to strangle the Fipellion loudmouth only moments prior, he wrung Roxana’s thin arm.

“Say that again.”

Each word came out in staccato and sounded as though it was laced with his classically slow and suffocating tone as their sound wafted over the rose buds.