Chapter 29

When the Imperial Inspection Bureau and the holy nation’s religious tribunal burst in at the same time, the Duke of Valois’s mansion was instantly thrown into chaos. Two unavoidable blades, imperial law and divine judgment, were aimed at his throat. The knights were disarmed, and the servants cowered on the floor in terror.

But the Duke of Valois had no intention of being taken quietly. He threw himself without hesitation into the secret passage hidden behind his study’s bookshelf. Just before the passage closed, he looked back at his ransacked mansion and felt a hatred that pierced to the bone.

“Rian Aster… I’ll drag this empire into a pit of hell with you…”

He headed to a forbidden space hidden deep beneath the mansion. In the center of that damp, blood-stinking room stood an ominous altar made of black obsidian. And on it lay an artifact shaped like a human skull, radiating an evil aura at just a glance.

‘The Devil’s Tear.’

It was a cursed artifact said to have been made centuries ago by a great mage who tore out his own heart, staining the continent with blood. In exchange for the user’s life force, it boiled the blood of every living thing within a radius of several kilometers, killing them in excruciating pain, an unparalleled weapon of mass destruction. The Valois family had hidden the artifact in secret for generations.

“If I am to fall, I will make this entire capital my tomb!”

Consumed by madness, the Duke of Valois climbed onto the altar and slashed his wrist. As his blood poured onto the altar, ‘The Devil’s Tear’ pulsed, glowing red. It was the overture to a vast catastrophe that would engulf the entire capital.

Meanwhile, Aster Manor.

Rian was receiving a report from Argos that the Duke of Valois had disappeared.

“We checked all the mansion’s secret passages, but couldn’t find any trace of him.”

“Of course. A sly fox always digs several dens to escape into.”

Rian wasn’t the least bit surprised. He analyzed the Duke of Valois’s arrogant and twisted nature.

‘He’s not the type to die quietly. Rather than admit defeat, he’ll embrace everything and choose self-destruction. In the most spectacular, and most horrible way.’

Rian immediately ordered Old Fox.

“Identify every secret place the Duke of Valois might hide in. Not only the mansion’s secret passages but any hidden family villas within or near the capital, secret altars, whatever. And at the same time, find every record of the Valois family’s so-called ‘trump card’ kept for generations: something to be used as their final gambit when their power is weakest, whether a powerful artifact, forbidden Magic, or something else.”

It was at that moment. Rian felt a sinister, nauseating wave of magical power that made the hair on his body stand on end. It was spreading subtly like a prelude to an earthquake from deep beneath the capital’s underground.

‘It’s begun.’

At the same time, the magic tower of the imperial palace and the high temple of the holy nation also detected this evil wave. Alarm Magic rang loudly, and archmages and high-ranking clergy, horrified, began tracing the wave’s source.

An old record Old Fox had found arrived in Rian’s room.

‘The first head of the Valois family was a dark mage, and there is a legend that he hid a cursed artifact called “The Devil’s Tear.“ The artifact’s activation site is presumed to be a secret altar connected to the capital’s underground waterways….’

All the pieces fell into place.

Rian rose from his seat. This time he didn’t give orders to Argos or Kael. This calamity was beyond what they could handle. For the first time, he had to act himself.

“Kael.”

“Yes, master.”

“If I do not return, take our elder brother and Lily and go back to the estate immediately. No matter what happens.”

Rian’s eyes were no longer those of a thirteen-year-old boy. They were the gaze of an old, cold predator who had endured countless deaths and knowledge.

He glanced for a moment at the capital’s nightscape outside the window. The city he had sought to protect had become a vast sacrifice he now had to save with his own hands.

Rian plunged into the darkness. His goal was simple: to stop the hell that began in the deepest, filthiest depths beneath the capital.