100x Rebate Sharing System: Retired Incubus Wants to Marry & Have Kids

Chapter 710: Chapter 709- Anger of Holy Priest

Then the shame hit.

Lord Halvian was the first to move. His hands, flat on the marble, pushed. His arms, shaking, lifted his torso. His face, pale and sweat-drenched, was contorted with a mixture of terror and fury. The ’I-was-on-my-knees’ fury that a proud man feels when his pride has been ground into the dust.

He stood. His legs were unsteady. His retainers, surrounding him, rose with similar difficulty. Their faces mirrored his. The same fury. The same shame. The same ’this-is-not-over’ determination.

"We need to leave," Halvian said. The words were directed at his allies. Quiet. Clenched. The ’we-will-discuss-this-privately’ tone.

"Yes," another noble agreed. A fat man, his silk robe stained with sweat, his double chin quivering. "Indeed. We should go."

The words were quiet. Conversational. The ’you-are-dismissed’ tone a king uses for servants.

The pressure lifted. The air returned to normal. The suffocating weight vanished. The nobles gasped. Drew breath. Their bodies, released from the invisible force, remained on the floor for several seconds. The shock, the ’what-just-happened’ paralysis, kept them down.

They moved toward the doors. Slowly at first. Then faster. The walk of defeated men trying to maintain dignity while retreating. Their carriages, lined up outside the mansion, received them. Doors slammed. Horses whinnied. Wheels turned.

The carriages rolled away from the Catorian mansion. The dust rose. The hooves clattered on the cobblestone road. The sound of departure. The sound of retreat. The sound of wounded pride.

Inside the lead carriage, Lord Halvian sat. His hands, clasped in his lap, were white-knuckled. His jaw was clenched. His retainers, seated across from him, were silent. The ’what-do-we-do-now’ silence that filled the carriage like a fog.

"We will contact the Duke," Halvian said. The words came through his teeth. The ’we-will-escalate-this’ decision. "After all, he is just a Baron. Wasn’t he thrown out of the Redwood territory? Indeed. How dare he?"

"He is a Catorian by name," a retainer said. "But the Duke—"

"The Duke will not tolerate this," Halvian cut in. "No one treats the Royal Factories’ representatives like dogs and walks away."

The carriage moved. Through the town. Past the gates. Onto the main road.

Behind them, more carriages followed. The merchant guild’s representatives. The minor lords. The military officers. All of them. Fleeing. Retreating to their estates, their counting houses, their fortresses. Carrying with them the shame of submission and the fire of revenge.

One of the merchants, a fat noble in a gold-trimmed coat, pulled a communication artifact from his pocket. The device, a small crystal orb, glowed with enchantment. He spoke into it. His voice, loud and angry, carried through the magical connection.

"Stop all supplies to this town! Immediately! The Catorian mansion, the district, everything! Cut it off!"

The response was immediate. The merchant guild’s network, the supply chain that fed the town, received the order. Wagons were turned around. Contracts were cancelled. The economic strangulation began.

The noble pride, the wounded ego, the ’how-dare-he-put-us-on-our-knees’ fury, drove every decision. They would starve this town. They would cut it off. They would make the Catorian family beg. And then, when Viktor was on his knees, they would remind him of who he had humiliated.

Or so they thought.

In a separate carriage, quieter and more ornate, a woman sat alone.

The Baroness Veilera. Middle-aged. Her dress was red, the fabric expensive, the fur around her neck a deep chocolate brown that complemented her pale skin. Her fan, an ornate ivory piece with painted flowers, was open. It covered her mouth. Her nose. Everything below her eyes.

Her eyes were what betrayed her.

They were shaking. The pupils, dilated. The irises, a deep amber, darted from side to side. The ’I-cannot-believe-what-I-just-witnessed’ terror that lived behind the composed facade.

She had smirked at him. In the hall. Before the pressure hit. She had looked at this young man, this Baron from a forgotten territory, and she had smirked. The ’you-are-beneath-me’ smirk that she had perfected over decades of noble politics.

And then he had looked at her.

Not during the pressure. Before. When he first entered the hall. His eyes had found hers across the room. The green eyes, the Catorian green, had locked onto her amber ones. The contact lasted half a second. In that half second, she had seen something. Not anger. Not challenge. Recognition. The ’I-see-you’ look that a predator gives prey it has already decided to eat later.

Her hand, holding the fan, was shaking. The ivory rattled against her fingers. She pressed it tighter. The knuckles went white.

’He looked at me,’ she thought. The memory of that half-second contact, the green eyes finding hers across the crowded hall, played on repeat. ’He saw my smirk. He remembered it. He is going to—’

She couldn’t finish the thought. The fear, the cold, paralyzing, ’I-am-in-the-presence-of-something-beyond-my-comprehension’ fear, was too complete.

She was a baroness. She held thirty percent of this town’s assets. Ten percent of the capital city’s merchant network. Mansions, warehouses, trade routes. She was influential. Powerful. A woman whose name opened doors and closed deals.

And she was terrified.

Not of political reprisal. Not of economic warfare. Of him. Of the man who had made an entire hall of nobles kneel with a whisper. Of the power that she had felt, the crushing, absolute, ’this-man-could-kill-everyone-here-and-no-one-could-stop-him’ power.

She had met heroes before. Five of them. In the capital. During an adventure to purchase a enchanted sword. The heroes had been impressive. Strong. Capable. The kind of warriors that barons and dukes recruited for dangerous quests.

Viktor was not that.

Viktor was something else. The heroes had radiated power like a bonfire radiated heat. Viktor radiated power like the sun radiated light. The difference was not degree. It was category. The heroes were strong men. Viktor was something that made strong men kneel.

Her carriage moved. Through the town. Past the gates. Her destination was her mansion, three miles outside the town proper. The safe distance. The ’far-from-him’ distance.

She looked at her hand. The shaking had not stopped. The fan, the ivory, rattled against her fingers despite her grip.

’Revenge,’ she thought. The word surfaced. The natural response of a wounded noble. ’I should contact my allies. Cut off his supplies. Destroy him economically.’

The thought died. The memory of his eyes, green and knowing, killed it before it could form.

’Even revenge is not possible,’ she realized. The truth settled in her stomach like ice. ’He would know. He would find out. And he would come for me.’

The carriage continued. The town fell behind. The road stretched. The Baroness Veilera, the powerful, the influential, the composed, sat in her ornate carriage and trembled.

In another carriage, the Holy Church’s vehicle, the Paladin sat.

The old man, his white robes bearing the silver sun of the Holy Order, was rigid. His jaw, clenched. His hands, on his knees, were fists. The tendons in his forearms stood out like cables. The veins, visible through the thin skin of his age, bulged.

He was angry.

But beneath the anger, deeper, in the place where the old man kept his truest feelings, he was afraid. The hallway, the pressure, the knees hitting marble. The ’I-was-on-my-knees’ shame that burned in his chest like acid.

He, a Paladin of the Holy Church, a warrior of the Goddess, a man who had faced demons and undead and the horrors of the dark places. He had knelt. Not by choice. Not by faith. By force.

A force that had nothing to do with the Goddess and everything to do with the man in the hall.

’That arrogant noble brat!’

He looked across the carriage. At the priestess seated opposite him.