Chapter 820: I Take What I Desire!
Darius turned back to Cassius, his expression expectant.
"Now, since Lord Fulham has shown such excellent manners." Darius said, licking his lower lip with an open, crude hunger. "I expect the same level of cooperation from you, Young Master Cassius."
"The second maid, the blonde one with the blue eyes and the exceptionally fine, tight figure caught my eye. I assume you won’t mind lending her to my quarters for a short duration?"
"In return, I might—"
Darius abruptly cut his own sentence short.
His eyes had begun to drift past Cassius’s shoulders, scanning the garden.
For the first time, he realized that the courtyard wasn’t just populated by standard servants but beautiful women all over!
Standing by the pillar was Diana, who had just arrived from the medical wing.
Though she was a mature woman, her features possessed a timeless, breathtaking elegance, her cold gaze only adding to her sharp allure.
Beside her stood a delicate, fragile young woman whose face was so radiant with pure vitality that Darius’s body reacted instantly, a heavy surge of possessive lust hit him as he imagined just how tight and untouched her body must be.
His eyes traveled further, landing on Portia, who was watching the scene with the exact same expressionless, unbothered composure as Cassius.
Then there was Nala, a faint, mocking smile playing on her lips as if she already knew the exact coordinates of the grave Darius was digging for himself.
And behind them stood Maria, a woman of magnificent, breathtaking curves, alongside several other sisters and attendants.
Each one of them possessor of an atrocious, mind-melting beauty that outshone any courtesan or noble lady in the imperial capital.
Darius’s jaw slacked. He rapidly leaned down, whispering to his personal butler.
"Who are they? Which lords brought those women? Find out their prices immediately!"
The elderly butler peered through his spectacles, as he recognized the figures. He leaned into Darius’s ear, his voice a whisper.
"My lord...those are not the properties of the guests. Those are...those are the wives and personal concubines of the third master, Cassius."
Darius froze. A look of absolute, stunned disbelief crossed his face before he threw his head back and erupted into a loud, booming laugh that echoed off the stone walls.
"His wives?!" Darius shouted, not caring in the slightest who heard him. "This absolute joke of a man? This useless, discarded failure actually possesses a harem of this caliber?!"
He looked at Cassius with pure, unbridled contempt.
"What an absolute farce! It’s like a hideous toad locking a flock of divine swan-maidens in his mud pit!"
"How incredibly fortunate for you, Cassius!"
"You managed to hoard all these magnificent specimens for yourself without a single intent to share."
He shook his head, his expression turning calculating.
"But it’s alright. I’ve come to a decision. I’ll take not just your maid, but also your wives! All of them!"
"It’s only fair—you have so many, after all."
The sheer audacity of the demand sent a shockwave of frantic whispers through the garden.
"My god...he isn’t just asking for a servant. He is openly demanding another lord’s wives!"
"This is insane...the drama is turning lethal."
"Poor Cassius...I detest his reputation, but this is a humiliation no man should survive."
The guests looked toward the women with deep, profound pity, already imagining the horrific, broken state they would be left in once a maniac like Darius was finished with them.
Yet, to the crowd’s immense confusion, Cassius’s wives didn’t show a single shred of fear.
They remained perfectly still, their expressions completely calm.
A few of the sisters even exchanged faint, amused smiles, as if they were watching a particularly stupid stray dog bark at a sleeping dragon.
Darius, completely blind to the danger, stepped closer to Cassius.
"Don’t look so devastated, Young Master. I am not singling you out. This is a perfectly normal transaction in high society."
"You see, wherever my travels take me, the local lords always know how to show proper hospitality. They routinely offer me their maids, their daughters, and their wives to ensure my favor."
He turned his head toward a remarkably fat noble sitting near the front.
"Isn’t that correct, Lord Dildham? The last time I visited your northern estate, you personally escorted your own wife to my bedchambers, did you not?"
Lord Dildham’s face turned a violent, humiliating shade of purple.
Despite the burning shame eating at his throat, the fat noble forced a horrific, trembling smile.
"O-Of course, my lord...it was my absolute privilege!"
"A guest of your lineage deserves only the most precious gift my household could provide. It was only natural that I offered her to you."
Darius chuckled, turning back to Cassius.
"And what a delightful night it was. She was an absolute treat to break apart. Quite vocal, too."
Lord Dildham closed his eyes, his teeth grinding in a silent, murderous fury that he would never dare to execute.
Darius then pointed his finger toward a remarkably thin, skeletal lord who immediately shivered, his drink rattling against his teeth.
"And what about you, my lord Arnhat? The entire platoon of virgin maids you sent to my encampment last month was a delightful surprise."
"Even when I politely attempted to refuse, you insisted on leaving them outside my tent."
"Isn’t that right?"
The thin lord offered a desperate, fawning bow, his voice cracking with terror.
"It...It was not my doing, Young Master Darius! The moment those foolish girls saw your handsome, majestic form, they begged to serve you! As their master, I simply had no choice but to grant their wishes and present them to you for the night!"
The blatant lie hung heavy in the air.
Everyone knew the thin lord had sacrificed his entire domestic staff to prevent Darius from burning his granaries.
But the illusion of voluntary submission had to be maintained.
Darius’s grin widened.
He was enjoying this immensely—the way these men debased themselves, the way they twisted the truth to flatter him, the way every pair of eyes in the garden was fixed on him with fear.
This was power!
This was what it meant to be a Valheim!
He turned last to a bald nobleman with a thick mustache, a man who had been standing rigid as a statue throughout this entire display.
Lord Vincent Herman. The moment Darius’s eyes landed on him, Vincent’s face went dark. His jaw clenched so hard it looked ready to crack.
"Lord Vincent." Darius said, his voice dripping with false warmth. "I almost didn’t see you there. But how could I forget?"
"You, of all people, showed me the greatest generosity. Didn’t you?"
Vincent said nothing. His fists were trembling at his sides.
"Come now, don’t be shy." Darius pressed, his smile turning razor-sharp. "Tell everyone. What did you give me when I visited your estate? Remind the crowd."
The silence stretched. Everyone could feel the tension radiating off Vincent, the fury that he was barely containing.
Then, in a voice that sounded like it was being dragged over broken glass, he spoke.
"My wife. And my daughter."
The words landed like stones in a still pond.
Several of the nobles who hadn’t known gasped.
His wife and his daughter? Both of them?!
Lord Vincent had always seemed like such a proper family man—a loving husband, a devoted father.
The idea that he had simply handed them over was almost too horrible to comprehend.
"Both of them." Darius confirmed, nodding slowly. "And what a night that was. I’m sure you remember. After all, you saw the state they were in the next morning."
He chuckled, low and dark.
"They could barely walk. Could barely speak. Your daughter especially, she just kept staring at the ceiling, making these little sounds. Like a broken doll. It was almost poetic."
Vincent’s fist clenched so hard that blood began to drip from where his nails cut into his palm. He was reliving it now, all of it.
The way his wife had looked at him when he told her she had to go.
The way his daughter had begged, had actually begged, and he had just stood there and let them take her.
The morning after, when they had been returned—his wife with bruises covering her arms and neck, his daughter with empty eyes that still hadn’t recovered their light, even now, even after months of treatment.
Darius had used them like animals. Like objects to vent his frustrations upon. And Vincent had been forced to smile and thank him for the privilege.
"Y-Yes, my lord." Vincent said, the words scraping out of him. "I was simply too incompetent."
"My wife...she never truly enjoyed my presence. The moment she saw you, she was enamored. It was love at first sight. The same for my daughter."
"As their husband and father, I had no choice but to let them go to you...For the night."
He paused, and for just a moment, something murderous flickered in his eyes. Then it was gone, buried under a lifetime of survival instinct.
"It...was my honor."
Darius spread his arms wide, turning in a slow circle to address the entire gathering.
"You see? This is simply how things are done. It’s tradition! Nobles, commoners, knights, merchants—it doesn’t matter. As long as I want something, someone provides it!"
"They do so willingly, eagerly, because they understand the natural order of things."
The higher nobles nodded along, some of them wearing expressions of forced approval, others genuinely convinced that this was simply the way of the world.
The lower nobles and merchants burned with silent rage, memories of their own losses.
Their own wives, daughters, sisters, servants flashing through their minds.
But their faces revealed nothing. They had been trained too well.
Darius turned back to Cassius, his point made, his dominance established.
"So you see, Young Master Cassius, I’m not singling you out. I’m not bullying you. This is just a transaction. A simple, traditional exchange between nobles who understand their positions."
He spread his hands in a gesture of false generosity.
"Give me your wives. Let me play with them for a week."
"And in return, I will endorse you to my father."
"Imagine it: the Valheims backing you. Your father would have to take you seriously then. Your brothers would have to show you respect."
"All it costs is one week. One week of your wives’ company!"
He looked at the wives again, his eyes crawling over them like insects.
Nala received the longest look, his fascination with her serpentine form obvious and nauseating.
He was already imagining it—removing her scales, one by one, seeing how she screamed and bled
"But don’t worry." He added, as if this were reassuring. "I won’t go too far. Just lend them to me for a week. I’ll play with them, have my fun, and give them back."
"I won’t even keep them for myself. I’m not unreasonable."
The maids behind Darius shuddered. They knew exactly what "not going too far" meant.
They had seen the women who came back from Darius’s "play."
Broken shells. Shattered minds. Bodies that would never recover. And those were the lucky ones.
The unlucky ones didn’t come back at all.
"So what do you say, Cassius?"
Darius called his hands, his expression almost benevolent.
"As a token of our blooming friendship from this day forward, would you mind letting me borrow your wives for a little while?"
"Let me have them underneath me a few times?" He laughed, a wet, ugly sound.
"But I should warn you—I’m quite good at what I do. Sometimes, women fall in love with me."
"So, if your wives choose to stay with me, well...that’s just something you’ll have to accept."
