Chapter 37: A Face-to-Face Meeting Without Disguise {2}
The wheels of the luxurious horse-drawn carriage came to a smooth halt in front of the red carpet that extended all the way to the hotel entrance. The servant rushed down to open the door with deep reverence, and Duke Cain oster stepped out of the carriage.
Placing his foot upon the stretching red carpet, he walked calmly, radiating the pure majesty of nobility. The gate guards did not even dare to ask for his invitation card. Instead, they bowed to him instantly, clearing the path for him to enter while eyes of envy followed him from every side.
The workers and journalists looked at the scene that had just unfolded, embedding it deeply into their memories.
"Wow... even if I transmigrated a billion times, I would never attain the absolute dominance of Duke oster in my lifetime," one of the sons of a noble Visocunt family remarked while laughing.
The journalists had already begun writing about the Duke’s appearance on their papers. Since he was the star of the night, he absolutely deserved extra lines of praise—extra lines sufficient to highlight his majesty.
To be honest, the journalists loved Duke oster because he was the only one who enabled them to fill the newspaper pages without repeating the same descriptions twice. In fact, the Duke’s fanatical admirers and obsessed audience would buy special editions just for those extra, otherwise useless lines.
They even commissioned artists to draw the Duke’s likeness and look. Although these seemed like trivial matters, they all felt they had achieved this month’s goals and would secure their bonuses.
"Oh, if only I were allowed inside to conduct an interview with the Duke, that would be wonderful... why not..." one journalist thought as he attempted to leap over the fence.
But as he clung tightly and was on the verge of jumping high to clear the perimeter, he noticed that one of the knights, who were acting as guards for this place, was standing right behind him, about to pull him down.
Yet now, that knight stood frozen like a statue. His hand, which had been raised high to grab and drag him down, remained completely stationary in its place.
At that exact moment... the onlookers, both commoners and nobles alike, were utterly struck with shock!
The air at the front of the red carpet split open with a sudden, magical purple brilliance, emitting a terrifying aura of absolute, tyrannical authority that forced bodies to submit and tremble. In that instant, mouths shut completely, and the journalists were rendered incapable of screaming or speaking from the sheer magnitude of the shock.
For right before them, in all her magic and deadly black attire, materialized the Empress of Blood herself—Lucy Montgrad!
Lucy advanced with confident, resonant steps. The clicking of her heels on the ground sounded in the minds of the audience like the ticking of a death clock. When she reached the guards standing before the gates, the blood froze in their veins. They were utterly bewildered as to how to ask for her invitation letter; some even thought of summoning the Golden Lion Knights for backup, but all five of them backed down when they realized they would simply be throwing their comrades into the jaws of death!
Lucy extended her smooth hand and spoke in a highly calm tone that almost sounded neutral at first glance, "Verify my invitation letter..."
She handed them the letter sealed with the royal seal. The guard did not dare to look at the letter for more than a single second. He nodded his trembling head out of sheer coercion, allowing her to pass immediately.
The moment she stepped inside, the journalists outside exchanged silent glances for several seconds before utter madness erupted among them. They all began making urgent communications through their spiritual crystals:
"Write quickly... a fatal scoop! Lucy Montgrad, the Empress of Blood, is attending the victory banquet herself!"
"Urgent: Will the banquet prepared by the King in honor of the Duke turn into a bloody massacre at the hands of the Empress of Blood?!"
When they remembered that their ultimate dream was to fill an entire newspaper page, they knew that with Lucy’s appearance, the main headlines for the next two weeks were already set.
Madness paralyzed the minds of the press to the extent that one of the standing commoners sighed, stating with absolute certainty that this news would cause ink prices to skyrocket in the markets for an entire week from the sheer volume of printed pamphlets!
While the news was spreading outside like wildfire, Lucy entered the corridor leading to the main banquet hall. Inside, the nobles were chatting and laughing to the melodies played by a professional orchestra. However, the moment Lucy’s cold aura pierced through the corners of the hall, the music ceased, the laughter cut off, and everyone froze in their tracks.
When the Knight Captain, Silver, looked at Lucy standing before him, his ancient instincts were on the verge of triggering a danger response to draw his sword.
But the moment he recalled the scene of her slaughtering the squad of the Golden Lion Knights, his hand automatically moved to an old scar on his face left by that previous battle. His body trembled; he had come to realize that no one here could stop her if she decided to do something insane.
Even though everyone in their depths objected to the presence of this tyrant, no one—not even the King himself—possessed the courage or the capability to stop her or even question whether she was truly invited.
Yet, from among the crowds a bit far from this scene, two eyes burned with absolute malice... it was Princess Sylvia! She stood watching Lucy’s arrival, grinding her teeth in pure fury, asking in her mind with intense hatred: How dare this wench come here when I never sent her an invitation?!
A mad idea crossed her mind to expose her publicly and declare that she was uninvited. But she retreated in terror when she asked herself: And then what? If I do that, she might kill me and everyone in this hall without even blinking an eye!
Sylvia turned her face away, gripping a custom glass cup in which she had carefully prepared the [Soul-Dissolving Wine]. What she had allocated to give Cain to drink tonight was no longer just ordinary Soul-Dissolving Wine; inside it were numerous aphrodisiacs capable of blinding anyone with pure lust.
Sylvia remembered exactly how she had obtained this wine. She recalled the terrifying silhouette of a man who spoke in an incredibly horrific manner, whose aura could have killed her at any moment. He had given her this wine and directed her to the location of that witch in the woods.
When she had asked him why this entity was helping her, he merely replied, "I have a draft that must end."
She did not understand what he meant, but he vanished completely from before her.
Now, she forgot all of that because she had perfumed herself today with an extremely precious scent. Not stopping there, beneath her luxurious party dress, she wore delicate, sheer, and highly provocative lingerie, aiming to seduce Cain immediately once she got him alone in the suite. She had gone even further, hiring professional courtesans to teach her the finest details of how to please men and instill pleasure into their bodies, so that Cain would submit to her entirely.
Sylvia thought maliciously, "You won’t ruin my plans no matter how hard you try, Lucy... I have prepared this entire party just to have Cain tonight!"
Sylvia summoned one of her frightened servants and commanded him in a stern voice to head immediately to Lucy and deliver a specific message. The servant advanced with trembling steps, wishing inside that Lucy wouldn’t slit his throat before he could finish his words.
The servant arrived and bowed with a shaking body, saying, "My Lady Lucy... Her Highness Princess Sylvia has reserved a complete, secluded royal suite for Your Ladyship to rest in alone. This is the key to the luxury suite, number 55 on the final top floor... for the main banquet has not yet begun."
This move by Sylvia was a thinly veiled insult—a clear message telling her that she was unwelcome in the lower celebration hall, ordering her to isolate herself upstairs.
Lucy ignored the servant completely as if he were an invisible fly in the air, but her sharp eyes caught the key. Her fingers extended and took the key from his hand to give Sylvia the illusion that she would stay away from her plans and go upstairs.
In reality, Lucy had other ideas. She cast her consciousness toward the large balcony attached to the hotel, finding it a quiet, charming place, far away from the prying, detestable eyes of the nobles.
The servant backed away, on the verge of wetting himself from sheer terror, while Lucy moved calmly toward that vast, isolated balcony on the upper floor. She did not go there merely to enjoy the night view of the capital, but because her intuition and silent certainty told her that this was the favorite spot Cain always fled to whenever he sought tranquility!
Not far away inside the same hotel, Duke Cain was surrounded by a large crowd of sycophantic nobles, advisors, and military commanders. They were showering him with expressions of praise and flattery, claiming that his generous financial support for the troops on the borders was the primary and sole reason behind achieving this crushing victory for the Kingdom.
Cain listened to all those fake congratulations and words, feeling genuine boredom and suffocation from their noisy hypocrisy.
In a flashing instant, utilizing his speed through pure physical strength alone, he suddenly vanished from the midst of the crowd and everyone else, as if he had never existed among them from the very beginning!
Cain finally manifested his full body instead of the faint silhouette that no one had noticed. He now stood on the wide, quiet, and isolated balcony on the upper floor, exhaling a sigh of relief, thinking that he had finally gained a modicum of rest and solitude as he looked down from the balcony, enjoying the night breeze...
However... the silence was shattered by a soft, familiar voice bearing a warm tone of obsession that pierced the stillness of the place:
"It is quite loud and bothersome outside... isn’t it?"
Cain froze in his place like a statue, his breath catching for several seconds. He knew this voice all too well and could never mistake it. It was the true voice that, in this universe, belonged to only one person!
Thoughts raced in his mind with terrifying speed, and he thought to himself in shock: (So... you have finally decided to appear in your full, true form before me, and without a mask!)
At this pivotal moment, under the weight of his power dropping to the Immortal Level and the presence of the Empress of Blood in all her dominance before him... a single drop of cold sweat fell from Cain’s forehead!
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