Chapter 93: The Spymaster’s Deal...
An hour later, the excruciating, tense dinner finally ended.
Zen walked through the lavish, gold-lined corridors of the eastern guest wing, completely ignoring the awed stares of the elite guards posted along the walls.
He walked into his royal bedroom and firmly locked the heavy mahogany double doors behind him. He heard the mechanical and magical wards click into place, sealing the room off from the rest of the palace.
Zen let out a long, unsteady breath, rolling his shoulders. He finally dropped the rigid, exhausting Emperor persona he had been maintaining all night.
"System," Zen said quietly to the empty room, rubbing his temples. "Report on the mapping drones."
[Connecting... Drones active...]
[Palace layout mapped to 42%.]
[Guard patrols logged]
[The Imperial Vault is located directly beneath the throne room. High-density magical signatures detected inside the vault.]
"Good," Zen muttered.
He unbuttoned the dark, gold-lined jacket of his tailored tunic, taking it off and tossing it carelessly onto the massive silk bed.
"While you map, let’s look at the board," Zen muttered, walking toward the balcony to look out at the neon-drenched skyline of the Crown Domain.
He leaned against the heavy glass as he tried to predict Aurelia’s next moves. Would she try to lock him up? Use magical confinement or something similar? For someone like Aurelia, that was an option, but only as a desperate last resort if he tried to escape.
No, Aurelia was a tyrant who cared about optics just as much as control. The sudden wedding announcement was just her opening play.
Her real trap would be a grand, public political maneuver... designed to permanently and legally chain him to her Domain before the other Goddesses could declare war.
Maybe that’s what she have planned for the Gala.
[Host’s tactical analysis aligns with Empress Aurelia’s ’Mind’ fragment behavioral patterns.]
[Probability of forceful magical confinement: 12%.]
[Probability of a grand political maneuver: 99.9%.]
"A political snare," Zen sighed, running a hand through his hair. "She is going to try and trap me with status and public perception before I can leave."
He narrowed his eyes at the glowing city below.
But what about tonight? Would she try to force a mind-meld or a telepathic intrusion while he slept to test his loyalty?
Zen shook his head. No. I gave her exactly what she craved at dinner. I asserted dominance. I commanded her in front of her own nobles. Her ’Mind’ fragment is completely sated for the immediate future. She is too intoxicated by my authority to risk pushing me tonight.
[Probability of hostile telepathic intrusion tonight: 18%.]
[Host assessment correct. Target is psychologically pacified.]
"Aurelia is manageable for now," Zen murmured, crossing his arms over his chest as he stared out the balcony glass. "But I need to figure out how I’m going to siphon her fragment without triggering her telepathic defences. If she reads my mind during the process and realises I’m just draining her to steal my power back..."
"Hello, Emperor," a smooth voice echoed from the shadows behind him.
Zen didn’t jump; he didn’t even reach for a weapon. He just slowly turned his head toward the dark corner of the bedroom.
Nyx was leaning casually against the heavy velvet drapes near the wardrobe. Her sleek black stealth suit absorbed the dim light of the room, and her purple digital eyes glowed faintly in the dark.
"The doors are warded with High A-Rank magic, Nyx," Zen said calmly. "And there are twenty elite guards posted in the corridor outside."
"Aurelia’s wards are analogue garbage," Nyx smirked, pushing herself off the wall. She walked across the plush carpet with the silent grace of a phantom. "I am digital. I walk wherever I please. The guards outside are currently looking at looped camera feeds of an empty hallway."
"What do you want?" Zen asked, crossing his arms. "If Aurelia catches you in my private chambers, she will level this entire wing just to kill you."
"Let her try," Nyx laughed softly, walking closer until she stopped mere inches from his chest. "I saw what you did at dinner, Zen. You played her perfectly. You used her own ’Mind’ fragment traits against her to buy yourself time."
"I just told the truth," Zen said flatly. "I am not ready for a global wedding."
"Don’t lie to the Spymaster," Nyx whispered, leaning her face close to his neck. "I know your core isn’t broken anymore, which means you are just stalling. And I know you took more of your fragments from Valeria and me the other day at the penthouse."
Zen simply nodded but kept his face entirely blank. "I’ll be disappointed in you if you didn’t notice."
"And like I said the first time, I’m not angry," Nyx smiled, placing her hands flat against his chest.
She looked at him with a calculating and hungry expression.
"I actually think it is brilliant. Valeria is a violent brute. She doesn’t deserve your power. But I do."
"You want me to siphon your fragment?" Zen asked, genuinely surprised by the directness and what she was insinuating.
"Come on, Zen," Nyx’s voice dropped to a sultry murmur. "You breached Low B-Rank. I can feel the density of your core humming right beneath my hands. You are hiding your fangs from the Empress, acting like a fragile little bird. It is incredibly entertaining."
"It is survival," Zen corrected her coldly. "Aurelia is a Divine-Rank threat. If she knows I am functional, she locks me in a cage."
"Exactly," Nyx agreed, her purple eyes flashing. "Which is why you need me. Aurelia’s wedding announcement just sent the global economy into a tailspin. The Omni Domain stock market crashed twelve percent in an hour. Lyra is already moving Aether Domain floating fortresses toward the border. War is coming, Zen. You are not strong enough to stop it as a Low B-Rank."
"And your solution is to hand me your power?" Zen raised an eyebrow. "You don’t do anything without a digital contract, Nyx. What is the price?"
"I want you to make me your primary," Nyx corrected smoothly, stepping flush against his body. "Take what you need from me. Fix your core. In exchange, when you finally take back the throne, Aurelia and Valeria kneel to me. I sit at your right hand. I control the global network. I become the singular Empress."
"Mind I remind you that you are bargaining with my own soul, Nyx?" Zen asked, his voice dropping an octave, slipping effortlessly into his commanding Emperor persona. "You are trying to sell me what already belongs to me."
"I am offering you a shortcut," she purred, pressing her body flush against his, ignoring his intimidation entirely. "Do it. Take a piece right now. Prove to me that you actually have the strength to take it."
Zen didn’t hesitate. He knew an opportunity when he saw one. He couldn’t afford to turn down an offer like this, especially not when the donor was offering it freely.
He wrapped his arms tightly around her narrow waist, locking her aggressively against him.
Normally, reclaiming a fragment required the intense, prolonged physical exchange of dual cultivation just to batter down a Goddess’s subconscious defences.
But Nyx wasn’t fighting him... she was doing the exact opposite.
She let out a soft breath and deliberately dropped every single digital firewall, mental barrier, and psychological guard she possessed. She surrendered control entirely, leaving her core completely exposed to him.
"System," Zen commanded internally. "Initiate Primordial Breathing. Target the ’Shadow’ fragment."
[Executing Primordial Breathing]
[Target’s defence matrix is at 0%]
[Synchronizing with Spymaster’s mana pathways.]
Zen activated his technique, letting his Low B-Rank residual mana reach out and latch onto her ’Shadow’ fragment hidden deep within her digital core.
Unlike the first time in the penthouse, where he had to be extremely delicate with his D-Rank body, he now had the structural integrity to pull with authority.
He pulled hard.
"Ah," Nyx gasped loudly, her purple digital eyes flashing brightly as the intimate, burning connection flared violently between them.
Her knees buckled instantly under the sheer overwhelming sensation of the soul transfer. She grabbed Zen’s shoulders to keep herself from collapsing to the floor.
"Quiet," Zen ordered as he gently pulled on the fragment, treating it like a delicate wire carrying high-voltage electricity. "Unless you want Aurelia’s guards breaking down that door to see why the Spymaster is moaning in my bedroom."
Nyx bit her lower lip hard, her entire body trembling violently.
The calculated, smug facade she always wore completely shattered.
For a woman who processed the world through cold data and logic, the raw, unfiltered emotional and physical intensity of the Emperor reclaiming his soul overloaded every single one of her circuits.
She buried her face into his neck, shivering as the last thread of the siphoned energy snapped clean.
[Shadow Fragment Siphoned — 15% recovered.]
[Total Shadow Fragment reclaimed: 80%.]
[Host core capacity permanently expanded. Stealth and Spatial processing speeds increased by 400%.]
Zen exhaled slowly, feeling the icy power settle into his core.
He was still Low B-Rank, but the density and quality of his mana had just skyrocketed. The shadows in the corner of the room seemed to bend and warp around him, reacting to his newly upgraded Phantom Path abilities.
Nyx pulled back, her chest heaving and her face deeply flushed.
Her sleek stealth suit was completely rumpled. She looked completely disoriented by the sheer pleasure of the soul transfer, her purple eyes struggling to re-focus on his face.
"Are we done negotiating?" Zen asked, keeping his hands firmly on her waist to keep her steady.
"We have a deal, Emperor," Nyx whispered shakily, forcing a weak smirk back onto her lips. "You take the throne. I take the network."
She took a step backward, the shadows immediately wrapping around her ankles. She was melting backward into the darkness, using her digital spatial magic to escape before the palace wards could detect the massive fluctuation of power they had just created.
Just as she faded entirely from view, a heavy, aggressive knock hit the double doors of the bedroom.
"Your Majesty!" an elite guard called out loudly from the hallway, his voice muffled by the thick mahogany wood. "The Empress requests your presence in the Imperial Vault immediately!"
Zen stood alone in the centre of the room.
He adjusted the collar of his shirt, letting the last traces of the ’Shadow’ fragment’s icy aura fade from his skin. He looked at the closed doors, knowing exactly what Aurelia’s 99.9% probability political trap entailed.
Zen smirked at the empty room. "Here we go."
