Chapter 93: The Promise That Broke Him
Back in the present time.
Melvin slowly descended from the tree line, his movements silent and deliberate.
With every step down, memories crashed over him like relentless waves — the warmth of his sister’s embrace, the loving mornings, the betrayal that followed.
His face remained stone cold, but inside, a storm of ice and fire raged.
When his feet finally touched the ground, he reached up and placed the Dreamer’s Mask over his face.
In that instant, his entire presence vanished from perception — undetectable, like a ghost walking among the living.
Then, he slowly made his way toward the entrance of what had once been his home.
The instant he crossed through the gates, the truth struck him with an unexpected force. Not a trace of the Blackwood colors remained, and not a single familiar face greeted his eyes.
Loria women moved through the city with arrogant confidence, their black and brown garments flowing like victory flags.
One sharply featured woman in her thirties snapped her fingers at a sweating man struggling with a heavy crate.
"Faster, you worthless worm," she barked. "If those supplies aren’t ready for tonight’s feast, I’ll have you stripped and whipped in the central square again."
The man kept his head down and hurried away without a word of protest.
Further down the street, a group of Loria women laughed loudly as they passed a line of exhausted male laborers.
One of them deliberately kicked dirt onto a young man’s boots to watch him flinch.
Melvin’s hands clenched into fists at his sides, his knuckles whitening. In that moment, his mind went straight to the people who mattered most to him.
’My sister... Mother... Father...’ Melvin thought, his heart tightening with cold fury.
Even though they were the very ones who had ordered his death and forced him into hiding, he knew without a doubt that the Prince of Loria and the kingdom itself were behind it all.
-----
He continued deeper into the palace like a ghost.
The grand halls that once echoed with life, laughter, and hurried footsteps were now eerily silent.
Dust drifted lazily through the shafts of sunlight. No maids bustled by with trays of food, and no guards lingered at their posts.
Only the faint creak of old wood and the hollow echo of his own footsteps answered him.
His frown deepened with every empty room he pushed open.
Until he reached the throne room.
The heavy doors swung open with a low, mournful groan.
The sight inside froze him where he stood.
"What...."
----
His father — the man who had once carried him on his shoulders and allowed him to live the life of a child...
He hung naked from the ceiling in heavy, enchanted chains.
Beside him hung the King of Loria and several other highborn men, all exposed and broken.
Below them, a grotesque glowing formation pulsed with sickening rhythm, steadily draining their life force and seed into large crystalline containers.
The wet, rhythmic sounds of the process filled the chamber like a horrible mockery.
Melvin stood there for a long moment; breath caught in his throat.
The humiliation, the degradation, the utter stripping away of dignity from the man who had once been his hero—it all settled in his chest like shards of frozen glass.
A rough, fractured sound slipped from his lips, heavy with the weight of what he could not put into words.
"Father, this... this is what they did to you?" He muttered to himself as tears of rage and grief burned at the corners of his white eyes.
Then something deep inside him finally snapped.
"All of Loria... must die."
He turned and walked back down the long hallway.
Hummmm!!!!
With every step, winter followed him.
Frost spread across the marble floors in delicate, deadly patterns. Ice crystals formed on the walls and chandeliers.
The temperature plummeted so sharply that the air itself seemed to freeze.
When he reached the palace entrance and looked out over the kingdom that he once called home, his voice came out low, cold, and filled with absolute certainty.
"All of Loria must die."
In that instant, his sword slid into his grip with the gentle chime of steel meeting air.
Then he was in motion—fluid, precise, and impossibly fast.
Invisible to the eye, inexorable in his advance, he became less a man and more a storm unleashed, a force of nature that could not be denied.
-----
SHKKKK!!!!
The first Loria woman never saw him coming.
She was standing in the middle of the street, arrogantly ordering two trembling men to carry heavier loads. Melvin’s blade flashed once across her throat.
Before a drop of blood could fall, frost exploded through her veins. She froze solid mid-shout, mouth still open in command, becoming a perfect ice statue of authority.
And... he didn’t slow his pace.
A moment later, two more Loria women rounded the corner, laughing as they tugged along a group of chained men, pulling them behind like unruly pets.
Melvin stepped in close.
SHKKKKK!!!!
As his sword moved in clean, efficient arcs.
Both women froze instantly — one with her whip still raised, the other with a cruel smile still frozen on her face.
The men they had been tormenting watched in stunned silence as their captors turned into shimmering ice statues.
SHKKKK!!!!!
"All of Loria... will fall," Melvin muttered with icy resolve, leaving the lifeless men behind as he moved on.
Further ahead, a group of Loria women sat outside a café, loudly commanding male servants to bring them more wine and food.
Melvin strode right through them, his blade singing.
Each woman froze in her seat — some mid-laugh, some mid-order, some still pointing imperiously at the men.
Then, as he moved on, he spotted a mother and daughter pair walking by, both dressed in fine Loria colors, scolding a young boy for walking too slowly.
Melvin cut them all down without hesitation.
The mother froze protectively over her daughter, both turned into delicate, tragic ice figures — symbols of the very matriarchy that had overtaken his home.
Through it all, Melvin felt absolutely nothing.
There was no pause, no second-guessing, and certainly no shred of compassion—just a steady, unflinching efficiency....
The kind of cold precision he had, almost without realizing, picked up from watching Akasha deal with problems in her own final, decisive way.
As a Loria woman spotted the growing number of ice statues and screamed for the guards.
Melvin was already standing behind her when, with one swift and clean motion, it was done.
She froze in the middle of her scream, her hand still lifted as if to give an order.
Without looking back, he continued walking.
Everywhere he went, the matriarchal order crumbled into frozen silence.
Women who had spent years dominating men now stood as beautiful, lifeless ice sculptures — some still wearing expressions of superiority, others frozen mid-order, forever trapped in their arrogance.
When it was done, Melvin walked slowly — almost methodically — back toward the palace.
Behind him, the once vibrant kingdom looked like a frozen wasteland.
The streets sparkled with frost, and bodies remained frozen in their final moments, like eerie yet beautiful statues bathed in the glow of the seven suns.
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