Chapter 191:
Anasil sat perched at his desk, the scratch of a quill against a heavy leather ledger the only sound in the room. He scanned the names of the condemned—men and women rotting in the city's depths—with the detached hunger of a bookkeeper. A sharp knock preceded Joshim, who entered with a measured, wary step.
"I have a job for you, Joshim," Anasil said, his lips curling into a thin, clinical smile.
Joshim's brow furrowed. "What kind?"
"The harvest kind. Scour the slums by the southern gate. Collect the discarded—the ones no one will miss," Anasil replied smoothly.
"And what of the 'White Plague'?" Joshim asked, his voice dropping an octave. "Leornars is within the borders. He isn't a variable we can ignore."
Anasil leaned back, the sunlight catching his blond hair just as a stray gust of wind stirred the curtains. "He is but a boy. Leave my brother to me. I've woven a slave-rigging scandal deep enough to keep him chasing shadows until my work is complete."
As he spoke, Anasil's eyes ignited with a brilliant, predatory cyan glow. "We must also silence the Grants. They've become... talkative. And a talkative witness is a failed experiment."
"What are you planning for him, truly?" Joshim's gaze was heavy with concern. "He is your blood."
"He is a variable," Anasil corrected, standing up and gliding toward the window. "A burden I am deleting. I sacrificed too much to secure those twins; I won't lose my prize to family sentiment." He shut the window with a definitive *thud*. "Now, go. I have word my latest... offspring... has been born. Eustus deserves my congratulations."
The carriage rattled toward the **Ashvilliah Medical Hospital**. As Anasil stepped through the doors, the atmosphere shifted. Healers and junior doctors bowed their heads, their respect thick with a fear they couldn't name.
*Disgusting insects,* Anasil thought, his expression a mask of professional grace.
In the privacy of his office, he donned his white coat and draped a crystal-embedded stethoscope around his neck. He leafed through a file detailing incoming shipments of human organs and fresh "patients" with the same boredom one might feel reading a grocery list.
"Life is fragile," he murmured, glancing at the ring on his finger with a cold, hollow gaze. "And so very easy to break."
He reached into a drawer, pulling out a small jar of grey ash. With a flick of his wrist, he sprinkled the remains into an aquarium on his desk. The goldfishes darted upward, mindlessly consuming the flakes.
"You see, Mother?" Anasil smiled, his reflection in the glass looking like a stranger's. "Even in death, your ashes are finally benefiting the world."
On the other side of the capital, **Leornars Servs Avrem** sat in the stillness of his own manor. He moved with a quiet, regal efficiency, signing a trade contract with a merchant from the Northern Empire.
"Trade is flourishing," Leornars noted, his voice a calm contrast to the storm he carried within. "My citizens will have what they need."
He handed the parchment to a waiting maid and, in a flicker of displaced air, teleported.
He reappeared at the Royal Knighthood training grounds. His long white hair was pinned back with gold, his crimson eyes scanning the field. The wind whipped at his silk shirt as he walked, his slippers silent against the dirt. At first, no one noticed the boy—until he let his aura slip.
The air instantly thickened, turning heavy and viscous like lead.
Rank-and-file knights collapsed to their knees, gasping for oxygen that had suddenly vanished. **Captain Selma Aritorica** was the only one who kept her feet, her hand white-knuckled on the hilt of her sword. Each step she took toward him was a battle against a physical weight.
"Who are you?" she demanded, her voice strained. "What is your business here?"
"Perfect," Leornars said, settling himself onto a jagged rock. He reined in his aura, and the sudden rush of air back into the clearing caused several knights to heave. "I didn't care for your name, either."
"Answer me!" Selma snapped.
"I am the King of Avangard. Leornars Servs Avrem."
The tension in Selma's shoulders broke, replaced by a rigid, formal salute. "My apologies, Your Majesty. I did not recognize—"
"Save the salute for Alaric," Leornars interrupted. "I am a foreign king here. I am only here for the records of your nation's criminals."
"Criminal documents? I see. Follow me."
As they walked toward the castle spires, the silence between them grew taut.
"Lord Leornars," Selma began, not looking back. "Will your presence here bring ruin to this nation?"
"If the dominoes fall as I intend? Probably not."
Selma gripped her sword tighter. "I have allies in the surrounding kingdoms. I know your reputation, King of Avangard."
"And what do they call me?"
"An apocalypse in the form of a boy," she said flatly.
Leornars stopped. The temperature seemed to drop. "Are you afraid of me, Captain?"
Selma turned, her blade clearing its scabbard in a blur of motion. She didn't wait for an answer. The air whistled as her sword carved an arc toward his neck. Leornars didn't flinch; he simply tilted his head back, the steel missing his throat by a hair's breadth.
He moved with a fluid, haunting speed, dodging a follow-up thrust by pivoting on his heel. Selma roared, her blade igniting with a protective golden glow that signaled the activation of her mana. She unleashed a flurry of strikes—horizontal slashes that should have bisected a normal man—but Leornars danced through them like a ghost.
He flipped onto the roof of a nearby shed, his slippers silent on the wood. Selma didn't hesitate; she swung her blade upward, sending a crescent of golden energy tearing through the structure. The roof shattered, but Leornars was already airborne. He dropped back down with a devastating heel-kick. Selma raised her forearm, the golden light forming a dense shield that cracked under the sheer physical force of his impact.
The shockwave blew the surrounding dust into a halo. Selma slid back ten feet, her boots furrowing the earth. "Is that all, King?" she challenged, her eyes burning.
She charged again, her movements becoming a blur of lightning-fast stabs. Leornars parried the flats of her blade with his bare palms, the sound of skin hitting mana-enhanced steel ringing like a bell. He twisted her momentum, forcing her to overextend. As she stumbled, she performed a mid-air recovery, spinning her blade in a full circle to force him back.
Leornars smirked, his crimson eyes gleaming with a bored hunger. He disappeared.
Selma's instincts screamed. She swung a wide, desperate arc behind her, but her sword hit nothing but air. She felt a sudden, impossible weight on her weapon. Looking down in shock, she saw Leornars squatting on the very edge of her blade, his weight seemingly non-existent, his balance a mockery of physics.
The world seemed to freeze. He reached out and playfully flicked her forehead.
"Careful," he whispered, his voice a chilling silk that cut through the wind. "You'd hate to accidentally decapitate yourself. You're far too interesting to kill today."
He flipped backward, landing effortlessly as Selma stood paralyzed, her hands trembling as she sheathed her sword.
"Let's get those documents," Leornars said, his regal mask returning as if the violence had never happened.