Vale stared at Ivor, a strange, flabbergasted expression slowly forming on his face.
For a heartbeat, he didn't move.
Then he took a step back.
His eyes widened as the meaning of the words finally sank in, his breath hitching slightly. He took another step, then another, until instinct took over and his gaze snapped away from the butler entirely.
Vale looked around frantically.
His eyes swept across the immense library, the towering shelves, the spiraling staircases, the open, echoing center of the tower. He searched desperately for anything that resembled a door, a gate, a passageway, something. As his panic mounted, the words burst out of him.
"So let me get this right," Vale said quickly, spinning back around, his voice tight with disbelief. "We're supposed to meet the strongest person in the kingdom in thirty seconds… with zero preparation?"
Ivor waited a moment, as if considering whether the question even deserved an answer.
Then he nodded once.
"Correct," he said calmly. "It seems even a beast can understand basic language."
Vale hissed quietly through his teeth.
He turned sharply toward Drago, his movements abrupt and restless. His arms crossed tightly over his chest, and his foot began tapping against the stone floor in quick, nervous beats.
"Is there anything we need to know?" Vale asked, forcing himself to meet Drago's gaze. "Anything at all?"
Drago slowly opened his eyes.
He lifted his cup and took an unhurried sip of tea, the faint aroma drifting through the air, before answering in the same measured tone as always.
"Not really."
Vale stumbled back half a step, his nerves flaring.
'This can't be real,' he thought, drawing in a slow, steady breath to keep himself from spiraling.
If they truly were about to meet Ares, the commander of the royal guard, in such a short span of time, how was he supposed to prepare? What words were safe? What actions would be seen as disrespect? What single mistake would earn him a blade through the chest?
His thoughts raced.
Slowly, Vale turned toward Eskar, who stood nearby with a similarly distant expression, clearly lost in his own thoughts. Judging by the silence and the tension in the air, they couldn't have more than twenty seconds left now.
"Hey," Vale said quietly, glancing around again. "Any idea what we might need to know?"
Eskar narrowed his eyes slightly, clutching the crimson egg closer to his chest.
"I can't think of anything," he admitted after a moment. "And with the time we have… I don't think I will."
Vale exhaled through his nose.
"That's great," he muttered.
He crossed his arms again, one hand rising to cover his mouth as his eyes scanned the library once more. Still nothing. No hidden doors. No shifting walls. No sign of anyone approaching.
Slowly, Vale turned back toward Drago.
The old man had begun removing his robe.
Vale blinked.
He had never seen Drago without it before.
The heavy black fabric slipped from Drago's shoulders, revealing a pristine white suit beneath, sharp and immaculate, untouched by dust or wear. It looked brand new, as though it had been tailored and pressed moments ago.
Vale stared.
They had traveled for over a month.
'How is it that clean?' he wondered, suspicion creeping into his expression. Time ticked by, each second stretching longer than the last, until Drago finally noticed the stare.
He turned, one gray eyebrow lifting slightly as he clasped his hands behind his hunched back.
"Is there something wrong?" Drago asked evenly.
Vale's eyes widened faintly as he realized he had been staring for far too long.
Quickly, he shook his head, seizing the opportunity to redirect the moment into a question.
"If you don't mind me asking," Vale said carefully, "I don't see a door anywhere. How exactly is Ares supposed to enter?"
Drago let out a low chuckle.
The sound echoed through the vast chamber, rolling along the stone walls like distant thunder.
"Ares does not require a point of entrance," Drago replied. "Nor does our staff. If they wish to enter… they simply do."
Vale frowned.
He crossed his arms again, his posture tightening as he studied Drago with a look that bordered on suspicion.
"What exactly do you mean by that?" Vale asked slowly.
The air around them felt heavier now, as though the library itself were holding its breath.
Slowly, Vale felt something settle in his chest.
It was not pain.
It was not fear, at least, not at first.
It was a presence.
A pressure that did not belong inside him, a weight that had no right to exist so close, as if someone were staring at him from afar, yet that afar did not feel distant at all. It felt immediate. Intimate. As though the space between observer and observed had simply ceased to exist.
Vale swallowed.
His throat felt dry, and the sound echoed far too loudly in his ears. His eyes widened as cold sweat began to bead along his brow, sliding down the side of his face in slow, icy trails. The air around him thickened, darkened, and then,
A shadow fell over him.
It was vast.
It swallowed the light without effort, drowning Vale in its darkness as it crept forward, stretching across the stone floor and crawling up his body. His instincts screamed at him to move, to run, to turn, to draw his blade, to do something.
His body did nothing.
It refused.
Muscles locked in place, nerves seized, breath caught halfway in his lungs. He could not step away. He could not raise his arms. He could not even flinch.
It was happening again.
The memory struck him with brutal clarity, Barbatos. That same suffocating sensation, that same realization that what stood before him was not merely stronger, but fundamentally beyond him. A force of nature so immense that it did not need intent to kill; its very existence radiated death.
Vale's body chose the only response it knew.
Be still.
Be small.
Be nothing.
Pretend to be dead. Pretend to be harmless. Pretend you are not worth noticing.
His heart thundered violently in his chest as saliva dragged thickly down his throat. He swallowed again, barely managing it this time.
He knew who stood behind him.
He did not need to turn to understand that.
Then a voice spoke.
It was close, far too close, yet it sounded distant, warped, as if reality itself struggled to justify its presence. The tone was calm, almost curious, but there was something fundamentally wrong about it, something that made Vale's bones ache.
"What does he mean, you ask?"
The words brushed against Vale's ears rather than entering them, vibrating through his skull instead of the air.
His eyes trembled.
With monumental effort, Vale forced his neck to move. Every inch felt like it was tearing against invisible restraints as he slowly, slowly turned his head.
And looked up.
The man standing behind him was tall, taller than even Korin, his presence dominating the space as completely as the tower itself. Long, lustrous scarlet hair cascaded down his back, flowing freely despite the absence of wind. His eyes were a deep, predatory crimson, settled on Vale with utter indifference, like a king regarding an insect beneath his heel.
He wore a formal white suit, immaculate and sharply cut, its military lines clinging to his powerful frame as though it had been forged for him alone.
Vale's breath hitched.
From the man's head rose two massive horns, curved and imposing, thrusting upward as if reaching for the heavens themselves, less adornment, more declaration. They looked like weapons grown rather than crafted.
His skin was pale, almost unnaturally so.
And across his face ran a brutal scar, horizontal, savage, cutting through his lip and slicing across one eye as though something had once tried, and failed, to kill him.
His shoulders bore unmistakable draconoid traits, enormous spikes protruding outward, jagged and immovable, like the peaks of a living mountain.
He was not merely standing there.
He was anchored to the world.
For a moment, the man said nothing.
He allowed Vale to see him.
To understand him.
Then he leaned closer.
The distance between them vanished. Scarlet hair fell partially across his face as he maintained unbroken eye contact, his presence pressing down harder, heavier, until Vale's knees nearly buckled beneath the invisible weight.
Then his lips moved.
Pink. Calm. Final.
"It means," the man said softly, "that I am not someone who is let in."
Vale's vision blurred.
"When I wish to enter," the man continued, his voice steady, absolute, "I do."
He paused, watching Vale tremble.
"Simply because there is nobody," he said, his gaze unchanging, "who can stop me."
Silence followed.
A suffocating, crushing silence.
Then the man tilted his head ever so slightly.
"Do you understand?"