CHAPTER 60: THREE DAYS OF SILENCE
Princess Raven stared daggers at John.
Her crimson eyes were locked onto his motionless form, blazing with a mix of irritation and disbelief.
John sat cross-legged on the floor of their high-end suite provided by the Governor, his eyes firmly closed, chest rising and falling in a slow, rhythmic cadence.
He was meditating.
Which wouldn't have been annoying in the slightest—except for the fact that it had been three fucking days since he asked her to teach him necromancy.
She had started his lessons on the very first day, expecting him to struggle with the basic principles, just like any normal novice, maybe even worse since he didn't have any death affinity.
Instead, within hours, the absolute menace had slipped right past the foundational barriers and plunged headfirst into a deep state of enlightenment.
Enlightenment.
A rare, transcendent state of spiritual clarity that literal monsters who have lived for centuries and millennia struggled to achieve even once in their entire lives, often spending significant portions of their life meditating on the precipice of a breakthrough—and this idiot just waltzed into it.
Raven let out a grumbling sigh, her shoulders slumping slightly as she crossed her arms.
Sitting back on the plush velvet sofa, her thoughts inevitably drifted to how thoroughly John had shattered every single preconceived notion she held about him.
Before she had even been sent to be betrothed to him, she had done her homework. The rumors, the reports, and the background checks she received from her kingdom's intelligence network painted an atrocious picture.
They described a reckless, sociopathic monster—a degenerate so vile that she had actively planned to hire a high-tier assassin to quietly murder him the moment their political marriage concluded.
The only reason she hadn't called off the wedding entirely was out of sheer geopolitical necessity; her kingdom desperately needed the military and economic alliance with the Crimson Tempest Kingdom to survive the brewing wars with the Amalakyte kingdom.
Yet, looking at him now—sitting there with his dark hair framing a face that was, admittedly, not half bad when he wasn't looking like a deranged slasher villain—she realized her intelligence network had missed the mark entirely.
He wasn't a predictable degenerate. He was something far more dangerous, and far more baffling.
As if sensing her gaze, the cat-like beast that had bonded with her slinked over to her, letting out a soft purr before leaping gracefully onto her lap.
Raven's expression softened automatically. Her slender fingers began to gently stroke the creature's dark fur, her eyes drifting back to John's serene, meditating face.
He really is infuriatingly resilient, she thought, a grudging amusement touching her lips.
Before she could dwell on it any further, the heavy wooden door of the suite burst open.
Governor McGraw strode into the room, his face twisted into an expression of profound frustration and stress.
He opened his mouth to vent, but stopped dead in his tracks the second he spotted John sitting motionless on the floor.
McGraw's jaw dropped slightly. He pointed a trembling finger at John. "Is he... Is he still doing that?"
Raven sighed, her hand resting gently on the cat-like beast. "Yes."
McGraw ran a hand down his face, groaning out loud.
"Jesus Christ. This is a disaster. The Merchant Guild is hounding me morning and night, demanding I hand the two of you over for murdering Ronald."
"I only agreed to host them and set up this meeting because John told me to—he said he'd handle it! But now the guy has been sitting like a statue for seventy-two hours and isn't moving an inch!"
Raven's face slowly fell as well. A sudden wave of reality hit her as she remembered just how long John had been locked away in deep enlightenment.
If he didn't snap out of it soon, the Merchant Guild's patience would run out, and McGraw's fragile political grip on Oakhaven would completely collapse.
She stopped petting the cat, lifted it gently off her lap, and set it on the sofa.
Standing up, Raven turned her cold, regal gaze toward McGraw.
"Tell me where the Merchant Guild representatives are waiting," Raven said, her voice dropping into a dangerous, icy register.
"I'll go deal with them."
McGraw blinked, turning to her with a deeply questioning, skeptical look. He eyed her delicate frame and regal attire, muttering hesitantly, "Are... are you sure? There are a lot of them, and they brought armed mercenaries—"
Raven didn't bother arguing or explaining her capabilities. She adjusted the cuffs of her dark coat, a lethal glint flashing in her crimson eyes.
"Let's go," she said flatly.
Governor McGraw led Raven down the manor's grand, carpeted corridors toward the private reception wing.
As they walked, he lowered his voice, looking nervously over his shoulder.
"Look, Lady Raven," McGraw murmured, slipping momentarily back into his normal, frantic tone before catching himself.
"The leader of this delegation is Marcus Vance, a distant cousin of the late Master Ronald. He runs the Merchant Guild's inner circle here in Oakhaven. They're greedy, ruthless, and they control every coin that flows through the southern gates. Be careful—they aren't afraid to push back if they think you are weak."
Raven didn't reply, her expression a mask of cold indifference. She merely nodded once, her crimson eyes fixed on the heavy oak doors at the end of the hall.
McGraw pushed the doors open, revealing a lavishly furnished parlor.
Inside, four men were waiting. Three of them were heavily built merchants with crude jewelry and arrogant smirks, while the fourth—seated right in the middle—was remarkably well-groomed, possessing sharp, refined features and an expensive silk vest.
That was Marcus Vance.
As McGraw and Raven stepped inside, the three crude merchants immediately frowened, glaring at McGraw with hostile disbelief.
"Governor McGraw! What is the meaning of this?!" one of them barked, pointing an accusing finger.
"We demanded the murderer and his accomplice be handed over to us! Why are you bringing a mere woman here?"
McGraw squared his shoulders, instinctively slipping back into his cold, imposing city lord persona. His voice dropped into a sharp, authoritative register.
"Silence," McGraw commanded, his glare sweeping over the men.
"You will speak when spoken to, and you will show respect to Her Highness."
Marcus Vance didn't flinch. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, offering a slow, patronizing smile. He looked to his three associates, and the three men burst into loud, obnoxious laughter.
"Respect?" one of them jeered, eyeing Raven's delicate frame and striking appearance with open mockery.
"To a pretty little bitch? I suppose the Governor likes his meetings with a bit of scenery. Though, I bet she's a lot more useful in a bed than she is across a negotiating table."
Another laughed crudely, leaning forward to eye her up and down. "Hey, sweetcheeks. If you drop the noble act and keep us company for a day, maybe we'll convince Marcus to let your little boyfriend off easy. A pretty mouth like that shouldn't be wasting time with—"
Before the man could finish his sentence, the air in the room dropped ten degrees.
There was no sound of a spell being cast. A towering armored skeletal figure materialized directly behind the crude merchant like a phantom rising from a nightmare. Without a word, a bone-white hand lashed out with a rusted blade, slicing cleanly across the man's throat.
Gurgle.
The merchant's eyes bulged in absolute shock. He clutched at his bleeding neck as dark blood sprayed across the expensive rug, his knees buckling before he collapsed face-first onto the floor.
Silence reigned in the room.
For three full seconds, nobody moved. The merchant's bodyguards stationed near the door stood completely paralyzed, their brains struggling to process the sheer impossibility of what they had just witnessed.
Then, snapping out of their stupor, the two guards reached for their swords, roaring in fury as they charged toward Raven.
But before they could even take two steps, the cat-like beast came out of nowhere and instantly jumped forward.
In a sickening crunch, its body morphed mid-air into a terrifying three-meter-tall predator, its previous white fur turned pitch black, and its black pupils expanded, filling out the whites of its eyes with only a silver slit in the middle.
With brutal efficiency, its massive jaws clamped down, cleanly crunching the skull of the first guard before he could draw his blade.
The second bodyguard froze mid-charge, dropping his weapon as his entire body began to shake violently, his face draining of all color.
Across the table, the remaining merchants looked as though they were about to piss themselves. Panic-stricken, they whipped their heads toward Governor McGraw, expecting him to intervene—only to find the Governor standing frozen, his eyes wide with genuine shock. McGraw hadn't even known she could do that.
Before the panicking merchants could do anything catastrophically stupid, the decent-looking man in the center—Marcus Vance—slowly raised a single hand.
His face was pale, sweat beading slightly on his forehead, but he kept his voice remarkably steady.
"Stop," Marcus ordered his men, his eyes locked entirely on Raven.
He slowly stood up from his chair, brushing down his vest. He looked down at the bleeding corpse on the floor, then back at Raven, who stood completely unbothered, her hands neatly folded in front of her.
"You've made your point, my lady," Marcus said, his tone tight with suppressed tension. "But…That was... excessive. You went entirely overboard."
Raven tilted her head slightly, her crimson eyes piercing right through him.
"You shouldn't have taken it too far," she replied, her voice filled with an icy chill.
She took a slow, deliberate step forward, the oppressive weight of her dark aura pressing down on everyone in the room.
"This is the first time I have ever been disrespected this much in my entire life," Raven continued calmly.
"If you had pushed this any further, it wouldn't just be this city or your little guild facing consequences. The fallout of insulting my house would mean the total eradication of this entire region—and every single person stupid enough to stand in my way."
Marcus stared at her, his mind racing. He looked at the summoned skeleton that had vanished as quickly as it appeared, and the massive shadow beast currently purring softly beside her boots.
Necromancy was strictly outlawed across most civilized empires, but a display of such effortless death magic meant only one thing.
He began to piece the fragments together. A foreign noble with terrifying death arts that could crush others like this...
His eyes widened with realization.
"The Darkmire Kingdom..." Marcus whispered, the color completely draining from his face as he looked at her royal bearing.
Raven offered a thin, approving smile—genuinely pleased to see that someone in this room actually possessed a functional brain and knew about her kingdom.
"Now that stupidity is out of the way," Raven said smoothly, gesturing toward the empty chairs, "you can clearly see how antagonizing us is not in your best interest. Shall we sit and talk terms?"
Marcus slowly nodded, swallowing hard as he sank back into his seat. Around him, the other merchants were finally regaining their bearings, their faces gray with terror as they stared at Raven with newfound dread.
One of the trembling merchants cleared his throat nervously, glancing at the body on the floor. "B-but... what about him? What do we tell the guild about—"
Raven lifted a slender hand to her mouth, letting out a soft, theatrical gasp of mock surprise.
"Oh? Have you not heard?" she interrupted, her smile widening into something predatory and sweet.
"He must have forgotten to mention whose presence he was shouting at. The man you are currently trying to squeeze for execution... is the beloved son of the Void Mistress and the Crimson Emperor."
Hearing those words, every single merchant in the room turned entirely ghost-white.
Even Marcus Vance felt his heart skip a beat, the horrifying realization of just who they had picked a fight with setting in.
Raven leaned forward, resting her hands on her knees, her crimson eyes gleaming with absolute dominance.
"Now," she purred softly, "Can I assume this matter is resolved?"