The Young Master in the Shadows

Stepping out of the fog, Victor found himself in a large imperial court that was built out of marble in the same gothic elvish style of the palace below with huge lanterns floating in midair shooting strange lightning streaks into the sky, it gave the entire hall a bluish tint.

And yes, the hall didn’t have any walls or ceilings despite the large gothic arcs extending across the sky above being supported by long decorated columns that were scattered in a seemingly random pattern around the hall.

It was as if this entire court was suspended in midair in the middle of a huge storm, yet for some strange reason he couldn’t feel a breeze as if he was inside.

In the center of the court, a stairway extended up for about steps, and on top of it was a throne where a woman that was veiled by blue mist sat. The storm lord.

Oh, this woman was twice as strong as that Sun lord… And he was right about the curse… And that thread, it must have been why she is still alive, literally hanging by a thread!… It was like those artifacts in video games that left you with 1 health point after a deadly attack! HE WANTED IT… Too bad he had no way of taking it from the storm lord. �

He didn’t dare to look any longer so he slowly moved his eyes down to observe the 9 people standing respectfully below the throne.

The first three were people he knew. The first was Aerith who shot him an apologetic look for embroidering him into this, the second was Rosette who was threatening him with her eyes to act properly. The third was the old librarian, Germina.

Next were the four young men who were with Lizor that day acting as his lackeys, they were shaking out of fear as they stood to the side.

The last two whom he didn’t know were a strange man who seemed to be Lizor’s father and a strange woman who stood to the side silently with a smirk on her face as if she found the entire situation amusing.

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Next...

The lord’s disciples…

Victor inspected everyone casually as he walked toward the throne, finally noticing a glass coffin in front of it. In it is the corpse of the late Lizor, naked with only his private parts covered by a white piece of silk. His body seemed to have been cut into 5 pieces and sewn back together!

Keeping his eyes on it, Victor sighed as he reached a spot near Aerith, then bowed down according to the protocol Lyra taught him along the way here.

“Victor White, greats the storm lord!” he said respectfully. He could hear Aerith beside him sigh in relief after seeing that he was keeping his manners. He should never speak unless he was spoken to!

The Storm lord inspected him for an entire minute before speaking. “You may raise…” she said. Her voice, although authoritative, was somehow weak.

Victor, whose vision was being filled with warnings about someone appraising him, didn’t act suspiciously as he stood up. He just made sure that his disguise was working just fine.

“Now that everyone who was at the scene is here, you may present your case!” the Storm lord said.

“Your lordship,” Lazarus was the one who spoke. “Let me say it in simple words! My son was definitely a victim of a vicious plot!” he said passionately. “It must have all been Rosette’s plan to get rid of my son!”

“Lies!” Rosette defended herself. “All the witnesses have already explained what happened there… Your son was a victim of demonic possession! It is out of pity that Aerith didn’t cut him into a million pieces when he tried to self-destruct!”

“Then why did the demon possess my son out of everyone else there?” Lazarus asked.

“Your son took the book on his own accord there… Everyone would testify to that!” Rosette defended making Germina, the librarian, nod. “Lizor dropped the book and caused it to be damaged… This might have been the condition for the possession!” she added.

“Good, then why would my son scream and drop the book in the first place?” Lazarus snapped.

“...” No one had a reply for that. This was one of the points no one could answer. “Maybe it was the book testing him to see if he was fit to be possessed,” Rosette suggested, but it was clear from her tone that she was unconvinced.

“It could be, but it could also be a plot!!” Lazarus said, walking toward the glass coffin and gesturing to his son. “Lady Rosette, If I may ask, other than attacking my son with a sword, did your daughter deal any other damage to him?”

“No…” Rosette replied. “He was using his storm steps perfectly to escape all my attacks. As soon as Aerith’s team arrived and we cornered him, he tried to self-destruct to jump to another body, so she had to use my strongest attack to kill him!” she replied looking at her daughter who was ordered to remain silent. “This is all according to protocol!”

“I know,” Lazarus said, grabbing the cloth covering his son’s private parts and pulling it away. “Can you explain this then?” he asked, making everyone look and almost gasp.

The corps’s private parts were swollen three times the normal size.

“Your son is a real hunk…” Atma, the lord’s first disciple, couldn’t help but chuckle.

Lazarus just shot her a glare before he looked back at the lord. “My son must have suffered some kind of attack on his private parts… You see, he always had this medical condition that caused any bruises he suffered to immediately inflame.”

“Oh…” the lard was interested.

Hearing him Victor began to sweat a little. DAMN SCIONS and their luck, even his son’s medical condition worked in his favor… SHIT… He should have been more careful!

“ This might be the cause of his yell at the library… The reason why he dropped the book!” Lazarus explained as he let everyone inspect the corpse.

“It could also be the effect of the demon’s possession; bodily modification, although rare, is not unheard of!” Rosette interjected.

“Body modifications wouldn’t cause his… ehm…. Reproductive organs break!” Lazarus snapped, making everyone look at the corpse's private parts again where Lazrous was pointing. It was clearly broken…

Victor sweated more, but he disguised it away quickly… He should have kicked him a little softer, but he was not sure about the demon’s pain tolerance!

“Why was this not in the autopsy report?” Rosette asked with a frown.

“I asked them to withhold it temporarily until the end of the investigation, “ Lazerous snapped, clearly showing that he had suspected Rosette from the beginning as he took a few papers from his storage ring and presented them to his lord. “I didn’t want anyone to try and tamper with the evidence!” he added, hinting at something.

“You…” Rosette wanted to curse, but she held her words.

The storm lord, who said nothing, waved her hand, making the papers levitate on their own, then head straight toward her where they spread in midair in front of her, allowing her to read them.

“It is true…” she finally said.

“...This changes nothing… “ Rosette intrejected. “Madam Germina was there, and so were your son’s lackeys, Aerith didn’t attack your son before he became a demon!”

“Aerith didn’t… But someone did…” Lazarus said, pointing at Victor.

“Me?” Victor asked in shock. He figured that this guy was suspecting him from the moment he mentioned the injury. The question was WHY.

“You are the prime suspect…” Lazarus said.

“Elaborate!” the storm lord said.

“First of all let me set things straight. This young man named Victor white is supposed to be from a minor noble family, but this is all a lie right?” Lazarus asked.

“He is a distant relative of Lady Ariana…” Rosette explained. “I used to date his father…” She hid nothing.

The storm lord nodded behind her veil, Rosette must have told her everything about Victor beforehand.

“What does all of this have to do with your son?” Rosette asked.

“Everything… “ Lazarus spat. “You might have thought you had fooled me by that report of Lyra arresting him and then removing his powers before throwing him into the competition, but look, I have acquired the reports of what happened there…” he said, taking another stack of documents…” Victor clearly had all his powers in there, many witnesses would testify to how he always seemed to be somewhere else when anything attacked him… He was clearly using some disguise or illusion skill, this might be what he used against my son!” he said. “It was all your plot!”

Victor froze, although Lazarus got things wrong, he was right about a few things! Shit…

This time the lord didn’t grab the documents, she already knew that thanks to Rosette informing her about the

“According to all of this, I believe he was the one who attacked him at the library and caused him to drop the book!” Lazarus spat.

Everyone paused.

“Victor did have his powers during the competition… But This is unimportant now…” Rosette finally said. “Everything else you said is just speculation on your side, he doesn’t even have a disguise skill!”

“It could be an artifact!” Lazarus spat.

“Still… You have no evidence…” she said.

“Who said I don’t!” he spat,, taking out a strange little crystal hammer from his storage ring.

What the… Inspecting the hammer Victor had a bad premonition. SHIT SHIT SHIT…. It didn’t take him a lot to realize what this was about! He immediately started thinking of a way to escape…

“Your lordship, might I get permission to use this artifact here?” he turned to the storm lord and asked.

“Granted…” the lord who clearly knew what this was said.

“This is?” Rosette asked.

“It is an old artifact… Simply put, it has the ability to force the settlement of a debt!” Lazarus said. “For example, if someone punched you, you could hit yourself with it, and that person would get his punch back!” he said, and before his words settled in, he swiftly took the hammer and hit his son’s chest before anyone could realize what he meant.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…………………..” Aerith screamed in pain as she fell to her knees, touching her body as if she was about to die. On her, five ethereal blue sword marks appeared mirroring those on Lizor’s corpse.

“AERITH!” Rosette screamed as she wanted to grab her weapon.

“Relax, the effect is imaginary…” the Storm Lord said.

“Ah. What…" Rosette gasped as she inspected Aerith’s body. As the ethereal marks disappeared, there were no signs of injury, but the girl was hurting, grasping her chest and abdomen in pain as if they were real!

“Yes. It is all imaginary, but the pain is real…. This was Aertih’s debt to my son…” Lazarus said with a smug voice. “Now… I wonder who would be next…” he said as he grabbed the hammer again and hit Lizor’s body again.

“NO…” Aerith yelled for some reason, but no one cared as they looked at Victor…

BAM

The hummer connected.

PAM!

The ethereal mark didn’t appear on Victor, but on Lazarus's face, it was as if he was slapped by an invisible hand.

“What the…”

“NO!” Ignoring the pain on his face, Lazarus screamed again and hit his son’s corpse.

PAM!

This time a kick on Lazarus’s ass, sending him rolling to the ground.

Eh….

“Little Laz… You really like to beat your son’s face don’t you?” Atma was the one who said it as she smirked. Some of Lizor's lackeys who stood to the other side were about to laugh, but they didn't dare to.

“Ah…. I…” Lazarus who quickly stood up angrily was left speechless… What did this mean? IT meant that from the time he beat up his son to the time Aerith killed him, he was not attacked at all!

HOW COULD THAT BE?

That was the question everyone had, and the only answer was… It was really all just a coincidence!

…

Well, it was not that simple, moments earlier when Victor saw the hammer, he activated all his senses earlier to find a loophole, he saw what happened with Aerith.

The moment the hammer struck, a red thread appeared between Aerith and Lizor’s corpse, then the thread burned up rapidly, and as if it was a rubber band that was let loose, it left Lizor and struck back at Aerith making 5 imaginary sword marks appear on her body before she screamed in pain.

He knew that thread… It was a fate thread! The hammer… Maybe it was the fate artifact he was after!

But other than worrying about it for now, he had to worry about himself…

He quickly used his disguise to hide what he was doing as he squinted his eyes and activated his ‘Eyes of Destiny’ skill, looking at Lizor, and making sure not to glance at the Storm Lord just in case.

He could see it, between the myriad of fading threads the corpse had, a red thread connecting both of them.

He instinctively knew that the moment Lazarus hit his son’s corpse again, this thread would snap and hit him in the balls… Although he might be able to disguise it, if nothing happened it would raise many questions. And he was not 100% sure he would be able to fool the lord.

Watching Lazrous prepare to strike the hammer again he knew he had to act fast. He needed to sever that thread!

The question was how… he had no such skill… Unless

Without thinking about it, he used his Devour skill to target the thread…

The thread flashed once and then turned into dust that was sucked by Victor.

At the same time the notification appeared, Victor could feel his connection to Lizor grow weaker as if they were complete strangers… No wait, they were strangers to begin with.

It was as if the memory of what happened earlier was something Victor watched on TV and not something he did…

BOOM…

The hummer struck a moment later, and without Victor’s thread, the one that activated was the next one, chronologically… The one of Lazarus slapping his son that morning!