Chapter 434: Dark Delight

A few months back -Prince Lucien suddenly awoke from a deep and long slumber on a luxurious bed. He gasped for breath again and again, as if he had seen a horrifying nightmare.

For a moment, he was extremely confused; his head was spinning, and even his body felt weak. His eyes felt blurry. A piercing headache was splitting his head apart. He slowly noticed the bed he was sleeping on and felt confused, his bed in the academy dorm wasn’t this soft, where was he?

Only when the headache had slightly receded did his blurry vision clear, and he noticed that the room he was in was his room in the royal palace of Suncrest. And his heart palpitated as he thought about the last thing he remembered.

But he felt shocked; he couldn’t think of anything. His memories felt hollow and blank. A sense of profound wrongness swept through his mind. As he began to focus more, he closed his eyes. The headache returned even stronger, but he didn’t care and kept focusing on his memories.

He had to get to the end of it; this wrongness that was permeating within him would only grow stronger and stronger. He had to at least get to some clue of it. A complete blank of such great length in his memories meant his mind was definitely messed with by someone or something powerful.

His first suspect was his father, the king, but he quickly discarded that thought.

Blood started coming out of his nose and ears, his complexion grew even paler, but some form of the memories also started to return, that’s right. The academy was attacked, and since he was on the other side of Academy Island, within the deep areas of the Beast Forest.

He wasn’t clear on the complete situation, but he had felt the enormous number of dark and powerful creatures that were gathering on the other side of the island; he had also sensed the first few powerful clashes between Alric Stragoy and the powerful, unknown invader.

Then he felt that his little sister Lumina was in danger. Rushing back to that side to help her.

But then, then....

Someone, or something, stopped him, something extremely sinister to the point that he did not manage to come out on top, despite using the complete power of his Partial Dragon transformation.

He could not help but shudder; it wasn’t that he thought that he was invincible with the power of the Dragons, he knew very well that even with such strength. There were countless other powerful organisms roaming through the continent, even amongst the younger generation members, against the strongest ones from the seven ruling races. He could definitely lose.

Besides, his mastery and assimilation of the Golden Dragon’s power were still very minuscule. Maybe one day, when he was able to assimilate the complete control of the strongest dragon into his veins, only then could he perhaps stand at the same heights as Gilderon the Glorious.

By now, blood had already covered his entire face, coming out from all of his orifices. In the end, he could not make out the blurry silhouette of the demonic figure whom he was fighting against.

He was forced to stop himself when he was close to fainting. Getting up from the bed, he washed himself. There was one thing he needed to know before anything else. It’s whether Lumina, his little sister, was alright.

He hoped to find that out from his hazy memories, but there was obviously nothing like that there. He did not even get to participate in the central conflict of what had occurred. At the back of his mind, he was also scared, extremely scared.

What would he do, if... if something happened to Lumina? He couldn’t live in this world if something happened to her. But just as that terrifying possibility was flashing through his mind, the massive door of his room opened without anyone knocking.

A beautiful, flowery fragrance spread through the room. Lucien turned back from the mirror; the face of his innocent, beautiful little sister appeared in his vision, and it stunned him. A gratified smile rose on Lucien’s lips, and tears started to gather at the corner of his eyes.

Lumina was also extremely shocked, similar to Lucien himself, until a beautiful smile blossomed on her pretty face. She hugged her brother dearly and started crying, "Thank the heavens, you’re ok, you’re ok. You woke up."

Lucien wiped her tears, "Stupid girl. That’s what I should be saying. I don’t even know what happened. I was useless. I’m sorry."

Lumina shook her head and hugged Lucien even more tightly, as the two siblings remained silent for an extended period of time. Just glad that they were both okay. Lumina spoke again, "Let me call mother. She was also so worried for you."

But Lucien grabbed her hand tightly and stopped her, "First, tell me everything that happened, I mean everything, from the start."

Lumina was taken aback, though she never liked it when her brother was serious and forceful about something. But she could see it deep in his eyes that there was a lingering fear. He wanted her to stay near him.

She grabbed his brother’s hand tightly, and they both sat on the couch together as she recounted everything from the start.

With every word Lumina revealed, Lucien’s eyes rippled, as if he were living through that harrowing experience himself. He could not believe it, the impossible things that happened, and despite all that, they had actually survived.

But there were also some gaps in Lumina’s explanation, as Axel Nomrad’s existence was erased from everyone’s memories. The two things that were most shocking to Lucien were that the Valkyrie was able to defeat a peak 4th-phase knight.

Then the other was the fact that almost 500 of the students had survived till the bitter end, but some inexplicable attack of the High-Lich had killed most of them, and only 9 among them had survived. He could not help but shiver at the possibility of how close Lumina was to absolute death.

Lucien wanted to scold Lumina, but in the end, did not have the heart to do so, looking at her brightly smiling face. As a brother, he hoped that she would always be this pristine and untainted. But this world was too cruel; no reasonable person could ever survive it without becoming somewhat evil themselves.

That was precisely why he needed to become stronger, so strong that no one, even amongst the other races, could even dare think about touching his dear ones.

His mother came rushing not long after, as the maids had delivered the news of Lucien waking up from sleep to her.

Though Lucien’s mother, Queen Larissa, was usually a cold and calculating woman, she could not help but cry when she saw both of her children come out alive, healthy, and sound. After a while, Larissa sent Lumina out of the room to get something to eat for Lucien.

As soon as the innocent Lumina left, Lucien’s expression turned sharp as he asked his mother, with a strange glint, "Is it true?"

Larissa smiled darkly as she understood what her son was asking about and nodded, "Tomorrow you will see with your very own eyes."

The next day, a grand funeral was being held inside the Suncrest royal palace; rows upon rows of important individuals from the entire Suncrest great kingdom had come, invited by the royal family.

Because the funeral was obviously in honor of the three deceased children of the king, who had died in this attack by the ghost race, but mostly in honor of the First Prince, who was also the acclaimed crown prince of Suncrest.

Everyone wore black clothes, remaining standing in front of the three golden brown caskets that held the dead bodies of the two princes and one princess.

A formal speech was delivered regarding them, spoken by the king himself. Everyone wore sorrowful expressions, though that sadness was mostly fake, because most of the influential individuals present were, in fact, worried about something else.

Most of high society previously supported the concubine’s faction, since Luther was the crown prince. But now that all three children of the concubine were dead, they would have to curry favor with Prince Lucien, whom they previously stood against.

They could not help but worry about how they would appease the 4th prince.

The representative of all these powerful forces could only silently curse the first prince in their mind, for dying so uselessly like that.

The political landscape of the entire kingdom was now in great turmoil for that reason alone.

Lucien’s eyes flashed coldly as he looked at all those hypocritical bastards; they all stood against him and his mother so vehemently before. Now they would have no choice but to turn to him as the only new king of Suncrest.

The valkyrie was also present here, hiding every inch of her skin, but her cold and apathetic beauty still radiated like an unlikely black son.

Then Lucien’s eyes finally landed on the one hateful woman who had made his life a living hell. The damned concubine whom the king loved so much, to the point that he had given her greater authority than his official first wife.

But now, the woman was shedding hateful tears at the front, standing closest to the coffins of her three dead children. Everything she built, all the influence and power, all of it had shattered to dust from just one incident, and it was over.

Seeing her broken expression filled with Despair, Lucien’s eyes flashed in dark delight. He could barely stop himself from smiling like a devil despite the atmosphere being so sad. The same went for his mother, as both of their faces were filled with complete dark ridicule for this wretched woman who was incomparably haughty before.