Chapter 1744: Crown [1]

For Melania, the current battle was something that was always bound to happen.

From the moment she met Damien, she realized that supporting August meant standing against everything that the current Arulion was built upon.

It wasn't a decision that could be made easily, but it didn't mean much to her.

For the boy who saved her and the man who gave her a second chance, she was willing to do anything.

From that day onward, though she didn't make it obvious, she'd devoted her life to August. She followed him in any mission she could and helped to the best of her capabilities. She had done so much that August began to view her as one of his most important people.

Even in the current battle, she'd focused on him more than anyone else. She put everything down so that she could help him succeed, and as she'd expected, he did just that.

August was not a person to disappoint expectations.

However, he was no longer here. When his body dropped to its knees, his eyes were clouded by a white fog. His consciousness was clearly in some other realm, partaking in some other adventure.

It was a necessary step for him to tame the crown, but it left him defenseless. That wouldn't have mattered in any other situation, but it was absolutely vital.

She could barely track that blade as it approached him. It was an attack made with such speed and ferocity that none of them could react, which, likely, was the attacker's goal from the beginning.

Melania noticed it before anyone else, as her physical senses were the best among them.

Time seemed to flow in slow motion.

Every tiny bit of space that the knife covered took minutes in Melania's perception, but even then, she didn't have much time to think about the choice she was to make.

The thoughts flowing through her mind were related to other things.

Memories of her time with August, memories of her emotions, memories of how her life has changed since that fateful moment many months ago.

Those memories made a difficult choice into an easy one.

In that slowed world that only she could perceive, Melania jumped forward. She put all of her energy into the movement so she could arrive before it was too late, but that left her unable to defend herself.

In everyone else's perception, it happened in a single second.

A spike of hostility.

A rapid movement.

And the smell of blood.

SHIK!

The blade never properly made it to August. It stabbed into Melania's shoulder instead.

And that was when time returned to its regular flow.

Melania dropped to the ground. The hilt of the black blade was still embedded in her shoulder, and black veins were spreading across her body with every second that passed.

"MELANIA!"

Valerie immediately rushed to her and used her wood mana to try and heal her.

Massive roots escaped the ground and completely encaged the location from where the blade came. Raul created another formation around those vines, while Juno, Yuna, and Mikaela surrounded it to ensure that the trapped individual could not escape.

They were hidden within the vines, but it was obvious who had committed the crime when they looked around.

After all, only a single person had been isolated by the vine wall.

"Ah...!"

Ophelia let out a shocked gasp. She fell to her knees with widened eyes as she looked at the man within the vines.

"You...you..."

She couldn't formulate her words properly. The sudden betrayal hit her harder than anyone else, after all.

"How could you?!"

She looked at that man, she looked at Lucas Stroll with horror in her eyes.

However, his eyes contained not an ounce of regret or guilt.

Lucas and Ophelia.

Their story always started when they first met. It was a few years before the start of the heir wars when they fought at a separate competition with the same goal, to find sponsorships to take them higher than their social status allowed.

Back then, they were enemies through and through. However, with the passing of time, their hostility turned into a rivalry and they became closer.

They differed in many ways. The hot-blooded qualities of a flame dragon and the cold and indifferent character of an ice dragon hardly mixed, but at least in the aspect of dreams and morals, they were the same.

Those qualities allowed them to form a connection that went beyond their differences, even though they really were more different than alike.

That was what Ophelia thought.

She believed that despite their differences, they were the same in the ways that mattered.

Only now did she realize how wrong she was.

Before entering the heir wars, they'd made a promise to each other.

"We said that we'd reach the top together, didn't we?" Lucas said, ignoring the several different mechanisms that kept him trapped.

"It's just that I found a way to get there first."

"Indeed, he did."

BOOM!

A voice came from the distance, and the prison around Lucas shattered into pieces.

His body disappeared and reappeared across the cavern, by the side of the man who just spoke.

"Unlike all of you, this one has some sense."

The plan August had in mind crumpled instantly.

Because Wilhelm Liqua had already returned.

And he was no longer alone.

"Your friend seems to think that everything will go his way just because he has some sort of a brain. He seems to think that our influence means nothing just because he has a few backers. But, did you know? We didn't rise to our position because of luck."

"Filthy commoners with no power and no influence, if there was a way for your kind to gain status, then the kingdom would be engulfed in chaos, wouldn't it? Look, with just the slightest bit of temptation, I could bribe one of your own to stab you in the back."

Wilhelm ignored everything as he spoke. He ignored the glares from the group of geniuses he was facing, and even the sour expression on the face of the man who had just joined his side.

"He was originally meant to kill that brat in the middle, but I'm a little happy that he didn't succeed. Seriously, I can't wait to see the expression on his face when he sees what's happened here."

Wilhelm grinned.

"A scene where he wakes up in a pile of his friends' corpses, how beautiful would that be?"

He spread his arms with a gloating expression.

"Well then, with the exposition out of the way, shall we set the stage?"

He motioned at the crowd around him.

Right, it was a crowd. The few geniuses he'd brought earlier were only present to lure August into a false sense of security.

Wilhelm's real plan would unfold here.

Over a hundred geniuses from the Liqua Clan, all of them either at Wilhelm's level or higher, surrounded the group of ten geniuses as Wilhelm stood back and watched.

Among that crowd were several forsaken dragons with empty eyes, slaves that had been taken as war trophies.

Lucas was not a part of that crowd. He stood back with Wilhelm, his eyes cold.

From the start, he never had any feelings towards anyone from that group.

He grew up learning how to befriend the right people to propel him to greater heights. With the sense he'd developed, he was able to reach a point where even Holy Clans were giving him offers that he couldn't resist.

He knew that all of those people who considered him a "friend" would die here, but what he would gain in return was the Liqua Clan's bloodline and support.

It was the chance for him to become a Holy Clan descendant himself.

Those resources, those connections, and that status...

Who could reject it?

It was a shame to see that someone like Ophelia would also be involved, but such was life.

He didn't doubt that she'd received similar offers.

It was just that he made the right choice and she made the wrong one.

Now, while she suffered the consequences, he would embrace the life of a king.

Those were the cruel workings of fate that had been laid out for them.