Chapter 1036: Chapter 245.4 – They
The air around the silhouette pulsed—once. Then again.
A low hum vibrated through the corridor’s mana lines like distant thunder beneath glass.
And then, the voice came, no longer hostile… but not gentle either.
“How much do you know?”
There was no malice in it now. Just curiosity—sharp and delicate, like a scalpel hovering above exposed skin.
Lucas lowered his eyes for the briefest moment. When he looked up again, his expression had changed—not smug, not arrogant.
Measured.
Wary.
Exactly the way someone should look when they knew something they shouldn’t.
He let out a slow breath through his nose, as if weighing something. The silence stretched, and when he finally spoke, his voice was quieter. Controlled. Like he was treading carefully around a name that carried weight.
“Not enough to matter.”
A beat.
Then—he added, just loud enough for the figure to catch:
“But just enough… that saying too much would be the end of me.”
He looked toward the edge of the shimmer again, letting a note of tension slip into his voice—not faked, but directed.
“Belthazor didn’t say much. But he made one thing clear.”
“There are names you don’t echo, and games you don’t interrupt. Yours…”
He let the sentence drift, unfinished, like a secret half-spoken.
The silence that followed was calculated. Perfectly paced. Enough for the figure to wonder, but not enough to challenge them.
Lucas didn’t need to be believed.
He just needed to be remembered.
A boy from a noble house, touched by an impossible presence, who claimed to carry whispers from something long dead.
A half-liar who might be worth watching.
He kept his posture subdued, careful not to overstep. No threat. No arrogance.
Just potential.
And in the language these creatures spoke, potential was more useful than loyalty.
Lucas let his gaze dip respectfully, subtly turning his head. A small gesture that suggested caution, not submission.
Lucas said nothing more.
He didn’t push.
He didn’t plead.
He simply existed—like a closed door painted with warnings and rumors, the kind of door even the bold paused before opening.
And it worked.
A soft sound echoed from within the silhouette. Not quite a chuckle—something more abstract. Like breath filtered through ancient parchment.
Recognition.
Then came the voice again. Low. Whisper-smooth. Almost amused.
“If Belthazor spoke of us to you…”
A pause.
“…then he must have trusted you.”
A ripple passed through the air again, softer this time. Less invasive.
They were intrigued now. Not convinced. But interested.
And that was all Lucas needed.
Then, without warning, the voice shifted tones once more.
Not accusatory. Not probing.
Just quiet. And curious.
“What happened to Belthazor?”
Lucas tilted his head slightly, the movement deliberate—measured like every breath he took in this conversation.
His lips parted, and his voice came soft but sharp.
“Don’t you know already?”
There was another pause.
Longer this time.
And though the shimmer did not speak, something in the pressure around it shifted.
A silent answer.
Yes.
Of course they knew.
Affiliates, fragments, contractors—all those who bore the mark of the deeper court were known to them. Watched, monitored, recorded in esoteric ledgers bound not by ink, but by oaths older than written time.
And if Belthazor was gone—truly gone—then that absence would have echoed through the dark like a bell struck too hard.
Lucas said nothing more.
He didn’t need to.
And across the space, the presence spoke one final word—low, thoughtful, lingering with that cold sort of approval that never sounded like praise.
“…Interesting.”
The silence following that single word—“Interesting”—was not emptiness.
It was anticipation.
Lucas could feel it, like the breath before a page is turned, like the pause before a blade is drawn. The weight hadn’t vanished. It had simply shifted—now poised, now watching.
And then—
The voice returned.
“If Belthazor chose you…”
A slow, thoughtful hum.
“…then you have potential.”
Lucas remained still, but inwardly, something cold unfurled in his chest. Not fear. Not pride.
Readiness.
Then the voice deepened, just slightly—not in tone, but in intent.
“Boy.”
A pause.
Not contemptuous. Not familiar.
Just precise.
“What is it that you want?”
Lucas blinked once.
Then—
He smiled.
Not the smirk he wore at the academy.
Not the feigned amusement he used among the nobles.
Not the polite, politic expression he gave to instructors and scouts.
No.
This smile came from somewhere deeper.
A place buried beneath years of being dismissed.
Of being the “second” in his own bloodline.
Of saving people who never knew his name.
Of dying forgotten in a vision of a future that chewed him up and spat him out.
He remembered all of it.
How he had followed the rules.
How he had tried to earn his place.
How none of it had mattered.
Even as Belthazor devoured him, even as that dark power burned away what remained of his name, no one came looking.
No one remembered.
Lucas Middleton had been a footnote.
And so the smile that curved across his lips now wasn’t bitter.
It was resolved.
He raised his eyes, calm and gleaming.
“What do I want?”
His voice was even. Quiet.
“I want power.”
Nothing more. Nothing less.
The shimmer rippled again—but it didn’t recoil.
It listened.
The word hung in the air like an offering.
Lucas did not elaborate.
He didn’t speak of his family.
Of his sister.
Of the institutions built to break people like him.
He didn’t dare speak of the throne he wanted to usurp, or the names he wanted to erase, or the world he planned to rewrite.
Not here.
Not yet.
But what he said was true.
A shard of the truth.
And sometimes, for beings like these—
That was enough.
“Power…” the voice repeated, almost tasting it.
The air shifted again, subtly. Not hostile—not yet—but cool. Measured. As if weighing the sincerity behind Lucas’s answer against the infinite archive of lies it had heard before.
And then the voice returned.
“Power…”
A pause. A slow exhale.
“…For what, do you seek it?”
There was something cutting in the question now. Not doubt. Not suspicion.
Challenge.
As if to say:
Anyone can want power.
But only those with purpose deserve it.
Lucas’s smile didn’t fade. If anything, it deepened—just slightly.
He stepped forward—not physically, but with presence. Letting the intent behind his answer bleed through his voice like iron through silk.
“To topple down.”
A beat of silence. Then—
“…Topple down?”
The voice echoed the words, curious.
Lucas’s gaze sharpened. No longer vague. No longer polite.
“Those who wear crowns of legacy and treat bloodlines like cages.”
“The ones who look down and say, ’you were born second, so kneel.’”
His voice remained level, but the weight behind it shifted. Purpose pressing through each word like a buried knife.
“I want power to tear down everything they said I couldn’t touch.”
“To break the hands that wrote my place for me.”
The silence that followed wasn’t cold.
It was still.
Tense.
As if the thing across from him wasn’t just listening—but recording. Cataloguing every syllable for something deeper.
Lucas didn’t stop.
“They told me my future was secure. Decided. Inherited.”
“But what I saw in that future was death. Obscurity. Nothing.”
He took one step closer to the shimmer, and though the pressure pulsed again, he did not flinch.
“So now?”
“I’ll write my name into the part of the world they fear most.”
His smile returned, slower now. Measured.
“And when I stand above them…”
“…they’ll know who I was all along.”
Another silence.
This one longer.
Not stunned. Not impressed.
Interested.
Like something that hadn’t decided if it was speaking to a vessel, or a weapon.
And either would do.
———-A/N———–
Sorry for the late post, my grandmother had an attack, we needed to take her to hospital.
And I couldn’t post yesterday, because I felt really burnt out.
I had been working non-stop the past week. My stock of Chapters ran out altogether for Hunter, and I really didn’t feel like writing any, though the other two had one day of stocked Chapters.
Now, I should be fine.
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