บท 19: Chapter 17: A Befitting Punishment
[Blood] [Violence]
Ivery and Luther said farewell to the emperor and empress and left the throne room together. Ivery and Luther walked down the stairs as they exited the castle so Ivery could aboard her carriage, an intense gust of wind almost blew Ivery away. Luther held Ivery in his arms as he was unfazed by the wind pressure.
A giant shadow was cast above a large portion of the area, Ivery and Luther looked up and they couldn't believe what they saw above them.
...
"Master!" An enormous crystal blue dragon landed in front of the castle, looking eagerly at Ivery and Luther
.....
"Master!?" Ivery and Luther exclaimed
.
.
"You were able to steal the Dragon's Golden Egg from my nest, and since no one has ever been able to in my ten thousand years of living, I vowed to myself that if the time had ever come, the person that manages to take the golden egg and defeat me, will be my new master" The dragon said
"Where is your old master?" Ivery asked
"He died...five hundred years ago" The dragon lowered its head and seemed as if it was saddened
"Oh.." Ivery felt like she hit a tough subject
....
"So because I defeated you and stole your egg, that makes me your master now?" Ivery looked up at the dragon
"Yes.." The dragon quickly responded
"Is there any possible way that you could return to your nest?" Ivery asked it, wondering how she got caught in such a predicament
"I'm afraid not" The dragon wasn't taking no for an answer
"Great...now I own a dragon...that's just great.." Ivery sighed
Ivery walked down the stairs and walked under the dragon's legs to enter her carriage. Ivery waved Luther farewell as her carriage took off.
The blue dragon flapped its crystal wings and flew up in the air, slowly following Ivery's carriage.
Luther couldn't remove his eyes from the enormous crystal dragon following Ivery....he watched her depart until her carriage went out of view.
She never ceases to amaze and worry him at the same time.
....
Ivery's carriage arrived at the Lilith Castle, after 2 long hours. The doors to her carriage opened and she carefully stepped out and saw her parent's at the top of the stairs, waiting for her.
But she noticed their eyes were locked at something above, she looked up and saw the crystal blue dragon flying high above her.
Cassandra and Julian walked down the stairs with grace and stood in front of Ivery.
"Inanna dear, why is there a dragon here?" Cassandra asked
"It's a long story" Ivery responded
"Care to tell?" Julian crossed his arms, interested in what she had to say
"To make the long story short, I technically defeated the dragon, stole its golden egg that hasn't been touched in ten thousand years and gave it to the emperor or Fresia, and the dragon's master died 500 years ago and the dragon was left masterless so then it vowed to itself that if someone managed to steal its golden egg then that person would become their new master, and that person so happens to be me" Ivery bluntly told her parents
"So now you have a pet dragon?" Julian asked
"Yes" Ivery nodded
"Where would we keep it..?" Cassandra looked up at the dragon
"Don't worry, I will take care of your dragon problem...go get some rest, you did well today.." Julian smiled and rubbed Ivery's head
As terrible as this man is....she can't bring herself to hate him..
Why was that?
.....
Ivery walked up the spiraled staircase and walked down the seemingly endless halls, Ivery stopped when she saw Xia standing in front of her room door.
"Can I help you Xia?" Ivery walked up to Xia
"It's Princess Xia to you" Xia looked at Ivery with malice filled eyes
"Can I help you Princess Xia?" Ivery glared at Xia, feeling slightly irritated
"Yes, you can cancel your engagement to Luther for one" Xia said
"Why would I do that?" Ivery raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms
"He's my fiancé! You should've just stayed in the Hollow's Castle where you belonged! You're just a dirty whor-" Xia shouted until she was interrupted
"Watch your mouth" A voice said behind her as the person pulled her hair roughly
"Wha-!" Xia exclaimed in pain
"Luther..." Ivery looked at Luther standing behind Xia, forcefully pulling her hair
"Let go of me!" Xia yelled and flailed her arms around and tried to hit Luther
"Move again and I'll pull it all out" Luther coldly looked down at Xia, as serious as serious can get
Xia suddenly recognized his voice...
"Luther?" Xia stopped moving
"You seem to not have respect for people of higher rank than you, and you are of half royal blood, I already know your mother was a commoner that deceived Emperor Julian into thinking she was a noble from a faraway country, it was a dirty trick your mother pulled, my father found out about it but he has not told Emperor Julian yet..so how do you think your father will react if he found out that your mother deceived him? An offense that large could mean a death sentence, for you and your dirty mother" Luther pulled her hair harder and told her in her ear
"You have a lot of pride for someone that's no longer engaged to me."
"Emperor Julian no longer values you, Empress Cassandra had to put up with you because you were the only princess who had the better prowess than the rest, but you're not her daughter, so what's stopping me from killing you right now for insulting my future wife?" Luther smiled widely and let go of her hair
Xia started to cry as her face began to turn red.
"You can say whatever you want about me....but don't talk about my mother like she's nothing! You don't know what she's been through because of my father! She was so proud of me because I was the strongest...she was so proud that I was going to marry you and become an Empress, she was proud that I could achieve something she knew she couldn't.." Xia cried
"You say that like I'm supposed to care, your mother could never and can never become Empress no matter how hard she tried, an Empress has to come from a royal background to be a countries Empress, Cassandra's family is of high royalty that neighbors next to the Lilith Empire, the Triest Kingdom and the Lilith gain immeasurable benefits from Cassandra and Julian's marriage, and on top of that, Cassandra and Julian were in love before they were engaged, getting married was barely an arrangement for them"
"Cassandra was the Triest Kingdom's strongest Princess, she wields the power of Golden rage, she was the perfect match for Julian who wields the power of Golden flames, it's no wonder why Inanna wields the infinite attribute of Golden Infinity" Luther explained to Xia
"Meanwhile instead of inheriting your father's power, you inherited your mother's power, poison control, but your power can be considered strong to weak opponents, but against strong opponents, it's useless and renders you incapable of doing anything"
"You're utterly useless, mother like daughter" Luther laughed
"What does your mother do!? No one has ever seen her use her powers before! For all everyone else knows, she just sits on the throne and looks pretty, that's probably the only reason your father chose her!" Xia shouted
"....." Luther took a few seconds to process what she said
"You're stupid..." Loki started sweating
"You dare to speak about my mother?" Luther's purple eyes glowed in the slight darkness of the hallway
"You spoke about mine first!" Xia wiped her tears away
"You can be decapitated or have your tongue cut out for speaking ill of royalty, I can say whatever I wish about a deceiving country bumpkin" Luther walked closer to Xia
"My mother is an Empress, unlike yours who kisses at the Lilith Empires Empress and Emperor's feet just to stay in the castle" Luther smiled
"But I'll give you a befitting punishment" Luther threw away his gentle mask and displayed his sadistically twisted face underneath
"It won't be you paying the price though, but believe me...it will hurt" Luther laughed almost maniacally
Luther lifted his hands up and a cloud of black mist shot out of both of his hands and flew straight past Ivery and Xia.
"W-What are you doing?" Xia didn't understand his threat
"You'll see" Luther laughed
....
She sat on her bed, writing in a book. Suddenly she noticed the lights flickering...
She dropped her pen and started to tremble...
"Julian!" She cried out
"Julian!" She screamed
If she were Cassandra...he'd be to her rescue in a heartbeat...her bedroom wasn't too far from his...he definitely could hear her.
She ran for the doors and opened them, she dashed down the hall and banged on Julian's door. The hallway lights continued to flicker. She then saw a black mist with the impending doom that was slowly heading towards her.
"Julian!" She banged on the door harder
The door opened.
"What do you want? You're being rude" Cassandra answered the door
She saw Julian sitting on the bed, reading a book. Not caring a bit in the slightest about her pleads.
"There's something...out here...after me" She was shaking in fear
"You're imagining it, now get away from our door, before I send you to the Hollow's Castle to work as a maid, and don't think I won't do it...since you're the mother of that brat...I'll make sure you sleep outside in the dirt" Cassandra began to close the door
"Please! Just let me in! Just for the night, I'll even sleep on the floor!" She begged and stopped the door with her hand
"Julian" Cassandra turned around and looked at her husband
Julian sighed and closed his book, he got up from the bed and walked to the door.
One call for his name...and he doesn't hesitate to get up for her....
"You're really pushing your luck woman, you're lucky I haven't killed you yet..you're only in the castle because your Xia's mother, but now that Xia is irrelevant..what's stopping me from killing you? You have no proof of your claimed background and you have no family who supports you or benefits this country in any way, come back again and I'll kill you on the spot, this room is only to be entered by I and my Empress...anyone asking to enter or anyone who does enter without permission will be killed immediately"
"Even your own children?!" She asked
"They will be punished since they're all useless anyway, depending on their status, and currently with Xia's status, she'll be killed on the spot" Julian smiled
"Why!?" She cried
"I no longer have any need to talk to you, if you wish to speak to me again, make an appointment and I'll decide if I want to speak with you again, so that makes this our last conversation"
Julian slammed the door in her face and locked it.
"Julian!" She banged on the door again and sobbed
The black mist proceeded to move towards her.
She screamed and ran down the hall. She turned around and saw the black mist approaching her.
She wasn't looking where she was running and noticed until it was too late and tumbled down a flight of stairs.
She continuously fell down the stairs until she reached the end.
Her right leg was fractured, her skull cracked, arm dislocated and her wrist was broken from trying to stop her fall.
She groaned and tried to drag herself across the floor. Blood leaked down her face from her forehead,
"If only you stayed still, you would've had a quick death, but now you're in pain" An alluring voice said in the darkness
"W-Who...?" She looked around her
"Remember me?" Luther squatted down in front of her
"P-Prince L-Luther...h-help" She reached her hand out to him
"I want to preserve your body, so you can be identified...which method should I use?" Luther thought aloud
"W-What?" She was confused
"I guess I can just kill you the old fashioned way" Luther shrugged
"K-Kill?!" She tried to crawl the opposite way he way
"You can try to get away but your death is inevitable, why are you trying so hard to live? What do you have to live for? It's not Xia, you only used her to get into the Emperor's good graces, you could care less about her, now that she's invaluable to the Emperor, you thought that by getting pregnant and having his child would possibly get you to the Empress's seat, but things didn't go according to plan" Luther's black sword materialized in his hand
"H-He'll s-s-see me d-different o-one d-day...I-I...know i-it" She started to cry over mental pain than psychical pain
"You know he never will stop wishing for an impossible dream, I'm sure he has already told you this before, you keep deluding yourself with your infatuation of becoming Empress, you don't love the Emperor...you just want power, I hate women like you the most" Luther stabbed his sword through her back
Blood spewed out of her mouth. And tears ran down her face...
He took his sword out of her back, and plunged it back into her back and repeatedly stabbed her, over and over again. Until she stopped breathing.
A pool of blood surrounded her corpse and her one last tear dripped into her blood.
Her soul, absorbed into his sword...forever trapped in darkness
.
.
.
Ivery sat on her couch, and read a book about dragons.
"Are you really going to keep that dragon Ivery?" Loki asked
"I might as well, it doesn't seem like it's going to be much of a problem, I just have to figure out what I'm going to feed it. Can dragons possibly turn vegetarian?" Ivery asked
"If you ask it to eat something other than humans, I'm sure it will comply, it seems pretty loyal" Loki thought about it
"I'll see if I can try to change its appetite.." Ivery flicked through the pages of the book
"What do you think your father did with the dragon?" Loki asked
"I don't know.." Ivery searched the book for anything about a dragons eating habits
"What if he killed it" Loki said
"Killed?" Loki broke her attention from the book
"He probably didn't want you to burden with the responsibility of taking care of a dragon" Loki told Ivery
"I'll go ask him." Ivery closed the book and got up from the couch, she finally accepted the dragon and became kind of excited to own something that was a myth in her world
"You can just ask him tomorrow!" Loki chased Ivery who was already out of the doors
Ivery walked down the dim-lit halls..for a castle you think they'd have better lighting..
"Ivery...I smell blood" Loki's hairs stood up on all ends
"Ignore it....it can be anything" Ivery walked down the halls
"There's a thick stench of blood, a lot of blood" Loki's nose started to become irritated
"Alright fine, we'll check it out after we talk to Inanna's parents.." Ivery stood in front of the two giant golden encrusted doors
"I think this is it.." Ivery looked at the doors
"You think?" Loki sarcastically asked
Ivery knocked on the doors. After a minute, no answer.
She knocked again. No answer.
She knocked three times. No answer.
Ivery sighed and started to knock several times and made a beat out of her knocks.
"You're going to make them mad" Loki sighed
The door unlocking was heard and the door opened, Cassandra answered the door and saw Ivery and Loki in front of her.
"Sweetheart, why are you still awake?" Cassandra lovingly looked at Ivery and let her inside of the room
Ivery walked inside and was shocked at the size...almost everything was golden.
"I was just curious about the dragon that followed me...what did you do with it?" Ivery asked
"It's tied up by the neck behind the castle, surprisingly it didn't move or struggle" Julian answered her question
"So you're not going to kill it?" Ivery asked
"Do you want me to kill it?" Julian asked
"No.." Ivery answered
"May I ask why you want to keep the dragon?" Julian inquired
"It'll be fun.." Ivery smiled
"Fun?" Julian smiled back
Cassandra laughed aloud.
"She's just like how you were when you were younger.." Cassandra laughed
"If you want to see your dragon, you'll find it behind the castle...it shouldn't be hard to miss" Julian said
"Now, go back to your room and get some rest, you can check on the dragon tomorrow" Cassandra kissed Ivery on her forehead and led her out of the room
"Goodnight mother, father.." Ivery bowed before she walked out
Cassandra closed the door.
....
"Ivery, the smell of blood is getting stronger, it's coming from that way" Loki pointed his paw towards the end of the hallway
"I'm not really interested in this but if doing this will make you stop talking about it...then let's go.." Ivery had an eerie feeling run up and down her spine as she walked further down the hallway
Ivery walked down the stairs and reached the bottom after a seemingly long minute.
It was dark, she could barely see anything..
Ivery walked in the darkness, they seriously don't have any lights in this room...?
"It reeks of blood.." Loki covered his nose with his paw
"Where is it coming from?" Ivery squinted in the darkness
Ivery took one step and fell over something.
"What is this?" Ivery touched the floor and it felt like a thick liquid
"Here" Loki's eyes flashed a bright golden light and lit up the dark area
"Oh...great" Ivery didn't know what she did to deserve such terrible luck
Ivery looked at the dead body in front of her.
"She's dead" Ivery saw the stab wounds in her back
"She was stabbed...26 times in 6 different places in her back" Loki looked at the stab wounds
"Who killed her?" Ivery asked
"How the hell would I know?" Loki responded
"It was a rhetorical question.." Ivery rolled her eyes
Ivery turned the body over and saw the womans face.
"Who is she? Or do you not know?" Ivery looked at her face
"Oh! I know who this is" Loki gasped
"Who?" Ivery looked at Loki
"Princess Xia's mother, concubine 21, Judith Isbell" Loki said
"Princess Xia's mother?" Ivery looked down at the body
Dark brown hair, deep emerald green eyes...she's pretty but not necessarily stunningly beautiful.
Ivery closed Judith's eyes and sighed.
"The killer just left her here...to be found?" Ivery thought aloud
"Wait, didn't that bloody prince threaten Xia...saying she won't be paying the price herself for insulting his mother but the price will hurt....maybe this is the price" Loki put the pieces together
"You may be right" Ivery stroked her chin and recalled the event that happened an hour ago
"But he really went as far as killing her mother as revenge for talking about his mother..." Loki sighed and shook his head
"Xia may have a terrible personality but she doesn't deserve to lose her mother....father already stopped caring about her.." Ivery's hands glowed with a green light and hovered her hands over Judith's wounds
The stab wounds healed themselves and her broken bones healed and snapped back into place and the blood on the floor flowed back into the body.
Ivery noticed Judith wasn't moving..
"I don't understand.." Ivery healed her wounds...why wasn't she waking up?
"Ivery...look!" Loki pointed at the body
The stab wounds resurfaced an endless amount of blood poured out of the body, soaking the bottom of Ivery's blue nightgown with blood.
"This was definitely done by Prince Luther...I can sense the power of Dark Chaos in the body, healing her is of no use...her soul isn't residing in her body any longer and he used a sword that is similar to his Grim Reaper's Scythe, The Eternal Sword Black Vein, it is a God rank S anti-holy weapon, gifted to Luther from Hades himself, if stabbed by this sword, the victim's soul isn't trapped in eternal darkness, the victims soul is trapped in eternal hell, where the soul feels extreme anguish" Loki explained
"The body is cursed by the swords black poison, the body is unable to be healed or saved...anyone who does try to heal or save the body also is cursed by the sword, a double-sided curse"
"So, I'm cursed?" Ivery asked
"Most likely..although I'm not sure exactly what it is" Loki looked at Ivery...making sure he didn't see any abnormalities
...
Ivery felt intense pain in her back...almost a stabbing feeling....blood poured out of her mouth and she collapsed on the floor.
"Ivery!" Loki shouted
The curse...
Whoever tries to heal or save the body in any way, shall suffer the same fate as them...
.
.
.
สถานะพลังงานรายสัปดาห์
-- การจัดอันดับด้วยพลัง 
-- หินพลัง