Chapter 66
It was an unbearably intense madness.
A curse he thought he had completely overcome, visiting him after such a long time.
The cigarettes he had quit desperately called out to him.
The head of the House of Alkibiades, Aizen, looked at the naked woman lying beside him.
He looked back at the ceiling. He felt like a beast that had lost to its desires.
‘Well, it’s not wrong.’
There wasn’t much difference from his past encounters with other women, but it had been unusually rough and passionate compared to usual.
The Duke in bed was typically gentlemanly. But even upon a brief reflection, this time he had been intensely sadistic.
He had prioritized only the release of his madness.
With a face so expressionless it was cold, he moved without any consideration. There were even traces of tears around the woman’s eyes.
He felt no guilt.
Perhaps because he felt he had already half-given up.
But he needed something else to focus his mind on.
A war had broken out quite timely, but that alone wasn’t enough.
‘He hadn’t gotten much blood on his hands.’
How could he have known that his only daughter would get into an accident while he was away from the estate?
“My daughter…”
“Your Grace… Please focus on me.”
The woman placed her hand on Aizen’s chest as if burrowing into his embrace. She clung to him as if acting coy.
Why had he even brought this blockhead into his bed?
‘Beasirta.’
A name that had been so painful to utter after losing her that it was difficult to even say.
But now, it didn’t hurt.
What was this?
They say the hormone called love has an expiration date; was it true?
When he was deeply infatuated with Beasirta, everyone who knew him was shocked. They said their lord had changed.
Aizen agreed. He too thought he had gone mad.
The woman whispered, looking at Aizen.
“I love you, Your Grace. You’ve forgotten her now, right? Then again, it’s already been so long since Lady Beasirta passed away…”
By the time he realized it, he was already choking the woman’s neck.
He stared into her eyes, wide with terror, then slowly released the force from his hand.
“Get out.”
The Duke hated people crossing the line the most.
The woman, who had been ecstatic from the moment she became involved with the Duke, imagining herself becoming the Duchess, fled instantly, driven by the instinct to survive.
Behind the woman, who ran out without even properly dressing, Michael appeared.
The Duke, with an annoyed expression, picked up and put on his trousers and stood up.
Michael entered the Duke’s bedroom with a familiar expression and bowed his head.
“Your Grace. Something has happened to the Young Lady.”
“Just put a cigarette in my mouth.”
“……”
‘So, in the end, you couldn’t quit after all.’ Michael thought, but he obeyed the command.
He took out a prepared cigarette from his inner pocket, placed it between the Duke’s lips, and lit it.
Aizen slowly exhaled cigarette smoke.
Michael reported.
“It is said that at the academy, His Highness the Crown Prince and the Young Master are engaged in a life-or-death duel with real swords.”
“They’re just…”
Children grow up fighting, after all.
It had been two months since he quit smoking for Adel’s sake.
Now, all that effort had gone down the drain, but his brain felt euphoric from just a simple puff.
The Duke looked down at the cigarette in his hand, then put it back in his mouth.
His nerves were so sensitive he could vividly hear the sound of the cigarette tip burning.
“And my daughter?”
“She is rushing to the academy. She seems… somewhat distraught.”
Tears?
When that woman who just left cried in front of him, he wanted to kill her.
So why did he feel interested upon hearing that Adel had cried?
“Leave her be.”
“Won’t you exercise judgment?”
“Are you telling me to take the Young Master’s side?”
“…My apologies, I was impertinent.”
The Duke briefly glanced back at the bed where he had been.
Bloodstains, the disheveled sheets.
The traces of the previous night were evident. The scent flowing in the room was that of a raw beast itself.
“I vented, but I don’t feel good.”
“Pardon?”
“Kill her.”
Even without specifying the person, Michael understood immediately.
“Imagining herself as the Duchess is one thing, but how dare she speak this and that about the Young Lady…”
He couldn’t understand why women believed that just because Aizen held them, they gained the right to interfere in his life.
Interfere? How dare they, regarding Adel?
“…I will carry out your command as ordered.”
In fact, he had been about to report that the young lady of the Marquis who just left might be involved with ‘them’.
But it seemed the Duke had already sensed it intuitively, even without the full report.
‘How absurd.’
The Duke felt a somewhat strange emotion.
Even while knowing that Adel, who was so attached to family, already saw Beasirta as half a mother…
‘Parents for Adel? Am I alone not enough?’
If Adel found out, she would clearly cry buckets of tears and be upset for days.
But Adel knew the boundaries well. No, actually, it wouldn’t matter much even if she crossed them.
Even if there was a possibility of saving her, Beasirta was officially treated as dead.
“It seems I really can’t be a good father after all.”
Aizen muttered languidly.
However, there was no sign of remorse whatsoever.
Michael accepted it impassively.
3 hours ago.
The academy’s swordsmanship class was forcibly ended for the day.
But everyone was excited.
A life-or-death duel with real swords? It was a scene one might only see in textbooks, and the participants were none other than the Empire’s Crown Prince and the heir of Alkibiades.
The student acting as judge trembled as he spoke before the largest audience in history.
“Red, Kasemahan R Hasfeldt. Blue, Blake Alkibiades. Please show respect to each other.”
At this moment, both Blake and Kasemahan were silent.
They paid their respects to each other like knights offering their final courtesy.
“I will yield the first strike.”
The Crown Prince spoke first.
‘If I win, it all ends.’
Blake had no interest in justice. He only pursued practical gains.
Without any hesitation, he immediately charged at the Crown Prince.
It was an unrealistically fast speed.
Whoosh.
However, Blake’s sword-breaker didn’t even graze the Crown Prince but veered off course.
The Crown Prince had simply sidestepped, evading it lightly.
But the sound of it cutting through the air was so murderous that it vividly struck the ears of the audience.
Immediately after, the Crown Prince counterattacked Blake.
A sword meant to break swords.
Unlike Blake with his sword-breaker, the Crown Prince wielded a longsword, considered the standard.
Clang, clang, clang—!
Both exchanged six strikes in an instant at a maddening speed, their expressions unchanging.
“Did you see that?”
“That’s impossible.”
“I can’t even see them, they’re too fast!”
Even the swordsmanship class, which gathered all the famed talents of the Empire, was stunned.
A duel between geniuses.
What the swordsmanship students witnessed was a duel from a completely different world.
To feel jealousy or an inferiority complex, one would need to be able to keep up at least somewhat comparably.
‘Overwhelming swordsmanship…!’
This was beyond that level.
A power any man would inevitably admire. A primal, innate strength.
Their skills were evenly matched.
The mere fact that such geniuses attended the academy in the same era, at the same age, felt unreal.
‘His swordsmanship specializes in the lower body. If I sever the Young Master’s Achilles tendon, I could kill him within five minutes.’
‘The Crown Prince habitually tends to target the left more. If I feign an opening on the left and counterattack his right arm, I can cut him.’
Blake and Kasemahan quickly assessed each other’s swordsmanship.
‘They said he was considered an outstanding talent even among the Alkibiades; it wasn’t an empty compliment.’
‘He’s quite skilled.’
The sharp blades glinted sharply in the light.
Every time those two swords clashed, the audience had no way of knowing the fierce and complex calculations behind their movements.
Simply.
“Beautiful.”
“…The Young Master is so sexy.”
The female students stamped their feet, getting drawn into the match.
Even the professors teaching the students were at a loss for words as they watched the duel.
No matter how young they were, their looks didn’t lie.
‘It’s the sight of two handsome male students seriously aiming for each other’s lives.’
While thinking they should stop it, they couldn’t help but admire it like a finished work of art.
If Kasemahan’s sword was quiet and swift, aiming solely for the opponent’s life, Blake’s sword seethed like fire, wanting only to make the opponent kneel.
Then, the tip of Blake’s blade felt the Crown Prince’s flesh.
‘A hit!’
But the joy was short-lived.
As if giving a small gain to take a greater one, the Crown Prince immediately deeply cut Blake’s side and upper arm.
“I’d rather die than surrender.”
Kasemahan whispered as he elegantly glided past Blake, as if singing.
Provocation during a duel was never a good choice.
Because Blake, whose anger until now was at the level of ‘I’ll make him kneel,’ began to rage even more wildly.
Once each other’s blood stained their swords, what followed happened in an instant.
Perhaps because their skills were so evenly matched, the wounds they exchanged were also similar.
Blood was scattered across the stage.
To gauge the strength of their grip, one only needed to see how deeply the floor was gouged when the Crown Prince missed Blake and struck the dueling platform floor.
Like a fight between a polar bear and a tiger that would never meet in nature, the two intertwined like art.
Rough breaths, droplets of sweat, surging vitality. They were truly the two leaders who would lead the next Empire.
Their nerves, sharpening even more fiercely near death, became extremely acute.
“Madeline, look at that!”
“…Oh my god!”
Madeline, who was passing by, was grabbed by her friend and looked towards the dueling arena.
“We have to tell Adel right now!”
Blake was focusing on the Crown Prince more than anyone else at this moment.
Thus, he noticed Kasemahan reacting to that conversation. For a moment, something felt off.
An instinctive feeling of being trapped.
“You’ve lost.”
Lost what?
But at the Crown Prince’s words, Blake buried his thoughts.
Clang clang clang!
Right, no time to respond to provocation. The only thought in his mind was to make this arrogant bastard kneel.
Why are they fighting?
Adel had rushed over by carriage immediately, but it seemed too late.
Adel wiped her eyes.
Even though this was her first time setting foot in the academy she had so wanted to visit, she had no time to properly look around.
Adel ran as Madeline guided her.
When she first saw it, it was just shocking. Why is no one stopping them? Are they just letting them fight to the death?
Between Kan and her brother, fiercely exchanging swords, she could see blood dripping down.
Adel’s mind went blank.
“Stop it!”
“……!”
By the time she realized it, she had fearlessly stepped between those two swords.
It was nothing short of a miracle that the sword tips, swung with intent to kill, stopped without touching Adel.
If the Young Master or the Crown Prince weren’t such exceptional masters, the ‘Prophecy’s Child’ would have already been dead.
The audience gasped and covered their mouths. The surroundings became terribly quiet.
It was then that the Crown Prince’s gaze changed, and it was then that Blake’s face hardened.
“You’re both hurt. Please stop fighting.”
Adel said, her voice choking up.
Rumors about Adel’s existence had also spread around the academy.
‘I heard there’s a newly adopted Young Lady.’
But they didn’t recognize her immediately.
Thus, everyone thought Adel, who dared to interrupt the duel and even use informal speech, would die.
Right, why would those rulers sheathe their swords because of a girl’s words?
But soon, the audience had no choice but to be astonished.
Because the two men, who had been fighting so fiercely that no one could intervene, slowly lowered their swords at the words of this girl they were seeing for the first time.
‘……Just who is she?!’
