Chapter : 389

He looked at Ken, the weight of his command absolute. “This is now your network’s highest priority. Above Rubel. Above everything else. I need intelligence, Ken. I need to know the shape of the enemy that is hunting me in the shadows. Use any resources necessary. And be discreet. They are clearly professionals. They will be watching for us, just as we are now watching for them.”

“Understood, Young Lord,” Ken replied, his voice a low, dangerous hum. “The network will be mobilized. The shadows will be searched.” He returned to his grim task, the disposal of the first casualty in a war Lloyd hadn't even known he was fighting.

Lloyd watched him for another moment, then turned and walked away from the dead-end alley, leaving the ghost and its price behind. He did not look back. His mind was already racing ahead, planning, strategizing. The two hundred and ten System Coins in his account felt less like a victory and more like the first down payment on an arsenal he now desperately needed to build. The game had just become lethal. And it was his move.

________________________________________

The silent alley, with its grim testament to fanaticism and the lingering scent of poison, was now Ken Park’s problem. Lloyd had walked away from the scene, leaving his formidable shadow to erase the evidence, to scrub the encounter from the city’s memory. But the encounter had not been erased from his own mind. It had branded itself there, a stark, cold warning. A professional assassin. A suicide curse. An unknown, disciplined organization. The ghosts of his past were no longer just a theoretical threat; they were a clear and present danger, actively hunting him in the streets of his own city.

He returned to the Ferrum Estate not with the triumphant confidence of a victor, but with the grim, focused urgency of a soldier who has just survived the first skirmish of a long and brutal war. The two hundred and ten System Coins in his account felt less like a treasure and more like a barely adequate ammunition budget. The soap empire, his brilliant engine of commerce, seemed almost frivolous now, a peacetime pursuit in a world that was rapidly descending into a personal, clandestine war.

His mind was a maelstrom of strategic calculations. He needed to accelerate everything. The Radiance laundry powder project needed to be fast-tracked. The AURA brand needed to expand, to generate more gold, more System Coins. His own training, the long, frustrating process of fusing his Ferrum and Austin bloodlines, had to be intensified. He needed to master the Eye of the Forge, not in weeks or months, but in days. He needed more power. Now.

He was striding through the grand, echoing entrance hall of the main estate, his mind a whirlwind of schematics for new drying kilns and theoretical applications for his Chain Shackles, when a figure intercepted him. It was not Ken, who was still engaged in his grim, sanitary duties. It was one of the senior household butlers, a man named Alistair whose face seemed to be permanently etched with an expression of polite, pained disapproval.

Alistair moved with a stiff, formal grace, his back ramrod straight, his livery immaculate. He blocked Lloyd’s path, executing a bow so precise it seemed to have been calculated with a protractor.

“Young Lord Ferrum,” Alistair began, his voice a dry, reedy rustle, like old parchment being disturbed. “A moment of your time, if you please.”

Lloyd paused, his own internal storm of planning momentarily checked by this unexpected formality. Alistair was part of his father’s inner household staff, a man who rarely interacted with Lloyd directly, preferring to communicate through a complex, hierarchical network of junior servants. For him to approach Lloyd personally, and with such gravity… it was unusual.

“Alistair,” Lloyd acknowledged, his own tone guarded. “What is it?”

“The Arch Duke,” Alistair stated, his gaze fixed on a point somewhere over Lloyd’s left shoulder, as if direct eye contact with the slightly dishevelled heir might be contagious, “requests your immediate presence in his study.” He paused, then added, with a subtle emphasis that bespoke the importance of the summons, “He has indicated that the matter is… urgent.”

Chapter : 390

Lloyd’s heart, which had just begun to settle into a rhythm of grim determination, gave a familiar, weary lurch. Again? He had just seen his father a few days ago. Another summons? So soon? What now? Had news of the dead assassin in the alley already reached his father’s ears? Had Ken’s report somehow been intercepted? Or was this about something else entirely? The endless, exhausting demands of being the heir to a great and powerful, if slightly dysfunctional, house, seemed to stretch before him like a barren road.

“I see,” Lloyd said, his voice carefully neutral. “Thank you, Alistair. I will proceed there at once.”

The walk to his father’s study, a journey that was becoming depressingly familiar, felt different this time. The usual apprehension was there, yes, but it was overlaid with a new layer of wary, strategic curiosity. He was no longer just a son being summoned for a lecture. He was a player in a game he was only just beginning to understand, and this summons was a new, unexpected move on the board.

He pushed open the heavy oak doors and stepped inside. The study was as it always was—a fortress of power, of order, of the immense, almost suffocating, weight of responsibility. The scent of beeswax and old leather was a familiar constant. But the atmosphere was different. The usual simmering tension, the energy of a powerful man wrestling with the fate of a nation, was absent. In its place was a strange, almost contemplative, quiet.

Arch Duke Roy Ferrum sat behind his massive desk. He was not writing, not reading. He was simply… sitting, his hands steepled before him, his gaze fixed on a single object that rested on the polished mahogany surface.

Lloyd’s eyes were drawn to it instantly. It was a missive. A single sheet of thick, creamy vellum, folded and sealed with a dollop of deep, crimson wax. And pressed into that wax was an image that was both intimately familiar and deeply, profoundly, intimidating. A roaring lion, the Royal Crest of the Kingdom of Bethelham.

A royal summons.

Lloyd’s mind raced. From the King? For his father? Or… for him? The latter seemed impossible. Why would the King of Bethelham, the supreme ruler of their entire nation, have any direct cause to summon him, the still-unproven heir of a vassal duchy?

Roy looked up as Lloyd entered, his dark eyes holding an expression Lloyd couldn’t quite decipher. It wasn't anger. It wasn't disapproval. It was a complex mixture of gravity, of assessment, and perhaps, just perhaps, a flicker of something that looked like… pride? Or maybe just profound, world-weary irony.

“Lloyd,” Roy said, his voice a quiet, level rumble. He gestured to the chair opposite his desk. “Be seated.”

Lloyd did as he was told, his gaze still fixed on the royal missive. The silence stretched for a long moment, broken only by the rhythmic ticking of the great clock on the mantelpiece.

“A message arrived from the capital this morning,” Roy began finally, his voice calm, factual. “By royal courier. An honor guard of the King’s own Lion Guard accompanied him.” He paused, letting the weight of that detail sink in. This wasn't a routine administrative message. This was a matter of the highest state importance.

He slid the sealed parchment across the polished surface of the desk. It stopped directly in front of Lloyd. “It is addressed to you.”

Lloyd stared at the missive, his heart giving a sudden, hard thud against his ribs. To him? A personal summons from the King? His mind, already reeling from the assassin, the ghosts of his past, the immense pressure of his new ventures, threatened to short-circuit completely.

“To… to me, Father?” he managed, his voice slightly hoarse.

“Indeed,” Roy confirmed. He leaned back in his chair, his gaze sharp, analytical, watching his son’s reaction with an unnerving intensity. “His Majesty, King Liam Bethelham, has requested your presence. At the Royal Palace. In the capital. As soon as you can make the journey.”

Lloyd could only stare at the crimson seal, at the proud, roaring lion. His mind was a blank, a roaring static of disbelief. The King? King Liam? The man he had only met as the charming, eccentric, soap-obsessed ‘Lord James’? That man, the most powerful man in the entire kingdom, was summoning him? Personally?

“But… why?” the question was a whisper, escaping his lips before he could stop it. He looked up at his father, his confusion absolute. “Is it… is it about the AURA venture? The complimentary supply? Has there been a problem?” It was the only logical connection he could make, the only reason the King would have any direct interest in him.