Chapter : 1309

The morning of the royal wedding did not start with the happy ringing of bells. Instead, it began with the quiet, heavy feeling of a battlefield before a fight begins. The Royal Palace was a beautiful, shiny machine of organized activity. Servants moved quickly and quietly like rivers, carrying trays of polished silver and piles of flowers. The air was full of the smell of beeswax and lilies. It was a nice smell covering up the cold, hard feeling of coming danger.

Lloyd Ferrum moved through this activity like a ghost. He was like a general doing a final check of his soldiers. His mind was a storm of personal and political problems. The night before had been a disaster. He had declared war on his wife, proposed to her sister, and been claimed like property by a winter goddess. His personal life was a complete and total wreck. But the soldier in him was thankful for the clearness of a new, simpler mission. The problems of the heart had been replaced by the simple, harsh math of staying alive.

He found King Liam in a small, windowless room deep in the military part of the palace, not in the throne room. The room was plain and functional. A huge, very detailed map of the palace grounds was laid out on a black stone table. This was not a king's private room; it was a war room.

King Liam stood over the map. A simple, plain crown of black iron was the only royal thing he wore. He was dressed in the practical, dark leather clothes of a commander, not the silks of a king. The friendly, happy ‘Lord James’ was gone. In his place was the Lion of Bethelham, a being of total power and cold, strategic thinking.

“Lord Ferrum,” the King said without looking up. His voice was a low, dangerous rumble. “You’re late.”

“My apologies, Your Majesty,” Lloyd answered, his voice sharp and professional. “I was checking the final placement of the… decorations.”

A small smile touched the King’s lips. “Of course. The decorations. The most important part of any successful… celebration.” He finally looked up. His eyes were not those of a friendly business partner, but of a fellow hunter. “My spies have a gift for you.”

He slid a single, folded piece of paper across the smooth, black stone. Lloyd picked it up. A single name was written in a neat, careful hand: Jager.

“He’s here,” the King said in a flat voice. “Inside the palace. He got past the outer security an hour before sunrise. My agents saw him but lost him in the servant hallways. He is like a ghost.”

Lloyd’s blood felt cold, but his face stayed calm and professional. Jager. The proud, smart, and totally cruel assassin who had hunted him across the kingdom. The man whose cleverness was as great as his cruelty.

“His presence means there is a much bigger threat,” the King continued, looking back at the map. “A killer of his skill does not work alone. He is a sign. A warning. He is the first move in a much bigger game. I believe he is here to prepare the area for his real master.”

The King placed a single, carved black lion on the part of the map that showed the main wedding hall. “Beelzebub.”

The name landed in the room with the force of a physical hit. The high-ranking demon of the Seventh Circle. The being whose power had fought his father’s at the battle of Ashworth. The monster who had planned the evil alliance with the Altamirans.

“My information suggests they are planning something big,” the King said, his voice a low, chilling whisper. “Something that will not just kill my son, but will break the very core of this kingdom. A public killing at the center of our biggest celebration.”

Lloyd looked at the king with a new, deep respect growing in his eyes. He had thought he was a player in this game. He was starting to see he was just a piece, moved by a hand much older and more clever than his own.

“So, the wedding…” Lloyd started to say.

“The wedding is a trap,” King Liam finished for him. A slow, dangerous smile touched his lips for the first time. “It is the most beautiful, expensive, and perfectly made kill-zone in the history of this kingdom. Every guest, every servant, every flower arrangement is a part of the machine. The celebration is not the target; it is the cage.”

The huge, amazing boldness of the King’s plan was a thing of terrible beauty. He had not canceled the wedding to protect his son. He had used it as bait. He turned the kingdom’s biggest weakness into its strongest weapon.

Chapter : 1310

“Your job as ‘Head of Decorations’ should now be clear, Lord Ferrum,” the King said, his eyes locking with Lloyd’s. “You are not just a sword I can use. You are the designer of this cage. Your ghost team is in position. Your security plans are perfect. I have given you the stage. Now, I need you to direct the final, bloody scene of this play.”

Lloyd felt a cold, exciting thrill run through him. The personal mess, the emotional problems—it all burned away. All that was left was the pure, clean focus of a soldier with a mission. This was a world he understood. This was a war he knew how to fight.

He looked at the King. A silent agreement of shared, cruel purpose passed between them. “And what about the guests, Your Majesty?” he asked. The question was a final, necessary check. “The innocent people?”

The King’s smile disappeared. It was replaced by the cold, hard expression of a king who had made an impossible choice. “They are the cost of winning,” he said, his voice a flat, unforgiving whisper. “In a war like this, there are no innocent people. There are only weapons, and there are targets. Make sure you know the difference.”

Lloyd simply nodded. The rules of the fight were clear. He was no longer a decorator or a lord. He was an executioner, and the King had just given him his order. He turned and walked out of the war room. His mind was already a storm of battle plans. His heart was a cold, steady drum, counting down the final hours to the beautiful, terrible, great slaughter.

The weight of the King’s command settled on Lloyd. It did not feel like a burden. Instead, it felt like a clear purpose. The messy, chaotic ocean of his personal life, with its dangerous currents of love, sadness, and betrayal, moved far away. It became a distant, unimportant storm. He was back where he belonged. He was a soldier in a high-stakes game where you win or you lose. The rules were simple and the goal was clear. Survive. Remove the threat. Protect the person you are assigned to.

He moved through the shiny, crowded halls of the palace, but he was no longer seeing the nice clothes and jewels. His mind, made stronger by his own unique and terrible powers, was looking past what was on the surface. He saw the palace not as a beautiful building, but as a three-dimensional battlefield. He saw the lines of sight, the narrow passages, the places for an ambush, and the escape routes. The happy music from the orchestra was just a stream of data. It was a normal sound he could use to notice small changes in the sounds from the crowd.

His ghost team was a silent, invisible net of guards hidden within the celebration. He saw Annalisa, looking perfectly professional. She was directing a team of maids with a series of tiny hand signals. It was a silent, secret language that moved her agents to cover a new weak spot she had found. He saw two of his "butlers." Their faces were polite and showed no emotion. They slowly changed their positions to create a perfect, overlapping line of fire in the hallway that led to the royal nursery.

They were a perfect, beautiful machine of death. And he was their mind, the silent will that guided their every move.

He went to a small, hidden gallery on the second floor. It was a spot he had chosen himself. It looked down on the main wedding hall. It gave him a perfect, clear view of the altar, the royal platform, and all the guests. It was his command center.

From a hidden bag, he took out a set of tools that were a strange mix of magic and technology. There were a series of small, silver-etched mirrors, which he placed at exact, planned angles. There was a thin, crystal rod that hummed with a low, controlled energy. These were not decorations. They were the sensors for his battle network. They were a way for him to see and hear everything in the hall without being there.

He settled into a dark corner, like a hunter in its hiding spot, and closed his eyes. His mind expanded. It flowed through the network he had created and became one with the palace itself. He was no longer just a man in a room. He was an all-seeing, unemotional observer. His mind was like a central computer processing a thousand streams of information.