Chapter 571: Assassination |
Bazel froze for a moment. He felt as though he should be angry—but he wasn’t.
Before him stood the Prince, the one who had assassinated the Empress. Yet, deep inside, he felt an unexpected calm, as if those emotions no longer belonged to him.
Not his own?
An inexplicable sense of dissonance rippled through his heart.
He had experienced this feeling many times before, though it always faded quickly. But this time—it didn’t seem to.
The Prince’s gaze merely swept across him, then shifted away, as though he had lost all interest in Bazel.
The Prince turned his head and began whispering to another man beside him. Bazel followed his gaze—it was the Lord of Castel, Hughes.
“Bazel, do you plead guilty?” came a voice questioning from above.
Guilty?
But… why had he killed Nora again?
Of course, it was because—
Bazel suddenly froze.
All eyes in the Tribunal fell upon him, but he remained motionless. He only stared fixedly at Hughes, confusion flashing within his eyes.
Hughes raised his gaze to meet his. As their eyes met—clear and unwavering—Bazel felt something inside his mind shatter.
The next moment, he let out a furious roar.
“Lina… Lina!? Lina!!!!” Bazel’s eyes burned as if about to burst into flames. His head cleared, and countless neglected fragments suddenly pieced themselves together.
In that instant, Bazel’s body fractured inch by inch. Shards of white bone surged outward from him—straight toward Hughes!
Ash’s pupils contracted sharply, veins bulging along her arm. She seized Bazel’s skull and crushed it instantly, yet those bone shards, like spears of ice, had already shot past her. She reached out to snatch them back—but the bone crumbled at her touch.
Galahad’s eyes sharpened. His sword was already drawn before he even stood up. The Transcendents—Gaia, Richard, and others—charged toward Hughes, but faster than all of them was Nini, the guard standing beside him. Her serpentine tail lashed out with a sharp snap, darting toward the bone’s trajectory.
Yet those bones were faster—faster than any Transcendent. Though Hughes was not particularly close, the shards reached him before anyone else could intervene.
Even Nini, standing at Hughes’s side, was half a beat too late. The bone struck forward, right past her fingertips, straight toward Hughes.
In that instant, every eye widened.
Regret. Terror. Fury.
All those emotions flashed across the faces around him—but it was too late. They could only watch as the white bone’s sharp spike lunged toward Hughes.
Hughes managed only to raise a hand slightly in front of him before the bone touched his body.
The sharp column of white bone crashed squarely against Hughes’s palm.
“No!!”
Cries erupted around him. Hughes stared at the oncoming strike—there was nothing he could do. He could only hope the Symbiotic Contract would save his life—or perhaps not, for the bone was aiming straight for his head.
Damn it… would he be forced to return again? Last time it was a hole through his chest, now through his head…
That thought barely curved through his mind. The lights of memory had not even begun to spin before—
The bone struck his hand.
Then—
The sharp bone, like an icicle, struck as if colliding against red-hot iron, and in an instant, it vaporized into mist.
The long streak of white bone simply melted away—vanished as though it had been an illusion.
Hughes blinked. He looked down at his hand. No wound. He flexed his fingers. Nothing wrong.
What had just happened?
A thought flickered through his mind—the sensation was strangely familiar. The bone had boiled away, disappeared instantly, just like… the purification of pollution.
The sharp, deadly point had not even left a trace upon him. Before everyone’s eyes, Hughes had effortlessly blocked that impossibly swift strike.
Everyone in the Tribunal froze. The vast hall fell silent enough to hear a pin drop.
The faces around him still carried the remnants of fear, now mixed with astonishment—and unease.
Suddenly, applause broke out. Everyone turned to see—it was the Prince, clapping.
“Remarkable. Miss Nini, I didn’t expect you to react so quickly—intercepting the assassination.”
He met their puzzled stares without flinching, clapping even louder.
Nini’s eyes widened in shock; she pointed at herself in disbelief. The Prince turned his head aside—pretending not to see.
People hesitated for a moment, then Galahad began to clap as well, followed by his subordinates—until the whole hall resounded with applause.
“Ahem. I suggest we postpone this trial. Earl Hughes, perhaps you should undergo a few tests. Though Miss Nini blocked the attack, there may still be, hmm… spiritual complications?”
Hughes wanted to say he was perfectly fine—but seeing the crowd’s nervous or feverish gazes, he sighed and nodded.
“Then let’s end here for today. The trial will be postponed…” His eyes fell upon what was left of Bazel, now scattered in pieces across the floor.
“Someone bring a broom. Sweep him up.”
The trial of Bazel was thus delayed. The official explanation was that Bazel had attempted an assassination during the proceedings, and the Lord required examination for potential aftereffects.
But anyone with eyes knew the matter was far from simple.
Many had attended the trial as observers—but none wished to speak of it afterward. Those who were pressed would simply say that Nini had stopped the attack and saved the Lord.
Strangely, however, Nini never wrote about the incident, and even her beloved newspaper ceased publication.
Meanwhile, the followers of the Cult of the Hidden had grown dramatically in number. More and more came to pray devoutly—but when asked, they would only speak vaguely, refusing to elaborate.
Rumors spread through the streets—of underground cults active in Blood Harbor and Castel, all worshipping a certain peculiar deity—
Castel itself.
At the Medical Division of the Testing Grounds, Hughes sat beside a long table. Across from him sat Richard, expression blank, like a marionette without strings.
After a long while, a spark of liveliness returned to Richard’s face.
“How is it?”
“From what I can tell, there shouldn’t be any problem.” Richard shook his head. “But that’s just based on observation. I wanted to use 【Self-Binding】 to examine your internal state, but…”
“You couldn’t see?”
“Mm. Something like that. All I could see was complete darkness. Normally, only Transcendents resist observation—but even then, they appear as hazy silhouettes, because their bodies and souls have merged. Essentially, I’d be observing the Sea of Unawareness itself.”
“There’s only one case where it’s utterly black—complete erosion. When the body is filled entirely with pollution.”