Chapter 11: Blood Behind the Crown
Dawn had yet to fully pierce the curtain of mist when the Phillipe palace trembled with an unfamiliar sound—deep, like a roar from beneath the earth. The guards at the main gates immediately went on high alert, but unease had already spread like poison in the air.
In the throne room—where only kings and their advisors were permitted to speak with raised voices—silence now hung heavy like a tomb. But it was not out of respect. It was fear.
The pressure of magic was suffocating. Invisible, yet bearing down on them like the weight of stone.
A guard burst in, breathless. "Your Majesty… something… has emerged in the main courtyard. They… are not human."
Xebec, standing near a pillar, lifted his chin. His gaze sharpened. Astrid stood beside him, her eyes glowing with a tension she had known since childhood—an ancient power had awakened.
Through the stained glass window, Xebec saw… the palace grounds cracking open.
Like the skin of the earth being torn from beneath. From those fissures rose towering figures clad in obsidian armor, their helms sprouting devil-like horns. A purple mist cloaked them, their eyes glowed crimson, and each step they took left magical fractures upon the earth.
The Legion of Baal.
Xebec drew his sword. A bluish-silver aura instantly enveloped the blade—Third-Level Sword Aura. The wind around him suddenly stilled, as if nature itself awaited the first clash.
"Protect the people! Lock all inner passageways!" he shouted to the commanders. "Astrid, with me!"
Astrid didn't answer, but her eyes lit up as a protective seal formed on her left hand. In the air, a tri-layered magic circle appeared—one for defense, one for penetration, and one for incineration. She was ready.
The palace guard stood at the inner gate, but one by one they fell to spears of shadow hurled from afar—concentrated demonic magic in solid form.
Xebec moved like lightning, one slash cleaving through two demons in a single motion. His Sword Aura spread like a freezing storm, shattering the ground and reducing demon flesh to ash. But they were too many.
"Something is calling them from within!" Astrid shouted, unleashing a blazing red spell that obliterated three more soldiers. "This isn't a normal attack—they're being channeled from Baal's seal!"
Xebec froze. His gaze snapped toward the eastern tower.
"That tower… holds the royal relics. And—"
"—also one of Baal's soul shards," Astrid finished grimly.
"Bastian," Xebec breathed.
A faint tremor pulsed in his chest. He knew it. He felt it—blood resonance. Something inside him reacted to the magic. Not because he was part of Baal, but because royal blood carried an ancient bond to the seal's key.
And someone had tried to unlock it from within.
Without hesitation, Xebec dashed toward the tower. His Sword Aura exploded, unleashing a windstorm that tore through everything in his path. Astrid followed close behind, magic circles spinning in her hands, her face a mask of rage and fear.
On the staircase to the eastern tower, they found traces of blood. Not human—demon blood. Thick, black, and hissing like boiling oil.
At the top of the stairs, they heard a voice. Faint.
Praying. Echoing.
"Baal… rise from your slumber. I reopen the gates of heaven and earth… in the name of royal blood…"
Bastian's voice.
Xebec froze. His hand trembled—not from fear, but fury.
Astrid placed her hand on his shoulder. "You must be strong. Not as a brother. But as heir to the throne. The bearer of the sword that will cleave the darkness."
Xebec's eyes glowed. From within him, a new aura began to emerge—as if an ancient sword long buried in his soul… had awakened to answer the call of blood.
Their footsteps halted before an old iron door, etched with layers of protective runes. It should not have opened without the permission of the King or rightful Heir. But now, the soft blue light of the seal had turned blood red, pulsing like a diseased heart.
Xebec stared at the door—and beyond it, he could hear his brother's voice.
Bastian. His voice sounded gentle, like a nightmare whisper: "…let me be strong enough to protect those you couldn't, Brother."
Astrid whispered an incantation, golden magic forming a dome around them. She knew the battle beyond the door would not only be physical… but within. And Xebec had to choose.
His chest ached. Memories of their childhood flashed—laughing together, carrying Bastian on his back through the rain, Bastian crying because he couldn't wield a sword as well as Xebec.
And now—Bastian was invoking Baal.
"Open it," Xebec murmured.
The door responded. The ancient wards fell. And as the doors creaked open, what Xebec saw made his blood run cold.
Bastian stood at the center of a blood circle, his body cloaked in shadowy robes not of this world. On the back of his hand, a demonic sigil blazed—unremovable by ordinary magic. Around him, eight of Baal's soldiers knelt, and the ceiling above twisted into a rift toward another dimension.
"Ah, dear brother… you arrived sooner than I expected," Bastian said, his smile bitter. "Don't worry. I haven't lost all my sanity."
Xebec said nothing. Then stepped forward. "Break the seal, Bas. I won't repeat history. Don't let this blood become a curse."
But Bastian's voice cracked with despair. "How can I let go of the one thing that gave me meaning? That made me feel… enough?"
A demonic aura burst from his body.
And in the next heartbeat—the soldiers of Baal charged, spears of shadow and hellish screams filling the air. Astrid shielded Xebec, and he struck back with a single slash, felling three demons in one breath.
His Sword Aura now gleamed silver, flickering with rare magical sparks—marks of fate and will forged in blood.
The duel had not yet begun. But the storm had arrived.
And deep within Xebec's heart, his sword whispered:
> "This blade does not belong to a king alone… but to a world that refuses to fall into the hands of demons."
The light of Xebec's sword danced across the cracking palace walls. Demonic spells blasted pillars into rubble, echoes of destruction reverberating through the halls. Astrid summoned every ounce of her strength to shield the surviving servants. Blood and dust filled the air.
Amid the chaos, Xebec and Bastian stood face to face, their auras colliding like waves of different oceans. The shadows of Baal's army circled them, but none dared enter the space carved by the power of the two princes.
"Bastian," Xebec panted. "There is still a path back."
But Bastian's eyes were no longer fully human. One iris burned red—the sign that Baal's seal had sunk too deep. Yet his voice trembled, like a child once afraid of the dark.
"I don't want to return to a world that never accepted me… except as your shadow."
"You were never my shadow," Xebec whispered, raising his sword. "You are my brother."
Their eyes locked. But before either could move, a blast of darkness ripped through the chamber.
From the magical rift above, a horned figure cloaked in demonic robes descended—its form not yet solid, not yet free. It looked down with a voice like thunder:
"The end of this kingdom begins not from without… but from its own blood."
Astrid clenched her teeth. She recognized that voice from the nightmares passed down through her bloodline. "That's… Baal himself. But why… why hasn't he fully emerged?"
Xebec plunged his sword into the ground, igniting an anti-demon magic circle that weakened Baal's voice. But it was only temporary.
"We can't win here," Astrid whispered.
Xebec turned, bloodied but resolute. "Then we fall back. But next time… I'll bring light enough to erase this shadow."
With one final slash, his sword—now glowing with Silver-Blue Aura—tore open a path through the eastern wall.
Astrid led the surviving servants out one by one, and Xebec—his heart heavy—looked back at Bastian still standing in the darkness.
"Bas… I'll come back for you."
For a moment, Bastian bowed his head, whispering, his voice nearly lost in the storm:
"…I'll be waiting, Brother… on the side of darkness."
They left, the throne room crumbling behind them—while Baal's laughter echoed from the rift above, and shadows seeped like ink into every corner of the palace.
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To be continued...