Chapter : 1127

As they stood before the sealed main gate, the feeling of wrongness was absolute. It was a tangible pressure, a force that pressed in on the mind, whispering of futility and despair. Kyle felt the very laws of reality fraying at the edges, as if the fortress were a puncture in the fabric of the world, through which a darker, colder reality was leaking.

Then, with a low, groaning sound that was not the grinding of gears but the sound of a long, drawn-out exhalation, the massive gates swung inward. It was not an act of mechanics. It was a living thing, a beast opening its maw to welcome them. A single figure stood silhouetted in the darkness of the gatehouse. It was not the short, stout form of Viscount Rubel. This man was tall, broad-shouldered, and stood with the unshakeable posture of a warrior in his prime.

As the figure stepped into the pale, sickly light of the square, Kyle’s breath caught in his throat. It was Sir Raghav, the most decorated and fanatically loyal knight in Rubel’s service, a man whose skill with a greatsword was legendary throughout the duchy.

But this was not the Sir Raghav Kyle knew. The old Raghav was a man of gruff humor and fierce, honorable pride. This new version was a thing of serene, terrifying calm. His face was a mask of beatific zeal, his eyes burning with the cold, righteous fire of a true believer. He was not a soldier; he was a priest.

He walked towards them, his armored footsteps echoing in the dead square. He stopped ten feet from Kyle’s horse and gave a slow, respectful bow.

“Lord Kyle,” he said, his voice not a challenge, but a warm, welcoming thing filled with a profound and pitying sorrow. “It is good to see you. We had hoped you would come. The Master said you would.”

He straightened, his gaze sweeping over Kyle and his men. He did not see them as enemies, but as lost sheep, as brothers who had wandered from the true path.

“You have come to a holy place, my lord,” Raghav continued, his voice resonating with a hypnotic, fervent power. “You have come to witness the dawn of a new age for House Ferrum.” He raised a hand, gesturing towards the corrupted fortress behind him. “This is no longer a den of traitors. It is the Unholy Palace, the throne of the true king.”

Sir Raghav stood as an island of serene fanaticism in the dead quiet of the square. The twenty veteran soldiers of Lord Kyle’s unit, men who had faced down charging beasts and screaming mages, felt a more profound and unsettling fear than they had ever known. A man who meets a charge with a sword can be understood. A man who meets it with a pitying smile is a monster of a different, more terrifying kind.

Raghav’s eyes, burning with that cold, zealous light, were fixed on Kyle. He saw not a threat, not an invader, but a potential convert. He was not a guard defending a fortress; he was an apostle waiting to deliver a sermon.

“You look upon this city and see corruption, Lord Kyle,” Raghav began, his voice taking on the sonorous, persuasive cadence of a practiced orator. “You see madness. You are a man of the old world, a man bound by the rusty chains of tradition and a flawed code of honor. You see a disease. I see the cure.”

He took a step closer, his gaze sweeping over the grim, silent faces of Kyle’s men before returning to their leader. “For generations, our house has been dying. We have been ruled by the second-best, by the usurper’s line. Your own grandfather, Malachi, was the younger brother. My master’s father, Gideon, was the true heir by the sacred laws of primogeniture. But he was a scholar, a man of peace, and so in a time of crisis, your warlike ancestors conspired to set him aside. They called it pragmatism. They called it for the good of the house. It was theft. A quiet, polite, and absolute theft of a birthright.”

Kyle’s hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. Raghav was speaking of ancient, painful history, a wound in the family’s lineage that was never spoken of but had never truly healed. It was a truth, but a truth twisted to serve a new and terrible purpose.

Chapter : 1128

“My master, Lord Rubel, has spent his entire life living in the shadow of that theft,” Raghav’s voice swelled with righteous fire. “He sought to correct the injustice through the proper channels. Through politics. Through loyalty. He offered his strength, his wisdom, and his own brilliant son as pillars to support the main house. And how was he repaid? With suspicion. With contempt. And finally, with public, absolute humiliation at the hands of a boy who is a pale, unworthy shadow of his father.”

He was speaking of the Summit. Of Lloyd’s unexpected rise and Rubel’s catastrophic fall. In Raghav’s telling, it was not the just punishment of a traitor, but the final, unforgivable insult that had forced their hand.

“The old ways have failed,” Raghav declared, his voice a clarion call. “The system is corrupt. It rewards weakness and punishes strength. And so, my master sought a new way. A higher power.” He gestured back towards the pulsating, corrupted fortress. “He made a pact not of desperation, but of ascension. He has allied himself with the Seventh Circle, a power that understands that true royalty is not given by birth, but is seized by will. He has been reforged. He is no longer your brother’s vassal. He is a king, Lord Kyle. A king in his own right, destined to burn away the rot of this duchy and forge a new, stronger dynasty from its ashes. A Ferrum dynasty of absolute, unyielding power.”

The sermon was a masterpiece of twisted logic and seductive grievance. It was a call to arms for every lesser branch, every resentful cousin, every man who had ever felt slighted by the main line. It was not just treason; it was a revolution.

Raghav’s face softened again into that look of profound, pitying sorrow. “This is a holy war, Lord Kyle. A war to reclaim a stolen throne. And in this war, there is no middle ground. You stand with the old, dying world of your weak Arch Duke, or you kneel to the new, rising power of the true king.”

He took one final step forward and extended his open, gauntleted hand. It was not a threat, but an invitation. An offer of amnesty. An act of mercy.

“My master respects you, Lord Kyle. He knows your strength. He knows your loyalty was given to a title, not the man. The title of Arch Duke is now his by right of power. He offers you a place in his new order. Kneel. Swear your sword to him, and you will be his right hand, the first and most honored lord in his new kingdom. Your men will be spared. Your lands will be protected. Join us. Help us build the future of House Ferrum.”

The silence that followed was absolute. Kyle looked at Raghav’s outstretched hand. He saw the genuine, fanatical belief in the knight’s eyes. Raghav was not lying. He truly believed every word he was saying. He believed he was offering salvation.

Kyle’s gaze then drifted past Raghav, to the hollowed-out people in the streets, to the corrupted stones of the fortress, to the tangible aura of despair and damnation that clung to this entire city. He saw the "future" Raghav was offering. It was a future of soulless puppets, of demonic pacts, of a power that fed on the very essence of life.

His choice was never in question. But his response would not be a debate. It would not be an argument. The time for words was over. He was a soldier, and his language was steel.

Slowly, with a deliberate, almost ceremonial grace, Lord Kyle Ferrum’s hand moved. It did not take Raghav’s. It went to the hilt of his own sword.

The sound of the blade sliding from its scabbard was the only sound in the world. A clean, sharp, ringing whisper of polished steel. It was a sound that cut through the hypnotic power of Raghav’s sermon, a note of pure, cold, unyielding reality.

He did not raise the sword in a challenge. He simply held it before him, the point angled towards the ground, in a formal guard’s stance. His face was a mask of cold, hard granite.

Raghav’s outstretched hand remained, frozen in the air. The pity in his eyes was slowly, regretfully, being replaced by a profound, chilling disappointment. The offer had been made. And the answer had been given.