The dust settled, an eerie calm pervaded.

  The guard mechs and battle mech armors, those heralds of Veryon's coup, y scattered and sm, defeated not just by magic but by sheer tactical fht.

  Yvain Edensworn, the young king whal poise had once seemed more ceremonial than sequential, now hovered above the wreckage with the air of a maestro who had just ducted a symphony of destru.

  His gaze swept over the room, imperial and unyielding, and it was then that a dreadful realization dawned upohered nobility.

  Benjamin Veryon, his face a mask of thwarted ambition, watched with a growing sense of unease. He had anticipated a legion of meized soldiers to swarm the hall at his behest, yet only a paltry few dozen had answered his call.

  The discrepancy was gring—a tactical blunder, or so it seemed.

  Whispers began to circute among the heir shock giving way to a begrudging admiration. Yvain had not only repelled a formidable assault but had orchestrated a demonstration of power so precise, it bordered on prest.

  The absence of further reinforts for the rebellion spoke volumes; the young king had anticipated the treachery and had ralized it with minimal fanfare and maximal efficy.

  "Could it be that he phis all along?" Marquis Reutered under his breath, his previous indignatioing into a mix of fear and respect.

  Duke Merweather, whose loyalty had always been as fluid as the tides of his southern shores, couldn't help but cluck his tongue in appreciation.

  "The boy baited a trap with himself as the lure," he observed, a smirk pying on his lips. "And we, like fools, worried about the puppet’s strings when the puppeteer was always in trol."

  “No. The moment he decided to fight back for the throne, he…”

  Even Duke Olfield, often stoid unfppable, found himself relutly impressed. "To think, the young pup had us dang to his tune, and we were he wiser," he ceded, his voice tinged with a rare note of humor.

  As for Veryon, the mastermind behind the failed coup, the realization that he had been outmaneuvered so pletely by his youthful nephew was a bitter pill to swallow.

  His pns, grandiose aiculously id, had crumbled not because of external forces but because of an uimation of Yvain’s ing and capability.

  In the echoes of Yvain's magid the sm remnants of mech armor, the nobles of Edensor saw not just a king who had survived an assault but one who had tur into a decration of his snty.

  Yvain’s calm demeanor, looking down upon them all, was not just a show of strength—it was a mastercss in royal strategy.

  Even though he was alone…!

  “No further reinforts will heed your call, Veryon. Not the armies from your house, nor from those of the other nobles. Not even the royal guards you thought you’d bought. Eae has been, or soon will be, ralized,” Yvain decred.

  He floated slightly higher, his gaze sweeping over the room with regal disdain.

  “Here you stairely alone, before a Mage, your king, and the disciple of the Infich. Did you really believe that mere nobles like yourself could ever hope to defeat me?”

  As Yvain's words echoed through the grand throne room, a tangible wave of shod fear washed over the assembly of nobles.

  Their expressions froze, eyes wide with a blend of terror and disbelief.

  Some leaned back as if the very air around the young king had bee electric, their hands reflexively clutg at the rich fabrics of their garb, seeking fort where there was none.

  Murmurs swirled, hushed whispers of realization that the boy they had so vastly uimated was not merely a token figurehead, but a formidable mage in his ht.

  It was almost ughable, the drastiderestimation they had all itted. Here was a young king, who at the age of five had lost his parents and showed raordinary signs of magical talent. Who could have guessed?

  By the age of seven, he was king, with just four years uhe tutege of the famed Infich before her mysterious demise.

  Yet, now he stood, a mere teenager, effortlessly dismantling an arsenal of advanced mechs with the poise of a seasoned warlock.

  Their bodies stiffened, a physical maion of the internal recalibration of their opiniarding their king. Eyebrows arched high, lips parted slightly in astonishment, as they silently aowledged the miracle before them.

  Not only had Yvaied this coup, but he had single-handedly ralized the threat with a dispy of power that bordered on the divine.

  "Was he always this powerful, or did we merely nap through his ast?" one might wonder ically, the sarcasm a thin veil over the uhat gripped them.

  “Then maybe… his parents hid his real talent early on… when he was only five…!”

  Eaoble, previously so assured in their own power and influenow found themselves grappling with a new reality: uimating Yvain was not just a mistake; it was akin to ign a dragon slumberih one's own floorboards.

  COUGH! COUGH!

  Duke Veryon cleared his throat, a forced chuckle esg him more as a nervous titter than the posed ughter he intended.

  He smoothed the front of his richly embroidered doublet, a vain attempt tain some sembnce of trol over the unfolding chaos.

  "Oh, dear nephew... look at you! You've certainly grown," he began, his voice dripping with feigned affe.

  "Uhought you were just a young boy, wrestling with the trials of youth while striving to be the king this nd deserves. Such pressure for one so young, isn't it overwhelming?"

  His smile twitched as he tinued, "When I heard that you had so suddenly accepted Burn's proposal to surrender, I was utterly shocked! Surely, it must be your inexperiealking, and not a well-sidered decision. To hand over trol of your parents'—our—nd to an outsider!"

  Veryon's ugh, meant to souy, cracked uhe strain. "I am merely trying t some seo you, my beloved, silly his is all out of love, you must uand."

  Around him, the room’s atmosphere tensed, nobles exging looks of disbelief at the duke’s brazen words. Veryon’s hands spread wide, as if to embrace the young king, who stood resolutely unimpressed.

  "I grieve every time I see you strain uhe mantle of rulership. You're but a child. As an adult, it is my duty to lift this burden from your shoulders. You should be pying, enjoying your youth, not ensnared by the cares of the kingdom!"

  "This, too, is what your parents would have wanted for their son, isn’t it? To not be burdened with the kingdom until it’s truly your time."

  His words floated over the assembled nobles, who stood aghast at his audacity. The air was thick with unspoken accusations of betrayal and manipution.

  Yvain, for one, remained icily detached, his gaze cold as he measured the man before him.

  Veryon’s performance was a mastercss iional manipution, his every gesture tailored to paint himself as a benevolent protector rather than the usurper he was.

  Yet, his efforts seemed to unravel before Yvain's posure.

  As Yvain's hand rose towards Veryon, his voice was as cold as the swirling mists of mana that gathered around him. "Is that all? Then, I shall sider it your final words."

  Veryon's facade crumbled into raw panic as he blurted out, "Child, you tle fool! How could you ally with the killer of your father?! Burn—it was he who murdered him!"

  The accusatioonated ihrone room like a spell gone awry. A collective gasp rippled through the gathered he air thied with shod the sudden tension of a revetion too monstrous to prehend.

  Yvain flihe shadows cast by his swirling mana momentarily darkening his expression, which twisted into a mask of pain and disbelief.

  The murmurs began almost immediately, the room abuzz with the horror of Veryon's cim.

  "I am, despite everything, still your family! Your uhe older brother of your dear mother! A, you choose him—a stranger, a vilin who orchestrated the demise of your parents?!" Veryon's voice broke, pitg higher in his desperation.

  "Don't you see? Your father died on his return from Burn's ation seven years ago! It was no ce—it was orchestrated!"

  The shockwaves of Veryon's accusation seemed to physically stagger the room. er noble recoiled as if struck, their faces a vas of betrayal and fear.

  Marquis Reuepping forward, his voice trembled with e, " this be true? An act so vile—and now he’s trying to take our nd…!"

  Duke Merweather, his hands ched into fists, added fiercely, "Such a spiracy, if true, demands justiot this treachery!"

  "And you," Duke Eldric's voice thundered, directed at Veryon but loud enough for all to hear, "you dare use such a ow, as a shield for your own rebellion? Shame on you if you lie!"

  Yvain, amidst this storm of voices, remained a figure of torment and wrath, his mana fog now a tempest, refleg the turmoil within.

  Veryon pressed on, his voice sharpening with urgency. "Think about it, Yvain! During his ation, Burn singled out your father from all the lobal dignitaries present. Why engage exclusively with him? It was a setup, meticulously veiled as diplomatior."

  "sider the possibility," he tinued, his tone ced with a mix of accusation and bitterness, "was it sheer arrogance, or a calcuted insult that he only truly aowledged your father that night? And then, what a ly your father never made it home alive!"

  The hall was charged with aric mix of horror and indignation, the nobles' shock evolving into a frenzy of accusations and spiracy theories.

  “Fine! Child, you hate me, you punish me all you want! But how could you do this to yourself? To your te parents?! How could yo—”

  BLAST!

  The word was cut off as sharply as it had begun. A shog, abrupt silence followed, broken only by a soft, fused utterance from Veryon himself.

  "Huh?"

  The assembly watched in frozen horror as Veryon slowly looked down, his eyes widening in disbelief.

  There, right through his torso, was a hole so perfectly circur it seemed almost artistic, a ghastly window clear through his body. The edges were so , so precise, that for a moment, reality itself seemed to pause in fusion.

  Then, as the gravity of the situatioled in, Veryon's legs buckled beh him. He colpsed to the ground, his body hitting the marble with a hollow thud, lifeless eyes staring up at the ornate ceiling.

  The nobles gasped, stepping bastinctively as the reality of what had just occurred dawned on them—Veryon was dead, struck down by an unseen, unfathomable force, leaving behind nothing but a stunned silend a room full of shocked faces.

  …before they realized… It was Yvain.

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