’This is such a refreshment compared to the last dozen events I attended,’ Alex thought, the awful memories flashing through his mind, having to suffer through endless meetings with big shots and noble ladies far too eager to get to know him better.

The pleasant thought remained with him until he entered the corridor leading toward Rongradin’s private wing.

Here, the atmosphere changed completely. The laughter and music faded into the distance, leaving only the quiet voices of servants and the hurried sound of their footsteps.

From their conversations, Alex learned that they were preparing a private feast for the prince and his closest friends, one that would begin in a couple of hours, after the ceremonial duel and the main wedding rites were completed.

Alex saw the royal wards ahead, covering dozens of corridors, spreading through every chamber remotely close to the prince’s location. Their purpose was not merely to stop intruders and ambitious royals from entering. They watched every authorized person who crossed into the private wing, checked their bloodline, traced their movement, and compared their actions against the responsibilities assigned to them.

Even if he entered disguised as someone who belonged there, the deception would only last until he did something outside that person’s expected role.

And entering invisibly was not a better option.

With his mastery over Error, Alex could conceal himself from almost anything inside this palace. Sight, sound, smell, mana, instinct, and even the awareness of the formations themselves could be made to fail for as long as desired.

But the wards were built to account for Error, and while Alex could fool the formation long enough for his plan to unfold as he wished, he wouldn’t be able to hide the small disturbance caused on the fabric of the ward itself to be picked by the one keeping watch.

A Sin Genrel being the likely candidate for keeping watch.

Which meant the only path forward was a distraction significant enough to occupy three Sin Generals and the Demon King simultaneously, buying the few seconds he needed to move without every major power in the palace descending on him at once.

’It should happen any time now.’ Alex turned his attention inward, peering into the space of his own mind.

For an instant, the decorated corridor, the servants, and the distant music vanished from his awareness. In their place was darkness. Nothing but endless blackness spreading in every direction, with a single name repeating within it again and again.

His name.

The anchor he was required to maintain every time he performed ’True Error’, the mechanism that ensured he returned as himself rather than as whatever amalgamation of the entities residing within him at the moment. Without it, the return was uncertain in ways that had nothing comfortable about them.

Fragments of memories, wills, and nature that did not belong together, yet would come to reside inside him all the same.

The fight with Envy had been underway for some time, and unless Dark had other plans, which was a variable Alex had learned to account for, having witnessed the ancient being operate one to many times, the probability of Envy surviving past this day was effectively zero.

Envy’s death would serve as the distraction he needed, buying him a few seconds needed to replace one of the people assigned to his preparations, and then just wait a little and greet Ahrimon.

If Dark somehow didn’t do as he wanted, or if things on his side went wrong as they tended to do sometimes, he would simply stop the sophisticated play and achieve things through force, though he would rather not.

Either way, both his goals would be fulfilled.

Alex leaned lightly against the dark wall of the corridor, his expression calm as several servants passed by him without noticing anything unusual.

The darkness cloaking his senses finally faded away, replaced by a broken mirror domain collapsing in on itself, while at the center of the devastation rested the headless corpse of a monstrous abomination.

Envy was dead.

His focus snapped back to the outside world, the monochromatic quality of his perception reading the palace around him as vast beacons of emotional disturbance, the signatures of shock and disbelief and anger and surprise radiating outward from the sources of awareness scattered through the structure, each one reacting to the death of Envy in its own way, each one pulling its attention toward the impossible event.

The window was open.

Alex moved.

"True Concealment."

An Error appeared within the vast ward formation, a single, precise discontinuity that existed for a fraction of a second, just long enough for a specific purpose and not a single moment beyond it.

Alex stepped through the gap in the darkness and into the Prince’s preparation chamber.

The room was large and deliberately impressive. High ceilings vaulted above in carved obsidian arches, the same black stone as the palace exterior, their surfaces etched with patterns that caught the ambient light and broke it into geometric fragments across the walls.

Rich furnishings lined the perimeter, sculptures standing tall, with weapons hanging from the wall, most bearing scars from battle and the dried blood of their victims, everything arranged with perfect precision.

The air held the faint traces of incense, something dark and resinous that suited the space without overwhelming it.

Servants stood along the outer walls, holding folded ceremonial robes, weapons, ornaments, and trays filled with objects meant for the coming pre-wedding ceremony.

Guards stood between them at precise distances, and among them stood individuals who stood apart from the rest, individuals of unique traits and natures, their gazes fixed on the prince at its center.

Even though Alex now stood among them, not a single person reacted to his presence.

His gaze moved toward the circular platform in the middle of the chamber.

Prince Rongradin stood there dressed in a cerulean-silver robe, two black gem-like horns with pointed tips like needles, and ash white skin and pitch black hair that flowed over his wide shoulders.

Across from him stood a demon woman wielding a long silver spear. Her dark yellow hair was tied behind her head, while thin arcs of lightning flashed along the spearhead with every movement.

She attacked with remarkable speed.

Three thrusts came in quick succession, each aimed at a different vital point, followed by a sweeping strike meant to take Rongradin off balance, each sequence flowing into the next without pause, her movements carrying the quality of someone who was genuinely trying to find an opening rather than simply demonstrating technique.

The prince avoided every attack with smooth, unhurried movements, shifting only as much as necessary and never allowing his expression to change.

Rongradin was getting married today, but by the customs of his people, the wedding ceremony did not begin with the prince standing at the altar. It began with him proving his spirit as a warrior.

The tradition was straightforward in its design. A champion chosen by the bride, of equal rank and stage, would face the groom in a duel of first blood.

Winning was not a requirement for the marriage to proceed, but losing simply carried its own consequence, the fulfillment of one wish chosen by the bride, or twice the promised bridal gift, which had been agreed upon when the marriage was arranged and could take any form, land, treasures, resources, or promises that carried their own weight.

It was a custom built to ensure that the union began with honesty about what each party was bringing to it, which was perhaps the most practical form of romance among people who loved war like nothing else.

Alex shifted his eyes through the chamber, stopping before a demon clad in black, standing in the corner, his presence well hidden, showing his elite nature.

An assassin. Alex read his entire skill set in the time it took to cross the room, the layers of capability and the gaps between them, the mechanisms of his training and the reflexes it had produced, all of it mapped in the seconds before he reached him.

Within a single instant, the demon was unconscious, caught before the surprise could become a reaction, and his body was drawn into a pool of darkness that accepted it without sound or disturbance.

Alex took his place, assuming his position and his form and every external quality that the ward formation would recognize as belonging there, settling into the corner with the same stillness the assassin had maintained, becoming the presence the wards expected to find in that location.

By the time the Sin General, keeping watch, recovered from the shock of his brother’s death, still processing the fact of it, still reaching for the implications of what it meant, Alex was already in position.

Now he simply waited to act.

The sparring session continued, the demon woman stepping back from the final exchange and lowering her spear with the composed acknowledgment of someone who had nothing more to offer.

Rongradin rolled his shoulders once, the movement easy and unhurried, and turned towards Alex, and stayed silent as if expecting a response. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Alex stayed silent and stepped forward, deciding on how to handle this situation.

"Your footwork favors your left when you reset after an evasion," Alex said, his voice carrying the quiet authority of someone offering an observation rather than a criticism. "Three times in the last sequence. Against someone patient enough to track the pattern, that becomes a liability."

Rongradin’s eyes narrowed, but the prince said nothing.

He just stared at Alex with immediate, assessing sharpness before stepping forward to stand at arm’s length. He was taller than Alex, broader through the shoulders, his features carrying the particular sharpness of someone in whom the best qualities of his bloodline had concentrated themselves without apology.

His eyes, a deep and unsettling amber, held a quality of intelligence that had nothing to do with his status and was rather a result of pure work and experience earned through years of hardship.

"Sir Garanteen, you do not mind proving your words, do you?" Something moved across Rongradin’s face that was almost a smile.

Alex bowed his head. "As you wish, my prince."

The demon woman stepped away, leaving the center of the chamber open. Rongradin did not take a weapon. He simply raised his hands, then crossed the distance before the attendants could even follow.

They exchanged ten blows in the time a heart took to beat even half as many times. Alex side-stepped two palms, avoided three, and allowed the rest to press him back, displaying only what the man whose identity he had taken should have been capable of. Rongradin was fast, precise, and had already begun adjusting the flaw Alex had pointed out.

But years of habit could not be erased in a few breaths.

Alex gave him a narrow opening, and Rongradin took it, his palm landing heavily against Alex’s shoulder, tearing his skin open and drawing blood, but just a fraction of a second before that, Alex slipped past the strike and pressed two fingers against the prince’s throat.

The exchange ended. Alex stepped back, his shoulder lowered slightly from the force of the blow.

Rongradin remained silent for a moment before reaching out and tapping him on that same shoulder. "Thank you for correcting my mistake, Sir Garanteen."

Alex gave a small bow. "That trick would not work more than once in an actual battle, my prince."

"Yes," Rongradin said, with a bright smile. "But today, I am not fighting an actual battle. It is more than that. A single mistake stands between me and what is expected of me."

He turned back toward the platform, his expression calm but sharper than before. "I am ready to make this day memorable."

Alex returned silently to the shadows near the wall. ’You certainly will, just not as you think,’ he thought, his eyes briefly settling on the Archaic Ring.