Ruling as the Next Dragon Sage!-Chapter 83: Vaniti - The Cruel Saint’s Thesis [2]

"Urgh..." The man stirred awake with a heavy groan, pain near his core. His eyes slowly fluttered open, and when they came into crystal clear vision, the bright lights of a chandelier forced him to get up, at least.

He leaned to his side, coughing slightly, before looking down and seeing dress shoes. One...that looked familiar. Like those belonging to a Senate of some sort.

He let out a quick breath of relief, "O-oh...it must’ve been a dream, then. No way that could have–"

And yet again, or once again, all it took was for his eyes to do a little bit more discovering. Slowly ascending upon the dress shoes and the regular dark black slacks was the bloodied suit. A small, yet graceful figure.

The woman had already taken a seat on a wooden chair, taken from another table nearby. Not that many, or as a matter of fact, no one would have a use for it now.

She held one book with one hand, and her other hand roamed the pages. Each finger slides across slowly, but surely. Once she had noticed him stir up, her hand removed itself from the pages, and the book from obstructing her view.

The book shut closed with ease. She threw it behind her, as the sound of a cat screeching and a few metallic items conjured up in the background, not that it even startled her, not one bit.

"You’re up," She says.

Then darkly, "Again."

The man slowly got up, "N-no...it can’t be. I thought...what just..."

He became even more so at a loss for words, getting to his knees as he looked right at his hands. Clenched, unclenched. Clench, unclenched.

The woman stared at him, a slight smile tugged at the corner of her lips, but faded away. Hidden with a scoff.

"You tried to fight me, stupid, actually, don’t recommend it." She points out, with a single finger.

"I could’ve killed you, easily, you know? Just like the rest," She says, but the man...there was something off. The way she spoke sounded almost like...someone without a care in the world.

There are dead bodies littered across the lobby of the most prestigious and guarded building in the entire nation. If this...this elf managed to do away with all of that...then...then...

"Then...why? Why let me live, huh...?!" He asked, his voice on the verge of breaking. His hands planted against the floor with a slam. He looked down instead, not wanting to face her directly, because if that’s what it meant—to be faced with that, with her...then...

No, he didn’t even want to think about it. His head continued to face the floor, away from hers, but it didn’t last long. It didn’t take much for his head to be raised, against his will and forcibly so.

She extended her hand, just slightly. An invisible force was behind it, that’s all the man knew...but it was weird, awkward even.

Her face was neutral, but she couldn’t help but release a knowing smile behind it all.

"Did I not tell you already, it was fate that saved you?" She began.

"For whatever reason, you weren’t present when I had...done all this, you should be glad, you know? This is another chance to live."

The man wanted to break out into a nasty snarl, a rush of words entered his mind, broken, though. Fragmented. Vulgar ones, ones where he would curse her and her entire life up until this point.

How could he go on and live with this...? What was there to live from, hm? It had just seemed like the election had been won. The Senate Chamber was livid, excited. Aurea Islands was about to prosper into a new era never seen before.

And just like that, it was gone.

Taken away.

The man took his eyes off the ground, didn’t want to look directly at her, so around it was. The Senate Chamber was a dedicated building, right in the political sphere of Royalia, a naturally bustling city of remarkable members of Aurean society.

Further north was the building, accompanied by the Chancellor’s Hall, which wasn’t that far off, a building that looked prestigious all in its glory, but alas, looks like after tonight, no one will be accompanying it.

And after news breaks out about this, about how all of the senators, including the nation’s future Chancellor, had just...been culled away as if they were livestock, it would send the country into a frenzy, no doubt.

And here he was.

In the midst of it all, an eerie, quiet silence before landfall.

He slowly got up on his feet, the heavy golden lights of the chandelier that dangled above them. And even then, blood had still found a way to reach there.

The woman stared blankly at him, "Still shaken? I would assume so, not every day you get a chance like this. Take it well, will you?"

She spoke again, continuing to bring it up, continuing to drill inside the man’s head that people he knew had just died. Then, without a second to spare, he replied, words already on the tip of his tongue.

"Tell me, then. What will you do after this?" He asked.

"You...did you think that your deeds would go undone without a proper consequence? I don’t know who you are...or for what reason you could’ve done this, or, hell, who even sent you! But I will make sure! I will make sure that—!"

She only stared blankly back at him, not shocked, not lost, not...pondering in a sense either, just...there. It caught him off guard, he expected any other reaction, any other expression. Because, when she’s constantly retelling him of the grim predicament he’s in...she never hesitated to tag it along with a grin, did she? Or a cunning smile.

But here, it was the complete opposite. A neutral, and blank face.

It didn’t take long for her pointed ears to twitch, and then she spoke.

"...Make sure of it, you say...? I wouldn’t be the one to make demands, if I were you." She quickly added on. Her eyes narrowed down at him, and him alone.

The man’s fists trembled, his nails biting into the flesh of his palms. Rage, grief, disbelief—none of it carried weight against the calm presence before him.

It was as if the entire chamber reeked of inevitability, and she was the conductor of that fate.

She tilted her head slightly, her pearl and emerald eyes shimmering faintly under the golden chandelier light. Assessing his figure even more, seeing something within him that he couldn’t. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

His direct emotions.

"You honestly think anger will resurrect them? That hatred will undo my hand? No. What is gone, is gone. And what is to come...is yours to shoulder."

These words weren’t spoken with malice. Not even cruel in tone, either, not in the slightest. Just...frightening. Frightening because of its emptiness.

"Speak of consequence," She continued, rising from her chair. Each step echoing off the marble floor that was stained in both sorrow and scarlet.

"But it requires witnesses, does it not? As far as you and I can see."

She shook her head right after.

"There’s simply none."

His teeth clenched instantly. Again, it was brought up. And again it felt like he could not do anything against it.

She was sparing him. The elf was, as a matter of fact. If she wanted him dead, it would have already been done so. Thanks to so much of her quote unquote "belief in fate", is the only thing that’s keeping him alive.

And...he already tried to test her, just once. And with that, it ended with him laid out flat. Not a great experience, and to mention he’s still sore from it entirely...

...but all in all, it would not be a wise decision to try to clash against her ideals. It sounds more like a death sentence than anything.

All he did was take one look back, the bodies littered across the floor. He’s not even sure if they even put up a decent fight. Just all of them, slain like livestock.

He looked back, fists clenching tighter at the mere thought of it alone. Then, slowly, fading away. Any strength that was building up alongside his rising anger quickly vanished, disappeared.

The elf noticed it, but didn’t react. It was a thing of the sort for her, and for now, it seemed like her job here has concluded in its entirety.

And just like that, she stepped past him. Her shoes painted crimson across the floor, but she did not look back.

The Senate Chamber, for what it was known in Aurea Islands, was forever supposed to be a place of innovation for the future.

There was no future here, not anymore.

And if it did exist.

It would be a grim one. A dark future that awaited Aurea Islands. And now?

It was all just a matter of time.

He—the man, dropped to his knees. Shoulders heavy. He wanted to yell, scream, but his voice betrayed him. He wanted to strike at her, but his limbs refused.

In turn, he could only stare as she ascended the steps towards the grand exit. Before she reached there, and the doors automatically opening with just a wave of her hand, her head turned back.

Her dual colored eyes tracking his, then, she turned straight away.

And that night, was forever remembered more in the dark patches of Aurea’s history.

And furthermore only inscribed further into the flesh of the man that same night as well.

Sultan himself.