Lara heard every word that left Anton’s mouth.

The confidence in his tone.

The certainty.

The way he spoke as though the possibility of carrying the Kromwel bloodline was not absurd at all—but inevitable.

And for reasons she could not explain, something inside her recoiled.

A faint chill crept beneath her skin.

Her fingers instinctively curled at her sides as she stared at Anton from a short distance away. It wasn’t anger exactly. Nor fear.

It was rejection.

As though her mind—no, her very soul—refused to accept his claim.

The feeling came so suddenly that it unsettled her.

Perhaps it was instinct. Or perhaps it was because of the way Anton kept looking at her.

That gaze — It lingered too long. Too familiar. Too invasive.

Every time his eyes drifted toward her, Lara felt a wave of disgust rise in her chest. It was as if he was silently trying to claim something that did not belong to him.

If not for the fact that he was an honored guest personally invited into the excavation site, Lara genuinely felt she might have walked out already—

—or drawn her blade and split the entire conversation apart herself.

Governor Sanchez, oblivious to the growing tension, casually moved toward another coffin beside Prince Edward’s tomb, examining the faded inscriptions carved into the stone.

But Anton remained where he stood.

Still staring at Prince Edward’s portrait.

The underground chamber hummed with silence. Artificial candlelight flickered across his face, sharpening the shadows around his eyes.

His thoughts churned rapidly.

A royal descendant... The idea then had started as curiosity. Then fascination. Now it had become obsession.

If he played this correctly, the public would eat it up. The slight resemblance and commentaries by the right people should be enough to ignite speculation online. Add historical "discoveries," a DNA narrative, carefully leaked documents, maybe connections to surviving noble bloodlines—

It could work.

No. It should work.

Anton’s eyes narrowed slightly.

But the more he thought about constructing the narrative, the more irritated he became.

Why should he have to scheme for it?

Why should he need underhanded tricks to make people believe what should already be obvious?

A cold arrogance stirred within him.

I am X.

The name alone carried enough weight to shake entire industries.

In the business world, he wasn’t merely respected—he was worshipped.

Executives bowed their heads when negotiating with him. Politicians carefully measured every word around him. Billionaires chased his approval like starving men begging for scraps.

Power.

Influence.

Authority.

He possessed all of it already.

He had surpassed countless heirs born with silver spoons in their mouths. He built his empire through sheer intelligence and ruthlessness while those so-called second generation billionaires relied on inherited prestige.

Yet despite everything, people still looked at Ares differently.

As though he had been born above others, and he X hated that look.

And now, standing before Prince Edward’s portrait, that old resentment clawed its way back to t,he surface.

His chest tightened.

He slowly lifted his gaze toward Prince Edward’s portrait once more.

From the ancient wall, the prince’s obsidian eyes gazed down with suffocating authority—cold, regal, untouchable.

And suddenly—

Anton was no longer looking at Prince Edward.

He was seeing Ares Zuvel.

Hadn’t Ares once claimed that his lineage descended from the eldest prince’s branch?

Prince Aldrich, as depicted in the portrait he saw earlier, bore a resemblance to the youngest prince. Yet there was a softness to his features—a gentleness sharpened by a charming smile, which showed two shallow dimples resting against his cheeks.

Prince Edward was different.

He possessed the same calm arrogance Anton had seen in Ares.

The same piercing gaze.

The same noble bearing that made others instinctively bow their heads in his presence.

Anton’s jaw tightened.

Ares’ grandfather had already done it a few days ago.

That old fox had unearthed records, bloodline registries, even ancient church documents that linked the Zuvel family directly to the firstborn son of the founding emperor.

The entire country went insane over it.

Media outlets called the Zuvels "modern royalty." Investors flooded toward the family as if noble blood itself guaranteed success. Their company stocks exploded overnight, climbing so violently that even foreign markets took notice.

All because of ancestry.

Because the world was obsessed with monarchies and bloodlines.

Anton remembered watching those headlines back then, his contempt buried beneath cold indifference. Noble houses boasting about heritage. Powerful families clinging to ancient lineage as if old blood alone justified their dominance.

He had always looked down on it. Or at least, that was what he told himself.

Because beneath that disdain lurked something far uglier.

Envy.

Not because Ares was more capable than him. Never that.

Anton’s eyes darkened.

Power recognized power. That was the true law of the world.

The weak worshipped status. The strong and the powerful created it.

And if the Zuvels could ascend even higher simply because royal blood flowed through their veins...

Then he could too.

The thought emerged quietly.

Softly.

Like a whisper slithering through the cracks of his mind.

What if he had never truly been beneath them to begin with?

What if his bloodline also stood closer to the imperial throne?

What if his blood stood even closer to the imperial throne?

His breathing slowed.

His lips curled upward little by little, the faint smile carrying something almost feverish beneath it.

I was never meant to stand beneath others. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

The thought echoed through his mind with terrifying clarity, now.

No...

Someone like me was born to stand above them.

A strange heat spread through his chest.

I am of royal blood. A descendant of Prince Edward.

At first, it sounded absurd.

But the longer he lingered on the thought, the more it rooted itself inside him.

The more he repeated it—

The more it stopped feeling like delusion...

And started feeling like truth.

...

Standing beside him, Lara felt it immediately.

Something in Anton had changed.

His gaze remained fixed on Prince Edward’s portrait, yet the air around him had subtly darkened—as though some dangerous thought had quietly taken root within him.

A suffocating pressure seeped from the ex army major who had once overturned the country’s perception of mutineers from criminals to heroes.

It made her skin crawl.

Lara suppressed a shiver.

That aura... It felt disturbingly familiar.

And then she remembered him.

Turik.

The cunning general of Zura. That same oppressive presence. That same quiet malice hidden beneath composure.

Men who smiled while plotting disasters that others would only realize once it was already too late.

Could it be...