Chapter 191: 191. Edward Sinclair – The Serpent Prince

Edward Sinclair, the heir of Sinclair House.

He was the son of a cunning woman and a cold father. He was born into a house corrupted by desire and greed.

He was the first and the eldest son and the one who would inherit the seat of House Sinclair. He wasn’t celebrated, since there was no concept of celebration in the house.

From childhood he had no friends; he had simply not been given the privilege to make some, and the worst thing was that he didn’t even realize that he was isolated from society.

Emotions were not something he was familiar with, neither chivalry nor any form of heartfelt warmth.

The duke didn’t bother raising his children while the duchess understood that children’s minds were easy to mold. She never intended to make her son human, for he may raise questions against her ways when his brain ripens.

So she started molding Edward’s mind so that he turned into a creature, a creature that loved conflict, that loved inflicting pain. For that, she needed to teach him how to inflict pain.

A type of pain that was not physical but a pain that gnawed at the mind and turned people into puppets of their own evil, a pain that made them lose rationality.

To teach her son how to do that, she needed a target, a target that her son could consider as a reference and learn under her tutelage. Coincidentally, one day she saw her husband looking at a beautiful maid a few minutes longer than necessary, and that was all she needed to form a sinister scheme.

Three years later, Maximus was born to the same commoner maid. The duchess erupted in an act of anger and threw a fit like she was not behind the whole scheme.

The duke took a concubine while Edward had a younger brother now; the duchess also gained a practice target for Edward and her future children.

From that day onward The duchess would harass the concubine daily with venomous words and schemes and made Edward witness the whole process.

A three-year-old’s brain got molded easily when he witnessed repeated harassment of someone who, according to his mother, was beneath their level of existence.

The duchess used her words subtly to influence Edward’s mind, molding it into a weapon she would have full control over.

The duchess would often laugh, clap, and celebrate when her schemes affected the poor Maximus and his mother while Edward watched from a corner in silence, absorbing every act of trickery and cunning from his only source of learning.

One day the duchess stood in the hall, pointing far away at the balcony where the 2-year-old little Maximus played silently with some toys.

Edward, at five years of age, was instructed to go greet Maximus. How to greet was never told. The little boy had been given a task for the first time by his guardian; he had the enthusiasm to prove himself, and he did.

He went and smashed the wooden toys on the smiling Maximus’s face, making him bleed until the maids rushed to stop.

Edward returned only to be rewarded and praised by the duchess: “Good job, that’s how you greet them.”

For Edward, that praise meant more than just simple words of appreciation; he was being rewarded and appreciated by his mother, his guardian, for the first time, and that feeling soon became his anchor.

His brain recorded the feeling of being valued and told him that repeating the action might bring reward and praise, and what was a child without praise and reassurance?

Hollow.

The duchess succeeded from that day; she didn’t need to do anything, and she didn’t even need to tell Edward what to do; she just controlled him with a carrot and a stick.

And that is how Edward Sinclair, the serpent prince, came to be; he loved creating chaos, and he loved making people suffer and cry.

The cries were songs to his ears, and the tears were the source of satisfaction.

He had long learned how to mask his excitement and exhilaration under a neutral face. He laughed in his mind whenever he saw conflict and chaos.

His brain would reward him if he succeeded in making someone suffer with his words or actions, and that was precisely what was happening now as he saw the much-awaited confrontation between Arwen and William; he had been anticipating this moment for days.

He would now finally get to witness conflict and struggle between these two; it didn’t matter who was the one who ended up suffering; it could be William or it could be Arwen; it didn’t matter to him; he would feel fulfilled both ways.

He had done his work, and his talent had assisted him to the full extent.

Edward possessed an SS-ranked talent called ’Curse of the Wicked,’ which made people lose restraint on their minds and amplify any form of evil and chaotic thoughts that formed in their minds.

He would have been monitored by the academy for possessing such talent only if the academy actually knew of his talent, but unfortunately they didn’t.

During the process where normal students had to record their talents and affinities while getting admitted to the academy, the duchess used her special connections in the academy to get Edward excused under the nose while his talent was recorded as a minor C-ranked one.

Right now Edward stood at the crowd witnessing Arwen tarnishing Seraphine’s character.

“Hehe, what will you do, Kaiser??!!” Edwards’s heart beat with anticipation like a thin wall was holding his much-awaited prize, and William’s reaction would decide whether the wall would shatter or not.

But nothing happened; William didn’t even move when Edward expected him to get enraged and start attacking Arwen.

In fact, William remained seated, and his eyes wandered around Arwen at first, but then they lingered to the back, and for a few seconds, his gaze hovered on him too.

Those few seconds boomed in Edwards’s mind; he felt uneasy as if William had seen through his scheme.

He gulped lightly but then shook it in his mind; Edward had managed to create a perfect expression of shock on his face that masked his reaction with the crowd, and no way would anyone suspect anything.

He had saved himself countless times and kept himself out of suspicion in many conflicts that had been flamed by his schemes in the past.

Suddenly Arwen’s body got flung into the air, breaking the ceiling and shooting into the sky.

Edward smiled; finally, William had attacked. He turned his head to look at his figure, but shock erupted in his mind along with his external facade, and just like many others, he witnessed it.

William hadn’t even moved from his seat; he was just sitting calmly eating food from his tray.

Then a realization hit him: the sound of collision had never entered his ears or anyone else’s; that meant that no attack or spell had been initiated by William.

What happened afterward made him more than just frustrated; Arwen flew like a rag doll; he lost consciousness and did not scream or cry at all.

The professors arrived, but strangely, William escaped accusations like it was nothing, and all that happened was that everyone present came to a conclusion that Arwen was under a demonic curse or spell.

Edwards’s teeth gritted, and as the crowd dispersed from the hall, he also turned to the left.

Edward exited the cafeteria building and proceeded towards the training grounds; he would need to find a new prey; he was craving it.

As he entered the training facility through a corridor, he walked towards the big door and flung it open, but as the door opened up, a figure appeared in front of him.

William stood there calmly.

His eyes looked at Edward; a smile bloomed on his face, a smile that would haunt Edward soon.

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