[POV Liselotte]

The castle’s training courtyard was a cauldron of restrained tension. The royal guards—men who had sworn to give their lives for the crown—aimed their crossbows at the sealed gates with trembling hands. On the other side of the reinforced wood, the scraping of hundreds of nails against stone and the monotonous murmuring of the possessed students created a nightmare atmosphere.

Leah walked beside me, still clutching her father’s letter as if it were a talisman against madness. We climbed the stone stairs toward the battlements, where Elliot’s figure stood silhouetted against a sky stained with a sickly violet hue. He remained motionless, watching the sea of empty faces surrounding his fortress.

“Elliot!” Leah called as we approached. “Brother, thank the gods you’re safe! The academy… everyone has lost their minds. We need to activate the second-tier defenses and find a way to break the Shadow’s link.”

Elliot did not turn immediately. His posture was too rigid—even for him. When he finally moved his head toward us, a block of real ice settled in my stomach. It wasn’t the cold of my magic—it was the cold of fear.

Elliot’s eyes, usually sharp and filled with calculated intelligence, were clouded by a pale film. His pupils were dilated, fixed on a nonexistent point behind us. There was no recognition in his gaze—only the same terrifying emptiness we had seen in the students on the bridge.

“Elliot… brother?” Leah’s voice broke as she stepped back.

“The city must rest,” Elliot said. His voice was monotone, devoid of human inflection. “Order requires silence. Silence requires obedience. The Shadow is order.”

“No!” I roared, drawing my dark crystal sword. “He’s under its control too! Fall back!”

Julian and Mizuki moved to guard Leah, while the royal guards surrounding Elliot began drawing their swords with the same mechanical slowness. The heart of the kingdom had been severed—the regent was now a puppet of the very will we were fighting.

But the moment Leah stepped further onto the battlement, something changed.

Beneath our feet, the castle floor began to tremble. Not like an earthquake, but like a rhythmic pulse—a heartbeat of stone. At the center of the main tower, an ancient crystal finial—long thought decorative—began to emit a blinding white light.

“What is that?” Arthur shouted, shielding his eyes.

The light expanded into a circular shockwave, sweeping across the battlements. It was a warm, ancient energy that smelled of incense and forgotten history. The Seal of the Eternal Guardian on my chest reacted, glowing with an intensity that nearly burned my skin. It seemed that the presence of royal blood—Leah within the maximum security perimeter—had activated an ancestral defense protocol: the Crystal of Memory of Whirikal.

The wave of light passed through Elliot.

We watched as the shadows clouding his eyes writhed violently, as if burned by the purity of the radiance. The prince let out a piercing scream and fell to his knees, clutching his head with both hands.

“Get out of my mind! GET OUT!” Elliot roared—and for the first time in minutes, his voice regained its human tone, filled with agony.

I rushed to him—not to attack, but to hold him. I channeled a small current of my purest ice into the back of his neck, trying to stabilize his internal temperature as the castle’s artifact finished purging the external influence. The guards around him also collapsed, dropping their weapons as if they weighed tons.

Slowly, the crystal’s glow faded into a soft radiance.

Silence returned—but this time, it was different.

Elliot breathed heavily, sweat soaking his brow. He lifted his gaze, and when his eyes met Leah’s, the milky haze was gone.

He was back.

“Leah… Lotte…” Elliot gasped, allowing me to help him sit against the battlement. “My head… feels like a thousand needles are stitching my thoughts together.”

Leah dropped to her knees beside him, grabbing his hand desperately. “Elliot, are you alright? What happened?”

Elliot closed his eyes, a deep expression of remorse crossing his face. The man who prided himself on control and foresight now looked vulnerable—almost broken.

“It was the letter…” he whispered bitterly. “The Church letter I showed you. It wasn’t from them. The moment I broke the seal and read the first words, something slipped through my eyes. It was a subtle mana virus—a suggestion planted by the Shadow. I thought I was being logical, that I was protecting you by giving you that false explanation about our father… but it wasn’t me speaking. It was it, using my authority to keep you still while the net closed.”

He looked down at the crowd of students and citizens still hammering at the castle gates.

“I let this happen,” Elliot continued, a tear of rage rolling down his cheek. “I let my own people become empty shells because I believed I was smarter than the enemy. I was a fool. The Shadow doesn’t play with armies—it plays with our weaknesses, with our need to believe everything is under control.”

“It’s not your fault, Elliot,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “No one would have expected infiltration through an official seal. What matters is that the castle’s artifact freed you.”

“The Legacy of Kings…” Elliot murmured, looking toward the tower. “My father once told me the castle would only awaken if the bloodline was in real danger. Your arrival, Leah, triggered the resonance. But this glow is temporary. The crystal has exhausted itself purging the palace—it won’t protect us for long if the Shadow decides to strike directly.”

He rose with effort, bracing himself against the wall. His gaze regained some of its usual steel—but now it was tempered with grim urgency.

“Listen to me. If I fell, other high-ranking officers have likely fallen too. Whirikal’s chain of command is compromised. Lotte, you were right from the beginning—we can’t trust anyone who has had contact with external correspondence or the noble court.”

Leah showed him the letter she had received at the academy—the one about the cave. Elliot read it quickly and shook his head.

“This letter… although it appears to be our father’s handwriting, it could also be a decoy—to lure you into a false sense of security. Or perhaps it’s real, and he’s trying to warn us that the trap in the north was only the beginning,” Elliot analyzed. “But we can’t afford to wait anymore. If the Shadow controls the population, it will soon use the citizens as human shields—to force us to open the gates or to wear us down morally.”

He turned toward us, and for the first time, I saw his remorse transform into iron resolve.

“I am no longer a regent waiting for orders or reports. Whirikal is bleeding—and if I have to burn my own memories to save it, I will. Lotte, Leah… we need an evacuation plan. The castle is not a fortress—it’s a cage if we stay trapped here. We must reach the Valley of Laments. If our father is there, it’s our only chance to rally the royal army and strike back.”

I looked toward the horizon, where darkness seemed to devour the stars. Elliot’s awakening was a small victory—but the disaster surrounding us was absolute. Whirikal was falling, and our only path forward was into the very heart of the trap the Shadow had set for the King.

“We’ll prepare an escape through the lower tunnels,” I said, feeling my ice mana begin to resonate with the battle I knew was coming. “Elliot, guide the survivors. Leah and the heroes will stay in the center. I’ll clear the path.”

The remorse in Elliot’s eyes faded, replaced by the cold clarity of a survivor.

The Shadow’s game had escalated—but now, with the regent awakened, at least we knew what we were fighting against.

The night of Whirikal was deep.

But the ice still had much to say before dawn.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep