The screams were too loud to ignore.
At first, they blended into the castle's usual noise… hurried footsteps, scattered conversations, the distant clinking of silverware in the main hall. It was lunchtime, and the training courtyard was usually empty during this period. No one paid attention to the initial sounds. After all, pain was part of the Valentine's routine.
But those screams weren't from controlled training, nor were they proud battle cries; they were simply screams of pure panic and despair.
They were sounds that screamed something had gone terribly wrong.
As the official training time approached and the first young men began to make their way to the courtyard, the desperate echo of wounded voices became impossible to ignore. A group of apprentices crossed the stone arch laughing, discussing techniques and challenges… and then stopped.
One by one, their footsteps ceased, and the voices of jokes and conversations simply died away immediately.
What they saw made the air heavy, and some even felt nauseous; they had just eaten and were witnessing such a disgusting scene.
Four teenagers from Valentine House were scattered across the marble floor, limbs torn off, blood staining the pale stone in grotesque patterns. They tried to regenerate, but the shock kept them trembling, unable to even formulate basic healing spells. Their limbs weren't just arms, but legs, eyes, faces. They looked like poorly fitted pieces.
And in the center of that chaos, Victor was completely covered in blood, smirking as he watched their faces. The wind swept across the courtyard at that moment, spreading the metallic smell through the air.
Some of the young people felt their instincts scream within them, and some began to vomit at the sight of that disgusting scene.
Victor simply smiled and slowly ran his tongue over the blood in the corner of his mouth before facing the newcomers. His eyes still held that unsettling reddish gleam, but his expression was now almost polite.
"How about you go call the supervisor for me? I'm kind of… dirty, to go inside the main council building." The way he spoke, light and controlled, contrasted grotesquely with the mutilated bodies scattered across the courtyard. There was no hurry in his voice, no tension. Just restrained amusement.
However, no one needed to rush off in search of any authority. The crowd naturally parted when a heavier presence crossed the stone arch leading to the courtyard. A tall, imposing man, about six feet three inches tall, with perfectly styled light golden hair and sharp, blade-like red eyes.
His posture was rigid, his expression cold and full of arrogance… someone accustomed to being obeyed without question. As soon as his gaze landed on Victor, there was a brief freeze in his features, a minimal interruption in his calculated composure.
"But what the hell is going on—" he began, his voice heavy with authority and irritation, but the words died before they were finished.
"Brother…" murmured a weak, almost inaudible voice from the ground.
The man stopped. Slowly, he turned his face toward the sound. What he saw made the blood in his veins run cold. Among thick puddles and scattered limbs lay what remained of his younger brother. The body trembled in shock, reduced to a bloodied torso, without arms, without legs, and with one eye gouged out, his blond hair now dyed dark red. His breathing was irregular, desperate, almost animalistic.
The silence that fell was no longer just collective fear; it was pure tension, about to explode.
"How do you…" the man began again, his voice now different, laden with something far more personal than authority.
"You are Councilor Ethan Cross Valentine, right?" Victor interrupted with unsettling calm.
The way he pronounced the name was neither respectful nor provocative. It was informative. Precise.
Valentine was the name of the entire clan, the lineage that traced back to the Progenitor. However, the inner families possessed their own branches and influences.
The "pure" Valentines were direct descendants of the central lineage, while houses like Cross orbited the power core, sustaining strategic alliances and important administrative positions within what they called the Royal Family. Ethan Cross was not just an instructor or supervisor—he was a young but already influential councilor, with access to internal decisions and resources.
And Victor knew this.
Because he had lived long enough to learn what others ignored.
The Cross family had been embezzling resources for years. Enchanted weapons disappeared from the records, funds intended for the defense of the walls were redirected to obscure "internal projects," and certain shipments of special blood never reached their official destination.
In the previous timeline, this would only be discovered much later—too late to prevent consequences that would directly affect the fall of several fortresses in the north.
Victor now looked at Ethan not as a broken boy facing a superior, but as someone who possessed information that the other still believed to be buried.
The tremor that ran through Ethan's body wasn't just from the grotesque sight of his mutilated brother. It was the instinctive realization that something was profoundly wrong.
"How could you…" Ethan began, but the sentence died as he took a deep breath and forced his composure back into place.
The initial shock transformed into something much simpler and much more dangerous. Hatred. His red eyes hardened, and he took a few steps forward, each firm stride echoing off the blood-stained stone.
"I'm going to kill you." The promise came out low, controlled, but utterly sincere.
Victor didn't back down. On the contrary, he slowly raised his hands, as if surrendering, and tilted his head with an almost amused smile. "And what exactly do you think you're going to do?" he asked, his voice too soft for the scene before them. He let out a small nasal laugh. "I'm within my rights."
"Your rights?" Ethan repeated, incredulous, letting out a brief, dry laugh that carried no humor whatsoever. "What right do you think you have, you piece of trash?"
Victor wasn't offended. His smile didn't diminish; on the contrary, it seemed to deepen.
"Self-defense," he replied naturally, as if explaining something obvious to a slow child. He made a vague gesture with his chin toward the four mutilated men on the ground. "Did you really think I'd rip off limbs for pure entertainment? Although," he added, with a dangerous glint in his eyes, "it was surprisingly enjoyable."
Ethan's jaw tightened.
Victor then stepped forward, closing the distance between them, completely ignoring the fact that he was covered in blood. His voice lowered slightly, but didn't lose its clarity.
"Ah, but perhaps your memory is failing you. I clearly remember you asking me to stay in the courtyard after practice. You said you needed to 'talk' to me. Curiously, these four showed up minutes later." He tilted his head slightly, as if genuinely considering the possibility. "Am I remembering wrong? Or have you forgotten that half the people here heard when you said that no one should interfere?"
A murmur began to spread among the young men around.
Ethan noticed.
Victor continued, now in an almost casual tone, but each word was measured. "They attacked me first. I was unarmed. There are dozens of witnesses who went out to lunch while I was still on the ground." He widened his smile. "Do you really want to take this to the council? Because, technically, I only survived."
The provocation wasn't in the voice. It was in the confidence.
Ethan knew that, politically, this was delicate ground. House Valentine valued strength, but it also valued internal order. A councilor who orchestrated clandestine attacks against a member of the Royal Family—even if it was Victor—would not escape unscathed from a formal investigation.
Victor took another step, now close enough that only Ethan could hear what he said next.
"You should choose your pawns better, advisor. Especially when you decide to use them to clean up something you consider garbage."
The smile vanished.
The look that remained was no longer amused.
It was sharp.
And completely aware.
Ethan held Victor's gaze for another second that seemed far too long. There was anger there, yes—but there was something beyond, something he couldn't name. Before he could respond or order anything, Victor simply moved.
He passed Ethan.
Without pushing.
Without touching.
But, the instant he crossed beside the advisor, something invisible seemed to expand in the air.
A pressure.
Cold.
Heavy.
Predatory.
Ethan felt his body react before his mind could comprehend. His muscles tensed, his instincts screamed in warning, and a shiver ran down his spine as if he were facing an enemy far above his own position in the food chain. This wasn't just hostile intent. It was a raw, dense, suffocating, murderous aura—the kind of presence war veterans recognized seconds before losing their heads on the battlefield.
Inflexively, Ethan held his breath.
Victor said nothing as he passed.
He didn't even look back.
He simply walked across the blood-stained courtyard, pushing through the crowd that automatically parted to make way. None of the young men dared touch him. Some couldn't even hold his gaze for more than a second.
The sound of his footsteps was calm.
Controlled.
Almost elegant.
When he was near the exit arch, he finally spoke, his voice too casual for the grotesque scene he was leaving behind.
"Well… I must admit that today's training was extremely rewarding."
Some of those present swallowed hard.
Victor raised one hand, watching his own blood trickle between his fingers as if it were fresh paint. Then he wiped the excess on his shirt, without any hurry.
"Oh, I almost forgot." He turned his face slightly, just enough for his voice to reach everyone in the courtyard. "I'm healed."
The murmuring ceased immediately.
"Then it would be very polite of you to stop calling me trash." A small smile appeared at the corner of his lips. "Before I decide to test again how much you can regenerate."
He paused briefly.
Just long enough for the weight of the sentence to settle in the air.
"And next time," he added lightly, almost playfully, "I might not stop at arms and legs... I was tempted to rip your little brother Ethan's head off, too bad I needed him to humiliate you." Victor said, walking away, still covered in blood.