Kaden didn't even bother using Reditha, that would have been overkill. He now even disdained the idea of unleashing her on worthless wretches he could silence with his Intent alone. Wretches who couldn't even hide their presence properly.

Ah… maybe he was being too harsh? His perception was special, after all.

Kaden had known they were trapped in an illusion the moment they stepped into the range of Vesper's statue. Their act was faint and subtle, but his senses picked up the difference in the taste of the air on his skin before and after the illusion had been cast.

He did nothing at first, waiting patiently for them to move while he kept talking to Aurora. What he hadn't expected, however, was that Aurelia herself was aware of their presence.

And that wasn't all, the most surprising thing was how she didn't falter, how she wasn't flustered or afraid, and how confident she seemed in him, not even pausing to wonder whether he could handle them without killing.

Kaden didn't know whether to be happy or suspicious of Aurora's naivety.

He shook his head to stop the thought and looked instead at the sprawled corpses of the black-hooded men, ethereal crimson swords lodged deep in their chests looking a little graveyard.

They writhed on the ground like worms in mud, their spasms tore their hoods back, revealing faces with mouths sewn shut in steel, eyes gouged into deep voids, ears clipped away entirely.

Kaden's brows knitted into a hard line of surprise, the taste of disgust rose at the back of his throat and he swallowed it down.

"What is this?" he asked, his sword-shaped eyes narrowing coldly at the harrowing sight.

Aurora approached calmly and stood beside him, watching with the same casual detachment she wore like a robe. "The best assassins are those who cannot speak, cannot see, cannot hear," she said.

"That makes them easier to send anywhere, to do anything, without risking a leak."

She shook her head with a small, pitying smile, then pointed to the top of one corpse's head where a black tattoo — the number 33 — had been etched. "They only obey the orders injected directly into their brains, probably via these marks, without feeling it, without understanding why they do what they do."

"Perfect tools to use and discard, you see."

Kaden moved among them slowly, his feet as silent as a ghost's. He didn't kill them. Instead he had used his Intent to crush the muscles leaving them unable to move and use their limbs.

He crouched beside one of them, a female, he assumed, her state like all the rest. He laid his hand slowly on the top of her forehead.

His frown deepened.

The body was cold. Not the cold that ice brings, no…this was a cold only the dead could wear.

"They are not alive," Kaden said, then shook his head as if correcting a thought, "Not in the sense of the term we know, at least."

Aurora nodded, her eyes glittering. "I believe," she began, "they are called doundou, beings who, in every sense, are dead, except that their hearts still beat like any other human's."

She chuckled, then added, intrigued, "That makes me wonder what truly makes a human alive. Is it the heart…"

She grinned.

"…or the mind? Or even the memories?"

"I wonder, Fraud, if one day I draw my last breath, but my love still remembers me, am I truly dead?" she asked, then brushed the question away with a casual laugh as if it were nothing, unwilling to dwell.

"And what do you think of them?" she asked next, tilting her head toward the doundou.

Kaden turned his face over his shoulder to look at her, his mind still repeating her earlier words. Seeing she didn't press the subject further, he rose and answered,

"They are eerie," he said, meeting her eyes. "Why did you ask me not to kill them?"

"I was attacked," Aurora replied simply, "Shouldn't I return the favor?" She chuckled, her starry eyes bright and inscrutable.

"You know who's behind it?" Kaden asked once again, "The prince's brother?" he guessed.

Aurora shook her head. "Not him. But most probably one of his dear friends."

"I don't understand," Kaden said, frowning. "Why would they even want to kill you? Just to make the prince lose his composure?" he asked the question that had burned in his mind the most.

Knowing the answer would help him plan better to succeed in his quest.

"Why kill me?" Aurora echoed softly. "Would you not kill the one who knows the path, if the path they show leads to your ruin?"

At her words, Kaden's thoughts froze. His intelligence stat flared, processing her statement with frightening precision as everything began to align.

The Will had asked him what happens to a man who loses his path.

Solaris wanted to protect Aurora.

And Aurora had just implied that her power was to know the path.

The puzzle began to take form, piece by piece, until a brilliant tapestry of understanding took shape inside his mind.

'Solaris's goal? Doubtless, he wants to be emperor. Aurora knows the path toward that throne. And so, the prince's brother wants to kill her, to erase that path before it's walked.'

And if that was true… then extrapolating further using what he knew of the future…

'Aurora will die at the hands of the prince's enemies. And Solaris, broken by grief, will become the Mad Sun Emperor.'

Kaden frowned slightly. 'Is that it?' he wondered. 'Is this the situation I've found myself in this quest?'

"You seem to have understood," Aurora interrupted his thoughts with a small, amused smile. "Now you know your task won't just be about kissing some old lady's hand, don't you?" she teased lightly.

"Because not only will you protect me from the assassins," she said, "but you will also help me put the path into place."

Kaden looked at her with a strange, wary gaze.

"And the path is already in front of us. Things have already started, Fraud," she murmured, her starlit eyes drifting toward the corpses of the doundou. "What do you think the people would believe if I showed them that the prince they revere commands subordinates who treat humans like this?"

She chuckled softly.

"Wouldn't they think it could happen to them too?"

"I doubt these corpses will suffice to convince them," Kaden interjected, his voice steady but his mind sharper than before, now that the situation was clear.

"They won't," Aurora agreed. "But these corpses will help us find the place where the real evidence lies."

She clicked her fingers, and instantly the bodies were wrapped in a golden-silver starlight, faint yet magnificent.

Aurora's face grew focused — the same serene, absorbed expression she wore when painting — and then she made a pulling gesture with her hand. The starlight shimmered, detached from the corpses, and floated upward in swirling fragments until the bodies were utterly still.

The starlight now dimmed, tainted by a deep, vicious black.

Aurora gathered the corrupted light into a single point before her, forming a dark, malevolent star pulsing with faint light, trembling in her palm like a living curse.

Then, without warning, she seized Kaden's hand and crushed the black star.

Before he could react, a torrent of information flooded his mind…flashes of a place buried in some unknown place, drenched in shadows, filled with countless doundou packed together like pigs in a slaughterhouse.

The vision snapped away as quickly as it came.

Kaden drew a sharp, shaky breath and turned toward Aurora.

Beads of sweat trickled down her forehead. Her lips trembled, pale and bloodless.

He frowned, "Are you—!"

"Time's wasting," she cut in sharply. "Let's go. Sorry, but that was all I could show you without risking further exhaustion."

She walked ahead of him, her steps light but unsteady, she looked ready to collapse at any moment.

Kaden looked at her for a moment, then took a step forward and, in a heartbeat, appeared beside her before lifting her effortlessly into his arms.

Aurora's eyes widened.

"W–What are you doing?" she cried, her voice trembling with shock. "Put me down, Fraud! How dare you touch me like this?! I love someone already!" she screeched, squirming in protest.

But it was useless. That was when she realized just how strong her knight truly was.

Kaden only rolled his eyes. "It's just to move faster, my lady. Don't think too deeply about it."

"But Solaris would," she shot back instantly, still struggling.

"Who will tell him?"

Aurora fell silent for a second, words caught in her throat and before she could regain them, Kaden was already moving. The wind howled past them, silencing her voice.

She bit her lip, hands unconsciously clutching at his shirt.

'Warm…' Aurora thought instinctively, feeling the solid heat of his body, before shaking her head violently and reigning her thoughts back under control.

"You'll get yourself killed one day because of your attitude," she muttered, her lips pressed into a thin line.

She thought Kaden couldn't hear her over the rushing wind, but he did.

And he smiled.

"It's not that difficult to kill me," he said lightly. "But it's close to impossible to make me stay dead, my lady."

"You're arrogant."

"I'm Kaden."

Aurora clicked her tongue in irritation at how the Fraud always had something to say and yet, she couldn't fully suppress the smile threatening to curl her lips.

Since when had she felt this warmth?

No… the real question was…

Since when had her prince stopped coming to see her?

Hard to tell.

Harder to remember.

Even harder to bear the weight pressing against her heart.

'Will you have time for me once I make you an Emperor?' she wondered silently, knowing it was a fragile dream.

Her lover might have her time…

…but would she still be there to give it?

Aurora bit the inside of her lip as the weakness in her body deepened, hollowing her from within and without meaning to, she curled closer into Kaden's warmth.

Her trembling eased. A faint relief slipped through her chest.

And then, they arrived at their destination.

—End of Chapter 309—

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