Chapter 1359: Marcus’s Reign & the Dead Alliance

Marcus immediately corrected himself with exaggerated care. "Actually, let me stop saying it like the thing slipped out of his pocket. Phei took it from him."

That name landed badly.

Marcus almost looked pleased. "There it is." He pointed around the room. "That’s the face. Every single time somebody says Phei, half of you suddenly look like admitting what happened physically hurts. I’m tired of this whole room pretending he’s not the one behind half our recent disasters because acknowledging that makes everyone uncomfortable that we’re all losing to a seventeen-year-old kid."

Grandpa Maxton’s expression darkened, but Marcus was rolling now.

"Yes, Danton failed. Wonderful. We agree. But failure requires someone on the other side making you fail." He tapped one finger against the air. "Phei took the Coffer."

Another: "Phei interfered with Anarctica."

Another: "Phei somehow walked away from a situation none of you believed he was there much less he could survive the World Transcendent chaineds." His hand lowered: "And every time his name comes up, people here still talk about him like he’s the same harmless boy you thought you understood before all of this started."

The Lord’s golden aura deepened slightly.

Marcus looked toward him and smiled. "Did I say something wrong?"

No answer came.

"Didn’t think so." He turned back toward Danton’s empty seat. "And if losing the Coffer wasn’t enough, your brilliant Progenitor also lost the Chained."

The Maxton side had become painfully still.

Marcus let the silence stretch just enough to hurt.

"All of them."

This time even the Lord did not interrupt.

The eleven Chained represented more than centuries of work, resources that could not simply be replaced, the five Elves who were used directly to the Eternal Prison Gates and they now couldn’t summon more of the Void-Djinns. The remaining prisoners represented strength, leverage and future plans that had taken lifetimes to construct.

All of it was gone.

The seven World Transcendent guards surrounding that entire operation had died as well.

The Coffer was gone.

The Chained were gone.

Danton had disappeared.

The families had nothing to show for it except enemies who now knew considerably more than before.

Marcus looked around the room and slowly spread his arms. "So I’m genuinely asking now. What exactly have the Heavenchilds gained from this centuries-old alliance?"

That question hit harder than everything before it because nobody had a satisfying answer ready.

Marcus turned directly toward Grandpa Maxton: "Look me in the eyes."

Grandpa Maxton somehow did.

Marcus smiled faintly. "Good. Now tell me."

The old man said nothing.

"We stayed patient because we were promised our fair share once the Coffer came into our possessions. We let you kill Seiryu. We helped you do it even. We helped with that child because you needed two Dragon Heart Scales and a core for Danton needed to awaken. Your family even enjoyed everything Seiryu had built afterward for his child and yet you treated him like a dog while enjoyed his father’s resources, his wealth, his legacy, at least until you managed to lose that too back to the real owner of it."

Several Maxtons shifted angrily.

Marcus raised his voice just enough to cut through them. "Then finally comes our chance to get what we deserved for our handwork. The Coffer was right there. Generations of work were about to pay off. The one thing the Heavenchilds have spent centuries waiting to receive was finally within reach, and what happens?"

He jabbed a finger toward Danton’s throne: "Your son loses it all."

The room erupted into overlapping voices.

Marcus stood in the middle of the noise and let everyone shout until they realized he was still smiling.

When the voices thinned, he continued.

"And now the Lin Family is here."

That quieted them more effectively than the Lord’s aura had.

Marcus’s expression lost the humor. "You know why that matters. Every person in this room knows why." He looked at the Maxtons. "They’re angry what we did Seiryu."

His gaze shifted toward the Heavenchilds. "They’re furious and enraged what we did to Mei Lin."

Then toward the Lord: "They know about everything both families did." His eyes returned to the empty throne. "And sooner or later, we won’t be just against Phei but two powerful families and a terrifying dragon; trust me he’s terrifying!"

Nobody looked comfortable anymore.

Marcus gave a bitter laugh. "Yet somehow I’m supposed to believe the Maxtons haven’t been the ones dragging us toward this grave from the beginning."

One of the Maxton elders finally stood. "And the Heavenchilds are innocent?"

Marcus immediately turned toward him. "Did I say innocent?"

The elder hesitated.

Marcus stepped forward slightly. "That’s the difference between us right now. I’m not pretending my family is clean. I’m saying yours keeps fucking up and expecting ours to help bury the bodies."

Several Heavenchilds laughed darkly.

The Maxton elder’s face twisted with anger. "You arrogant little bastard."

Marcus smiled. "Finally. Something accurate."

The elder’s Essence surged.

This time several Heavenchilds stood completely.

Maxtons answered. Weapons were not yet drawn, but hands had moved near them. Auras pressed across the hall, old hatred hiding beneath centuries of cooperation finally finding permission to breathe.

Elliot rose slowly from his seat. That single movement changed the atmosphere more than all the others because Elliot had remained silent until now.

He looked directly at Harold and Grandpa Maxton. Grandpa Maxton and his son stared back.

Neither patriarch spoke.

For the first time in centuries, the alliance between the Heavenchilds and Maxtons looked genuinely capable of ending here.

Not because of some ancient enemy attacking them.

Not because the Lins had issued an ultimatum and neither had Phei had arrived with an army. The Lin Family had merely appeared on Paradise Island, and fear had forced every unresolved grievance between the two houses into the open.

The Coffer had once been enough to keep them together.

But without it, each side suddenly remembered every insult.

The Heavenchilds remembered how often Maxton decisions had created disasters they were expected to help contain while the Maxtons gained most from everything. The Maxtons remembered how eagerly the Heavenchilds enjoyed victories before distancing themselves from every failure.

Both families knew enough secrets about the other to ruin generations of carefully protected names. Both had sacrificed too much to abandon the alliance easily. And increasingly, both seemed convinced the other had become the greater danger.

Marcus stood in the middle of it all and looked almost alive for the first time since the meeting began.

He had spent years being compared to Danton; the past weeks he’d been listening to people praise the other Progenitor while Marcus became the convenient example of wasted potential and poor decisions. Now Danton’s seat was empty, his grand operation lay in ruins, the Coffer belonged to someone else, every Chained prisoner was gone, and the very people who had spent years looking down on Marcus suddenly had nothing to say while he listed exactly how badly their favorite had failed.

He turned toward the Lord one more time: "Still wish he was your grandson?"

The Lord’s face hardened.

That one hurt.

Marcus knew it did.

Grandpa Maxton finally stood.

The movement was slow enough to be deliberate.

"Marcus." His voice carried enough warning that the younger man finally looked toward him.... Grandpa Maxton’s face had gone cold. "You’ve enjoyed yourself long enough."

Marcus tilted his head. "Have I?"

"Yes."

"That’s unfortunate. I was just getting to the good part."

Several Heavenchilds laughed again.

A vein moved along Grandpa Maxton’s temple.

Marcus stepped forward until the space separating both families felt suddenly much smaller. "Then prove me wrong. Look me in the eyes and tell me it isn’t the Maxtons who have spent years dragging this entire plan into the ground while taking the Heavenchilds with you."

Grandpa Maxton stared back at him.

Marcus did not blink.

Neither family moved now because everyone could feel the moment balancing on something very thin. A single insult aimed too personally, one burst of Essence mistaken for an attack or one ancient secret dragged into the open could turn the hall into a battlefield before the Lin Family ever needed to lift a finger.

Grandpa Maxton opened his mouth.

Someone else answered:

"Why don’t I look you in the eyes instead and tell you myself?"

The voice tore through the hall with enough force to make the stone beneath their feet groan.

Heat followed it.

It was no ordinary heat, but the ancient with the suffocating pressure of primordial flame wrapped around something vast and serpentine. The sudden presence rolled into the chamber and crushed through the gathering tension so violently that Heavenchild and Maxton alike turned toward the entrance.

Marcus stopped smiling.

Grandpa Maxton’s expression changed.

The Lord’s avatar shifted in midair, six radiant wings pulling inward as his attention snapped toward the same direction.

The throne behind them was no longer the most important sign of Danton’s absence.

Footsteps approached from beyond the hall.

Danton had returned!

Whether he had truly broken free from the prison beneath the Indian Ocean or if someone might simply have decided that Danton had spent long enough inside somewhere during the days before Phei returned to Paradise Island