Chapter 680: A Lord Collects His Due

Chapter 680: A Lord Collects His Due

Leon sent the report that morning and set the communication plaque beside his tea.

Fourteen dead. The recorded cleanup. The Qiao courier seal. White Reed Crossing, six days away, with four days of travel needed to reach it.

He had included a copy of the surviving projection and a request for permission to follow the delivery. Now Ji had everything he could give her, which left him with the unpleasant task of waiting.

Their room occupied the upper floor of a respectable Moonfall inn. Seraphine had checked its wards before adding three layers of privacy protection. The sealed evidence cases lay beneath the bed, close enough for Leon to feel their contents without looking.

Everyone else had found something useful to do. Vyra was buying supplies with Ira. Seraphine was inspecting the neighboring rooflines, and Qingyue had gone to check the customs post at White Reed Crossing.

Loriel sat beside an open case of medicinal cuttings, replacing the merchant’s packing straw.

"You’re going to wear a hole in the table," she said.

Leon stopped tapping beside the plaque.

"I’m waiting."

"I noticed."

She lifted a cutting, examined its roots, and put it into fresh wrapping. Leon watched her work until his tea cooled.

The first notification arrived while he was pouring another cup.

[Cosmic System — Transfer Offered.]

[From: MoonWhoEatsHerself]

He stopped with the pot tilted.

A second notice appeared, then three more. By the time he set the pot down, eleven waited at the edge of his vision.

[From: LimbDealer]

[From: The Ninth Silence]

[From: Sablewright]

More followed.

The tribute.

Leon opened the pending transfers. Notifications kept arriving, pushing the earlier ones upward until he abandoned counting and checked the records instead.

He had lost track of the payment date. Between the basin expedition, the murdered workshop, and months of cultivation compressed into a brief stretch of outside time, checking his expected income had somehow slipped his mind.

That seemed a serious personal failure now.

Moon had sent the agreed half of her monthly earnings. LimbDealer had sent eighty percent, a figure Leon still found extraordinary considering he had only asked for fifty. Hundreds of other accounts offered their quarter-shares.

He accepted the transfers, keeping an eye on the accumulating amount.

[Monthly Tribute Received: 180,000,000 Causality]

For a moment, Leon simply stared.

Then he leaned back and smiled.

"Oh, that’s fucking lovely."

Loriel looked up.

Leon checked the total again. It remained exactly where it was.

One hundred and eighty million, collected while he had been struggling to establish the earliest layer of this world’s cultivation. Seven precious Void Immortal cores had become useless stones in the process, and somewhere beyond anything he could currently reach, beings vastly stronger than him had finished their accounts and set aside his share.

I should check my messages more often.

He put both hands behind his head.

Loriel lowered the cutting she was holding.

"That wasn’t your master."

"No."

"Good news?"

"Very."

She glanced at the silent communication plaque. "Then why do you look as though you’ve gotten away with something?"

Leon turned toward her.

There were several possible answers. None survived her expression.

He stood and checked Seraphine’s privacy layers, then added a spatial seal inside them. When he returned, Loriel had closed the case.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing new. But you have your own Cosmic System now, so you’ll understand what I’m talking about."

He sat beside her and explained the group.

Not every conversation or every strange name. Just enough for her to understand that some of its members stood far beyond anyone they had met in this world, and that the most powerful among them spoke to the others with the easy authority of people who expected obedience.

"And you speak to them?" Loriel asked.

"Occasionally. Under Elemental Paragon."

She recognized the name, of course. That made explaining the next part worse.

"Some of them spoke it aloud," Leon continued. "Something happened. A real phenomenon, strong enough to frighten them. I tested the name myself afterward. It wasn’t something I knew how to cause."

"What kind of phenomenon?"

"The kind that made them think I was a Lord of the Universe."

Loriel waited.

Leon rubbed the back of his neck.

"I didn’t correct them."

"You let them believe it?"

"I encouraged them."

"How?"

He considered softening the explanation, then decided she deserved the honest version.

"Two of them surrendered all the Causality they had as compensation for insulting me. I required half their future monthly earnings too. LimbDealer offered eighty percent instead."

Loriel’s mouth opened slightly.

"The others paid a quarter of their existing balances," Leon said. "And a quarter of what they earn each month."

"How many others?"

"Hundreds."

She stared at him.

"Hundreds?"

"Yes."

"Leon, you extorted hundreds of beings who could—"

"I know."

"And that was what just arrived?"

"A hundred and eighty million."

Loriel looked toward the empty air where his interface hovered, although she could see nothing there.

He let her absorb the number before adding the part he was least proud of.

"I also told the first two that nobody would touch them or their families. They had to remain alive to bear their punishment."

"You promised to protect them?"

"It sounded convincing at the time."

She pressed her lips together. Leon could see the laugh trying to escape, but then her attention returned to the spatial seal around the room.

"They don’t know anything about you," she said.

"They know the name. They know the phenomenon happened. Everything else is what they’ve decided those things mean."

"And if they learn the truth?"

Leon took her hand.

"You have to take this secret to your grave. If those beings find out what I really am, they’ll burn me alive."

Loriel’s fingers tightened around his.

He had meant the words plainly. There was no need to invent something more frightening than the truth.

"I won’t tell anyone," she said.

"Not even as a joke."

"I understand."

Her answer was immediate enough that he looked at her. ℴ

Loriel shifted closer.

"You trusted me with it," she said. "I’m not going to make you regret that."

Some of the tension left his shoulders.

For a little while, they sat together without speaking. Then Loriel glanced at him again.

"They thanked you, didn’t they?"

Leon sighed.

"They did."

She lowered her forehead against his shoulder. The laugh that escaped her was quiet and helpless.

He found himself smiling again.

It was a relief to have somebody beside him who understood how ridiculous it was.

When he opened DivineEchoElira’s group, he discovered that his absence had become a subject of discussion.

[Sablewright: He has not spoken in over a month. His attention must be elsewhere.]

[Vaunt of the Chained Choir: I heard there was a boundary dispute between two young universes. I cannot confirm it.]

[The Ninth Silence: Then why are you repeating it?]

[Vaunt of the Chained Choir: I said I could not confirm it.]

[The Ninth Silence: You could also have said nothing.]

Leon read the exchange aloud.

Loriel listened with her hand still resting in his.

"A dispute between universes?" she asked.

"Apparently."

He remembered sitting in Xyra’s accelerated zone, trying to understand why the Earth branch of his circulation kept lagging behind the other eight. He had dismantled the arrangement twice before admitting that the third version had the same problem.

I couldn’t get nine branches to behave inside one body.

"What will you tell them?" Loriel asked.

"As little as possible."

He considered several replies and deleted each before sending it.

Claiming to have settled anything would invite questions about where, how, and against whom. Denying the rumor might invite a different question, which he wanted even less.

Eventually, he settled on a short acknowledgment.

[Elemental Paragon: The offerings have been received. Continue as agreed.]

The group responded almost immediately.

[LimbDealer: Thank you, my Lord. I am grateful that my offering was acceptable.]

[Sablewright: We will not neglect our obligations.]

[Vaunt of the Chained Choir: Welcome back, Honored Paragon.]

Leon read the first few messages, then stopped.

"They sound relieved," Loriel said.

"They usually do."

She looked at him with an expression he could not quite name.

He knew what bothered her. These were real people, frightened of a punishment he had no ability to deliver. It was easier to enjoy the money before hearing how grateful they were to keep their lives.

He still enjoyed it.

That probably said something about him, but he could examine it after he stopped smiling.

A private message opened before he decided whether to leave the group.

[MoonWhoEatsHerself: Honored Paragon. Forgive the intrusion.]

Leon straightened.

[I would not ordinarily presume. But I have carried a difficulty for some time, and I have exhausted the people I can safely consult.]

[Two teachings from sources I have every reason to respect appear to require opposite actions. I cannot determine which applies, so I have refrained from acting.]

[This has delayed my preparations for eleven years.]

[May I explain?]

Leon read the messages to Loriel.

Her amusement faded.

"Can you answer something like that?" she asked.

"I don’t even know what she’s cultivating."

"Then perhaps—"

Loriel stopped.

He watched her reach the same problem he had.

Refusing was possible. A Lord owed nobody instruction. But he had already acknowledged the offerings, she had asked politely, and some reckless part of him wanted to know what a being like her considered difficult.

He could at least hear the question.

[Elemental Paragon: Proceed.]

Moon began replying.

Leon’s smile disappeared as the first explanation filled his vision.