Chapter 64: I Know Your Past Life’s Sin: Kenish

The heavy air in the underbelly seemed to freeze solid at Cassius’s final, venomous word. Florianthum’s face paled, the accusation hanging like a physical blade between them. Cassius glared at her, his jaw rigid, waiting for the defensive counter-strike or the cold glare of a court lady caught in a lie.

Instead, the tense silence was shattered by a wet, frantic sneeze.

From the shadows behind the sheared granite, Fukuro scrambled forward on his knees. His dust-streaked glasses were skewed horizontally across his nose, one lens entirely obscured by a smudge of soot. He slid directly into the empty space between Cassius and Florianthum, his knees clattering loudly against the broken flagstones.

"If you two are..."

Fukuro gasped, pitching forward as his robes tangled around his ankles. He caught his balance with a palm to the dirt, coughing out a small cloud of granite dust before pushing himself upright. He threw his arms straight up into the air, his chest heaving with an absurd, trembling bravado.

"If you are searching for this, then just... shut up!"

Cassius’s gray eyes narrowed, tracking the clerk’s dramatic entrance with sheer disbelief.

Between Fukuro’s raised hands, a shimmering thread of light began to spin. His fingers twitched rapidly, pulling glowing silver fibers directly out of the cuffs of his sleeves; his magical cloth-weaving power reacting to his sheer panic. The threads knit themselves together in a frantic, blinding blur, solidifying into a small, metallic block.

Fukuro thrust the newly woven object directly into the space between the two fighters. It was a flawless, identical replica of the lighter that Cassius always kept with him.

"Look at it!"

Fukuro squeaked, his voice cracking on the high note. He aggressively wiggled the magical fabric lighter inches from Cassius’s nose, his hands shaking so violently the object looked like a blur.

"Look at the craftsmanship! Don’t you dare take your... your miserable, insolent rage out on the highly respected Lordess of this kingdom, you shameless-"

Fukuro choked on his own sentence, his face turning a vibrant shade of crimson. He tried to puff out his chest to look intimidating, but the sheer size of Cassius’s towering, bruised frame made him think better of it.

He took a tiny, undignified shuffle backward on his knees, keeping the glowing lighter held high like a holy relic.

"...you absolute brute!" Fukuro finished with a frantic nod of his head, his glasses sliding completely off one ear and dangling precariously from his cheek.

He aggressively pointed a stubby, soot-stained finger at Cassius. "She is a pillar of the state! And you are just... standing here, bleeding and throwing tantrums like a broken halberd!"

The sheer absurdity of the clerk kneeling in the dirt, brandishing a piece of magical cloth while his glasses hung from his face, cut right through the lingering malice of the corridor.

Cassius stared down at him, his analytical mask entirely shattered, replaced by pure, stunned exhaustion.

Cassius’s face went entirely blank. For two seconds, the only sound in the damp underbelly was the slow, rhythmic drip-drip of water from the ceiling stones.

Then, a dark, dangerous vein throbbed violently against his temple. His analytical mask didn’t just slip; it shattered into pure, unadulterated fury, an oppressive, suffocating heat radiating off his bruised shoulders that instantly made the little clerk’s breath hitch.

Fukuro’s glasses, still dangling from one ear, chose that exact moment to drop into the dirt.

With a sharp, violent pivot, Cassius turned on his heel. He snatched his dark torn slaveric tee from the rubble with a force that made the fabric whip through the air like a crack of thunder.

He didn’t look at the lighter, and he didn’t look at Florianthum. He threw the tee over his purple bleeding shoulders in one fluid, aggressive motion, stomping right past the broken granite flags.

"Wait-" Florianthum started, stepping forward, her hand reaching out instinctively.

He ignored her completely, his spine rigid and radiating pure, unbothered spite. Every single footstep hit the stone floor with an exaggerated, heavy thud that echoed down the corridor, practically vibrating with his silent rage.

Seeing the terrifying silhouette of the fighter actually walking away in pure anger and exhaustion, Fukuro panicked. Scrambling to his feet, the clerk ran a few paces after him, aggressively waving the glowing cloth replica as his words spilled out in a frantic, breathless rush.

"Don’t... don’t be angry at her!"

Fukuro blurted out, his voice cracking violently against the stone walls.

"It’s me! I’m the one who told her about that lighter! Right when you were out there showing off your defensive moves to the absolute death! She didn’t know anything until I opened my mouth!"

Cassius heard every single word.

The faint twitch in his jaw gave it away, but he didn’t slow his pace by a fraction of a second. Refusing to give them the satisfaction of a backward glance, he kept moving forward, his bare foot grinding against the loose pebbles.

Fukuro slowed to a halt, his mouth popped open in a tiny ’O’ of pure defeat. He slowly lowered his arms, watching the fighter turn a sharp corner into the dark tunnel.

Cassius’s figure vanished completely into the heavy shadows, leaving Florianthum and a trembling Fukuro standing entirely alone in the ruined, dusty underbelly.

The damp chill of the deep underbelly slapped Cassius the moment the faint glow of Fukuro’s magical lighter vanished behind him.

He walked blindly into the pitch-black corridor, his bare foot dragging against the uneven stone floor. The raw adrenaline that had fueled his explosive departure was rapidly evaporating, leaving behind a hollow, aching exhaustion.

With every step, the freezing curse in his veins throbbed, sending a bitter, icy numbness creeping up his chest and into his throat. With a torn single piece of fabric to shield him, the draft bit directly into his bare, soot-stained skin, raising violent goosebumps along his arms and chest. He clamped his jaw shut, his teeth grinding to keep from chattering.

He refused to stop.

He refused to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing him falter.

The narrow tunnel eventually began to widen, the stagnant air shifting into heavy, suffocating drafts of soot, dried sweat, and rust. Cassius slowed his pace, his gray eyes straining against the thick gloom as he rounded a fractured archway.

He had reached the underbelly’s true core... the subterranean dark where the kingdom’s slaveric triben performed their ceaseless, grueling labor.

Even in the dead of night, the remnants of their agonizing work surrounded him. Shadowy outlines of massive iron gears, heavy pickaxes left leaning against cracked granite pillars, and long, rusted chains bolted directly into the stone walls emerged from the darkness.

Deep, jagged grooves were carved into the floor where heavy carts of raw stone had been hauled day after day, generations at a time. The very walls seemed to have absorbed the centuries of misery, cold and unyielding.

Cassius leaned his half bare and half covered with torn tee bleeding shoulder, against a soot-stained stone pillar, his chest heaving with shallow, labored breaths as the freezing curse flared painfully against the ambient cold.

His gray gaze drifted over the silent, brutal machinery of the slave camp.

Kerwon’s smooth, rehearsed voice suddenly echoed back into his mind, cutting through the heavy silence of the cavern:

’He commands that we reshape the kingdom to better accommodate the lower-tier vampires. They perform the grueling labor that sustains our foundation, after all. It is our duty to ensure they can work efficiently. They deserve to live to their full potential... And to thrive with all their might.’

Cassius let out a sharp, ragged breath that misted in the freezing air.

A bitter, humorless smirk touched his lips as his gray eyes tracked the rusted chains hanging from the ceiling.

"Live their life?" he whispered to himself, the words raspy and dry against his teeth.

"Full potential?... After killing their entire identity. Wow."

He leaned harder against the soot-stained pillar, his knuckles tightening against the cold stone as the freezing curse throbbed like a dull blade through his chest.

A sharp, rhythmic clack-clack-clack of polished leather boots suddenly cut through the heavy silence of the cavern.

Cassius froze, his breath catching in his throat. He melted backward into the deep shadow of the pillar, pressing his bare, bruised spine flat against the stone.

Just a few meters away, right in front of his face, a figure stepped smoothly into the dim, cross-hatched light of the corridor.

It was an assistant general. The pristine red, silver-trimmed alignment of the officer’s formal uniform stood out in grotesque, mocking contrast against the surrounding grime of the slave camp.

The general walked with an unhurried, mechanical stride, his eyes fixed straight ahead, completely oblivious to the half bare-chested, bleeding fighter hiding mere inches from his path.

Cassius melted backward into the darkness, sliding his bare, bruised frame between a jagged stack of charcoal stones. The rough, jagged edges of the black rock scraped against his exposed skin, but he didn’t make a sound.

He pressed himself flat into the cramped crevice, holding his breath as the freezing curse throbbed painfully in his chest.

Slowly, carefully, he peeked out through a narrow gap between two heavy charcoal blocks.

The assistant general slowed his pace, pausing under a flickering torch to adjust the heavy silver cuff of his uniform. The firelight struck the side of his face, illuminating a cruel, aging jawline and a posture steeped in decades of unearned privilege.

Cassius’s breath caught in his throat. His gray eyes locked onto the profile, his mind instantly cataloguing the features. He didn’t see an ordinary officer... he saw a ghost from a past life.

Kerwon... or should I say, Kenish, Cassius thought, his mind racing through the old human archives of his memory.

The relation between you and your political family is still exactly the same.

He watched the older man sneer at a piece of dirt on his glove, the exact same arrogant gesture his son used.

This was the man who had bankrolled every cover-up, who had fueled Kenish’s worst instincts, and who had shielded a bully from the consequences of his actions back when they all drew human breath.

Yet, beneath the shared corruption, Cassius knew the rot in their household ran deeper, poisoned by the fractured shadow of Kenish’s mother.

Cassius leaned just a fraction closer to the gap in the charcoal stones, his voice leaving him in a dangerous, barely audible whisper that died against the cold rock.

"You may or surely not remember me,"

Cassius breathed, his gray gaze fixed entirely on the general’s face.

"Or maybe you completely don’t know what I can do to you even in this unhinged realm."

The corrupted official turned his head slightly, shouting a harsh, sharp order down the dark length of the slave corridor, entirely oblivious to the bare-chested fighter watching him from the shadows.