An Eldritch Legacy: Sin & Sacrilege-Chapter 18: The Disgraced Noble...

As Sael's world fell into complete silence, only the howling wind remained.

The screams of the receding darkness now rang like mockery. Even those mourning their loved ones seemed to have gathered just to ridicule him. The Light of the First Dawn, the beauty it brought to the land of Astrea—all of it felt like a cosmic jest at his expense.

Everything bore witness to the horrifying words that the 'fool' of a butler had dared to utter aloud.

"You have been ordered."

The words echoed ceaselessly in his mind.

"Shit!"

He cursed aloud.

Then, a dark, grim laughter erupted from his throat—so twisted even Sael himself did not know what to make of it. He felt as if he were losing his mind over something that, logically, made no sense.

Was it really such a terrible phrase? From the moment he was born, it had been decreed that he would be at the beck and call of others. Whether due to his cursed fate or simply his lower rank in the grand hierarchy, there had never been much choice in his life.

And yet, the words struck something deep within him.

He could not comprehend why they unsettled him so profoundly. His chest tightened, and his heart—at least one of them—constricted painfully within his body.

His lungs no longer functioned properly; every breath felt like inhaling boiling mercury. His body grew heavier, refusing to obey him. His vision blurred, the world darkening, as if the surge had returned once more.

All sound faded. Even those cursed words lost their strength, disappearing into the void. And then, creeping in like a slow-moving tide, the feeling of loneliness slithered into his mind, burrowing deep into his soul.

A suffocating powerlessness overwhelmed him—the same powerlessness Krael had felt when forced to submit to the terms of an unseen yet undeniable entity.

Sael may not have been there to witness it firsthand, but they were one and the same. It was not difficult to infer the source of his turmoil.

"You are really too fragile, little pride."

A voice slithered into his ears, thick with something indiscernible—pity or scorn, he could not tell. He swore he felt a hot breath brush along the shell of his ear.

This time, it was not the entity's voice. It was something else entirely.

It felt closer, more intimate than any other., but it still stirred restlessness within him

He felt he should know it. But his mind was too preoccupied with Krael's fragile pride lashing out, desperately trying to affirm itself.

Just as he thought death had come for him, a sound reached his ears—the ears he had believed to have lost all function.

THUD.

THUD.

THUD.

Like clockwork, the noise repeated, reverberating through the expanse of his mind, pulling time back into motion.

Suddenly, he could hear again—the wails of the grieving, the cries of the injured, the way their suffering bled into his soul.

He felt the iciness of the air, heavy with the stale scent of death. The rattling of broken trees and plants, fighting for survival that would never come. The thick scent of blood and ash clung to the wind, filling his veins with strange energy. His skin vibrated under the first warmth of dawn.

His eyes once again took in the beauty of the rising flames and the way they painted the sky in defiant brilliance against the darkness that had suppressed them all year long.

The lingering taste of Adler's tea still rested on his tongue, a fleeting sweetness mixed with an underlying bitterness.

It was so surreal, almost as if it were all an illusion.

If not for that sound.

THUD.

THUD.

THUD.

Annoying as it was, it tethered him back to reality.

His mind still lingered in the haze of waking, but instinct drove him to seek out the source of the sound.

And then he saw it.

A scene more shocking than his near brush with death.

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He could not even begin to describe what he was witnessing. It was something utterly foreign to him.

His butler.

The man he had grown up unconsciously recognizing as his superior in all forms.

Whether in godlike handsomeness, physique, etiquette, social standing—hell, even in that absurd height—Adler had always loomed above him. If Sael was the one who stood at the pinnacle, then Adler was the heavens themselves, radiating brilliance so suffocating that Sael sometimes thought he would drown in it.

Perhaps that was why he hated him so fervently, why he could never acknowledge his advantages.

His eyes had always been clouded with resentment. And yet, his pride had never allowed him to admit that hatred.

To do so would be to acknowledge Adler's superiority.

And he would rather drive a blade through his own heart than accept that Adler was better than him.

Yet now, before him, the man knelt on the ground, bashing his forehead against the floor with such force that the entire manor trembled.

And yet, despite the sheer energy behind the motion, he controlled it so precisely that the floor did not crack.

Even in his display of remorse, he found a way to show off.

'This bastard.'

Sael watched, making no move to stop him. He found twisted amusement in it—the sound of Adler's skull meeting the floor like a gong, the probable rattling of his bones, the discomfort it must have caused. The way he repeatedly begged for forgiveness, claiming fault for everything in between.

It was almost enough to make him laugh in delight.

'That's right, you lowly bastard.'

'Grovel in the dirt like the peasant you are. Beg for mercy, you scum.'

How he wished he could continue reveling in the sight, but something made him reconsider.

The tremble in Adler's body.

He could not see the butler's expression, and that unsettled him. What if he was mocking him behind that bowed head? What if, despite his posture of subservience, he was gloating at Sael's overreaction?

This bastard always had ways of proving his superiority in some form or another. Perhaps he was laughing to himself, amused by Sael's flaring temper.

No.

He had to put an end to this farce before it further aggravated his already boiling blood pressure.

But not without leaving behind a few well-placed jabs.

"Come now, Adler; this is most unbecoming of you."

"You can't grovel on the ground like a peasant. Though I understand it may be difficult to suppress something so inherent, it hardly suits your noble stature as my servant."

"You should show some backbone, Adler. What would others say if they caught wind of this display?"

"The temple might even accuse you of heresy, believing you sought to worship at my feet."

"So—"

Predictably, the damned bastard cut him off, not even allowing him to finish.

Covering his mouth lightly, Sael fought to stifle the grin, threatening to break across his lips.

Oh, how he loved this game.

'You think yourself clever, but this is your undoing, you wretched fool.'

'Hearing my voice should make you grovel even longer.'

Unbeknownst to him, his eyes darkened, a frost creeping into his gaze. Yet, as quickly as it appeared, it vanished.

Adler rose, straightening his uniform.

And just like that, he was back to his impeccable self. Prim. Proper. Without a single hint of the spectacle that had just unfolded.

The one thing that never changed, however, was that he refused to raise his head. Again, he denied Sael the satisfaction of seeing his expression.

But Sael was certain. That smug bastard was smiling.

His blood boiled at the thought.

He should have made him kneel longer.

As for why Adler did not blled, even though he seemed to have craked his skull?

The answer was simple.

Sael—well, Krael, but there was no difference; himself did not bleed. No matter how grievous the wound, not a single drop of blood would spill from his body. It was both a blessing and a curse. And as his servant, Adler shared in this unnatural gift. Through some unnatural means.

Krael had tried to ask him why it was so when they clearly did not have any blood relations. But the butler would always deflect, leaving his curiosity unquenched.

But even his parents bled; his uncle and his children bled.

But he and his butler were the anomalies.

As for its origins? Sael had no explanation.

Krael had been born this way.

But if the inability to bleed was the blessing, then what was the curse?

That, too, was simple. The pain.

For every injury suffered, the agony was magnified fivefold, even tenfold. He could tear his flesh open, and while it would mend seamlessly without a trace, the pain would remain—searing, lingering, far beyond what any ordinary and extraordinary person could endure.

So as much as it was a gift, it was also a burden.

Sael knew that what would normally crack a man's skull could do little physically to Adler beyond causing bone-rattling torment. And that was enough.

Even as he felt insulted, he took satisfaction in the thought that Adler was suffering in silence. That, at least, was some small reprieve for his ever-snarky heart.

Lifting his cup to his lips, he took another sip of his tea, savoring the moment.

Yes. Let the bastard experience the time of his life.

Taking his gaze off his infuriating butler, Sael turned to the horizon, where a pillar of flames lit the sky at its center.

'Rinra.'

The axis of Astrea. The home of the royal palace.

Some even dared to claim it was where the Diearch of Astrea, Larrius—the Ever-Changing Flame, the Eternal... something—slept.

To that, Sael could only sneer.

'One day, he will present his throne to me.'

'After I use his blood to soothe my aching bones.'