Emperor Cedric sat back on his golden throne, his sharp, weathered eyes narrowing as he stroked his neatly trimmed beard. The heavy silence stretched across the grand banquet hall, thick with political tension. Everyone held their breath, waiting to see if the ruler of the Valemont Empire would hand over his second son to the rugged, low-birth-rate dynasty of the Eastern Continent.
Adrian, the Crown Prince, leaned slightly forward, a smug, greasy smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. Beside him, Duke Reinhardt kept his hands clasped casually behind his back, his expression a mask of perfect, deferential loyalty. They were certain the King would take the bait.
But Emperor Cedric was a fox who had survived decades of imperial backstabbing. He didn't miss the eager look in Reinhardt's eyes, nor was he completely blind to the shifting tides within his own empire. Rumors of Cassian's recent exploits—humiliating Damian Reinhardt in a duel, single-handedly restructuring the lower-tier classes, and raising a terrifyingly disciplined group of junior prodigies—had already reached the throne room. Cedric was beginning to realize that his supposedly "scumbag" second son was far more valuable, and dangerous, than a mere political pawn. He smelled a rat.
"A joint marriage," Emperor Cedric finally spoke, his deep, resonant voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings. He let out a slow, booming laugh that carried a sharp, calculated edge.
"Duke Reinhardt is remarkably eager to speak for my household tonight. However, a marriage of such magnitude is a sacred weight, Lord Vikra. The Valemont bloodline does not bind itself lightly."
Vikra Madurai didn't flinch, his amber eyes locked onto the Emperor, while his younger brother Thoris shifted his weight, his hand resting lazily on his jagged greatsword.
"Prince Cassian's talents are currently vital to the Academy's structural reform," Cedric continued, his tone dropping into something far more regal and territorial. "Furthermore, I am a ruler who believes in the strength of compatibility. Giving a prince away on a whim is the act of a desperate kingdom, and Edrath is far from desperate. Therefore, I will grant your first request: the Joint Military Summit shall proceed immediately at the Academy, with young Thoris at the forefront as the horde's representative."
The King paused, turning his piercing gaze directly toward Cassian, then back to the Eastern princes.
"While the summit takes place over the coming months, let Prince Thoris and Prince Cassian train, interact, and show us the true strength of a continental alliance. Let them get to know one another under the evaluation of both our houses. We shall let the gods decide if a marital union is fitting, and we will finalize any formal vows at the winter's end. For tonight... we feast!"
A resounding cheer broke out among the minor nobles and foreign ambassadors, glasses raising in a chaotic wave of celebration.
But at the central royal table, the atmosphere turned toxic.
Duke Reinhardt's jaw tightened imperceptibly, his eyes flashing with a sudden, dark desperation. The King's delay was a catastrophic variable. If Cassian was allowed months to build his influence at the Academy alongside a Barbarian Prince, he might become entirely untouchable. Adrian's greasy smirk completely vanished, replaced by a furious scowl.
'He didn't take the bait,' Reinhardt thought hiddenly, his gaze snapping toward a heavily trembling servant standing near the vintage wine casks.
'It doesn't matter. We must accelerate the plan. If the second prince succumbs to the fertility heat right now, in front of the entire international delegation, the King will have no choice but to strip his title and exile him tonight.'
At the table, Cassian sat frozen. His modern soul was currently screaming in a dual panic of existential dread and profound annoyance.
'Oh, fantastic! Great job, Dad!' Cassian's internal monologue was throwing a massive fit.
'You didn't sell me out immediately, but you basically just gave a giant barbarian prince a legal royal permit to aggressively stalk and 'court' me at school for the next three months! Do you have any idea what Thoris did to me in Timeline Eleven?! I still have phantom lower back pain!,'
He shifted uncomfortably in his high-backed velvet chair, completely aware of Thoris's wild, predatory gaze locking onto him from across the floor. The Barbarian Prince was looking at him less like a diplomatic partner and more like an exotic beast he couldn't wait to hunt down and conquer in the training grounds.
And then there was the problem directly behind him.
The air pressure behind Cassian's chair had dropped past absolute zero. Sir Lucien Arden stood perfectly still, but the holy mana radiating off his silver armor was so intensely hot that the velvet fabric of Cassian's chair was faintly beginning to singe. Lucien's hand was clamped onto the pommel of his broadsword with white-knuckled, lethal intensity.
"Sir Arden," Cassian muttered out of the side of his mouth, his default deadpan facade barely holding together.
"Your killing intent is making my soup cold. Control yourself."
"He is looking at you, Cassian," Lucien's voice was a freezing, barely audible whisper that vibrated right against the back of the prince's neck. "The northern stray is calculating how to pull you into his den. If he takes one step toward this table, I will cleave his greatsword and his lineage in half before the Emperor can finish his wine."
Before Cassian could even tell the overprotective knight to seek psychiatric help, a young, pale-faced acolyte dressed in the formal robes of the High Clergy stepped forward from the shadows of the banquet hall. In his trembling hands, he carried a heavy silver decanter filled with the dark, rich vintage meant for the royal family's toasts.
Cassian's mercenary instincts instantly flared. His eyes locked onto the servant's white knuckles and the subtle, erratic twitch of the boy's jaw.
'He's here,' Cassian's mind violently signaled, his heart hammering against his ribs.
'The Nectar of the Fertile Mother. The mpreg plotline is walking right toward my cup.'
The acolyte bypassed Prince Adrian, bowed deeply, and approached Cassian's side of the table. With a shaking hand, he lifted the silver decanter, tilting it slowly over Cassian's empty ceremonial crystal chalice. A dark, ruby-red liquid began to pour, and along with it, a faint, sweet, and entirely unnatural scent of wild orchids began to drift into the air.
Cassian stared at the rising fluid, his face turning a ghostly, horrified shade of white. The phantom memories of carrying eleven children violently flashed through his brain.
Behind him, Lucien's ice-blue eyes narrowed into lethal slits. The knight smelled the faint, divine residue of the High Clergy's restricted compound. His muscles tightly coiled, his broadsword clearing its scabbard by a fraction of an inch with a sharp, terrifying *shhhk*.
"Your Highness," the servant whispered, his voice trembling as the cup filled to the brim. "A toast to the Northern Alliance."
The crimson wine pool reflected the golden glitter of the overhead chandeliers, looking remarkably like a fresh splat of blood.
The acolyte stood frozen, the heavy silver decanter still tilted in his trembling grasp. The intense, sickly sweet odor of wild orchids—the unmistakable olfactory signature of the 'Sacred Nectar of the Fertile Mother'—was now aggressively hanging over the central imperial table.
Crown Prince Adrian was already raising his own golden chalice, his eyes darting toward Cassian with a greasy, poorly concealed look of manic anticipation. Duke Reinhardt, standing just below the dais, shifted his weight, his eyes locked onto the stem of Cassian's glass. They were waiting for the first sip. They were waiting for the catastrophic public ruin of the Second Prince.
But Cassian's fifty years of collective mercenary survival instincts didn't just activate—they completely took over his nervous system. His face remained an immaculate, frozen sculpture of aristocratic boredom, even as his internal modern soul was screaming at the top of its lungs.
'So you want to play the fertility card on me huh?' Cassian thought, a sudden, profoundly wicked smirk tracing his mind.
'In a room full of high nobles? Let's see how the Crown Prince handles a sudden hormonal emergency.'
With a lazy, incredibly fluid motion, Cassian didn't reach for his own glass. Instead, he leaned sideways, his silk robes rustling smoothly as he looked directly at Prince Adrian.
"You know, Brother," Cassian drawled, his deep voice carrying a sharp, public resonance that easily cut through the ambient chatter of the nearby nobles. "As the glorious Crown Prince of Edrath, your ceremonial chalice looks awfully empty for a grand imperial toast. A true, noble heir to the throne should always be treated to the absolute finest, rarest vintage our clergy has to offer."
Adrian's greasy smirk completely froze. "Cassian, what are you—"
"Here," Cassian interrupted with an elegant, rapid hand-swap that was so blindingly fast and practiced from his modern card-trick routines that the surrounding lords barely registered the movement. He snatched his own fully poured, orchid-scented crystal chalice and aggressively set it down directly in front of Adrian, simultaneously sliding Adrian's empty cup over to his own side. "Take mine. Consider it a humble token of my deep, brotherly respect for your... miraculous recovery from your nervous fever."
Duke Reinhardt's eyes violently widened from below the dais. His heart practically stopped.
'No!' the Duke's mind shrieked in absolute horror.
'That cup is packed with the maximum dosage! If Adrian drinks that, the Crown Prince will go into an uncontrollable, primal heat right in front of the foreign ambassadors!'
Adrian's face turned an immediate, sickly shade of green. He stared down at the dark, ruby-red liquid as if it were a coiled viper. He knew exactly what was inside it. His fingers trembled against the golden stem, entirely trapped. If he refused his younger brother's public gesture of respect in front of the King and the international delegation, he would look incredibly petty, suspicious, and weak. But if he drank it...
"What is the matter, Crown Prince?" Cassian purred, leaning his chin on his fist, his crimson eyes gleaming with a lethal, mocking amusement. "Is the vintage perhaps too... potent for your delicate constitution?"
"Y-You..." Adrian hissed under his breath, his teeth grinding so loudly Cassian could hear them.
"Enough of this squabbling," Emperor Cedric's booming voice rumbled from the high throne, his brow furrowed in minor irritation as he raised his own cup. "Acolyte! Stop standing there like a brainless mule. Refill Prince Cassian's chalice immediately so we may conclude the imperial toast!"
"Y-Yes, Your Imperial Majesty!" the terrified acolyte squeaked. He scrambled forward, his hands shaking so violently the silver decanter clattered against the rim of Cassian's fresh, empty crystal glass. He poured frantically, the dark wine rushing to the brim, releasing another fresh, concentrated wave of the divine orchid scent into the air.
Cassian's internal panic instantly returned at maximum volume.
'Shit! The King just bypassed my deflection! The poison is back in my court!'
Before Cassian could even think of a secondary corporate excuse to swap the cups again, a sudden, heavy, and thunderous stride echoed from the main floor of the ballroom.
Thoris—the 'High Scion of the Iron Steppes and First Blade of the Horde'—had been tracking Cassian's every movement like a apex predator observing a bizarre, fascinating new prey. He had noticed the servant's terrified micro-expressions, Adrian's sudden green complexion, and above all, the raw, calculating combat readiness radiating off Cassian.
Wanting to assert his dominant Eastern presence and aggressively kickstart the "evaluation period" the King had just granted, Thoris strode right up the steps of the royal dais, entirely ignoring imperial protocol.
"Where I come from," Thoris boomed, his deep, gravelly voice commanding the attention of the entire ballroom as he stopped directly in front of Cassian's chair, "we do not sit like fragile, soft-skinned birds and drink from separate cups to seal a blood alliance."
Thoris leaned down, his wild, braided dark hair casting a shadow over Cassian's table. He reached out a massive, heavily tattooed hand, his fingers closing around the stem of Cassian's newly refilled, poisoned chalice, snatching it right out of the prince's reach. He flashed a feral, predatory grin directly into Cassian's eyes.
"We share the same vessel. We drink the same blood. Let's see if the rumors of your fragile constitution are true, Second Prince."
Cassian's brain completely, utterly melted into pure, unadulterated existential horror.
'NO!, IF A BARBARIAN WARLORD DRINKS THE ROYAL VALEMONT FERTILITY NECTAR, THE BIOLOGICAL MUTATION IS GOING TO TURN TIMELINE FIFTEEN INTO AN ABSOLUTE APOCALYPSE! HE'S GOING TO GO INTO HEAT AND TRY TO DRAG ME BACK TO THE MOUNTAINS TONIGHT! SOMEBODY STOP HIM!'
Thoris began to lift the poisoned chalice toward his lips—
But he never got the chance.
The exact millisecond the glass approached Thoris's mouth, the absolute limit of Sir Lucien Arden's unhinged, overprotective patience was violently breached. The Holy Knight Commander completely lost his mind.
*BOOM!*
Before anyone in the ballroom could even blink, Lucien's heavy, silver-gauntleted hand came down from behind Cassian's chair like a falling meteor. He didn't just grab the cup—he slammed his massive, iron-clad palm directly over the top of the crystal chalice, crushing the expensive glass into a million glittering, microscopic pieces right in Thoris's grip.
*CRASH!*
The violent, shattering explosion of glass and dark red wine sprayed aggressively across the royal table, heavily splatting onto Crown Prince Adrian's immaculate white silk robes and dripping down Thoris's bare, tattooed forearms.
The entire grand banquet hall went dead, suffocatingly silent. The music stopped instantly. Hundreds of high nobles and foreign ambassadors froze in sheer, unbridled terror. A Knight Commander had just violently intervened at the royal table, directly altering an international exchange in front of the King. It was an act of high treason.
"Sir Arden!" Duke Reinhardt roared, his voice cracking with absolute rage as he pointed a trembling finger up at the dais. "What is the meaning of this unmitigated madness?! Drawing your physical aura and destroying a diplomatic toast in the presence of His Imperial Majesty?! This is treason! Guards, disarm him!"
The royal guards hesitated, none of them brave enough to take a single step toward the legendary Hero of the Empire.
Lucien didn't move an inch. He stood like an immovable monument of silver and steel directly behind Cassian, his hand resting firmly on the pommel of his holy broadsword, which was now clearing its scabbard by a terrifying inch, releasing a high-pitched, lethal hum of pure holy mana. His ice-blue eyes were completely unhinged, burning with a territorial, murderous fury as he stared down at Thoris.
"There was a highly venomous, lethal insect resting within His Imperial Highness's chalice," Lucien deadpanned, his voice a freezing, monstrous baritone that made the air pressure in the room drop past absolute zero. He didn't look at Reinhardt; his eyes remained locked onto the barbarian prince. "As the appointed guardian of Prince Cassian, I merely liquidated the structural threat before it could contaminate our prestigious guests. If anyone has an objection to my defensive protocols... speak now."
Thoris stared down at his dripping, wine-stained hands, then slowly raised his head. Instead of being intimidated by the suffocating bloodlust of a Swordmaster, a slow, booming laugh began to rumble in the barbarian's chest. He looked at Lucien, his amber eyes flashing with a wild, feral excitement.
"A venomous insect?" Thoris chuckled, licking a drop of the spilled wine from his knuckle, entirely oblivious to the fertility drug's nature. He stepped closer, his chest nearly pressing against the edge of the table as he glared back at the knight.
"You protect your little prince quite fiercely, Holy Knight. But where I come from, when a hound barks too loudly at the alpha... we break its neck."
"Let us see who breaks first, northern-east stray," Lucien whispered, his holy aura flaring so brightly the nearby chandeliers began to rattle.
Cassian sat completely frozen between the two looming, hyper-violent powerhouses, his eyes staring blankly at the shattered glass on his table. His modern soul let out a long, thoroughly broken, and entirely exhausted sigh.
'I hate this timeline,' Cassian thought, slowly rubbing his temples as a massive headache formed. 'I genuinely, deeply hate every single person in this room.'
The sheer, suffocating weight of the two apex predators clashing across the royal table was enough to make the surrounding ministers look like they were about to pass out from oxygen deprivation. Lucien's holy sword was hum-singing a note of pure executioner's wrath, while Thoris's hand had crept entirely to the wrapped hilt of his greatsword, his amber eyes locked in a dead sprint toward a bloodbath.
Sitting smack-dab in the eye of this hyper-violent hurricane, Cassian felt his modern soul officially cross the threshold from existential panic into profound, aggressive annoyance.
'I am seventy-nine years old, additionally across these loops,' Cassian's internal voice snapped, his eyes twitching as he looked at the shattered crystal.
'I have fought trench wars, survived starvation, and run multinational mercenary syndicates. I am absolutely NOT letting a yandere paladin and a feral mountain stray turn my imperial dinner into a turf war over a fertility drug. It is time to put the old Cassian's unhinged, untouchable arrogance to work—packaged inside a slick, modern corporate damage-control routine.'
Cassian let out a sharp, theatrical, and thoroughly irritated sigh that cut straight through the heavy silence of the ballroom. He didn't rise from his velvet chair; instead, he leaned back, crossed his legs elegantly, and brought his hands together in a slow, painfully mocking golf clap.
*Clap. Clap. Clap.*
"Brilliant. Truly, an exquisite display of diplomatic etiquette from the both of you," Cassian drawled, his voice dripping with an ice-cold, aristocratic sarcasm that instantly froze the escalating mana in the room. He shot a venomous, sideways glare up at Lucien.
"Sir Arden, your legendary dedication to 'pest control' is deeply moving, but if you splatter cheap vintage across my imperial robes one more time, I will personally have the treasury deduct the cleaning bill from your Western Dukedom's tax returns. Sheathe that oversized toothpick before you embarrass the Holy Vanguard any further."
Lucien's jaw locked. The blinding holy light radiating from his armor flickered, momentarily dampened by the sheer, unbothered audacity of the prince's tongue. His ice-blue eyes wavered, looking down at Cassian with a mixture of dark frustration and involuntary submission. He slowly, tensely, clicked his broadsword back into its scabbard.
"As you command, Your Highness."
Before Thoris could even smirk at the knight's retreat, Cassian's crimson eyes snapped onto the Barbarian Prince with the force of a physical slap.
"And you—High Scion or whatever multi-syllabic tribal title you hide behind," Cassian purred, his eyes narrowing into slits of pure, unadulterated disdain as he flicked a piece of shattered glass off his cuff. "If the etiquette of the Iron Steppes dictates that you aggressively snatch drinks out of the hands of hosting royalty like a starving street mongrel, then I suggest you return to your mountains and practice your table manners. This is a palace of the Valemont line, not a tavern in the wastes. Act like a prince, or sit with the hounds below the dais."
The entire banquet hall collectively gasped. Duke Reinhardt looked like his soul had left his body. No one—*no one*—spoke to the First Blade of the Horde like that and kept their head.
Thoris froze, his hand still on his greatsword. For a terrifying two seconds, his face was entirely unreadable. Then, a massive, feral, and thoroughly delighted grin split across his rugged face. The raw, confident, and completely unfazed vitriol coming from Cassian didn't anger him; it ignited a roaring bonfire of fascination in his chest.
'Soft-skin? No. This one has teeth.'
"You have a fierce tongue, Second Prince," Thoris chuckled, slowly drawing his hand away from his weapon and raising his palms in a mock gesture of surrender. "Fine. I shall play by your court's rules... for tonight."
Having successfully defused the immediate biological weapon detonator, Cassian immediately redirected the entire trajectory of the room before Duke Reinhardt or Crown Prince Adrian could salvage their botched conspiracy.
Cassian smoothly turned his body toward the high throne, his face instantly transitioning from an annoyed tyrant to a perfectly polished, entirely confident diplomat as he addressed his father.
"Imperial Father," Cassian spoke, his voice carrying a smooth, resonant authority that commanded the entire ballroom's attention. "It appears the excitement of the upcoming Joint Military Summit has left our guests and my esteemed guardian a bit... overly enthusiastic. A shattered glass is a minor blemish on a magnificent evening. Let us not let the clumsy handling of an open vintage ruin a historic pact."
Emperor Cedric, who had been watching his second son's masterclass in crisis management with a growing, intensely curious gleam in his eyes, slowly raised an eyebrow. "And what do you propose, Cassian?"
"I propose we clear the slate entirely," Cassian said, standing up from his chair with a slow, commanding grace. He raised his hand, pointing a sharp finger away from the trembling acolyte and toward the back of the hall. "Elias! Bring forth a fresh, entirely sealed bottle of the imperial reserve from the private royal cellar. Let it be uncorked right here, under the watchful, pristine eyes of the High Court, and let the cups be refilled from a clean source."
Cassian shot a brief, deadly micro-glance toward Duke Reinhardt, his smirk sharp enough to draw blood.
"That way, *everyone* can drink with absolute peace of mind, completely assured that no... uninvited pests... are lingering within the vintage. Wouldn't you agree, Duke Reinhardt? Crown Prince Adrian?"
Adrian looked like he was about to vomit from sheer, suffocating defeat. His entire body was trembling as he sat next to the poisoned cup Cassian had forced onto him earlier, which was now completely useless. Duke Reinhardt's face turned an ugly, mottled shade of purple. Their months of planning, their stolen divine aphrodisiac, their perfect mpreg trap—entirely dismantled and turned into a public farce by a few sharp words and a card-sharp's hand-swap.
"A-A stellar suggestion, Your Highness," Reinhardt choked out through a forced, agonizingly tight smile, bowing so low his face was completely hidden. "A clean slate is... most appropriate."
"Excellent," Emperor Cedric boomed, a genuine, booming laugh tearing from his throat as he brought his fist down on his armrest. He was thoroughly entertained by how beautifully Cassian had just strangled Reinhardt's hidden agenda in broad daylight. "Elias! Bring the sealed reserve! Let us restart things over, properly!"
As the servants scrambled to clear the broken glass and pour the fresh, untainted wine under Lucien's hyper-vigilant, murderous supervision, Cassian slowly sank back into his velvet chair.
He let out a long, silent, and deeply relieved breath, his modern mind finally relaxing. 'Crisis averted. The fertility plotline is officially dead for tonight.'
He casually glanced up to ensure the fresh wine was safe, only to realize both Thoris and Lucien were staring at him from opposite sides. Thoris was swirling his new drink, watching Cassian with the eyes of a hunter who had just found his favorite game, while Lucien stood close enough to practically breathe down Cassian's neck, his fingers still twitching with a dark, suffocatingly possessive pride.
Cassian slowly closed his eyes, his internal monologue weeping into the void.
'I fixed the poison problem... but I think I just made the stalking problem ten times worse. Somebody please just let me go back to Earth.'
*****