Transmigrated as the Villainess Princess - Chapter 242

Chapter 242: A New Direction (6)

Riezekiel returned to the Mors Dukedom under a veil of silence. The streets were still, and the air was cold, draped in a solemn mist that lingered even after the sun had risen. He didn’t speak to the guards who greeted him at the gates, offered a nod, and passed through.

His cloak billowed behind him, heavy with the scent of forest and metal. The gala, the Academy, and Ahcehera all felt like a different world now. A world that no longer recognized him. He walked through the halls of the Mors estate, halls that had once echoed with the laughter of his kin, halls that now carried only the sound of his boots and distant memories.

The staff had already prepared his chambers, lit, armor polished, and documents stacked neatly on the long table near the window. But Riezekiel ignored them. He went straight to the strategy room where the old crest of House Mors hung, its silver threads frayed by time but still proud.

He poured himself into the work, studying the territorial maps and recent reports of unrest. He had noticed strange patterns the past week, reports of movement near the southern border, sightings of cloaked figures that vanished before anyone could apprehend them.

The patrol guards brushed it off as scavengers or nomads wandering too far from their region. But Riezekiel had known war long enough to sense something wrong. Tonight, that premonition became reality.

It began with a soft shift in the air. A light orb flickered out with no wind. A bird’s screech echoed far too close. Riezekiel stood slowly, eyes scanning the shadows that stretched across the marble floor.

Then he heard it, the faint scrape of metal against stone. Silent. Precise. Lethal.

He reached for his weapon instinctively, a double-edged glaive forged in the Sirius military vaults, sharp enough to slice reinforced armor, light enough to move like a whisper. He didn’t have to wait long.

The first assassin came from above, dropping silently through the skylight like a blade of the night. Riezekiel spun to meet him, parrying the strike with the smooth grace of someone who had danced with death more times than he could count.

Sparks flared as steel met steel. Another figure emerged from the shadows behind a pillar, launching forward with twin daggers. Riezekiel ducked, rolled, and caught the attacker’s leg mid-lunge, slamming them into the stone floor.

The third moved faster, silent, serpentine. Poison-tipped needle launched from their wrist, barely grazing Riezekiel’s shoulder as he twisted aside. Pain flared for an instant, but his body endured. He gritted his teeth and pressed forward.

They were not ordinary mercenaries. Their movements were precise, trained, military, or worse, guild professionals. Not one of them made a sound. No grunts, no yells. Pure silence, deadly and focused. He counted five.

Then six. All closing in. They had studied the terrain. They knew his patterns. But they had made one grave error. They thought the heir of the Mors Dukedom had grown soft.

In one breath, he activated the pulse embedded within his gauntlet, sending a short-range shockwave that distorted the air and threw two assassins off balance. He lunged at the nearest, his glaive spinning in a deadly arc, cleaving through the attacker’s armor with a clean, brutal efficiency.

Another tried to flank him from the side, Riezekiel reversed his grip, slammed the pole end into the attacker’s ribs, and followed with a blinding pivot strike that broke the mask off their face. The exposed man gurgled in surprise before collapsing. Blood stained the once-pristine floors. Alarms had not sounded. No help had come. He was alone.

Riezekiel’s muscles ached, sweat beading along his temples, but his mind remained cold. Focused. The third assassin circled like a shadow, then leapt with a silent cry, curved blade flashing. Riezekiel ducked, disarmed him mid-air, and plunged the glaive through the man’s gut before lifting and flinging him into the stone wall.

Another tried to detonate a flash device, Riezekiel slammed his boot into their chest, sending them skidding across the floor. That left only one. The final assassin stood at the far end of the hall, face hidden, posture eerily still. There was something strange about this one. No weapon drawn, just… watching. Waiting.

Riezekiel approached, slowly, weapon raised. “Who sent you?” he asked, voice calm.

The figure tilted its head. Then the voice came, filtered through a voice changer. “You should not be alive.”

“Then I’ll make sure you’re not,” he replied coldly.

They rushed each other. This final battle was different, more precise, more violent. Their weapons clashed in rapid bursts of sound and light. The assassin was skilled, almost equal in strength and speed.

Riezekiel took two cuts across the chest and one down his thigh, but he refused to falter. His glaive met their twin sabers again and again, sparks flaring in all directions. Then the assassin misstepped, just slightly.

It was all he needed. He turned, pivoted low, and with a swift sweep, knocked them off balance before delivering a final blow to their ribs. The figure hit the ground hard. Their mask fell away. Beneath it was a woman. Young. Pale-eyed. Unfamiliar.

But her insignia, the mark on her wrist, was not. Riezekiel narrowed his eyes. The insignia was a faded seal from the long-disbanded Shadowborn Order. A secret faction once employed by corrupt nobles during the Sirius civil wars.

“They should’ve been extinct,” he muttered.

The woman smiled faintly despite the blood at her lips. “You were supposed to be dead,” she whispered. “Many people want you dead.”

“Let them come,” he said, rising. “Let them all come.”

Her breath stilled. Silence followed.

Riezekiel exhaled deeply, standing in the middle of the ruined hall, surrounded by broken bodies and flickering flames. Only then did the alarms finally sound, late, too late. His guards poured in, eyes wide with horror.

“Clean this,” he ordered. “Double the patrol. Triple the gate watch. No one leaves. No one enters without clearance.”

They obeyed, rushing to act, but Riezekiel remained still for a long moment, blood dripping from his fingers, the taste of war bitter on his tongue once more. Later, in his chambers, he stood before the mirror and studied his reflection.

The wound on his shoulder throbbed, and he dressed it himself. He stared into his own eyes, darker than before, colder. Not even seeing Ahcehera had returned warmth to his expression.

He was too far gone. Too broken, too rebuilt, too consumed. Yet beneath the steel of his resolve, a whisper tugged at him.

Why now? Why would the Shadowborn return? Why target the Mors Dukedom?

He would find out. He had to. For if the ghosts of the past were rising again, then it meant this was only the beginning. He could not afford hesitation. And he could not afford another loss, not to his people, not to himself.

He sat by the window, overlooking the ruined training yard, and began drafting new orders. A new direction was forming, not one of reconciliation or soft peace, but one of rebuilding with fire, blood, and unrelenting vigilance. The heir of Mors was back. And this time, he would not fall.