Chapter 114: The Silent Court

Chapter 114: The Silent Court

The sky above Glacies Cradle was a perpetual twilight, pale blue and silver, smeared with falling frost. The valley was an untouched relic of the Underworld's old nobility—isolated, protected by generations of silence and snow. It was said that time slowed here not because of magic, but because even the winds feared to stir what slumbered beneath.

Volundr stood at the edge of the overlook with Caelum at his side. The two had just received a confirmed report from one of their scouts—a veil had been pierced. The path ahead was cloaked in illusionary barriers, spatial displacements, and anti-divination fields so dense they warped perception itself. Only Caelum's Aether Frame, pulsing with spatial sensitivity, had found the narrow seam in the fog.

"The enchantments are old," Caelum said, his breath fogging in the cold. "Ancient. Rooted in emotion more than structure. Fear, mostly… and sorrow."

Volundr closed his eyes, sensing the ambient currents in the ether. "Then this is not a prison built out of tyranny, but protection."

Their stealth scout, a silent devil operative known as Verrin, reappeared with a shimmering glyph suspended in her hand.

"We located the heart of the magic: a sanctum carved into the glacier itself. Runes of Leviathan lineage. Cryo-stasis magic centered on one subject."

The name came with weight: Ingvild Leviathan.

A flashback played in Volundr's mind—shared through the magical memory of Verrin's observation crystal. It was the past, bathed in melancholy tones.

In a seaside town of northern Europe, a girl with violet hair and a strange, melodic presence wandered along the ocean's edge. She was the daughter of a human woman and a devil father of the Leviathan bloodline, a noble legacy cursed with both power and expectation. She sang softly, unaware that her voice called out across the ley-lines of the sea—awakening old things, deep things.

One day, she collapsed.

The Devil Sleeping Disease, a mysterious affliction that attacked those with unstable or overwhelming magical potential, took her. Her parents—desperate—contacted the noble Leviathan houses. The decision was swift and final. She was brought to the Underworld. The family of House Yggvar, loyal retainers of the original Satan Leviathan, swore an oath to keep her safe.

Not as a weapon. Not as a symbol.

But as a girl who was loved—and feared.

End flashback.

Back in the present, Volundr turned to the assembled war council, an intimate gathering of his closest aides. Kuroka leaned against the wall, her expression unreadable. Caelum watched silently, but his knuckles were white.

"Ingvild's Sacred Gear," Volundr said softly, "is more than just a Longinus in the making. Nereid Kyrie… the Voice of the Sea. It doesn't just control sea dragons—it resonates with mythical aquatic life, even dormant entities from the Age of Myth."

"She's dangerous," Kuroka said. "Unstable. The wrong word, the wrong emotion… she could level entire continents."

Volundr shook his head. "No. She's not dangerous. Her power is. She was never given a choice in how to use it."

A silence fell across the room. Then he spoke again, his voice steel beneath velvet.

"I'm not going to steal her. And I will not let those who once abandoned the world decide her fate again."

He looked to Caelum. "Prepare a diplomatic approach. Bring our proof, the records of the Leviathan lineage, and the seals I obtained from the fallen libraries. We go not to demand—but to remind them of their oath."

Kuroka frowned. "And if they refuse?"

Volundr's eyes glinted like tempered silver. "Then they break their own silence—and I'll shatter it for them."