I Am The Game's Villain

Chapter 851: Shock And Echoes in the Crown Terrace [1]

Within the Crown Terrace, complete silence had fallen after the terrifying explosion of the airship. Even from this distance, the blast had shaken the reinforced windows, and the deep rumble still seemed to linger through the walls and beneath their feet.

No one had even had time to understand what had happened before someone intruded onto the stage, crossed the crimson carpet, and casually took the golden seat that had been prepared for the Saintess herself.

Every camera had turned toward the scene.

The giant screens showed a man covered in blood from head to toe. Blood soaked his clothes, stained his silver hair, and obscured most of his face. Yet his silver eyes remained visible through it all, cold and impossible to ignore.

"What the hell is happening?" Rodolf asked, immediately leaning forward from his previously relaxed position in an effort to get a clearer look.

"An enemy attack..." Victor muttered quietly beside him, narrowing his crimson eyes.

His first thought was concern for Alector. The Guardian of the Holy Tree had been sitting openly on that stage, and Victor’s concern tightened inside him as he watched the screen. Still, the intruder had not attacked anyone. He had simply appeared, taken the Saintess’s seat, and waited as though he belonged there.

Between Victor’s growing worry and Rodolf’s blunt curiosity, John remained silent.

His eyes stayed fixed on the screen.

He could barely make out the stranger’s features beneath all that blood. He did not recognize him. The man looked like no one John had ever met.

Yet something felt wrong.

Something about the silver hair and those eyes stirred a strange sensation in him.

"Who are you?" Reginald’s voice rang through the speakers, asking the question that stood in everyone’s mind.

"You would do well to answer, stranger," King Aslan added, his voice colder than before.

Anyone watching the scene would have thought the silver haired man had a death wish. Putting aside whatever had happened in the sky, he had intruded into an event watched by the entire world and sat disrespectfully in the Saintess’s golden chair. Yet he did not appear worried in the slightest.

"Do I?"

"Insolent..."

"Wait."

"Lord Alector?"

"His right arm. Look carefully."

The camera shifted at exactly the right moment, showing a brief glimpse of something golden beneath the stranger’s torn sleeve.

Victor reacted first.

"T-That is..."

"What?" Rodolf asked, turning toward him.

"It looks like the same mark old Alector has on his arm," Victor said, his face losing color. "And also the one Amael, I—I mean Edward, had when he became the Guardian of the Holy Tree of Ymir."

"W-What?" Rodolf stuttered.

His full attention returned to the screen. Cylien looked equally dumbfounded beside him, while Amelia stared ahead with her lips slightly parted.

"A Guardian’s mark?" Jayden said quietly from another row.

He looked down at his own hand. His Apostle mark also spread over part of his arm, though it was different. The symbol of Lumen centered itself mainly over the back of his right hand, a divine emblem that could not be mistaken for anything ordinary.

"Could that be another Guardian we never knew about?" Milleia mumbled beside him.

She did not take her eyes off the screen. Her heart had begun beating faster despite herself. The idea of another person tied to Eden, another person carrying such a powerful divine title, filled her with something close to anticipation.

She could not recognize him.

Yet something about his presence made her feel strangely unsettled.

And she was not the only one.

Across the Crown Terrace, people stared at the screens with held breaths. Some quietly discussed whether another Guardian existed somewhere in the world, while others tried to remember rumors or informations they might have heard.

Within the Olphean family, Christina had gone completely still.

Her eyes were fixed on the golden emblem displayed across the screen.

It looked eerily similar to the one she had seen on ’him’ more than once.

Her fingers tightened around the armrests of her seat.

It could not be.

Her breathing became shallow.

Surely, it was only guilt playing tricks on her again. Surely, it was her mind trying to force a familiar image onto a stranger because she had never truly let go of what happened.

She briefly glanced toward her mother.

Alea remained composed, though there was a faint tension in her face. Perhaps she carried some doubt as well, but she seemed far less shaken than Christina.

Then the stranger spoke again.

"Disappointing and disappointing. You invite every important person to your precious lands, yet you forget a King and a Guardian."

The whole Crown Terrace drew in a breath.

That statement narrowed the possibilities enormously.

In truth, it emptied the list entirely.

No one could remember a King who was also a Guardian. At least, not among the people they knew. Yet King Aslan’s face on the screen shifted in clear recognition.

"The Utopian King..."

The moment those words left Aslan’s mouth, the groups from Sancta Vedelia

reacted first.

"W-What the hell?!" Reiner stood up immediately.

"Dear," Dora said, quickly taking his arm as if trying to keep him calm.

"I never heard of a new Utopian King being chosen after King Durathiel’s death,"

Namys mumbled, visibly speechless.

"Freya Ruvelion was ruling Utopia," Aerinwyn added, her expression tense. "As far as I knew, she still was."

"What in the world is happening?" Priscilla muttered in shock.

Jefer beside her looked equally puzzled. His eyes remained fixed on Aslan, who clearly seemed to know far more than anyone else in the Crown Terrace.

"U-Utopian King? What does that mean, Lord Aslan?"

"The Utopian King is dead!"

"A new King was called in Utopia one week ago. Nothing had been formally announced to the world. However, we received the information not long ago."

"A new Utopian King? No one else has been made aware of this."

"Because I did not make you aware. I wanted Edenis Raphiel alone to know. Consider it a token. A way to build this so called bridge of trust that Edenis Raphiel has become so fond of speaking about recently."

"Aslan. Who is he?"

Alector asked the question.

Every eye in the Crown Terrace remained fixed on King Aslan’s face as he stared at the bloodied stranger seated upon the Saintess’s golden throne.

Then Aslan finally spoke.

"The name called as the twenty fifth Utopian King was Edward Falkrona."

A shocking silence filled the Crown Terrace.

For a moment, nobody moved.

Then John spoke first gritting his teeth.

"That son of a bitch."

"J-John?" Amelia turned toward him in disbelief.

John was glaring at the screen as though he were looking at his greatest enemy. His jaw was clenched, and there was visible anger in his eyes. Yet Amelia knew him well enough to see what lay underneath it. The tension that had been buried in his shoulders for two years had suddenly loosened. His anger was real, but beneath it was a faint, overwhelming relief.

Only then did Amelia’s mind fully connect the name to the person.

"Wait!" She shouted, turning back toward the screen. "Edward Falkrona? That is the name he said?"

"I-Impossible..." Victor stood so suddenly that his seat shifted behind him.

His crimson eyes were wide, completely stripped of their usual calmness.

"C-Could it be..." Cylien rose as well, placing one hand against Rodolf’s shoulder. Her eyes trembled as she stared at the bloodied man on the screen.

Rodolf did not answer immediately.

His gaze narrowed as he scanned the stranger’s face. Beneath the blood, the silver hair, and the changed appearance, he looked at the man’s eyes.

That cold look.

That familiar mixture of boredom, annoyance, and detached confidence as if nothing and no one could really trigger him.

Then Rodolf’s mouth slowly curled into a wide smirk.

"Yeah," he said. "That is him."

"A-Alicia...!"

Victor’s head snapped toward Alicia almost unconsciously.

He knew how much she had suffered. He wanted to say something, anything, or perhaps simply see what she felt after suddenly seeing Edward alive before the entire world.

But the sight of her made him pause.

Alicia was staring at the screen.

She looked shocked, of course, but not as shattered as Victor had expected. She looked shocked for some other reasons instead. Her lips were slightly parted as she watched Edward. Then, slowly, a smile spread across her lips.

She closed her eyes and placed one hand against her chest before grasping Levina’s hand with her other.

Levina was literally crying before she hurriedly wiped her tears smiling as well.

James and Leora could only stare at the screen in complete disbelief.

A sudden sound of glass shattering broke through the stunned quiet.

Everyone turned toward the source.

Milleia had risen from her seat so quickly that she had knocked over a glass from the nearby table. It had fallen to the floor, breaking into glittering pieces.

Her pink eyes were wide open as she stared at the screen.

"E-Edward..." She choked a whisper.

The name barely left her lips.

"Edward...?! W...What did he say? It cannot...cannot be..."

Jayden sat beside her with a stunned expression. His mind seemed to have completely stopped working. His older sister and parents looked equally shocked. They knew that name very well after Jayden had explained what had happened to Joshua.

Behind Jayden, Arete stood frozen.

Her gaze remained locked on Edward’s face. For once, she had no teasing remark, no sarcastic answer, no calm expression. It was as though she could not believe what she was seeing.

"Edward Falkrona? No... that is impossible..." Alector said.

"Edward Falkrona. Is that not the man who caused the Blood Wedding two years ago in Sancta Vedelia?"

"And he died. He was killed."

Edward’s silver gaze fell upon him.

"You’d wish."

"...!"

Inside the Crown Terrace, the strongest reaction came from the Olphean family.

Kleines Falkrona had completely frozen in his seat. His face was locked in a mixture of shock and horror, as though he had seen a ghost rise from the grave.

"T--That... that is impossible!!" He sputtered out before forcing himself to stop.

The color drained from his face.

Beside him, Alea looked equally horrified. Yet there was something more in her expression than shock. She looked terrified, not because Edward had returned, but because seeing him brought back everything that had happened.

All the pain. All the memories. Every terrible decision that had led to his death and that had occured before his death.

Christina was doing no better.

She stared at the screen with wide, trembling eyes. Her mouth hung open, but no sound came out. Then her lips began to shake uncontrollably, and tears fell from her amber eyes, sliding down her cheeks.

He looked completely different.

Yet she knew.

It matched.

The Utopian King.

The golden emblem of the Guardian of the Holy Tree of Ymir.

It made no sense, but she was looking directly at him.

Amael watched his older sister cry for a brief moment. Then his gaze shifted to the left, toward Miranda.

Miranda had gone completely still.

Her wide eyes were fixed on Edward’s image displayed across the screen. She looked frozen in a state of absolute shock, as though the world around her had disappeared.

For an entire year, she had known someone who wore Amael’s face.

Now that person was alive.

It felt as though Miranda’s entire mind had exploded beneath the force of confusion and shock.

Amael watched Miranda’s frozen expression for a moment, then slowly turned his attention back toward the screen.

Toward Edward.

The silver haired man was the one who had shared his body. The one who had merged with another version of him and existed in his place for two years while Amael himself had been absent.

Most of what Amael had heard about Edward had been bad.

The Utopian War. The Blood Wedding. The cruelty people associated with his name. The grief and anger he had left behind. Yet Amael also understood that some of those stories he heard might have been exaggerated. He was living in Sancta Vedelia after all.

Still, the people gathered within the Crown Terrace told a different story.

Some people had clearly loved him.

This very room was proof of it.

Amael kept staring at Edward’s image, unable to hide the curiosity rising inside him. Beneath the confusion, beneath the uncomfortable knowledge that Edward had lived through two years Amael could never remember, he felt something else.

A strange thrill.

He wanted to speak with him.

No.

He needed to speak with him.