Read Novel Full Chapter 394: Accuse Who? Us?
Chapter 394: Chapter 394: Accuse Who? Us?
Chapter 394 – Accuse Who? Us?
"Now, answer it," Cassius said, his tone leaving absolutely no room for anyone to weasel around his words.
The law of the Badur Kingdom was unambiguous, and refusing to honor it meant an even greater risk for the Museum of Legends itself.
The strange creature, glaring at him, knew that. The Council knew that. Everyone in the Museum understood that Cassius had just placed a sharp, lethal blade against the Museum’s throat.
There was no way out of it.
There was one more thing to weigh in all this, even though Cassius hadn’t said it outright, the Hoods were the Desdemona family’s in-laws.
Which meant refusing this law would carry even steeper consequences than they’d already assumed.
Taking all of that in, the strange creature was completely stunned. In the span of a few seconds, the situation had flipped in a way it never thought possible.
’This accursed boy!’ it hissed inwardly, body shaking with anger and unstable power.
Cassius watched it, utterly unbothered. "You can shake and glare and scowl at me all you like — it doesn’t make you any less unpleasant to look at, for the record — but none of you have any choice except to answer my Call of Justice."
"You really believe this will end in your favor?" the beast scowled. "Do you truly wish to go up against us, the Museum? Boy, you have no idea who you’re actually standing against."
"Do you?" Cassius tilted his head, tempted to laugh but held it back. "Do you really think you know who you’re facing right now? I haven’t even threatened you using my identity yet, and you, beast, dare speak to me like that?"
"And what exactly was that just now, if not using your identity and status?!" the beast cried out.
"I could’ve done far worse," Cassius said, flat and cold. "And frankly, forgive me, but I have no interest in continuing this pointless exchange. If you genuinely believe you have better odds in this Call of Justice; if you think anyone will believe that four students, none above Second Rank, somehow killed Fourth Rank beings and stole the artifacts amid all that destruction...then you truly do justice to your appearance, beast."
"You bloody—!"
"I’m tired of talking to a beast," Cassius cut it off. "Shall I remind you there’s a time limit for answering my Call of Justice, before penalties apply?"
He raised an eyebrow.
"You’ve already lost quite a few artifacts. I wouldn’t add to that loss, if I were you."
Meadow, William, and Diaila were completely stunned. Hearing Cassius talk like this felt genuinely strange to them.
Because he never did.
Cassius wasn’t the type to flaunt his status in front of others. He never saw the point in it.
But today was different. Even if the first heist had gone well enough, the Last Born was still on edge, easily provoked after being targeted so relentlessly lately.
His patience had worn dangerously thin. And an impatient Cassius was something none of them had ever witnessed before.
Right after his words, five people materialized inside Cassius’s room, standing before him.
All elderly, white-haired and weathered, eyes deep enough to seem to hold every scrap of wisdom in the world.
Three women, two men, dressed in ancient-looking brown and black robes bearing the Museum’s mark. Looking at them, Cassius’s first thought was that they resembled random wizards pulled straight out of some fantasy novel.
The Elders Council.
The man standing at the center, the First Elder, green-eyed, a long beard trailing down, spoke first.
"Cassius Desdemona," the First Elder said, eyes gleaming like polished emerald, "that was a reckless act you just committed. A Call of Justice carries consequences. Invoking it over something like this reflects a serious lack of insight."
"Consequences for whoever loses," Cassius corrected. "I don’t know about you, but I’m fairly confident in my odds. Because I’d genuinely love to hear how you plan to justify your suspicions of us."
"Your attitude isn’t helping your case, little devil." The blue-eyed old woman spoke next, her face scarred all over. The Third Elder. "Your arrogance is only making us more suspicious. And you’re doing this in front of beings who could kill you in a heartbeat."
"Ah, come on, seriously?" Cassius sighed, dragging a hand down his face in exasperation. "I seem to be collecting death threats lately. And I’ll say what I always say to every one of them."
He fixed his gaze on all five elders. "Killing me is far harder than you’d imagine, old woman. And say you do manage it by some miracle, how do you think you’ll survive afterward?"
"Survive?"
"My family, the Desdemona, will destroy this Museum you clearly care so much about. And hold on, I’m not finished," he cut off one elder’s opening mouth, "the Hoods will join them too, especially once they learn you refused my Call of Justice. My master, the Dean of the Academy herself, will come knocking for a little chat. I hope you’re ready, because she can be quite hasty sometimes. Now, let’s go further still, into the realm of the divine."
He pointed a finger skyward, smiling with quiet menace.
"You may be strong. But can you stand against gods?"
"Are you threatening us now?" the first elder who’d spoken hissed, outraged, the others equally enraged.
"You—!"
"That’s not all," Meadow’s voice suddenly rang out through the Museum, cold and simmering with fury. "The Wealth family will stand against the Museum too."
The whole Museum went dead silent, tension coiling tighter, as if the walls themselves were pressing inward.
"Which means, dear Elders Council," Meadow continued, "every transaction across this kingdom, and along every trade route touched by your merchants, will be shut down entirely."
The young tycoon showed no mercy delivering that. Cassius wasn’t the only one running on frayed nerves. Meadow herself was still volatile, having nearly died to that faceless entity just hours earlier.
She had absolutely no patience left for anyone threatening either of them.
If they wanted to flex their strength and bully them, she’d gladly show them what real bullying looked like.
"And," she added, "I’ll ask my mother to buy this entire Museum outright, and demolish it afterward."
"No one can buy this Museum!" the second elder shouted, power rippling out from him.
"But I can buy the land," Meadow shot back. "And if the land is mine, you’ll have to pack up your museum and find somewhere else to put it."
The situation had spiraled to a level none of them had ever experienced before. Guards and staff inside the Museum grew too afraid to even breathe loudly, terrified that any wrong move might set everything off.
The Council of Elders found themselves furious, yet equally rattled by the whole mess.
They’d momentarily forgotten they weren’t dealing with nobodies.
They stood against a Desdemona, and a Wealth. One belonged to the most infamous, most dangerously unstable family in the kingdom. The other, to the wealthiest and unquestionably most influential family in the entire kingdom.
Going up against either, on nothing but suspicion, was the single most reckless decision they’d made in a century.
And all of it could be traced back to their own overreaction, after one of the Seven Legendary Artifacts had been stolen.
Now that they actually thought it through, these children clearly couldn’t have pulled off the theft. They simply didn’t have the power to kill the Keeper, or cause destruction of that scale.
Slowly, the Council of Elders considered backing down.
But Cassius wasn’t about to let them.
"Answer my Call of Justice," he repeated, unmoved. "I’ve been wronged. My friend has been wronged. My teammates have been wronged."
His aura surged.
"We accepted a mission from our Academy and came here simply hoping to complete it. Nothing more. And yet, during that mission, we went through one of the most traumatic ordeals imaginable. Have you seen Meadow? Ask your guards. She was shaking like a flag in a storm. Have you seen Diaila? She hasn’t said more than a few words this whole time, eyes hollow, like she witnessed hell itself. And William? He’s been walking around as though something inside him snapped."
The strange creature and the Council of Elders began to genuinely regret everything.
Not just because, on reflection, Cassius’s account sounded entirely plausible, but because the little bastard in front of them clearly knew exactly how to twist the narrative and drive the blade deeper into the Museum’s throat.
He had momentum now. Blinding, unstoppable momentum. And somehow, they’d let themselves get pulled straight into it.
Cassius pressed on.
"We survived something none of us ever imagined we’d have to. We thanked the gods. We nearly cried — well, I did cry, actually — and even now, with it all over, we still feel hollow inside."
He paused, breathing in.
"We went through all of that, Council. And yet we didn’t complain. We didn’t ask for compensation. We didn’t accuse your Museum of negligence. We never asked why four students, sent here for a simple mission, were left to endure something that broke them like this."
His gaze swept slowly across the Council.
"We survived. We stayed quiet. All we wanted was to finish our mission and go home."
Then his expression hardened.
"And your response to that is to accuse us? Us?"
Silence swallowed the Museum. Uncomfortable, suffocating silence.
Cassius was convincing enough that the guards, especially those who’d witnessed the four students’ state firsthand, began fully believing him, wondering what exactly the Council thought it was doing.
The three hidden beings deep within the Museum watched the whole scene unfold with mixed reactions. They did nothing, only observed.
And they intended to keep it that way.
The Council knew they’d already lost this war of words. They could try something else, but Cassius never gave his opponents time to think.
"For the last time, I demand my Call of Justice," he hissed.
The elders exchanged glances, then turned slowly back to Cassius.
There was no real choice left. Just as Cassius had said, once a Call of Justice was invoked, especially by a Tier One heir, there was no option but to accept it.
So the First Elder cursed silently, glanced at his fellow elders, and spoke. "We answer your Call of Justice, Cassius Desdemona."
Cassius didn’t smile, didn’t gloat in the slightest. His face stayed perfectly blank as he delivered his final words: "Perfect. I name my grandmother, Queen of the Badur Kingdom, Morenna Hood, as my guardian for this Call of Justice."
—End of Chapter 394—