Soulbound: Dual Cultivation

Chapter 560: I’m going to free him

The door to the chamber slammed open so hard it struck the stone wall with a sharp crack, cutting through the heavy silence like a blade.

Everyone turned at once.

The Ice Belle stepped inside without waiting for permission or greeting, her expression unusually sharp, almost strained in a way none of them had seen before. The cold aura around her flickered subtly, unstable compared to her usual composed presence, as if something was interfering with her focus from afar.

Selene straightened immediately. “What is it?”

The Ice Belle didn’t answer right away.

She stopped in the center of the room and closed her eyes briefly, her senses turning inward, reaching far beyond the palace, beyond Lechia, stretching toward the connection she shared with Lucas.

A moment passed.

Then another.

Her fingers tightened slightly.

“I felt it too,” she said finally, her voice low.

Nyx looked at her sharply. “Then you agree it’s gone.”

The Ice Belle opened her eyes again, but instead of the same emptiness the others had felt, there was something else in hers. A tension. A faint resistance, like she was still catching hold of something the others could no longer perceive.

“It is not gone in the same way for me,” she said slowly.

That immediately shifted the atmosphere in the room.

Lira frowned. “What do you mean?”

The Ice Belle hesitated for only a fraction of a second before continuing.

“My connection to him is stronger,” she said. “More direct. Less dependent on distance or state.”

Her gaze darkened slightly.

“And it is not entirely severed.”

Silence dropped heavily over the room.

Selene took a step forward. “You can still feel him?”

The Ice Belle nodded once.

“Faintly,” she admitted. “Like something buried under layers of suppression.”

Nyx’s expression tightened immediately. “Suppression?”

That word landed differently.

Heavier.

More specific.

The Ice Belle didn’t hesitate this time.

“Yes,” she said.

Her voice became more certain, more focused as she continued analyzing what she was sensing.

“Not death,” she added. “Not disappearance.”

Then her eyes narrowed slightly.

“But something is restraining him.”

A pause.

A colder realization followed.

“A suppressive force around his life signature.”

Henrietta’s expression shifted instantly.

Her calm composure broke just slightly as she straightened fully, the pieces aligning in her mind faster than the others.

“A restraining ring,” she said quietly.

Everyone turned toward her at once.

Henrietta’s gaze was steady now, but sharper than before, no longer speculative but certain.

“Placed on the neck,” she continued. “Designed to seal cultivation and disrupt spiritual or bonded connections.”

Selene’s face tightened. “You’re sure?”

Henrietta nodded once.

“I’ve seen similar tools before in interrogation prisons,” she said. “They don’t just suppress power. They distort perception links tied to the target’s energy flow.”

Nyx’s voice lowered. “So that’s why it felt like he disappeared.”

The Ice Belle exhaled slowly, her expression tightening further.

“That is why your connections broke completely,” she confirmed. “Because his energy is being forcibly suppressed at the source.”

A heavy silence followed.

Outside, Lechia continued its uneasy recovery, unaware of how quickly the situation beyond its borders was shifting again.

Selene turned slightly away from the window now, her expression no longer confused, but deeply unsettled.

“So he’s alive,” she said quietly.

The Ice Belle nodded again.

“Yes,” she said.

Then, after a brief pause, she added something far more serious.

“But he is not free.”

“I’m going to free him.”

There was no hesitation in her voice.

No debate.

No discussion.

Just decision.

Before anyone could even process what she meant, she had already turned toward the exit. The cold in the room spiked briefly as her aura flared instinctively, reacting to the urgency building inside her.

Selene stepped forward immediately. “Wait—what do you mean free him? You don’t even know where he is being held—”

But the Ice Belle didn’t slow down.

She pushed the doors open and walked straight out.

That was when urgency broke into motion.

Nyx followed first, her expression tight. “You can’t just go alone.”

Lira was right behind her, more shaken than she wanted to show. “At least tell us what you’re planning!”

Henrietta moved with them as well, her pace faster than usual, her gaze already calculating distances, routes, and possibilities.

But the Ice Belle didn’t stop walking.

She crossed the outer hallways of the palace in a straight line, ignoring the guards who stepped aside instinctively at the pressure of her presence. The air around her began to chill slightly, not enough to freeze, but enough to signal that her control was already slipping toward combat readiness.

Nyx caught up first. “You can’t just run into Rus alone!”

The Ice Belle finally spoke over her shoulder, her voice calm but sharp.

“I am not letting him suffer.”

Before another question could even form, she stepped out into the open courtyard of the palace.

And then she moved.

There was no gradual takeoff.

No buildup.

One moment she was standing there, and the next her body blurred upward with an explosive burst of speed, the ground beneath her cracking slightly from the recoil of her launch.

Wind twisted violently in her wake as she shot into the sky, ascending higher and higher until she became a streak of cold light cutting across the horizon.

Heading north.

Toward Rus.

Nyx froze for half a second, staring upward.

“She just…”

“She’s gone,” Lira finished, stunned.

Henrietta clicked her tongue once, already stepping forward as energy gathered around her body. “Of course she didn’t wait.”

Selene turned sharply. “Henrietta!”

Henrietta looked back at them briefly, her expression serious now.

“Listen carefully,” she said quickly. “You need to report this immediately to the king and the empress. If Xavier is not answering the link and the Ice Belle confirms suppression, then there is a high probability he has been captured.”

Nyx’s eyes tightened. “You’re assuming he failed?”

Henrietta shook her head once. “I’m stating probability, not outcome.”

Her aura began to rise, steady and controlled.

“Either way, this is no longer a standard operation. If Rus has captured him, they will interrogate him. And if they are interrogating him, time is not on our side.”

Selene clenched her fists slightly. “And you?”

Henrietta exhaled slowly.

“I’m going after her,” she said.

Nyx stepped forward. “You can’t catch her speed alone.”

Henrietta gave a faint, almost grim look.

“I don’t need to catch her,” she replied. “I just need to support what she starts.”

Then she turned fully toward the sky.

Her energy erupted outward in a controlled surge, less explosive than the Ice Belle’s, but far more stable, lifting her off the ground with precision instead of force.

She paused mid-air for a fraction of a second, looking down at the others.

“Move quickly,” she said. “And inform them before this escalates beyond recovery.”

Without waiting for a response, she shot forward after the Ice Belle, following the northern trajectory already carved through the sky.

Within seconds, both of them were gone.

Only silence remained in the courtyard.

Nyx stood still for a moment, staring in the direction they had vanished.

Then she turned slowly toward Selene and Lira.

There was no panic in her voice now.

Only clarity.

“We go to the king,” she said quietly. “Now.”

And behind them, Lechia’s brief moment of celebration finally gave way to something heavier.

Because across the horizon, two powerful figures were already racing toward Rus.

And Lucas, wherever he was, was no longer just missing.

He was the reason the next war had already begun.