Supreme Spouse System.

Chapter 470: The Two Conditions

The Two Conditions

Leon’s eyes clung to Aden’s, a shadowy spark of gold etching across his irises, capturing the shadowy curve of a smile hovering on his lips. There was a stillness in him, a lethal peace, as though the world had been reduced to this one, delicate instant. His every muscle appeared frozen, yet bristling with tension, as if the air between him and Aden could shatter at any moment.

"Go on," he said, voice low, soft enough to stir the air between them, almost intimate in its quiet command. "I’m listening."

The crater around them seemed to draw a breath along with them, holding the silence in its hollow center. The battlefield lay in ruin, jagged remnants of stone and scorched earth forming a grim frame for their confrontation. The flames continued to flicker in small, rebellious tongues, its light shivering over their bloodied, ash-splattered faces. Soldiers hung back at the periphery, transfixed with awe and terror, feeling that what was to occur next was not theirs to govern, nor perhaps theirs to behold. Even the night itself hesitated, calm and waiting, as if the skies themselves leaned inward to observe.

Ash blew idly on the thin air, curling around their limbs with ghostly fingers, hanging on to sweat-greased skin and charred black edges of armor. Charred earth and iron-scented blood smelt in the air, mixed with the sharp bite of smoke, each breath driving deep into lungs, a reminder of what had been done and of how tenuous life still was. Above, the moon hung broken behind clouds of mist, pale silver light pouring across the wreckage, etching each crater, each ruin in stark, ghostly relief.

Aden’s chest fell and rose with effort, each breath slow, shaking but restrained, a still storm bottled within a battered body. Bruises colored his skin in bruised mosaics, burns scarred his arms, yet his storm-gray eyes were unyielding. They seethed with stubborn resistance, a fire no hurt could soften, a flame that would not yield. When he raised his eyes, they blazed sharp, unflinching, fixed on Leon as if to challenge him, daring the golden-eyed man to look away.

Okay," Aden whispered, his voice harsh, laced with all the agony of years and hardened by determination. Every word weighed more, a legacy of decisions and wounds cut deeply into the fabric of his being. "Then listen well.

He took a slow, measured breath, as if every word that he was going to say was a weight he needed to pull slowly off his chest. His hand rested at his side, the fingers coiled until they seemed to be taut as tight strings, white and shiny in the faint firelight.

"Number one wish," he told her finally, voice soft but measured, "is that you vow me... to keep every single life under your realm safe. Every soldier, every servant, every man, every woman, and every child—no one punished for no good reason. No one abandoned. I want a kingdom where nobody fears anything. A land constructed upon joy, not protocol. An absolute utopia—where all life is equal, from the lowest to the highest."

His words shook a little, but not with fear. It was conviction, unpolished and rough, human in its brittle truth, beating against the world like an unresolved heartbeat.

Aden’s chest heaved and fell in a trembly rhythm as he swallowed forcibly. "That was the dream of my forefathers. The kingdom that they wished to establish, to defend, while serving the Vellore throne. If you can guarantee me this... I’ll go to my second condition.

Silence lay across the crater like a sentient membrane. The flames crackled, sending amber sparks scurrying across the devastated ground, glinting off the vacant shells of walls and broken stone. At some distant point, the clink of metal armor gave away a soldier fidgeting, but no speech broke the oppressive air. Even the breeze hesitated, as if the world itself were waiting.

Leon froze, the sunlight catching the sharp angles of his face, but his body refused to move. The faint curve of a smile lingered on his lips for a heartbeat, then faltered, as if someone had reached inside his chest and tugged at his very heart. His golden eyes flickered in a way that made Nova’s chest tighten—there was something there she couldn’t name. Shock? Bewilderment? Perhaps even awe. Nothing in all the wars he had fought, no dying he had done, had readied him for this—an ask so unanticipated, so chastely direct.

Nova caught her own breath in her throat. She moved minutely, the green depths of her eyes moving between the two men, her fingers tightening around the coarse rim of her cloak as if the material could anchor the tempest rising within her. Even she, who had known Leon for years like an open book, felt the shock of surprise radiate through him. It was slight, almost undetectable, but it struck her with the impact of a crashing wave.

Behind her, Captain Black’s forbidding face softened for an instant as he glanced at Vice Captain John. Both fighters, still wearing armor that had been blackened by steel and fire, remained fixed, their lips pinched, words lost somewhere in the back of their throats. They had expected grand pronouncements of ambition, cries for revenge, cries for liberation or domination—but this? This single, impossible entreaty lingered in the air like a delicate crystal, reflecting the light and liable to burst under the pressure of its beauty.

Aden’s stance was resolute, even as the black lines of blood ran down his arm. He took a slow, deliberate breath, the mettle in his chest growing stronger with each beat of his heart. His voice, when he spoke, was level but had an undeniable gravity, cutting through the empty silence of the courtyard. "Well, Victorious Leon," he told him, the words steady, controlled, "what do you say?

Leon’s lips parted, but no words yet. His gaze clung to Aden, looking at him with an intensity that was almost unnerving, as if he were discovering the man for the first time. The icy tension of hostility that had always existed between them seemed to melt away, and in its place was something less tangible—something intimate, raw, and unspoken. He wasn’t looking at an enemy now; he was looking at... something else, something perilously close to understanding.

And at last, Leon breathed out, leaning back into his seat with that subtle, measured smile he habitually cultivated whenever mirth danced across his brain. His eyes flashed narrower, reflecting the light so that they sparkled with subtle wickedness. "You are an odd fellow, Sir Aden," he whispered, his voice low, provocative, but weighted with unspoken things.

"Perhaps," Aden said, his voice even, unshakeable. "But it’s one I want to hear directly from your own lips." His voice was controlled, but the tension underlying them could have sliced glass.