Supreme Spouse System.

Chapter 520: The Cell That Forgot to Fear

The Cell That Forgot to Fear

He took one slow, deliberate step forward.

The faint lanternlight dragged his shadow across the stone like a stalking beast, long and restless, stretching over the wet floor as if it wanted to reach the prisoners before he did. The damp air clung to the walls, thick with the metallic sting of old blood and the colder scent of sins never washed clean. Even the guards posted at the far end of the corridor straightened without meaning to. Not because of rank. Instinct. Something about Leon tonight felt different—sharper around the edges, darker in the places where he usually held himself back.

He slowed to a stop, and the silence tightened.

"So tell me," Leon murmured, his voice sinking into a deeper register, the kind that didn’t just fill the room—it *pressed* on it. It felt like the stones themselves absorbed the sound.

"was it money... bounty... professional duty... or vengeance?"

The three prisoners didn’t react.

Couldn’t, really. Each one hung on the wall, chained from neck to wrist to ankle, their bodies locked in a cruel geometry that made them look less like men and more like discarded trophies someone left to rust. The iron bit into their skin, but the restraint wasn’t the true reason they stayed so deathly still.

It was Leon.

The weight of him—his presence, his intent—held them more tightly than any shackle. Their breath hitched in their throats, and for a moment even the faint drip of water somewhere deeper in the dungeon seemed to pause, as if waiting for his next word.

The silence didn’t just linger—it settled over the cell like a heavy cloth, smothering everything beneath it. The air thickened until even the faint drip of water somewhere down the corridor seemed to stop mid-fall, as if the sound itself was afraid to move.

Leon didn’t rush. His smile eased across his face at its own pace, slow and deliberate. Not gentle. Not vicious. Something balanced dangerously between the two—like a man idly turning a blade in his hand, deciding whether today was the day he’d actually draw blood or simply remind the room that he could.

His gaze swept over the three prisoners, studying the way they stiffened, the way their breath lodged high in their chests.

"Which fuel pushed you to throw your lives away?" he asked, voice low, smooth, and far too calm for the question he had just delivered.

Notaway?"

No answer.

Just a shift—the middle prisoner lifting his chin a little, his throat scraping out a sound like gravel grinding against steel.

A hoarse voice finally crawled out:

"What... do you get... from knowing that, kid?"

Leon waited.

One heartbeat.

Two.

Three.

Then he chuckled.

An amused, almost lazy thing that somehow made the temperature dip another degree.

"Actually," he said, "I don’t have shit. I’m just curious."

He leaned his shoulder against the cell bars, the iron groaning under the pressure.

"And as for what I do?" His voice dropped even lower. "Don’t forget—I’m a king now. If I want you three dead..." he snapped his fingers—soft, casual—

"...then you’re gone."

For the first time, the prisoners reacted.

Not fear.

Not anger.

They laughed.

All three.

A low, broken, manic sound that echoed off the walls like something unholy. The guards tensed. One of them instinctively reached for his weapon until Leon raised a hand, stopping him without looking away from the prisoners.

The laughter scraped on for a few more seconds before Leon’s expression tightened.

"What," he asked quietly, "did I say that made you laugh?"

The one on the left lifted his head, lips curling in something too amused for a man chained in his own filth.

"This place," the man said, voice sharp despite the dryness, "has been too damn quiet. Too damn dead. Hearing something—anything—funny? Of course we laughed."

Leon’s eyes narrowed.

"Funny what?"

The middle one gave a tired, ugly grin.

"Living crippled in here is pretty much the same as dying. So keep your threats. They’re not new, kid."

Kid.

Leon didn’t react to the word—no twitch, no insult flickering through the air—but the shift in the atmosphere was unmistakable. Something inside him... cooled. Hardened.

"And if we die," the prisoner on the right added with an almost bored tone, "that only escalates our relief. So go ahead. Kill us. You’d be doing us a favor."

That one landed.

Not because Leon feared killing them.

Not because he was shocked by their acceptance of death.

But because there was sincerity behind their voices.

A suicidal kind of peace.

Leon exhaled slowly, lips curving.

"I think you’re all wrong," he said softly.

Three sets of eyes lifted toward him.

"See... you think that’s the threat."

He stepped closer, boots scraping on the rough floor.

"You think death is the thing I’m offering."

He tilted his head, studying them the same way a man studies a puzzle piece that doesn’t quite fit.

"But I never said I wanted to kill you."

Silence again.

A colder one.

One of them swallowed hard, his throat tightening, but he still refused to speak. Another shifted his weight, planting his boots against the stone floor as if bracing himself for a blow he knew was coming. Their chains trembled with the movement, the faint metallic rattle slipping into the heavy silence.

Leon let his eyes move across the three of them, giving them the space to talk, to break, to do anything.

Nothing.

They just stared back at him.

Defiant. Hollow. Bone-tired.

Leon let out a low breath that almost counted as a laugh.

"You’re quiet now... but you’re missing something."

He leaned in slightly, not threatening, just close enough that they felt the weight of his attention. His eyes scanned their faces, as if their expressions were an open book only he could read.

"You don’t know why I’m not killing you yet."

Still not a single word.

But their breathing shifted—slower, deeper, tense. For the first time since he stepped into the cell, a flicker of uncertainty cracked through their hardened expressions.

Leon’s smile tugged a little wider. Not mocking. Not vicious. Just a man who understood power far too well.

A king who didn’t need to raise his voice or lift a blade to make grown killers rethink their choices.

"You want to know why," he murmured, his voice lowering until it brushed the edge of something intimate—quiet enough that the stone walls seemed to lean in just to catch the sound.