Silent Crown

“Excellent. Your Royal Highness is indeed a good boy.” Lancelot patted the prince on the shoulder and said softly, “Then open the box, open it and you’ll be able to protect your mother.”

“Shut your mouth!” At the moment, Maxwell roared like a lion. His eyes were lit up with a flare as brilliant as gold. He grasped his sword and moved forward, as the heavens and the earth roared. A brilliance as bright as the sun gathered around the blade.

Lancelot put himself between Maxwell and the eldest prince. He looked at Maxwell indifferently, his hand already pressing against the hilt of the sword at his waist. As they brushed past each other in an instant, countless sparks flashed.

It was as if endless time had been compressed into an instant.

Then, the sound of steel shattering rang out. The stone sword was pressed against Lancelot’s neck, making a bloody wound.

In Lancelot’s hand, the long sword that had accompanied him for many years broke. Lancelot was silent for a moment, sighed, then threw the hilt down. What remained of the long sword fragmented on the ground and shattered into iron sand.

“You’re really fast, faster than I expected.” Lancelot whispered, “Fortunately, I’ve come prepared.”

He raised his head and looked at Maxwell.

Maxwell said nothing. He couldn’t move. As if he had been frozen by time in that very instant, he became transfixed at that moment. All his movements stopped dead, from eyes to fingertips, every part of his body was unable to move.

Lancelot reached out and pulled out the stone sword from his hand. The stone sword felt like a scorching hot branding iron in his hand and instantly charred his five fingers, but all of its glow dimmed rapidly. As he loosened his grip, the sword landed on the ground, and returned to its original state of dullness and normalcy, no longer possessing any unusual magical powers.

“I spent the first half of my life preparing to inherit the sword, and although it did not pick me… I know where its power lies better than anyone else.” Lancelot walked up the steps and pulled out the Lance of the Dragon Slayer that had been wedged into the throne, letting Elizabeth’s body slip off the throne and onto the ground.

He turned back and continued looking at Maxwell. “Surely you didn’t think that I would confront it without making any preparations?”

Bang! The Lance of the Dragon Slayer broke through the air. Thrust by Lancelot, it pierced through Maxwell, pinning him to the ground, but no blood came out of his wounds. As if scorching hot molten copper was pouring into his body, Maxwell convulsed in pain. The violent power of the lance burned his blood vessels and the flesh around his wounds. His skin cracked inch by inch, and his bones whined forlornly.

“You shall witness it just like this.” Lancelot looked down on him indifferently. “Witness how your nightmare returns.”

At that moment, the cowardly boy finally opened the iron box.

A hoarse laugh seemed to come from within the dark iron box.

The eldest prince was stunned for a moment and raised his head, wanting to look at Lancelot. But at that moment, a shrill voice burst out from the iron box, rose up high into the sky, and swept towards all directions.

The ocean shook. It was a mighty roar resembling that of a dying dragon.

A terrifying pressure was born from the air.

Then, a seemingly endless tide of darkness spewed out from the tiny iron box, flooding the entire throne room. Countless illusions of hurricanes, storms, thunder, and lightning emerged from within. In the depths of the darkness, a pair of dim red eyes lit up, filled with supreme joy.

The day had finally arrived! The boundless darkness surged.

In the darkness, only the shrill scream of the eldest prince could be heard. “It hurts, mom, it hurts.! Save me! Sister, sister… Arghhh!!!!” The mad scream lasted for tens of minutes.

Across the thick darkness, it seemed as if a furious behemoth was pounding on the ground, causing the entire floor of the throne room to fall apart. In the end, countless masses of darkness swirled inwards, drawn by the terrifying pull, and collapsed towards the center.

Clouds of dust swelled. The opened iron box was thrown onto the ground, already distorted during the prince’s painful struggles and vents. In the center of the hall, on the ground covered in cracks, the thin body panted exhaustedly, sweating profusely.

It was as if, in a flash, the boy had suddenly grown up. The boy slowly lifted his head, revealing the dark, elongated, beast-like pupils, and rose from the ground slowly.

“Thin, too thin.” He frowned, examining his hands, and croaked in a hoarse voice that sounded like steel scraping against each other, “Lancelot, this body could hardly be of good use!”

Lancelot went down on one knee and kept his head low. “Please pardon my incompetence.”

The ‘boy’ moved his body. With his subtle movements, the dragon scales emerged faintly from under his skin, the grotesque bestiality restrained in the cage within his five fingers. But for some reason unknown, a forbidding scar appeared on his chest. It was like an old wound of his past that had already healed, yet had almost torn his entire body apart once.

“In the end, it still can’t be patched up.” He asked, “Where is Mordred, that useless scum? He can finally be of some use.”

Lancelot answered, “Pardon my incompetence, His Royal Highness fled six months ago.”

“Is that so?” The hoarse voice took on a meaningful tone. “Then we have to come up with some other way.” As he lifted a finger, Firebird as black as ink oozed out of his body, winding in and out between his joints and muscles, and the cracking of bones constantly sounded. His body increased in height once more, and his face began to change. In the end, the Firebird turned into grand, majestic attire, covering his naked body, and only weak traces of the boy’s original facial features were left.

In place of the boy’s face was a face full of indifference and coldness—Arthur.

He turned back, looked at the man who was pinned to the ground and laughed. “Maxwell? It’s been a long time since I last saw you.” Stepping on the shattered floor, he walked over to Maxwell, lowered his head, and looked down at him with a nostalgic expression. “It seems that you like the name very much and have actually used it until now.”

Maxwell raised his head difficultly and examined the face for a good while, before replying hoarsely, “It’s been a long time, Your Majesty.”

“It seems that you still remember me. I thought that items like you would quickly put their creator behind them after having a new master.” Arthur crouched down and reached out, clutching Maxwell’s hair and forcing the old man to look at him.

“Did you know? For so many years, in the cage, I always missed you.” Arthur reached out and pressed the skin of his chest beneath the clothes. When he touched the scar, his fingers twitched slightly, as if he felt the fierce phantom pain once more. “I was always thinking, how should I punish your betrayal?”

“Betrayal? You’ve got to be kidding…” Maxwell shook his head and asked, “Your Majesty, when you created me, didn’t you intend for me to be the one to betray you?”

So, Arthur’s gaze became colder. “Anybody else could be the one, Maxwell.” He gazed at the discomposed man in front of him and said, one word at a time, “But not you. Life, tenacity, soul… I gave you everything.”

“You gave me too much, Your Majesty.” Maxwell interrupted his words and looked at him, no sign of fear in his gaze. “So much that it made me resentful. Didn’t you create me for your own personal achievement during the holy operation?

“I can die for you, but others have owed you nothing. When you were alive, the Blood Path was already leading to the shadow of the city. After you ascend as a god, the mortal realm will become hell.

“From the moment you made Gawain your guinea pig, causing him to be stuck in such a state, for the sake of your ascension, I have known that you have become a monster. Leviathan’s blood has dominated you, and you have become a demon!”

“Ridiculous!” Arthur said coldly, “I am the one in control of everything!”

“Forget it, Your Majesty.” Maxwell laughed indifferently. “You can’t even control me, can you?” Having said so, he looked at Arthur’s chest, and his gaze turned more and more mocking.

The scar. As he looked at it, Arthur felt as if the phantom pain had returned once more.

Arthur’s expression turned uglier and uglier, and he gazed at Maxwell coldly. His gaze was all it took for Maxwell’s body to crack and let out a forlorn whine in the process. Maxwell’s face was pale. Being powerless to resist, he convulsed, and the veins in his face bulged.

“It seems that you really cherish your current identity.” Arthur reached out and knocked on his face. “It’s just a shell, but it looks fairly adequate. If not for your words just now, I would have almost forgotten what you are.

“I shouldn’t have bothered talking about concepts like gratitude in the first place to items like you that can’t even be considered human. My bad. ” He paused briefly, then suddenly reached out and grabbed Maxwell by the neck, forcibly lifting him from the ground. The Lance of the Dragon Slayer tore his wounds apart, causing Maxwell to roar fiercely.

“Listen, Maxwell, the reason I have yet to completely take you apart into a pile of trash at the moment because you’re still considered slightly useful.” Arthur looked at him coldly. “If you really feel any sense of attachment to the world, when everything is over, I can leave you Avalon, this godforsaken place, for you to play your little game of love and kindness with human beings. But now, you better be more cooperative.”

“Never!” Maxwell squeezed out a word.

Arthur sneered. “It isn’t up to you to decide. Don’t forget who created you.” He reached out, and the stone sword lying quietly on the ground flew up by itself and fell into his hands, causing him to smile mockingly. “See, even if you have a rebellious streak, you must still obey.”

Arthur flipped his right hand, lifting the stone sword, and stabbed at Maxwell.

Bang! Although it was a sound resulting from metal penetrating flesh, a loud bang resembling that of a giant bell being rung was given off.

Pierced through by the stone sword, Maxwell’s body cracked to form a large gap, revealing no organs within. A fiery flare operated within. It was the result of countless strands of music theory intertwining and evolving into a blood-like stream of a river. At the moment, as the stone sword pierced into it, the fiery flare immediately shook violently, and threw itself into the blade against its will.

Maxwell’s body shattered inch by inch. In the end, his face turned into ashes and dissipated in the wind. Meanwhile, in Arthur’s hand, the ancient long sword was no longer dull nor cracked, and it had returned to the majestic and lush state it was in centuries ago. It seemed as if it had been forged out of blazing sunlight, and the elements formed by the seven virtues operated within, establishing its core.

Just by watching it, one would experience hallucinations. It made one feel as if the world was revolving around it.

As King Arthur waved it, the blade cut through the air, producing a clear whistling sound pleasant to the ears.

“Welcome back, Maxwell.” Arthur examined the blade, and a pleased smile appeared on his face. “My stone sword.”