wardenraime

Chapter 370 - Interrogation I

For three days after Trajan’s funeral, Leon stayed at home. He didn’t visit anyone, he didn’t leave the property, he just stayed at his villa with his head buried in training and his enchanting work. Minerva had nothing for him to do, so he had nowhere else to be. Whenever he was asked how he was doing by people like Elise, Xaphan, or the Thunderbird—also the only people he had regular contact with since this self-imposed seclusion—he would respond with some vague words about being fine....

Chapter 369 - Funeral II

Royal funerals in the Bull Kingdom were tightly regulated affairs. There would be no speeches, wakes, or parties after. The ancestors of House Taurus wanted their funerals to be solemn events, meant to honor and remember them, not to be highjacked for political gain or to be disrespected by having parties soon after their passing.

So, when it came time for Trajan’s proper funeral rites to begin, the eight blood priests standing watch around his casket began to ring their bells, calling...

Chapter 368 - Funeral I

The three days between Minerva’s visit and Trajan’s funeral passed by in a flash. Leon spent most of that time working on his flight suit, testing its limits and how much control he had over it.

As it turned out, it wasn’t the perfect flight device that Leon wanted, but it was an immensely important step forward.

First of all, it was a severe power hog, running Leon ragged in minutes. Pushing himself, Leon estimated that he could fly using it for perhaps fifteen minutes before ...

Chapter 367 - Confirming Position

It had been a week since Trajan died and Naiad left. Leon hadn’t done a damn thing of worth, to his immense frustration. He and Minerva were friendly enough, even more so now that they shared a determination to bring justice to Trajan’s killers, but he and her weren’t nearly so close as Trajan was to the both of them. As a result, Minerva wasn’t as willing to use Leon as Trajan might have been, trusting him less than the Prince did.

Leon could understand, to an extent. Under any oth...

Chapter 366 - Negotiating for Position

Leon sat in his workshop alone, silently contemplating what to do next. Trajan was gone, and with him, any obligation Leon felt toward the Bull Kingdom. However, he wanted to stay a while longer so he could help Minerva bring his killer to justice.

After that, well, he didn’t know.

‘Still have that whole Isynos thing to deal with…’ Leon thought to himself. He truly didn’t have that many connections to the Bull Kingdom that were preventing him from leaving. He was sur...

Chapter 365 - What Are We

Leon’s villa was silent as a grave once Minerva, Alix, and the rest of the knights took their leave. Neither Elise nor Naiad wanted to break the silence, they simply remained quiet and waited for Leon to say the first word. After all, neither of them had just lost a mentor.

For his part, Leon slid back a little bit in his chair and closed his eyes in thought. Trajan had been remarkably good to him, helping him to train and even trying to teach him to be better than he was, to remember ...

Chapter 364 - Action

The voice Leon and Minerva heard emanating from Trajan’s clothes stunned them completely. It also took them right out of their fugue states, and as soon as they recovered, they subtly glanced at each other, knowing exactly who that voice belonged to.

Minerva jerked her head toward the rest of the warehouse—the very crowded warehouse—and Leon briefly nodded. The two then glanced back at Trajan’s body for a moment before Leon stepped back, an expression of anger and confusion...

Chapter 363 - Disbelief

Time seemed to stop as Leon tried to process the words that Alix was saying. His heart rose into his throat, his blood thundered in his ears, and he asked, “What was that?”

“Prince Trajan has been ambushed by… someone!” Alix said, her voice quivering in anger, grief, and a thousand other related emotions. She then took a deep breath under Leon’s steady, but rapidly darkening gaze, and said as calmly as she could, “Leon… he’s been killed…”

Leon’s face began to ...

Chapter 362 - A Coming Storm

Bonus chapter 3 of 3!

I hope you enjoyed these chapters! If you haven't yet, please visit Royal Road and leave a rating or review! It's free, only takes a few seconds, and helps this story out immensely!

Thank you all for your support! =D

---

The Sapphire Paladin diligently cleaned the blood from her blade, not even looking at the rest of the Legion knights around her. However, she bathed the surroundings in her magic senses, just in case. Dealing with someone like Tra...

Chapter 361 - Blood of House Taurus

Bonus chapter 2 of 3

---

Searing pain filled Trajan’s mind. He wasn’t dead, but the spear in his chest had done extreme amounts of damage. His armor and ribcage had kept him alive, despite the titanic power packed into that attack, diverting the tip of the spear away from his heart and into a lung instead. It was still a serious injury and he was in danger of bleeding out if he wasn’t given time to administer first-aid, but Trajan could still fight, at least for a little while....

Chapter 360 - Blades in the Dark

Bonus chapter 1 of 3!

---

Papers. Papers and more papers. The damn things kept stacking up, no matter what he did with them.

Trajan sighed from behind his desk. The moon was high in the sky, but his assistants and secretaries just kept bringing him papers for him to look over.

Of course, at the sixth-tier, Trajan’s need to eat, drink, and sleep weren’t quite what they used to be—he could probably go for weeks without any if pressed—the human mind still needed those...

Chapter 359 - Yearning for the Sky

Thanks to all of you fantastic people, there will be 3 bonus chapters today!

---

Leon’s Mind Palace was coming along quite well, with much its skeleton already in place. The Thunderbird had asked him a question before that had sent a tiny sliver of doubt worming into his mind about what he was doing, but overall, he still thought he was on the right track.

And so, after getting home from speaking with Trajan, Leon put the finishing touches on the first of many halls that wo...

Another 3 Bonus Chapters on Monday!

...

...

I honestly don't know what to say. Nothing seems good enough. I'm genuinely speechless.

Thank you. Those words don't really express the depths of my gratitude, but they're all I've got right now.

Thank you.

Edit for the sake of clarity: We reached another Patreon goal, and thus, 3 bonus chapters! =D

Chapter 358 - Rabbit Hole

Months passed in the capital, and soon enough, Leon had been back for more than a year. He and Elise had gotten settled into their villa, Anzu’s training was going incredibly well, and things seemed great for Leon on almost every front.

But Leon’s schedule wasn’t filled with relaxing leisure, rather his days were more often than not exhausting, with little time to truly relax. He had to go to the Royal Palace in the mornings and help analyze information about the vampires that were s...

Chapter 357 - The Serpent

Jormun’s ship cut through the waves as it led the way for Jormun’s fleet to sail away from Serpent’s Fall. The city was starting to vanish behind them, only ten miles away but still beyond what even a fourth-tier mage could reliably see with any detail.

Jormun, on the other hand, could still see the city quite clearly. It was even still in range of his magic senses, and if he wanted to, he could take in every street, every burning home, every corpse left behind by the pirates. It had...

Chapter 356 - Elsewhere

Bonus chapter 3 of 3

---

The continent of Aeterna was immense, and the land of the Bull Kingdom was only a small, isolated corner of it. South of the Bull Kingdom was the Gulf of Discord, followed by the desert Samar Kingdom. The Samar Kingdom’s southern border was demarcated by a series of low mountain ranges and wide rivers, beyond which lay the lands of the Halcyon Federation.

The Halcyon Federation was an alliance of nine duchies, fifteen counties, and more than thirty ...

Chapter 355 - A Question of Family

Bonus chapter 2 of 3

---

Naiad was completely out of it. She laid on the bed, barely conscious after her second time having sex with Leon and Elise. Perhaps it was because Elise was participating or because Leon was far less hesitant, but this time had been even more satisfying than their first.

Leon and Elise, on the other hand, were still very conscious, and it took them almost an hour after finishing with Naiad before Elise collapsed into Leon’s arms, straddling his hips...

Chapter 354 - A Kiss

Bonus chapter 1 of 3

;)

---

Leon and Naiad walked back inside the villa. Leon was done with training for the rest of the day, not that he much wanted to anyway after Naiad indicated she wanted to sleep with him again.

The memory of their first time together was still quite potent. Leon wasn’t sure why, but when he, Elise, and Naiad all lay together that time, it had been one of the most intense and passionate experiences of his short life. As a result, while his brain...

Chapter 353 - Practice

Thanks to all of you, there will be 3 bonus chapters today!

---

Leon slowly exhaled, his chest rising and falling in time with the wind. Down below where he sat upon the throne platform, Xaphan watched with great interest. There wasn’t much wind in Leon’s soul realm under normal conditions, but there was still more than in his own soul realm. However, now that Leon was quietly meditating with the Thunderbird in her human form sitting right beside him, it almost seemed like they ...

3 Bonus Chapters on Monday!

Well, we reached another goal, so that means 3 bonus chapters are being released on Monday alongside the normally scheduled normal chapter!

Chapter 352 - Political Trap

The events surrounding the death of Tiberias took the entire city by surprise. For a noble to be so brazenly murdered in the streets was unheard of in the Bull Kingdom. It had happened before, but not in living memory; these days, most nobles kept their business out of the public eye. If assassins were to be involved, they wouldn’t strike out in the open.

Of course, Tiberias hadn’t been exactly killed in the open, he’d been killed on a deserted road in the noble district. Still, that...

Chapter 351 - Elise's Frustration

The man hidden in shadow was gone, his pillar of ice shattered. Naiad’s water dragon lowered her to the ground and she took off back toward the ambush point. It was lucky that the owners of the villa that she and the darkness mage had been standing atop of didn’t seem to be home, but there was little sense in sticking around.

From their brief clash alone, Naiad could tell that he was extremely powerful, easily able to stand against her if they truly fought. In the back of her mind, sh...

Chapter 350 - Surprising Power

The river nymph was nowhere to be seen—not that he had been expecting her to be, given her skill in concealment. Two guards equipped with invisibility rings had been killed with ice magic behind Leon, so he knew that she was still around, but now that Tiberias and his guards were dead, she had seemingly vanished, leaving not even a puddle by the road.

With a sigh, Leon set about looting the bodies for anything that could be taken. He trusted that the eighth-tier Naiad was fine, and he ...

Chapter 349 - A Taste of Revenge to Come

He’d left Elise at the party without any warning. They’d spoken about this and Tiberias’ early departure had taken him by surprise, but as Leon left the Aeneas estate, he couldn’t help but feel terrible about it. He’d even left his friends, and though he felt bad about that, too, his regret was marginal at best compared to how he left Elise.

Still, he had a job to do, and apologies could come later.

Fortunately, the party was large enough that people were still arriving, and ...

Chapter 348 - The Party

Leon told his friends about his relationship with Elise. They had already heard some things about her when the four were at the Knight Academy, but since none of them had actually met her, none had expected to suddenly meet her at Leon’s place—Leon hadn’t warned them ahead of time, giving them only the directions to his place with the intent to catch up there, not at the Knight Academy parade grounds.

Apparently, not even the occasional reference Leon made to Elise back at the Bull’...

Chapter 347 - Ambush Prep

If Leon took the time to stop and think about the problem, he’d probably regret agreeing so readily to Marcus’ party invitation. It would likely consist of dozens, if not hundreds of other people, and he was rarely, if ever, in the mood to mingle.

Still, Tiberias was probably going to be there as well, and that presented an opportunity.

As soon as he got back home, he explained everything to Elise, who had gone back without him—as they had agreed on before the ceremony. She had...

Chapter 346 - Reunions II

Leon and his friends briefly grasped wrists in greeting, smiles on all their faces. It had been a little less than five months since they had last seen each other, but it was still a joy to see each other again.

“Good to see you, my friend,” Charles said.

“And you,” Leon replied.

“Indeed, it’s been too long,” Henry added. “We were talking about trying to find you or Alix while we were here, but we only got into town a few days ago so we figured we could just w...

Chapter 345 - Reunions I

“Two years ago, Leon Ursus departed from this institution a third-tier squire, and today he returns a sixth-tier knight!” the Legate of the Knight Academy said, his voice resounding through the parade grounds and the ears of the tens of thousands of people attending the ceremony. But these people didn’t have the time to process their shock at such a rapid ascent in power as the Legate wasn’t done, yet. “Not only that, he comes back to us a veteran of the short wa...